Rachbxl 2011

Hurray, time to draw a line under the dismal reading year that was 2010 and start afresh. Last year wasn't a great year for me for many reasons, and one of the side-effects was that -gasp - I stopped wanting to read. Time and again I took myself into bookshops to try to tempt my fancy...and time and again I came out empty-handed; nothing appealed. I'm pleased to report that that seems to be over, and even more delighted to be able to say that I've already read - and enjoyed - three books this year!

No goals at all for 2011; just to be able to go on reading would be enough.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Read in 2011:

1. White Woman on a Green Bicycle by Monique Joffey (Trinidad)
2. Stories to Get you Through the Night by various (short stories, anthology)
3. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris (essays, USA)
4. The Girl with the Golden Shoes by Colin Channer (Jamaica)
5. Le Visiteur du sud by Oh Yeong Jin (South Korea, in French, translation, graphic novel, non-fiction)
6. One More Year by Sana Krasikov (Ukraine, short stories)
7. Decapolis by various (short stories, anthology, translation)
8. The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville (Australia)
9. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria, re-read)
10. Revenge by Taslima Nasrin (Bangladesh, translation)
11. The Thing around your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (short stories, Nigeria, re-read)
12. Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason (Iceland, translation)
13. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (UK)
14. The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone)
15. On Black Sisters' Street by Chika Unigwe (Nigeria, re-read)
16. Lost in Translation: a Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman (non-fiction)
17. The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg (short stories, USA)
18. Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister (USA)
19. Paradise by A. Gurnah
20. Started Early, Took my Dog by Kate Atkinson (audiobook, UK)
21. Silence of the Grave by A. Indridason (Iceland, translation)
22. Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone)
23. A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova (non-fiction, Russia)
24. A Week in December by Sebastian Faulkes (UK)
25. The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson (Sweden, translation)
26. Tomorrow by Graham Swift (UK)
27. Dziewczynka w czerwonym plaszczku (Poland, non-fiction, audiobook)
28. Trespass by Rose Tremain
29. The Black Path by Asa Larsson (Sweden, translation)
30. Granta 115: The F Word

I noticed you went very quiet last year. Its good to have you back, book in hand.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey

About a white Anglo-French couple, George and Sabine, who arrive in Trinidad a few years before independence and, Sabine's desperate desire to return to Europe notwithstanding, stay for decades. George falls for Trinidad as soon as he steps off the boat and his love only grows stronger over time; Sabine, realising that she can't compete, finds an outlet for her frustration in the letters she writes - and never sends - to Eric Williams, the Prime Minister.

I really enjoyed the first of the novel's three parts, set in the present day and recounted in the third person by an invisible narrator. The subsequent parts, set in the 50's and 60's, are narrated by Sabine, and I liked these less; I had much less patience for Sabine in the first person. The star, though, is Trinidad, not as a dream Caribbean paradise but as a real place with real people and real problems. (And I learned a new word! To steups: to suck one's teeth as a gesture of annoyance or disapproval).

>2 GlebtheDancer: Thanks Andy! I saw you'd started a thread here - looking forward to following your reading.

Stories to Get You Through the Night by Various

Wonderful anthology of short stories by a varied range of writers both classic and contemporary, including Katherine Mansfield, Chekov, Conan Doyle, Alice Munro, Murakami, Somerset Maugham, Angela Carter, The Brothers Grimm and Oscar Wilde.

The collection is divided into different sections - "Stories to read when it's all going wrong", "Stories to send a shiver down your spine", "Stories to thrill and intrigue", "Stories to show that love conquers all", and so on - and it's designed as a remedy for life's stresses and strains, to dip into when the need arises...only in my case there wasn't a lot of dipping as I read it in two sittings. I do love the idea of turning to a book like this when things get tough, though.

(The significance of the title will not be lost on a couple of you - in the grip of a crippling bout of insomnia this was one I just couldn't leave in the shop!)

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

I started this Christmas-themed collection of stories/essays/memoirs before Christmas but read too much at once and stopped finding it funny. By the time I came back to it this week I was back in the mood to be entertained by Sedaris's ruthless way of picking up on details of everyday life and twisting them into a new shape. I particularly enjoyed "Jesus Shaves", supposedly an account of the efforts made by Sedaris and the other members of his (not very advanced) French class in Paris to explain Easter (and by extension the whole of Christianity) to a Morrocan lady in the group in their very basic French. He cleverly puts their bad French into comedy bad English, leading to such fabulous concepts as "the rabbit of Easter" and "Jesus died on...two morsels of...lumber" because they don't know the word "cross".

This is Sedaris reading "Jesus Shaves".

3 books and 3 reviews already...you're off to a great start! nice to see you back, rachel...

and thanks for sharing the Sedaris link, i enjoyed it!

#3 Thanks for the review. I've been wondering about that book.

I love David Sedaris, but I prefer to hear him than to read his essays. That said, he's funny on the page, too. I've seen him a couple of times, most recently at the Apollo Theater in Harlem--I highly recommend the experience.

I've enjoyed all three books reviews. I would've read the Sedaris anyway, but I'd never heard of the other two and I'm going to check them out. I hope your reader's block is over, sounds like it sucks.

>8 amandameale: Amanda, I'll look forward to seeing what you think if you read it. Looking back over my comments, they're maybe a bit more positive than I intended - I really enjoyed that first section but feel pretty lukewarm about the book as a whole. Too long, apart from anything else.

>9 cabegley: cabegley, I'm envious; I'd love to see Sedaris and hear him read his work live! I'm on sick leave at the moment - the perfect excuse to spend ridiculous amounts of time lounging around listening to the stash of recordings of him I've found on YouTube. I realise that when I read him myself I go too fast - it's his pauses, I think, which really make it perfect.

>10 citygirl: Thanks for the visit, citygirl. I really hope my reader's block is gone too; I think it is. It was the weirdest thing. I think we've all had times when for a couple of days you can't lay your hands on the right book for your mood...but to want to read nothing at all for several months??? (other than Polish newspapers...)

edited to switch the italics off!

Good to see you here and reading!

It's great to see you here, Rachel! I completely agree with your assessment of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle.

Good to have you back. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle sounds good - I want to start reading more things set in the Caribbean.

Another welcome back message!

I finally got round to reading The Heavens May Fall last year - I think I gave it a generous 1.5 stars!

Welcome back! Here's hoping 2011 is better.

Thanks for all the welcome backs!

>14 janemarieprice: Jane, it just so happens that my next read is set in the Caribbean too, and I'd recommend it much more highly than The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

The Girl with the Golden Shoes by Colin Channer

In 1942 14-year old Estrella Thompson is banished from the remote fishing village where she was raised by her grandparents, on the imaginary island of San Carlos (part Jamaica, part Trinidad, part Cuba). Why? Because she has recently taught herself to read, and the deeply suspicious neighbours blame her for making the fish 'disappear'.

Reading has given Estrella her first glimpse of a world beyond the island, and her dream is to get to Europe - so, with nowhere else to go, she sets out on a journey to the big town on the other side of the island to buy shoes, because if she is ever to make it to Europe she'll need to 'improve' herself first, and to do that she'll need a job, and how will she get a job if she has no shoes? The novella tells the story of the two days or so of her journey; as she is tested by her meetings with people along the way she leaves childhood and becomes an adult. It's worth reading the 123 pages carefully for nothing (you realise later) is included by chance.

I love the way Channer writes (one of my favourite sentences here is, "They looked at each other the way people do when time begins to curl and stretch as if it were a lazy cat"). I was struck by his rendition of creolised English; to me at least (but what do I know?) he makes his characters speak it very naturally, without making them sound stupid, which I found a bit of a problem in The White Woman on the Green Bicycle.

Le Visiteur du sud: Le journal de Monsieur Oh en Corée du Nord by Oh Yeong Jin
translated from the Korean into French by Ko Yujin and Thomas Dupuis, assisted by Xavier Girard, Choi Juhyun and Alexandra Rompillon

A coffee with a friend in a bookshop cafe yesterday inevitably led to a browse around the shop...and I found this little treasure. It's a graphic novel, a genre I'd shunned before LT (despite living in Belgium - graphic novels are so big here that this particular bookshop, Filigranes, has almost as much space devoted to them as to regular novels).

The author (I'm too ignorant about Korean naming culture to know what to call him - I think his surname is Oh...anyone?) isn't a professional writer, he's a construction worker (managerial rather than labourer). There's no autobiographical note about him in the book and I haven't been able to find anything about him on the internet; there's an introduction by Etienne Davodeau, a French writer (apparently), who says he doesn't know anything about Oh either. All we know is that he's South Korean, and was sent by his company to North Korea to help oversee the building of sewage works (an international cooperation project between North and South Korea), together with a handful of his South Korean colleagues.

With this book (and volume 2, which I won't be able to resist buying in the very near future), Oh found the perfect way to record the differences he found between North and South Korea, and how he felt about them. There's no linear story, rather it's a collection of little snapshots, sometimes a few pages long (a visit to the hairdresser's, for example, or the opening of a new asphalted road...which is then swept every night by North Korean "comrades"), sometimes just one single drawing with a line or two of text. Some of the things he highlights are related to the different political systems, whilst others are the basic stuff of everyday life (what they eat and drink, for example). I love the idea of Oh, cut off from his friends and family and probably lonely, going back to his quarters every evening and sketching out his recollections of the day.

I've no idea how this came to be translated into French, but I really hope an English translation follows soon so this wonderful book can have a wider audience. What a fabulous window on another culture.

Hi Rachel, I'm back following your reading this year (this time from within the same group!). Everything you've read so far sounds interesting, but Le Visiteur du sud particularly so! I recently read my first ever graphic novel and have been looking for recommendations that don't involve superheroes, monsters etc. This sounds perfect!

Welcome back, indeed! I always enjoy your book choices and your comments, Rachel.

Very interesting reviews!

17 - Thanks, on the wishlist as well.

18 - Very interesting. How difficult is the French? I can read and understand a bit, thought maybe a graphic novel would be little enough text to get through.

>22 janemarieprice: Jane, I don't think the French is that hard. Also, since the book's divided into individual sketches rather than having a linear story, I think it would be quite a rewarding thing to read as you wouldn't have to wait long to feel that you'd understood a whole section. Give it a go!

One More Year by Sana Krasikov

Sana Krasikov was born in Ukraine and grew up in Georgia and the USA, where I think she still lives. She writes in English, and this is her first short story collection, published in 2008.

I know I've seen a discussion on another Club Read thread recently about different ways of reading books of short stories. This is one which I dipped into on-and-off for a while, enjoying it in a low-key kind of way - but when I got to about half-way through I just carried on reading, couldn't stop.

Almost inevitably given Krasikov's background, the stories all deal with the lives of immigrants to the USA from Ukraine, Georgia and other former parts of the USSR. We see them either in the US, struggling to make a new life - or back in the old world, struggling to fit in where they no longer belong. Something I like about these stories is that they're about all different sorts of people (compared to Jhumpa Lahiri, say - beautiful writing, but if I have to read one more time about an educated Indian come to do postdoc research at MIT...) Some of the characters in Krasikov's stories are educated, working for American banks, whist others are college drop-outs. Some have gone to the States in search of a better life; others have gone simply to escape from the life that they had. Some have gone for good; others plan to return at the earliest opportunity.

Another thing I like (i realised after pondering it all last night) is that Krasikov doesn't tell us how her characters feel. She shows it all, right down to their reactions, but she doesn't tell how they feel - and that's what made me think that my almost universal reaction the the characters in these stories (pity) isn't the only possible reaction. It depends on who you are, it depends on your circumstances. That's something I love about good fiction - it makes you look at things in a different way (without beating you over the head with it).

Decapolis: Stories from Ten Cities ed. Maria Crossman

Thanks to avaland for this one!

Intriguing concept - an anthology with contributions from ten writers in the form of a story about their city, all in Europe. As with any anthology there were some stories I liked more than others (unusually for me, I didn't even finish two of these - the Milan story by Aldo Nove and the Prague one by Emil Hakl), but others I really enjoyed. One I liked was by Amanda Michalopoulou, no surprise there - but there were some new discoveries too. I'll definitely be looking for more by Arnon Grunberg (Amsterdam) and Larissa Boehning (Berlin).

Oh, I was just thinking about this anthology today! There were some good stories in there, definitely.

The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville

I don't think it's the book's fault that it's taken me so long to read it; I started it back in the autumn but wasn't in the mood, kept picking it up and putting it down - then picked it up again this afternoon and read well over 100 pages (almost half the book) in one go.

Grenville's back on The Secret River territory here - early British settlements in New South Wales. The eponymous lieutenant, Daniel Rooke, is the most reluctant soldier ever, only in the army because it's a way for him to pursue his real passion, astronomy. He's sent out to New South Wales to guard one of the first shipments of convicts, but, horrified by the way his superiors, fellow officers and the ordinary soldiers treat both the prisoners and the locals, he is relieved that astronomy gives him an excuse to live apart from them. He sets himself up in isolation on a nearby point in order to begin on the scientific work he's there to do.

Except that he gets distracted by the natives, building up a beautiful and movingly described friendship with one female child in particular. With infinite patience and good humour each teaches the other to speak their respective languages, to a point, with Rooke laboriously noting down everything he learns. One of my favourite sections of the book reads:

What he had not learned from Latin or Greek he was learning from the people of New South Wales. It was this: you did not learn a language without entering into a relationship with the people who spoke it with you. His friendship with Taragan was not a list of objects, or the words for things eaten or not eaten, thrown or not thrown. It was the slow constructing of the map of a relationship.

I didn't enjoy this as much as The Secret River or The Idea of Perfection but as I said, I suspect it's not the book's fault.

>27 rachbxl: I think I felt that The Lieutenant was a bit lighter than the other two. Maybe lighter isn't the word... (btw, have you seen the movie, Lillian's Story, made from her book by the same name? Stars a young Toni Collette - very moving). I also read Dark Places, one I picked up while in Australia - also very good.

Needing something funny badly, I promptly went to my library's website, found the Sedaris tome as an e-book, and will begin reading it now!! It was the malapropisms/bungled translations that convinced me -- well, that and listening to his deadpan humor on NPR.

I may get The Lieutenant for a friend of mine who is an astronomy junkie...

I agree that Lillian's Story and Albion's Story are very good. I didn't realize that there was a movie of Lillian's Story so I will have to search Netflix for it.

>just for those who might not know: Dark Places and Albion's Story are the same book, just different titles. Albion is Lillian's (of Lillian's Story father. Read Lillian first.

Interested in your review of The Lieutenant - I intend to read it this year.

Thanks, all, for your visits!

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Re-read

I rarely re-read anything, regardless of how much I liked it first time around, on the basis that there are too many books out there I want to read. On the basis of this re-read, though, I should maybe re-think that.

I first read Purple Hibiscus several years ago and loved it. A second reading has me thinking it's quite simply a masterpiece. I got so much more out of it this time (possibly because I was reading more attentively - the reason for re-reading it was that I'm working on something for Belletrista (fingers crossed that it will come off because it's very exciting)) - and on a purely emotional level I'm sure I wasn't so moved by it last time.

Re-reads of Half of a Yellow Sun and The Thing around your Neck coming up very soon.

Hi Rach. I don't really do re-reads either but I would re-read Purple Hibiscus. I loved it, too. I wouldn't manage the rest though :)

I'm very excitedly keeping my fingers crossed for whatever you have planned for Belletrista ;)

me, too:-) I should re-read Purple Hibiscus also...

Keep those fingers crosses then - I still haven't heard back from her...I'm getting on with The Thing around your Neck just in case - and enjoying it very much, much more than last time, possibly in the light of my re-reading of Purple Hibiscus and possibly in the light of some things I've experienced recently. Which suggests the intriguing idea that maybe we should just re-read the same 100 or so novels over and over - because they would change based on our reading of them, which is informed by what's happened to us since we last read them. No, of course I don't want to spend the rest of my life re-reading things...but this, together with my successful re-reading of Purple Hibiscus, is making me re-think my views on re-reading.

Edited for punctuation!

Revenge by Taslima Nasrin
translated from the Bangla/Bengali by Honor Moore with Taslima Nasrin

I could be lazy and refer you to Cait's excellent review in Belletrista. There's really not a lot more to say.

This is the story of an educated Bengali girl whose courtship with a man who appears to value her independence and intelligence turns out to have nothing in common with married life, where she is expected to serve her in-laws and all but cut off contact with her former life, family included. When she gets pregnant immediately after the wedding her husband assumes the baby is someone else's, on the basis that it's "impossible" to get pregnant that quickly - so he forces her to abort.

Jhumur's capacity for revenge would appear to be limited...unless you start to look at revenge in a different way. What if the person on whom you were wreaking revenge never knew about it, even if it went on and on? So she decides to become the unfaithful wife her husband assumed she was...and bingo. The rest you can find out for yourselves.

To a western woman it's frustrating to see another woman's capacity for revenge so stunted (what am I saying? I wouldn't even hang around to take revenge - I'd be off like a shot), but I found this short novel a wonderful reminder that not all the women in the world, however educated they may be, have the freedom I take for granted.

#18 Le visiteur du sud sounds interesting, especially now that my interest in Korea has been piqued by Nothing to Envy. Like janepriceestrada, I can read French, so maybe I'll try it.

#24 One More Year sounds interesting too; I generally enjoy both immigrant stories and Russian/eastern European writing.

#27 I was a fan of The Secret River too, and recently got The Lieutenant, although I haven't read it yet.

#33 I read Purple Hibiscus so soon after Half a Yellow Sun that, although I admired it, especially as a first novel, I could only see it in comparison to the later novel. I imagine that if I reread it now, I would like it better. Your thoughts on the benefits of rereading give me pause, but I have so many unread books on my TBR it's hard for me to convince myself I should reread anything!

#36
maybe we should just re-read the 100 or so novels over and over

That gave me pause for thought. I assume you mean that we would choose our favourite 100 or so novels. I think the idea has some attraction. Its good to keep doing things we like and reading is no exception. If a novel gives us pleasure once then it is going to give us pleasure again. We would always be enjoying ourselves when we read. Hmmm....

>38 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, I added Nothing to Envy to my TBR list when I saw it on your thread (my interest in Korea having been piqued by Le visiteur du sud).

I originally read Purple Hibiscus before Half of a Yellow Sun simply because it fell into my hands first (my mum had a borrowed copy lying around once when I visited, I think), and much as I admired Yellow Sun as a bigger, more ambitious novel, I preferred Hibiscus (in subjective terms, I mean). I'm reading them in the same order again on purpose, and having enjoyed Hibiscus even more this time, I'm curious to see what I'll make of Yellow Sun.

>39 baswood: Hello baswood, thanks for dropping in. (I just had a peek at your profile and see you're in Gers - a lovely part of the world!) That's exactly what I meant, re-reading 100 or so favourite novels...but now you're making me think again. Actually it might be more interesting if they weren't favourites, at least some of them. If you get something different from every reading, something you didn't particularly like at first might end up being something you love after five readings. Anyway, it's all academic for me at least, because like rebeccanyc I have far too many new books I want to read to be willing to sacrifice the time for constant re-reading (but if you decide to do it I'd love to hear about it).

#40
This is all getting too difficult. How on earth would you be able to choose your hundred books No think I will pass on this one.

#37 - Revenge was definitely frustrating! After I read it, I looked into Taslime Nasin's life a bit, and I was surprised that she would write a novel about a passive form of revenge. She is very outspoken, and her views have caused her to live in exile since 1994. I guess I thought such a radical person would put some of her own spirit into her novels.

Re: rereading - I do it a lot, though I don't usually post my rereads on LT, unless it has been a long time since my first reading. However, the books I do reread tend to be sentimental favourites, and I reread them when I have having a bad day, or just need a bit of a brain break. I've read Anne of Green Gables so many times, but it's like visiting an old friend. The Harry Potter series is the same thing. So neither are challenging rereads, but more comfort rereads.

>41 baswood: I'm relieved, baswood! I was only musing hypothetically, didn't ever expect anyone to want to do it. I'd feel guilty for the rest of my life if I'd led someone only ever to read 100 novels over and over for the rest of theirs!

>42 Cait86: That's interesting, Cait, thanks - am off to look Nasin up myself. (Anne of Green Gables, incidentally, is one book I know I'll never re-read. I just daren't. I loved it as a kid and read it so many times; I'd hate to be disappointed now).

The Thing around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Another re-read, again for my potential Belletrista article (no news yet, fingers still crossed). Enjoyed these short stories more than last time, I think - possibly because last time it was a library copy which I read under time pressure, whilst this time I savoured them.

Half of a Yellow Sun is next up. I've been a fan of Adichie's ever since I first read Purple Hibiscus, but the more I read, the more wonderful I think she is.

#44 Hope you enjoy Half of a Yellow Sun - I found it very enlightening.

>45 amandameale: I haven't made it to Half of a Yellow Sun yet, I confess - but I really enjoyed it first time around.

Various bits and bats of reading material have been keeping me busy. The ubiquitous Polish news magazines, obviously, and a few Polish novels I've been reading for about 93 years now, endless Polish speaking notes from meetings I work at, EU directives and regulations in Polish (I don't recommend them), the odd Polish short story for light relief. On the odd occasion that I manage to escape the clutches of Polish I've really been enjoying The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, set in post-civil war Sierra Leone. I'm unlikely to finish it any time soon because it's my bedtime book, and Polish and my never-ending house renovations leave me so tired I can't read much at all, but I don't mind because I think it's one to be savoured.

Last week I forced my builders to put my bookshelves back up. They didn't want to for so many reasons, there were so many other things to be done, but I was having none of it so by Friday I had my bookshelves -which meant that yesterday I was able to spend a happy day unpacking my books (after 6 months in boxes). Yesterday afternoon, exhausted, I picked up...

Jar City by Arnaldur Indriđason
translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder

... a TBR I'd forgotten I had, and took it out into the sunshine. It was just what I needed and I spent the rest of the day reading it. It's the first of his Reykjavik thrillers (I'd already read The Draining Lake), a good story, well-told, great characters, nice sense of place, enough mystery to intrigue but not to infuriate...all in all it was hard to put down (so I didn't).

>re: Jar City Glad you enjoyed it. (now you must watch the movie!) The English versions of the series change translators somewhere along the way, as Bernard Scudder passed away in 2007. I think the later books have a more fleshed out prose than the earlier books like Jar City (I sorted of liked the spare, punctuated prose of that book, I thought it fit with his character). I'm assuming Indridason is writing a bit more fuller, and it's not the translator.... I see he has a new one in the mystery series coming out in a few months in the UK. The last one was not related.

As you know, I survived my kitchen renovation this winter by reading 9 crime novels...

I'm glad that you're enjoying The Memory of Love; I'll start reading it later this morning.

>47 avaland: Interesting, Lois - I liked the sparseness of it, too; not sure I want it more fleshed out!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This was for the April/May Knights of the Round Table challenge, for which my challenge (courtesy of detailmuse) was to read a book with illustrations. I don't really do books with illustrations so nothing suitable on my TBR shelves; I opted to buy this because I've heard a lot of good things about Gaiman recently but would have been unlikely to try him without this little push.

This charming little book is for older children/young teens, and were I that age I'm quite sure I'd have loved it. It's the story of Nobody Owens, a (living) boy adopted by the (dead) inhabitants of a graveyard when his parents are killed when he's a baby. Sounds macabre but actually I think it deals with death in a marvellously matter-of-fact way, combined with great flights of fantasy. Guaranteed to set a child's imagination on fire, I reckon.

So, I doubt I'll be reading any more Gaiman but only because I'm not the intended audience.

The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

Recently I've started a lot of books and put them to one side because they haven't grabbed me. Not this one though - I knew from the first page I was going to finish it. At first I was content to read it slowly, a chapter a day or so before going to sleep, but after a while I was completely caught up in it and couldn't put it down.

The novel is set in Sierra Leone very early this century, in the aftermath of the civil war in the 1990's. Adrian, a British psychologist, has just returned for a second stint to try to help his traumatised patients come to terms with their experiences. The narrative weaves between the present (Adrian's life and work in Sierra Leone, his friendship with Kai, a local doctor running away from a broken love affair and, clearly, from something darker as well, his increasing distance from his family in London, the reasons which drive Adrian and the other white volunteers to come to Sierra Leone) and the past, as told by Elias Cole, one of Adrian's patients, an old man who is dying. Cole's personal story (how his love for Saffia drove him to acts which were sometimes far from heroic) is inextricably linked with details of the political situation all those years ago - just as the lives of the characters in the present are inextricably linked to the situation now. I have rarely read anything where this link is more skilfully handled - it's obvious, nobody lives in a vacuum, yet here there's nothing remotely contrived about it.

Forna really makes her characters come alive, and I found myself wanting to know more even about ones I didn't care for. She also has a wonderful knack for portraying relationships between people in all their ambiguity. In addition, when they finally come her accounts of the atrocities of war are among the most shocking I've ever read. I don't mean that they're gratuitous because they're not (anyway, if you're going to write a novel about the aftermath of a civil war then would it be right to draw a genteel veil over the kinds of thing that happened?) The breath-taking horror of these short scenes makes the whole novel make sense.

There's hope at the end of the novel, but that's ambiguous too. All in all, a very human novel. I'll be reading more of Forna's work before long, I suspect.

Hi, with your post about The Graveyard Book I had to stop by to see what else you're reading this year. I read Purple Hibiscus first too, and loved it. Was thrilled when Half of a Yellow Sun was released; bought it immediately but only finished it on my third try. I admired it more and rated it higher; but I didn't connect emotionally and haven't gotten to more by Adichie.

Thanks for the link to the Sedaris audio, that essay is my favorite and it was great to laugh hard again!

Nice review of The Memory of Love, Rachel. I'm slowly savoring it, and I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

>50 rachbxl:, thanks for the review - have added it to my wishlist.

The first Neil Gaiman book I read was American Gods which I loved, but nothing else since has measured up, and I noticed from LT that many Gaiman fans are not so keen on American Gods. So if you try him again, you might want to look for that one.

I have the audiobook of Gaiman reading The Graveyard Book which he does really well - I think he has a voice that does "creepy" very effectively. That really made the difference for me.

>51 detailmuse: Thanks, detailmuse, for putting your finger on it! I do think Yellow Sun is probably a better novel, objectively, but for me too the emotional tug I felt from Purple Hibiscus was lacking.

>52 kidzdoc: Darryl, I look forward to reading your comments - and hope you like it too, Char, when you get to it.

>53 charbutton: Thanks, wandering star - I'll bear American Gods in mind. (And yes, I can easily imagine The Graveyard Book making a great audiobook with the right voice).

On Black Sisters' Street by Chika Unigwe
re-read (yet another re-read for someone who doesn't re-read anything)

The reason for this re-read is that I was so impressed with this last year, having just picked it up on spec in a Brussels bookshop, that I offered to review it for Belletrista - but then real life got in the way for several months and I didn't get round to it, so I'm doing it now.

It's about four African prostitutes working in the red-light district in Antwerp - no, I didn't think it sounded terribly promising either, but I was wrong. More details in my Belle review!

>56 rachbxl: Look forward to your review, Rach! I ordered a copy based on your earlier enthusiastic comments and then wondered about it once it was delivered and I'd read the blurbs :)

>56 rachbxl: me too! Sounds intriguing.

Lost in Translation: a Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman

I was captivated by the first 2/3 or so of this memoir about the author's Polish childhood and her family's emigration to Canada when she was a young teenager. Hoffman's writing really brings alive the scenes of family life in Krakow and later in Vancouver. As a linguist I particularly appreciate the way she presents the emigration as the start of her life "in a new language", and many of the differences she grapples with are things that my Polish (linguist) friends and I have discussed at length. I really enjoyed seeing "Polishness" through the eyes of a Pole with some distance from Poland (being Polish dominates your life in a way that being British, say, just doesn't, to my endless fascination).

However, I found the last third, about her later life in New York, disappointing. I know this is a memoir so the main subject is inevitably Hoffman herself, but earlier on she focuses as much on her surroundings as on herself, and her observations are insightful and a delight to read. In this last part I found her much more self-absorbed - it was like being stuck with the party bore, droning on about her therapist and her job, and I really didn't know why I was being told these things. It didn't spoil the book, but after such a great start it was a shame to have to skim through the last section.

I read Lost in Translation many years ago and really loved it for a lot of the reasons you give in your first paragraph. It's so long ago that I can't remember if I was disappointed in the New York part but, since I'm a life-long New Yorker, I'm generally interested in other people's impressions of the city.

I had exactly the same reaction to Lost In Translation! Some very interesting stuff (I liked, for example, what she said about the different ways that she and her American friends saw womanhood) but much too self-absorbed in the last section.

#59 - Interesting review of Lost in Translation. I haven't read it, but it's been on my radar since I read and very much enjoyed Hoffman's Exit into History a few years ago. I'll still look out for it, but will bear your comments in mind. I also have her Shtetl at home, which I'll get round to eventually!

>60 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, being a New Yorker might just make the difference. I know Krakow well enough as I've spent several months there whilst learning Polish, but I don't know Vancouver at all - but Hoffman's tales were so personal at that point, so home-based I suppose, that I felt it didn't matter as what she was saying was accessible. By the time she got to New York I felt I wasn't with her any more and I couldn't follow - you wouldn't have had that problem, of course.

>61 wandering_star: wandering star - I thought it was you! I remembered someone on LT saying that a while ago.

>62 Rebeki: Rebeki, Lost in Translation is definitely still worth reading! I'm going to look out for more of Hoffman's work as well.

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: and Other Small Acts of Liberation by Elizabeth Berg

Ages ago now Akeela told me that she knew she could always rely on Elizabeth Berg for a literary pick-me-up. Akeela being a source of recommendations second to none, I duly rushed off to read one of Berg's novels - and, seeing what Akeela meant, I decided to keep her on ice until I really needed her (Berg, not Akeela). And just recently, feeling frazzled and fractious, I decided her moment had come.

I loved this collection of short stories, all of them about very ordinary women engaged in (fleeting, sometimes) acts of "liberation". No, not superwoman have-it-all types going off climbing Everest alone while their rich husband copes with the beautiful children back home; more like overweight 50-somethings telling their Weightwatchers group to stuff it, before going off to Dunkin' Donuts and gorging themselves - and enjoying it (that's the title story).

Many of these women are dealing with things I haven't yet had to face (the loneliness of widowhood, relating to grown-up children, etc), and in the hands of other writers this might put me off (it has done in the past). However, Berg has a fantastic understanding of what it is to be human - and bingo! the characters and I have everything in common, because what could unite us more than the fact that we're all human beings? More than the situations they're in, it's the way the characters react that is universal - "I wonder why we are so often embarrassed by things we do that almost any other person would like to do, too", says one of the characters.

I've made this book last a week or so by rationing it strictly, and a little dose of it every day has made me feel really uplifted. How could you not be cheered on reading the rambling letter from 86-year-old Flo to her neighbour's grown-up daughter, telling her how to make apple pie:

Oh, but you know what, I should have said first thing to do when you make an apple pie is put on an apron and some good music, big band music is good if you've got it. If not, country and western. Add that right up top. I should have mentioned that right up top. I don't know why you cook better in an apron, but it's true. And if it's at all a nice day out, I suggest you open the kitchen window and cook barefoot. If it's a winter day, why you hope for snow, there's nothing like snow drifting down when your hands are deep in apples and spices.

Off to hunt down more feel-good books. Suggestions?

Off to hunt down more feel-good books. Suggestions?

These are recommendations I have made before:

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Straight and Narrow Path by Honor Tracy

These are new recommendations:

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
Captain Pantoja and the Secret Service by Mario Vargas Llosa
Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem

All of these are fun, although in different ways.

Oh the Llosa is a good rec! I couldn't stop smiling while reading that one.

Thanks, Rebecca! I love Cold Comfort Farm but don't know the others. I've just downloaded a sample of Wandering Stars to my Kindle; I couldn't find any of the others but I'll be looking out for them.

Most of my 'feel-good' books are thrillers - particularly Kolymsky Heights (which having now read Kim I realise is a bit of an updating of Kim for the Cold War age).

Another book I regularly give as a gift, which sounds as if it might echo with the Elizabeth Berg, is Good Women by Jane Stevenson - three short stories/novellas about women who only ironically fulfil the promise in the title.

> 64 Ah, Rachel :D! It's been ages since I last read Elizabeth Berg and I wondered whether I had outgrown her. Apparently I haven't! Based on your recommendation above, I'm sure I will enjoy her still. Thank you. She does have a wonderful understanding of human nature, which lends greater depth and enjoyment to her work.

I loved The Rabbi's Cat by Joan Sfar, for fun... Ooh! Now you've gone and made me nervous about recommending stuff!

Great review of the Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. On the wishlist it goes . . .

Hope you enjoy Wandering Stars -- I thought it was a really fun read and one of my favorites of last year.

>64 rachbxl: My favorite by Berg is her first collection of stories, Ordinary Life. Erica Bauermeister's linked stories also remind me of Berg -- small details of women's lives -- I liked The School of Essential Ingredients (with seductive food writing) and am reading her new release now, Joy for Beginners.

So many visitors! Thanks to you all.

>68 wandering_star: wandering_star - love the sound of Good Women, thanks. And I'm intrigued by what you say about Kolymsky Heights and Kim so may well have to read them too...

>69 akeela: Hello Akeela! There's no point being afraid; even if you stop giving me recommendations directly I'll just take them from your thread ;-) And thanks for reminding me about The Rabbi's Cat. Too much of my wish list is in my head at the moment rather than on LT or on a scrap of paper somewhere, and I keep forgetting all these fantastic books I want to read.

>71 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, I really enjoyed the Kindle sample of Wandering Stars, and I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing. It looks like it'll be a great old story to get carried away by. (I haven't bought it yet as somehow it's one I want to read on paper; I haven't had my Kindle long enough to know where I draw the line but there definitely is one).

>72 detailmuse: Thanks for recommending Ordinary Life, detailmuse; I'll certainly look out for that one. On your recommendation I read Joy for Beginners, which I did like, but not as much as the Berg stories (comments in the next post).

Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

Novel about a group of women friends of different ages, each of whom is set a personal challenge by Kate, one of their number who has recently survived cancer. Each chapter tells the story of one woman and her challenge.

In some ways I really disliked this book. I hated the way Kate, the cancer heroine, was able to pinpoint each of her friends' weaknesses with such accuracy. It just didn't ring true with me - but there'd have been no book without it. In other words, I couldn't shake off the feeling that the whole book is built on something a bit artificial. Likewise the women - what a handily diverse group of wonderful women (because if they'd been more similar their challenges would have been boringly same-y). As it is, the challenges are splendidly varied - one woman is to learn to bake bread (which conveniently leads her into the arms of a desirable baker/world traveller (I've heard of many ways of funding one's wanderlust, but baking your way round the world?) who just happens to be the brother of another of the friends), one is to take a trip alone (she goes to Venice, so no cliches there), one is to sort her garden out, one is to get rid of her ex-husband's books, etc etc, whist Kate reserves the best challenge for herself (I know she's just had cancer, but really) and goes white-water rafting down the Grand Canyon. I know, I know, she's facing her fears, but if I got left at home tidying up my garden while she went off doing that, I'd be tempted to wonder just what her game was.

Anyway, Kate of course picks the perfect challenge to allow each friend to grow as a person in exactly the way she most needed (even if she hadn't realised it). Honestly, I found all this very contrived. I also felt that this book suffers in comparison to the Elizabeth Berg stories because what I loved about those was that they were about everyday life, tiny moments of rebellion almost lost in the hustle and bustle of life, whereas going rafting down the Grand Canyon is not what most of us do every day. Another of my gripes is that Bauermeister tries too hard to impress with big words and fancy adjectives; I snorted out loud at 'the calidity of the day'. CALIDITY? What's wrong with 'heat'?

However, as I said in the last message, I did actually quite like this book. Not enough to go and read any more by Bauermeister, granted, but I will say that I found some of it really touching. It made me think about the value of female friendship in general, and about my friendships in particular, and how much they mean to me. I don't regret reading it.

Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Thanks to Andy for this one.

Beautifully-written novel about a young boy, Yusuf, sold as a slave by his desperate parents to pay off their debt to 'Uncle Aziz', a rich merchant. It's set in colonial East Africa in the early years of the 20th century.

I'm not really sure what to say about this one for the moment; maybe I'll come back to it, maybe I won't. The problem is that whilst I know it's beautifully written, it failed to grab me like By the Sea did, so I've read it and admired it without ever really engaging with it. It might be my fault as it's true I'm a bit distracted at the moment.

>59 rachbxl: I read Eva Hoffman's The Secret about a young woman discovering that she's her mother's clone (that's not truly a spoiler, imo). The book is really about identity and very thoughtful at times. I thought I read somewhere that she had something new out...

>75 rachbxl: I am a big Gurnah fan, but Paradise is the one novel I haven't read. Wait! Actually, The Last Gift came out last month in the UK...

Started Early, Took my Dog by Kate Atkinson
audiobook

I read and really enjoyed Behind the Scenes at the Museum soon after it was published and was then disappointed by subsequent Kate Atkinson books I tried (I forget what). This one confirmed that she's perhaps not someone I need to rush out and read more of, but it was enjoyable enough. I can't quite put my finger on what it is about Atkinson's style I don't altogether like. (What I very much like about this novel is the title, which reminds me of something my 95-year-old Grandma might say).

What was really new here is that this was my first audiobook, or at least the first one I've listened to purely for pleasure (I have a couple of Polish ones on the go), and I very much enjoyed the experience. There was something incredibly relaxing about being told a story, and I'll be doing it again.

I can't believe how long it is since I posted here! Anyway, a day off sick on Friday meant that I actually got to read a book:

Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason
translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder

One of the Detective Erlendur novels. Some bones are found on a building site - Reykjavik is expanding so much that areas that used to be well away from the city are being developed as its outer suburbs - and Erlendur and his team are called in. However, this turns out not to be a recent murder, rather a case involving someone who disappeared some 60 years ago...but who? The story of the investigation is woven into the story of events in the past, and whist it's clear that the most obvious explanation isn't going to be the right one, Indridason is good as keeping the suspense going right till the end.

This is the third Erlendur novel I've read, and the more I read, the more I like him as a character - another of those shabbily dressed, slightly bumbling detectives, good at their jobs but not great with people, failed marriage, estranged children...

It bugged me a bit that there seemed to be some slight inconsistencies; I didn't mark them on my way through so I can't say what exactly, but things like, 'It was high noon and the neighbourhood was bustling with people getting on with their weekend business', and then in the next sentence, 'People in the neighbourhood seemed suprised to be visited by the police so early in the day'. Not a big deal but little things like that jar in a story that otherwise flows really well.

On balance, though, just what I needed - a really enjoyable book.

Hi Rachel, I just wanted to say thanks for prompting me to read The Memory of Love with your excellent review in message 50. My response was similar to yours, although you express it so much better!

>78 rachbxl: Interesting inconsistencies. Shouldn't the translator have picked up on that? (unless it was some fault of the translator's, I suppose). In his most recent book, Outrage, the focus is on Elinborg, which I found really interesting. Erlender is back in the boonies of his home turf working out issues (or that is what is suggested) and not present in the narrative.

>77 rachbxl: Agree about audio books, although I listen to very few these days. Did listen earlier this year to The Woman in Black, and more recently to Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants (which I found very, very funny).

>79 Rebeki: Hi Rebeki, just left a message on your thread about The Memory of Love - really glad you liked it!

>80 avaland: Lois, I was wondering whether the inconsistencies were in the original or were caused by translator - but either way they should surely have been picked up by an editor! I wish I'd made a note of the others now, because there were several of them (and I read it on a sick-day so it's not like I was right on the ball!)

Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna

Decided to read this having enjoyed The Memory of Love so much, and having seen good reviews of this one here (plus Akeela's review in Belletrista a while ago, if my memory serves).

I should say that I didn't read it in the best conditions so it didn't get a fair chance. I started it back in May and only finished the other day, having read in dribs and drabs in the intervening months, not because I wasn't enjoying it but for lack of time. Also, I read it on my Kindle, which in this case maybe didn't add to my experience. It's a story narrated by lots of different voices, and whilst there's no mystery about who's narrating as it tells you at the start of each chapter, I found (especially given that I read it over such a long period) that I couldn't remember how all the women were linked to each other and what any given woman had told us last time. Had I had a paper copy I'd have sorted it all out in no time by keep leafing backwards and forwards, but I find jumping around hard on my Kindle.

So how good must this book be for me to still want to say that it's great? I kept thinking I should just give up on it until I had more time as I was never going to follow it - but it turned out not to matter. I just let the women tell me their stories. I'm sure you get much more out of it if you know how it all fits together, but I really did enjoy the individual parts just for their own sake. Forna is an incredibly good story-teller.

A Mountain of Crumbs: a Memoir by Elena Gorokhova

I picked this up in New York earlier in the year in one of the bookshops recommended by Rebecca and Jane (St Marks, I think), just because I thought it looked interesting.

Gorokhova describes her childhood and adolescence in 1950's and 60's Leningrad in a way I found captivating. It's her focus on the small things of daily life, with politics as a backdrop, which did it for me; I know the historical facts, but it's fascinating to find out what 'normal' life was like in the USSR. Gorokhova's subsequent emigration to the USA (the books ends with her at the airport on the day of her departure, in her mid-20's) and decades of life in the West mean that she has a feel for the kind of quirky detail that might be of interest to a Western reader who never set foot in the Soviet Union, for the little things that made her childhood so different to mine. She tells all her stories with a lovely touch of humour, and she's not afraid to laugh at her younger self.

I read this lovely book so slowly that the characters were with me for a good couple of months, and now I've finished it I miss them. Gorokhova herself and her progression both through school and university as well as the obligatory communist youth groups, her growing fascination with the English language, her struggles to understand a world constructed on the basis of skewed truth. Her hard-working mother, just as over-bearing as the Soviet state. Her older sister, Marina, who horrifies their mother by becoming an actress, and her bohemian friends. Ukrainian Boris, Gorokhova's first love - a summer romance on the beaches of the Crimea. The photographs of some of these people really added to my enjoyment; particularly touching are the photos of Marina and the mother in the USA, many years after the narrative ends.

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed Ancestor Stones, Rachel. I have it, but I probably won't get to it until sometime next year.

Sounds like an interesting book, Rachel, and glad you liked St. Marks Bookshop. Apparently, they are having difficulty with their landlord, and there's an online petition to try to save the store.

I'm sorry to hear that, Rebecca; I thought it was a great bookshop. Anyway, thanks for the link. I've signed, and I've forwarded it to the friend who was with me in New York.

A Week in December by Sebastian Faulkes

Although I've really enjoyed others by Faulkes in the past (Birdsong, and particularly The Girl at the Lion d'Or) I wouldn't have rushed to read this one, for no good reason, had it not come my way in a box of second-hand books. (Admittedly I was meant to be taking the box to a booksale for a friend, not reading the contents, but I had to look, didn't I?)

Meh. Think I was right not to rush. Oh, it was okay, and fun to read on holiday last week, but I'm lukewarm about it, though not sure I can say why. It's about a week in the lives of a disparate group of Londoners who are drawn relentlessly together as the plot progresses. I really liked the idea of looking at all these people, little tiny threads in the huge fabric of the big city, and I liked the idea that people are linked even without realising. Some of the characters I really liked - the shy, book-loving female underground train driver, for example - and whilst John Veals the hedge-fund manager is utterly odious, he's brilliantly done. But I had my doubts about how authentic some of the others are, in particular the young Islamist (don't have the book in front of me and can't remember their names), and, come to that, his parents. I tried to be charitable, but at times I couldn't help thinking that it was just too darned convenient to be able to link all these people (albeit some of them indirectly) via one single dinner party...

One of the characters is a Polish footballer, just signed to a London club. Faulkes throws in a few Polish words - with unfortunate results. Apparently Spike, the footballer, was known in Polish football for being stubborn, and we're told that commentators were always commenting on how 'przymiotnik' he was. Oh come on! If you're going to stick foreign words in at least get someone to check them. A bilingual dictionary can be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands; 'przymiotnik' means 'adjective'.

The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson
Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

Another that fell into my lap, this time more happily.

The second Rebecka Martinsson mystery (I read and enjoyed the first a while ago). Good story, pacy, well told, great characters. A little suspension of disbelief is necessary to accept that Rebecka could manage once again to get herself into such a mess (and this whilst on sick leave from her job as a tax lawyer, as she's still traumatised by the events of the first book). Talk about a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - but I was happy enough to go along with it.

What I particularly appreciated about both this and the previous book is how they portray this part of Sweden, way up in the north near the Arctic Circle. There is a feeling of being miles from anywhere, isolated, cut off, which is alternately liberating and claustrophic - very atmospheric.

>88 rachbxl: The landscape always figures into each of her stories (it's one of the best things about her books), as does animals (domestic or wild), and she always has an amazingly traumatic event happen to her that she will need to recover from (honestly, she must suffer permanent PTSD). And I haven't figured out if the dreaming bits are in every book. Her most recent book disappointed me, but you have a book or two to get there:-)

#87 Ouch, what a howler! I'm lukewarm about Faulks. I enjoyed Birdsong and loved Engleby, but really couldn't get on with The Girl at the Lion d'Or. I don't think I'll be in a rush to try A Week in December.

A Mountain of Crumbs, however, sounds like something I'd really enjoy.

Tomorrow by Graham Swift

Infuriating book! I want the time I spent reading it back!

The premise is flimsy: Paula lies awake next to her sleeping husband, Mike, on the eve of a day which will supposedly change their lives (and not in a good way). The book takes the form of Paula's mental monologue to her 16-year old twins, asleep in the next room. We're told in the first couple of pages that the next day Mike will be revealing to the twins some huge family secret (the agreement always having been that they'd be told once they turned 16), after which it might just all fall apart. Not a bad way of getting your reader's interest, and I fell for it (and hated myself for it for the next 200 pages).

If that's the premise your book's built on, though, you'd really better make sure you've got a real humdinger of a secret up your sleeve. I won't say what it is, but it was a disappointment (even allowing for the fact that the thing in question would admittedly have been more of a big deal in the late 1970's, when the twins were born). I kept hanging on, even though I really wasn't enjoying it, because I couldn't believe that there wasn't going to be some unpredictable sting in the tail. Wrong. (Though I did only skim the second half of the book). I know that great fiction is often about taking ordinary events and making them extraordinary, but perhaps the problem here is that there's not much by way of events to begin with.

Paula talks endlessly about her relationship with her husband, how they got together, how things developed, how they relate to each other now. Fair enough - but what really grated was her obsession with sex. In particular (bearing in mind that in her mind she's telling all this to her hapless children), is it really credible to have her keep going on about how she's always been completely up for it with their father, any time, any place (sand dunes, cupboards at work (apparently he used to call her to warn her he was going to pop round to her office for a bit of nooky)), her desire for him has never waned, she could never tire of him sexually even after all these years...? I couldn't help thinking it was more a reflection of the male author's fantasies.

I wish I hadn't bothered.

Dwiewczynka w czerwonym płaszczyku by Roma Ligocka
available in English as The Girl in the Red Coat

audiobook

Autobiography of a survivor of the Krakow ghetto, beautifully read in the original Polish, though I don't know who by as I've lent the CD to a colleague.

It's not a concious thing, but I seem to be drawn at the moment to the memoirs of women who grew up in Central/Eastern Europe in the 20th century - first Lost in Translation, then A Mountain of Crumbs, now The Girl in the Red Coat. Inevitably I've got them all a bit mixed up; I feel like I've read one book called something like Lost in the Red Crumbs.

Of the three, this is the one I enjoyed least (I very much enjoyed listening to it, but that was more due to the thrill of understanding it in Polish). The things Roma Ligocka lived through as a child in the ghetto are things nobody should have to experience - I do appreciate that. Indeed, I found the first part of the book, her memories of her life in the ghetto, utterly compelling. These are stories that should be told (and read, and listened to); we can't ignore what happened.

My problem started later, when Roma was an adult. I was willing to bear with her for a while, but she came across as such a self-centred whiner that, even given the horrors of her childhood, I just wanted to slap her and tell her that other people might just have problems too (yes, yes, I'm well aware that I, with my comfortable life in the free West, have no right to say this). Roma the adult lurches from one relationship to another, but it's never her fault when things go wrong (and I couldn't help wondering where they are now, these men she criticises so freely - if I were them I'd have sued her for defamation of character). In fact, nothing is ever her fault; she's a spoilt child even at 40. I realise that this in a way is the point of the book, that she "grows up" at the end, on seeing that Spielberg film, the name of which escapes me, but the one with the black and white ghetto scenes, the only colour being the little girl's red coat. On seeing that, she realises that that's who she is, she finds her identity - but then the book ends, so whether she became less self-absorbed or not, I know not.

Anyway, she lost me completely somewhere in the "me, me, me, my hard life, how I've suffered, nobody understands, everyone's against me" narrative. Yet this in itself is fascinating to the part of me that's spent the best part of the last decade trying to understand Poland (the more I know the less I understand, but it's a country I've come to love), because it's a particularly Polish narrative - glorification of suffering, and if the world doesn't seem to be listening (actually it did listen, then it moved on), keep on saying the same thing, with increasing hysteria (look at the reaction to last year's plane crash in which the Polish president and 95 others died).

Before I finished listening to this, I started reading Journey to Nowhere by Eva Figes - yet another memoir of a Jewish childhood in Central Europe. I know it's purely a matter of personal reaction, but for me the Figes is far more effective - understated, subdued, spare...and devastating.

Too bad about Tomorrow; I will probably make a quick read of that, trusting your review.