Not too long ago I came across
an amazing opportunity on Facebook. Aardvark Bureau was offering titles from its
latest catalogue to reading groups to read and review. I inquired and was
happily surprised to learn that my group could participate, despite being
located in Ireland rather than the UK.
It wasn’t long before I
received a package containing eight books, one each for every member in my
group. I allowed my members to pick the title they thought they’d enjoy most
and asked them to write me one paragraph expressing what they thought about the
book. Below you’ll find information about each title as well as my members’ thoughts
on them. The blurbs and covers as shown were taken from Goodreads.
This month the members of
Cootehill Library Reading Group will be reading the same books. A report of
their thoughts will follow.
The
Weaver Fish by
Robert Edeson
The blurb:
A
captivating zoological, mathematical, technological, grammatical,
architectural, aeronautical literary thriller – unlike anything you’ve read
before.
-- Obituary: the Norwegian-British logician,
linguist and dream theorist Edvard Tøssentern is unaccounted for, and presumed
to have died when the research balloon Abel disappeared during a severe storm
over the South China Sea. --
When Edvard Tøssentern, the missing author of
studies of the mysterious flesh-eating weaver fish, staggers in from a remote
swamp, his colleagues at the research station on the island of Ferendes are
overjoyed. But Edvard’s discovery about a rare giant bird throws them all into
the path of a dangerous international crime ring.
Part-thriller, part-literary and mathematical
puzzle, this unique, bold and playful debut engages the reader in an
exhilarating game, challenging everything we know – or think we know – about
language, morality and truth.
Reader’s
thoughts
‘This
could possibly be described as one of the cleverest books ever, but I can’t say
so as most of it I did not understand. Now, I think it is a supreme spoof from
beginning to end, but because I’m so abysmally ignorant of the subtleties of
science and mathematics I am not in a position to comment. It can change from
chapter to chapter from paragraphs and footnotes—that are a complete mystery to
me—to page turning thriller, again hard to keep up with as some of these lines
are extremely clever, fast paced and funny. One cannot help thinking of a late
Terry Pratchett’s influence on where the imagination might go, especially with
names and identities of characters. As with all clever books like ‘The Weaver
Fish’ one’s thoughts can turn to real life serious situations, but one might
need to sit quietly in a corner and think about it all! A strange read—good in
parts. I would rate it 2.5 stars.’
The
Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt
by Tracy Farr
The blurb:
Tracy
Farr’s acclaimed debut novel is the fictional memoir of Dame Lena Gaunt:
musician, octogenarian, junkie.
Lena is Music’s Most Modern Musician; the first
theremin player of the twentieth century.
From a solitary childhood in Malacca and a Perth
boarding school to a glittering career in Jazz-age Sydney and a defining
relationship with bohemian artist Beatrix Carmichael, Lena’s is a life shaped
by the pull of the sea, the ebb and flow of passion and loss, and that
extraordinary instrument, the theremin.
Reader’s
thoughts:
This
reader had not finished the book by the time the discussion took place. The
following is what she had to say about the story so far.
‘This
book is written with magical descriptions, contrasting time journeys and vibrant
places. It involves a very strange musical instrument that only exists in this
novel and the life story of a lady, now in her eighties.
I’m
looking forward to reading the rest of this book.’
The
Infinite Air by
Fiona Kidman
The blurb:
The
rise and fall of the 'Garbo of the skies', as told by one of New Zealand's
finest novelists
Jean Batten became an international icon in 1930s.
A brave, beautiful woman, she made a number of heroic solo flights across the
world. The newspapers couldn't get enough of her.
In 1934, she broke Amy Johnson's flight time
between England and Australia by six days. The following year, she was the
first woman to make the return flight. In 1936, she made the first ever direct
flight between England and New Zealand and then the fastest ever trans-Tasman
flight. Jean Batten stood for adventure, daring, exploration and glamour.
The Second World War ended Jean's flying
adventures. She suddenly slipped out of view, disappearing to the Caribbean
with her mother and eventually dying in Majorca, buried in a pauper's grave.
Fiona Kidman's enthralling novel delves into the life of this enigmatic woman.
It is a fascinating exploration of early aviation, of fame, and of secrecy.
Reader’s
thoughts:
‘I
was fascinated by this book. I enjoyed all the details about Jean, her
childhood, her love of flying and the rest of her life after she’d achieved her
amazing feat. I also loved the little aeroplane icons in the book. I would rate
this book 4.5 stars.’
The Children’s Home by
Charles Lambert
The
blurb:
Morgan Fletcher, the disfigured
heir to a fortune of mysterious origins, lives on a sprawling estate, cut off
from a threatening world. One day, his housekeeper, Engel, discovers a baby
left on the doorstep. Soon more children arrive, among them the stern, watchful
David. With the help of Engel and town physician Doctor Crane, Morgan takes the
children in, allowing them to explore the mansion…and to begin to uncover the
strange and disturbing secrets it holds.
Cloaked in eerie atmosphere,
this distorted fairy tale and the unsettling questions it raises will stay with
the reader long after the final page.
Reader’s thoughts:
‘The Children’s Home may well be the most
surprising, thought provoking and also baffling book I’ve ever read. In many
ways this book reminded me of poetry in that both the story and the way in
which it is told leave almost everything open to interpretation by the reader.
I can’t help feeling that this book will tell a slightly different story to
each individual reader.
To me this book read as a study
in contrasts. The tone of the story is observational, descriptive and distant,
as if none of the events described are of any great importance. At the same
time those same events are shocking and often gruesome.
Did I fully understand this
story, its implications or its message? No, I am sure I did not. However, the
resulting sense of mystery didn’t frustrate me, quite the opposite in fact. It
left me with a sense of wonder, with questions and possible answers to ponder
long after I finished reading. I rated this truly captivating story 4.5 stars.’
When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow
by Dan Rhodes
The
blurb:
Everybody
at the Women’s Institute in the village of Upper Bottom is eagerly awaiting the
arrival of a very special guest speaker: the world famous evolutionary
biologist Professor Richard Dawkins.
But with a blizzard setting in, their visitor
finds himself trapped in the nearby town of Market Horten, with no choice but
to take lodgings with the local Anglican vicar.
Will the professor be able to abide by his motto –
cordiality always – while surrounded by Christians? Will he ever reach Upper
Bottom? And can his assistant, Smee, save the day?
Reader’s
thoughts:
‘Oh,
what fun! I was only sorry I had finished the book because I wanted to have it
to read again for the first time. As the story unfolds almost every page has
laugh-out-loud lines and all of these are genuinely funny and original. Because
of the twist near the end, which may well be foreseen as the story unfolds, one
cannot say too much about it. When the twist leads to yet another surprise one
concludes that this is one of the best non-stop light reads. I rate it 4 stars.’
The Miner by Natsume Soseki
The
blurb:
The
Miner is the most daringly experimental and least well known novel of the great
Meiji novelist Natsume Soseki (1867-1916).
Written
in 1908, it is an absurdist novel about the indeterminate nature of human
personality, which in many respects anticipates the work of Joyce and Beckett.
Virtually devoid of plot and characterization, it unfolds entirely within the
mind of the unnamed protagonist. Focusing on a young man whose love life has
fallen to pieces, The Miner follows him as he flees from Tokyo, is picked up by
a procurer of cheap labor for a copper mine, and then travels toward - and
finally burrows into the depths of - the mine where he hopes to find oblivion.
The
young man reflects at length on nearly every thought and perception he
experiences along the way, in terms of what the experience means to him at the
time and in retrospect as a mature adult narrating the tale. The narrator concludes
that there is no such thing as human character, and the many passages in which
he ruminates on the nature of personality constitute the theoretical core of
the book. The intellectual distancing carries over into the style of writing as
well, and instead of a tragedy of alienation, we find here an absurdist - truly
absurd and comical - allegory of descent into the psyche.
Reader’s
thoughts:
‘This
is an astonishing book: astonishing in so many ways, but absolutely astonishing
in that it is a page turner!
Written
in 1908 by a Japanese master novelist, this is the story of a young man leaving
home in Tokyo, loosing face over some romantic misdemeanour and ending up
spending a day in a copper mine. We spend this day with him in his head through
all the awfulness of the day, following every move and feeling such relief as
we surface, reading excitedly on to the last page to see what he does with his
experience of that day. This is a read where one can be totally absorbed with
one other person, mostly over one day, from beginning to end. I rate it 4
stars.’
The Last Pier by Roma Tearne
The
blurb:
The
summer of 1939 broke the Maudsley family. Cecily was only 13-years-old and
desperate to grow up; desperate to be as beautiful and desired and reckless as
her older sister Rose. Now, in her 40s, the family resemblance is uncanny, but
Cecily is a shadow of her former self. A part of her died that fateful summer.
Returning
to the deserted family farm as an adult, Cecily recalls the light before the
storm, before the war came and before the terrible family tragedy. It was a
summer of laughter and ice cream, promises and first love. She remembers her
father’s unrequited love for her, her melancholy mother, and her brittle and
argumentative aunt Kitty, and how everyone, somehow, was guarding a secret.
None more so than the impossibly beautiful Rose. And in her childhood
innocence, between snatches of misunderstood conversations, Cecily helps set in
motion a chain of devastating events.
Wandering
through the family home 29 years later, Cecily hopes to lay some ghosts to
rest but the past has yet to give up some shocking secrets.
Reader’s
thoughts:
‘Initially,
the plot of “The Last Pier” reminded me of “Atonement”, the main character, a
young girl, Cecily, on the cusp of adolescence trying to copy her very
beautiful, annoying older sister, Rose, jealous and envious of the freedoms she
exploited being older. The novel compares the wealthy British landed family to
a working class first generation Italian family. The descriptions of the
pastoral setting were delightfully painted by the author, but underlying there
was an ever present feeling of approaching doom.
The
construction of the novel, jumping from the eve of World War II to September
1968, when Cecily was a mature forty-something led to quite a bit of confusion
as to what happened that Rose died at seventeen at the outbreak of the war and
did not always lead to clarifying the many twists and turns of the plot. In my
view, the reader was being manipulated and the story would have worked better
if the plot had been handled in a more straight forward manner.
However,
“The Last Pier” was an engaging and atmospheric page-turner and the author
keeps the reader guessing to the very end as to the different fates of her
characters. I would score “The Last Pier” 4 stars.’
Max
Gate by Damien
Wilkins:
The blurb:
1928:
Thomas Hardy is dying in the upstairs room of Max Gate, the house he built in
his beloved Dorset. Downstairs, his literary friends are locked in a bitter
fight with local supporters. Who owns Hardy’s remains? Who knew him best? What
are the secrets of Max Gate?
Housemaid Nellie Titterington narrates this
earthy and emotionally-charged novel about ambition, duty, belonging, and love.
Reader’s
thoughts:
‘This
novel is Wilkins’ imagining of one of the housemaid’s (Nellie) relating off the
events immediately before and after Hardy’s death in Max Gate. Nellie
reminisces about Hardy’s first wife, Emma—now dead—and his second wife,
Florence. She also relates the seemingly endless discussions as to where Hardy
should be buried—Westminster Abbey or the local churchyard. Also, who owns his
remaining works, the nation or his family? The story also conveys the austerity
of the 1920’s.
I
found this story rather rambling at times and, on occasion, difficult to
follow. One wonders if the writer grew enchanted with his (Nellie’s) powers of
description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.
It is, nonetheless, a worthy read and I would grade it 3 stars.’
On behalf of the members of the Bailieborough Reading Group and the County Cavan Library service I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Aardvark bureau.
Length: 209 KB / Short Story
