In Which We Discuss the Awesomeness of Birmingham Central Library

I reserved a couple of books at the library the other day, and whilst looking online, I noticed one I'd forgotten about - Living Dolls: The Return Of Sexism. It had slipped my mind because I'd reserved it way back in February.

Normally, the library is very good at getting reservations in quickly - the wait time is usually less than a week, unless I'm waiting for someone else to return it, which can be up to a month. So, the next time I went in, I asked about it.

The gentleman on the desk had a look, and we found out that there is a long line of eight people waiting to read that book, with me seventh on the list. I asked if it was worth requesting that the library buy another copy of the book, and he apologetically told me that, since Central Library already had their copy, it was unlikely they'd get another one. I thanked him for the information, and resigned myself to an eight month wait (or possibly, buying it on amazon). That was about a week ago. Today, I received the following email;

Dear Miss Ravel

Last week you spoke to one of my colleagues about a book called 'Living
Dolls: The Return Of Sexism'. There was only one copy in stock and several
reservations already. After he spoke to you, he informed me of the long
reservation list. I have passed the details on to the head of our
department in the hope that she will be able to buy some more copies. You
are already on the reservation list, but hopefully this will mean you don't
have to wait quite so long.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any queries.

Claire Jackson
Library Assistant
Central Lending

...now that's customer service.

Also; I really, really like being called "Miss Ravel".

In Which We Discuss Scott Westerfeld

I'm now considering Scott Westerfeld for my next CRC, thanks to a comment on LJ.

I've actually been meaning to read Westerfeld's work for a while now, ever since I heard a bit about his Uglies series. Unfortunately, he doesn't finish one series before moving on to another - he seems to chop and change a lot. Take a look at his wiki page. See?

Below is a list of his books in loose chronological order (I did attempt to find the exact release dates within the year, but it was impossible for some of them, so I gave up).

• Polymorph (1997)
  
• Fine Prey (1998)
  
• Evolution's Darling (2000)
  
• The Risen Empire (2003)
  
• The Killing of Worlds (2003)
  
• So Yesterday (2004)
  
• The Secret Hour (2004)
  
• Touching Darkness (2005)
  
• Uglies (2005)
  
• Pretties (2005)
  
• Peeps (also known as Parasite Positive in Britain) (2005)
  
• The Last Days (2006)
  
• Blue Noon (2006)
  
• Specials (2006)
  
• Extras (2007)
  
• Bogus to Bubbly: An Insider's Guide to the World of Uglies (2008)
  
• Leviathan (2009)
  
• Behemoth (forthcoming, October 2010)

...now, that is quite a few. However, that said, they are young adult novels. I'm not sure if the library will have all of them, but I hope so. Anyway, I'm going to have to finish the six books I've got out, as well as my four reservations, before I can get started.

I've never read any of Westerfeld's work before, which will be interesting. I'd already read most of Jewell's book before reading them in order, so it'll be a little different.

Incidentally, while researching this, I had a look at his blog.  It's a pretty good read, which is quite promising.

In Which We Discuss Further Chronological Reading Challenges

A little while back, I decided to read everything Lisa Jewell had every written, in the order in which she'd written it. It was quite an interesting experience, and most of it was chronicled on this blog. You can find it through the "Chronological Reading Challenge" tag, which is also on this post. Scroll on down a bit and you'll see it.

Although I had read most of the books before, reading them in this way did give me further insights into them, and into the author. The main thing I noticed was her growing...obsession? Focus?...something - with children. More and more, children became the driving force in her character's lives. Not necessarily the fact of having them, more the consequences of various things connected with them, if that makes sense. For instance; one character's life changes utterly when she becomes pregnant and proceeds to give the child up for adoption. Another has her life change when she accidentally orphans and paralyses a child in a single accident. Yet another has her relationship go off the walls when she accidentally becomes pregnant.

Those events and the novels they appear in aren't in chronological order, as listed above. Generally speaking, things which happen to children get worse and worse as Jewell grows older, and writes more novels.  And, of course, as she has her own children, and presumably, worries and obsesses over all the horrible things that could happen.

However, moving away from Jewell, I am inclined to repeat the experiment. I'm considering doing it with Sheri Tepper, but her bibliography is long, complex, split over many different names, and occasionally out of print.

Excuse me, I must shriek like a fangirl.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Tepper's writing a sequel to Plague of Angels, set to be released this year! Ah!

Ahem.

I just googled Tepper's bibliography, looking for a complete list in chronological order, including those books published under pseudonyms, and spotted that. Now I am happy.

Anyway, her wiki page is probably the most thorough list, and you can see that that would be quite a project. Especially considering that I probably own less than half of them right now, and the library almost definitely doesn't stock many of them. So Tepper wouldn't be a great choice for this project, not until I have lots more money and free time (sadly, the two do not come together).

I do have a fair amount of books to get through at the minute too. I've just started the Mavin Manyshaped trilogy, of the True Game series, and I still haven't read most of my current library books. I need to get through those quick, before my reservations come in. So another CRC would take a while to get off the ground.

At the minute, authors I'm considering include Ben Elton (although I recently gorged myself on his work, so maybe not), Jenny Colgan (I already own most of them, and I know the library has the rest, so that would be easy), Nick Hornby (ditto), Trudi Canavan (a relatively new author, so less of a back catalogue), and Matt Beaumont (would have to buy, since the library is missing a few of them). Maybe Alice Hoffman or Kjartan Poskitt (I'm just looking at my shelves for random inspiration here - those aren't authors I've really considered before, which may actually be a point in their favour). Stephen King would represent many of the same problems as Tepper.  Dahl, maybe?  I don't know.

Any suggestions, comment. It should be open to those people without accounts now.

In Which We Discuss My Favourite Book

...it's Jinian Footseer, by Sheri Tepper, closely followed by Billie Lett's Where the Heart Is.

I found Jinian Footseer in a charity shop when I was about eleven or twelve. There wasn't much of a blurb on the back - just a quote from a song in the book. I can't recall the other couplet, but it ended with this;

Eye of the Star
Where Old Gods Are.

Players, take your places. The land itself calls Game!

The reason I need to remember that is because the cover has been loved clean off in the last decade. The tops of a few pages are missing as well, near the beginning. I should really get a new copy, but they're a little tricky to find.

Although the back cover wasn't very informative, it seemed interesting. Intriguing. Jinian, on the cover, looked interesting too, her and the Oracle. I suspect this is where my long-lived desire for ruddy red hair came from.

The book drew me in right from the beginning. It talks about a strange world, and peoples with strange Talents (which I wrote a little more on here). It's a curious mix of medieval adventure and fantasy, but infinitely more readable. It's like a feminine version of Poul Anderson's work, if anyone out that is familiar with that, a little like Three Hearts and Three Lions. I can't pinpoint exactly why - the content isn't obviously similar, and there are a few differences, mostly the masculine/feminine thing I mentioned. That, and Anderon's hero was much more familiar with our modern world, while Jinian is completely separate.  And Tepper doesn't go near Arthurian legends.  But still...

As I get older, I see more things in the book. At one point, for instance, Jinian is touched by a Shadow, and becomes disheartened. The connection between her mind and body is broken, and although she continues moving for a while, out of habit, she can't bring herself out of her slump. Then, at other times, she is struck with a wild sense of activity, with no direction. She suffers from insomnia, too.

I read the book a few years before I suffered through my worst points with manic depression, but Tepper's writing describes the illness perfectly. I'm going to quote a small passage from the book here.

"And now you must decide which pain you will bear. That of being as you were. Or that of being as you are."


I brought myself up to my knees. That was as far as I could get. The hand that had held the teacup appeared again, a full cup in it, the steam rising into my nose. I gulped it, interrupting the gulps with sobs. "Pain of being as I am? I don't understand."


"But of course you do. The pain of curiosity unsatisfied, of ambition unfulfilled. The pain of love unreturned, of devotion undeserved. The pain of friendship rejected, of leadership ridiculed. The pain of loneliness and labor. Silly child. Did you think living was easy?"


Well, I had, of course. Not really easy, perhaps, but easier than this. I guess all children expect life to be easy. It seems easy, just looking at it from the outside. Being half-dead, as I had been for the past while was easier than this.


"It's easier to be dead," she said, seeming to Read me. "Always."


"I think I would rather be alive," I managed to say. "Even if it hurts."

There are other passages I've found meaning in, over the years. I couldn't tell you how many times I've read the book, but there's something new in it every time.

Incidentally, that's why my username is Bartelmy. Bartelmy of the Ban is the non-narrating character speaking in that passage.

When I first read the book, at the age of eleven or twelve, I was concerned only with Jinian's point of view. As I grew older, I began to understand the other characters, to gain sharper insights into them as I became more experienced, more life-full. Suddenly, when I was nineteen or maybe twenty, Bartelmy's viewpoint struck me. Not fully, but enough for me to realise how much myself and my life had changed since I first read the book. I go a little further into my past usernames and their logic here, if anyone's interested. I would like to add that it's not the literal aspect of the mother with which I'm concerned - more a less conventional kind of change, which, though not really motherly, is still part of growing up as a woman. If that makes sense.

Jinian Footseer is part of a trilogy of trilogies, written in the eighties, and scarcely reprinted since then. A few of the other novels, namely those containing Peter's adventures and those continuing Jinian's were mentioned at the end. I looked for them for years - this was before the internet, remember, or at least before I had regular access to it. I looked in charity shops, keeping an eye out for anything by Tepper. I never found anything else of Tepper's second hand, ever. I looked at the library, and it even looked as though Balsall Heath had a copy of Jinian Star-Eye...but, it was lost.

I did find a copy of The True Game, a printing which brings together the three Peter novels, King's Blood Four, Necromancer Nine, and Wizard's Eleven. I was about fifteen then, I think, and since it was a reprint, I was able to order it from Waterstones.  Incidentally, I picked up a lot of Tepper's other novels when they were printed by Gollancz in the early years of the last decade.  The Visitor and Beauty are particularly good, as are Plague of Angels, Grass and the rest of the Arbai Trilogy, and The Gate to Women's Country, and -

Oh, just read them all.  You won't regret it.

Peter's story overlaps with Jinian's near the end of his third book, and the beginning of her first, although the main part of it is set towards the end. The other two books in the Jinian series, Dervish Daughter and Jinian Star-Eye, I found on amazon, when I was nearly nineteen.  They're about £30 together, but I picked them up separately, since I already had the first one.

The final trilogy, the Mavin Manyshaped books, I also found on amazon. However, they were quite expensive - about £30 for the combined edition. You don't want to know how much they are separately. However, a few weeks ago a cheap copy popped up, and my friend bought it for me. It's sitting on my shelf over there, waiting for me to be finished rereading the Jinian novels (I read the Peter series last week). I want to be properly ready before I finally read the entire series.

Incidentally, since Mavin is Peter's mother, her books are, I believe, chronologically before Peter and Jinian's, although she does show up throughout all six of the others. It's possible that her books encompass the whole series, in much the same way that Jinian's and Peter's overlap.

Another interesting element of the series is the fact that, although Peter was conceived first (or at least, written first), and Jinian is, technically, a companion character, she's also fully realised. When she shows up in Peter's novel, she doesn't reveal her whole history, or foreshadow very much of it at all. Nothing's contradicted, but Jinian is a far more subtle and internal person than Peter, and since all of the books are written from the first person viewpoint, one can only know what Peter knows. I will say though, that I wish the first Peter novel had included mention of where he and Jinian first met. I know that it's unlikely he'd remember, or think it at all important, but a tiny mention would have been enough. It would have leant the series even greater depth and entanglement through the various plots, although it's not like it suffers overmuch through the lack of it.

In Which We Discuss Extra-large Tits and Rizlas

...along with Donkey Dick Movie Star and Flash Wanker.

Or, more specifically, Matt Beaumont. Even more specifically, The Book, the Film, the T-Shirt.

I've only read three of Beaumont's novels so far - e., Where There's a Will, and the afforementioned book, film, t-shirt (which is how it is going to be refered to from now on, because I am very lazy).

Excuse me, I'm just going to get on the library website and see what they can do about that.

...nope, it appears to be down for Easter.

That's the thing about the library. Generally, the opening hours are pretty good - 9am to 8pm most days, 9am to 5pm on Saturdays, and closed on Sundays. But, anything even close to a holiday, and they're off. I was quite surprised to find that they were open on Saturday, and, from what the librarian told me, I wasn't the only one. He reckoned they'd had about fifty calls querying whether they would be or not.

I'm not entirely sure why that should effect the website, but, apparently, that has Easter off too.

So, anyway. Matt Beaumont.

His first novel, e., was written in an epistolary style, that is, formed from various documents. It takes part at fictional ad agency, Miller Shanks, and consists of emails sent between employees, from the CEO down to the temp, and including one written by a cleaner.

Bookfilmt-shirt is written in a similar style, but merely switches between points of view, rather than written documents, which offers a little more freedom.

Once criticism often levelled at epistolary novels is that they can encourage laziness - when an author needs to explain something, they can just switch to another character.  Many authors simply avoid using one or more of the key characters, leaving those around them to simply guess at what they're thinking.  Jodi Picoult did it in My Sister's Keeper (the film of which kind of sucked, by the way), and Matt Beaumont does it here.  Pulls it off, too.

Quick note on the film of the book here since I'm not going to give it it's own post; although the book of My Sister's Keeper had an unusual, extremely unlikely ending, it worked for it.  It gave the book a fresher feel, made it a little more unusual.

Where I think the film suffered was, it changed that ending, and downplayed the legal parts, and some of the issues resulting from the court case, which was the book's other strength.  In the end it was just, basically, a made-for-TV movie about a kid with leukaemia (why yes, that is an About A Boy reference), with some famous faces in it.  Rather meh, really.

Anyway, extra-large tits and rizlas.

It's a little difficult to really describe the plot of bookfilmt-shirt, since there are so many different lines and subplots going on at once.  Each character has their own little one, some short, others arcing to the end of the novel.  Pretty much the only way to tell it is as it's written, which eventually ends with me saying "oh, just read it."  Which really is rather good advice, if I do say so myself.

I am going to have a go at summarizing the plot anyway, just because it would be rather lame if I didn't.

The book's about the making of an advert for Blackstock tires, an American company trying to make a name in Britain.  It stars Joe Strider and Rebecca Richards, young stars of Dawson's Creek-type show, All Our Lives Before Us.  Rebecca, a Brit, had been dating Joe (a yank), until he filmed Body Matter with Keven French (who also happens to be the director of the advert in question, since he and the adman go way back).  Joe's star is on the rise due to this, and he's holding that over Kevin, who believes that he needs to make Body Matter II in order to keep his career (sadly, Hollywood really does value actors over directors).  Joe also dumped Rebecca for their young co-star, Greta Bastendorff (an oversight on Beaumont's part, I think; he made her seventeen which, while acceptably young here, is completely illegal and much more shocking over there).

Joe has become a complete diva; he demands extra staff, a new bed, and constantly belittles Rebecca.  Then there's the runner, the PA, the executive-in-charge-of-jellybeans, the adman, the amateur drug dealer turned bouncer (who christens Rebecca 'Extra-Large Tits and Rizlas' after he spots her being searched at the airport), the hairdresser, Norman the Cook, and a whole host of other characters, all with their own viewpoint.  Some are only in for a few scenes, others comment throughout the entire novel.

The book just makes me laugh.  A lot.  That's what I really like about it. From the first page, I was giggling my little head off.  And it's just gone midnight, and I've been working on this post intermittently for almost a week now, so I'll leave it at that.

In Which We Discuss April 2010

A record of the books I've read this month;

Number	Name	Author	Date Began	Date Finished
1	Kings Blood Four	Sheri Tepper	1/4/2010	5/4/2010
2	The Book, The Film, The T-Shirt	Matt Beaumont	2/4/2010	4/4/2010
3	My Sister Jodie	Jaqueline Wilson	3/4/2010	4/4/2010
4	Necromancer Nine	Sheri Tepper	5/4/2010	7/4/2010
5	Wizard's Eleven	Sheri Tepper	7/4/2010	9/4/2010
6	Jinian Footseer	Sheri Tepper	9/4/2010	12/4/2010
7	Dervish Daughter	Sheri Tepper	12/4/2010	15/4/2010
8	Jinian Stareye	Sheri Tepper	13/4/2010	15/4/2010
9	Past Mortem	Ben Elton	15/4/2010	16/4/2010
10	The Song of Mavin Manyshaped	Sheri Tepper	17/4/2010	21/4/2010
11	Small World	Matt Beaumont	19/4/2010	20/4/2010
12	The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped	Sheri Tepper	21/4/2010	24/4/2010
13	Freakonomics	Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner	21/4/2010	22/4/2010
14	SuperFreakonomics	Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner	25/4/2010	26/4/2010
15	The Search of Mavin Manyshaped	Sheri Tepper	24/4/2010	3/5/2010
16	The Undercover Economist	Tim Harford	26/4/2010	28/4/2010
17	Midnight	Jacqueline Wilson	27/4/2010	27/4/2010
18	How to Win Friends and Influence People	Dale Carnegie	28/4/2010	30/4/2010

I'm going to split this into monthly posts, and then put it all together next year.

In Which We Discuss the Last Fortnight

...can I explain why I didn't call?

Alright, I know what I wrote about trying to write something every week. What can I say? I haven't been in much of a blogging mood. Haven't been in much of a film/book mood either, as you can see if you check out my film blog, The Real Ratings.

Come to think of it, what have I been doing?

Anyway.

A metaphor from Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree has stuck with me. Namely, that reading is a lot like eating. Sometimes, you're in the mood for something heavy - a big, three course meal, for instance. Or maybe something light, or something new, or something familiar, or something like fast food which you know isn't the best thing to eat, but which is trashily enjoyable anyway (Twilight, for instance).

Well, for the past few days or so, I've been leaning more towards familiar tastes. Comforting tastes. Things which are the literary equivalent of my scalloped potatoes recipe - personal, and familiar, and, to abandon the food metaphor, snuggly and worn, like comfy old slippers.

That's why I reread Helen Dunne's Light as a Feather. It's one of those chick-lit novels (I have a not-so-secret addiction to the damn things) that I picked up in a charity shop for about 50p, several years back.

Plotwise, it's not the most inventive thing ever. It's about a woman, Orla Kennedy, who decides to set up a diet chatroom/support group, to help her lose weight for her best friend's wedding. That information should help you classify the book slightly better - it's from the Irish side of the family, and it's about weight issues.

I don't mean that to sound derogatory, just informative. Generally speaking, Irish chick-lit (I intend to keep using that term; I don't find it derogatory or offensive, and the same goes for 'comic' rather than graphic novel) has a unique kind of style. That's not to say that every Irish writer writes like that, or that no writer of any other nationality can - it's just a trend I've noticed. And now I'm going to stop being so PC and just list a few examples; Marian Keyes, for instance, especially with things like Watermelon. Tina Reilly, although without dealing with the heavy issues that Is This Love? discusses. Like Cecilia Ahern, only nothing like so sad as PS - I Love You. In tone though, the book is mostly like Arabella Weir's Does My Bum Look Big in This?, only without so much harping on about self-hatred and Catholic guilt.

...all right, there is a bit of Catholic guilt.

While we're on the subject, American chick-lit is slightly different as well. For instance, the weight issues tend to be a bit more...well, more. I'm mostly thinking of Liza Palmer's Conversations With the Fat Girl, although, oddly, Jane Green's Jemima J has something of the same tone (incidentally, Green is English, with an America-sized ego. No, I did not accidentally leave off the 'n').

Anyway, my point is that in English or Irish chick-lit about weight issues, the women tend to be anything from a sixteen to an eighteen. In American novels, they tend to be rather larger than that.

That said, a lot of my English and Irish chick-lit was picked up in charity shops, and a lot of it dates from the early nineties. So perhaps it's more a sign of the times than of geography.

To contradict myself slightly on the craving-familiarity thing, I also read Jeremy de Quidt's The Toymaker the other day. It was a spur-of-the-moment choice in the library. They had all these glossy new paperbacks on a little shelf near the door, and that one looked interesting (as did Cliff McNish's Savannah Grey, although I haven't read that one yet).

The cover, for a start, was as creepy as hell. See that terrifying little doll?  Shame she doesn't get more screentime, really.

Although the book dealt with some fairly mature themes (such as revenge, murder and organ-theft), you can still tell that it's a young adult novel. Part of that impression comes from the ilustrations throughout, but a lot of it is in the tone. There just seems to be something different about young adult novels, a lack of something to get your teeth into. And, oh look, we're back to the foor metaphor. And I've just realised I haven't eaten today.

Right, had a banana. Where was I?

The Toymaker. It's pretty interesting, and absorbing, but also downright creepy. It reminded me a lot of Philip Pullman's Clockwork. It's a book aimed at young adults, with all the blood left in, which is interesting if you're prepared for it (as you should be after looking at that cover).


Finally, at the moment, I'm rereading Miranda Austin's Phone Sex. I'm fairly sure I've mentioned that before. It's just so readable and fun.

It's essentially the memoirs of a phone-sex girl, mostly anecdotes, but with a few other things, all of it completely absorbing (and not just because it's about sex. I don't think, anyway).

I am starving. More later, maybe.