Happy (belated) new year, everyone! My Who Weekly horoscope is excellent, and I am told that I have a lot of 4s in my favour this year, 4 being a Chinese lucky number—I turn 44 in a couple of weeks and 2008 also contains a double 4, so here's to a great year ahead!
And here's my December reading:
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
Never read this before, and what a pearler it is. I was a little surprised, shocked even, at how specific/explicit it was about Holly's professional activities, and irritated to find the romance with the narrator/George Peppard character was a Hollywood construct (I should have known), but also very pleased to find Cat there in all his ginger tabby glory.
James Roy is one of my favourite Australian writers—he's consistently good across genres and ages—and I think Town may be his best book yet (although I have an eternal soft spot for A Boat for Bridget). Town is a collection of stories, each told in turn by a different young person from an anonymous Australian country town—one for each month of the year. Cumulatively, the stories build a picture of the town and the collective and individual lves of its young residents, even as each story is strongly constructed in its own right. The voices are strong and distinct, much as in Steven Herrick's excellent verse novel from earlier this year, Cold Skin. (Ooh, I feel an essay question coming on!)
Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight by Nick Earls and Rebecca Sparrow
Comparisons to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist will be inevitable, but this book is a whole other creature entirely. Like Nick and Norah, it is written in alternate chapters by Earls (Joel) and Sparrow (Cat), but it extends over a couple of weeks, not one night, and is very different in tone and content.
What I really liked about it was the sort of internal hypertext--or meta text, I forget which one I mean--which is the story Joel and Cat have to write in alternate chapters for a school assignment. Both their relationship and the creative process is laid bare in these hilarious mini-chapters, which are also an extremely funny take on what girls and boys respectively like to read.
Almost flawless plotting, great characterisation and just a terrifically entertaining read. Probably my number one YA for 2007.
Suburban Freak Show by Julia Lawrinson
I am a huge fan of Julia's novels, but have largely categorised her as a writer who takes on serious topics—racism, mental illness and so on. Little did I know she has a great facility for comedy until I read this almost picaresque novel about super-smart and ambitious, but not very empathetic first year uni student Jay. (Is that a nod to Wonderfalls, she thinks aloud?) The characters and plot are drawn with fairly broad brushstrokes, but it's wildly entertaining and has a perfectly fabulous metafictional nod to itself at the end of the novel. She's a clever cookie, our Julia.
Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy
I enjoyed this as far as I read it, but it took a little too long for my taste to really get underway. I'd have preferred the conceit to be more quickly and efficiently established (cut to the chase, Landy!) so I could settle into the alternate world the author proposes. Still, there's fun to be had and I gather he really does not need my imprimatur. A skeletal Artemis Fowl, perchance?
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
I read Case Histories earlier this year, which I loved, and One Good Turn is just as good, although a bit different in tone. Less private eye-ish, more crime procedural meets French farce, if that's not stretching it. Anyway, I love Jackson Brodie and I love a good set of believably rendered coincidences, so this was perfect almost-holidays reading.
This time the action is set in Edinburgh, where Jackson has travelled with actress girlfriend Julia (one of the sisters from the first case in Case Histories—beautiful characterisation by Atkinson) for the Festival. He has recently come into money, retired as a private eye and is suffering an identity crisis.
The action opens with a violent road rage incident, which Jackson witnesses, as do a handful of other characters whose stories, of course, will prove to be inextricably interwoven. Atkinson handles all these threads and the afore-mentioned coincidences with incredible dexterity, and leaves not a thread untied.
I'm not exactly sure what I thought if this! I admire the craft, but I am not, perhaps, entirely convinced of the psychology. I guess I felt I expected to be more compelled, and more shocked, and the ending left me unsatisfied, even though I have generally no issue with open endings. I guess in the end I preferred her first novel, How The Light Gets In.
and finally
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
Possibly my all-time favourite children's book, Alice in Wonderland and Seven Little Australians notwithstanding. I re-read this from time to time, usually around Christmas time, and it never disappoints—it's always as romantic and impossible as ever. This year's reading did reveal the limitations of memory, however. I have long believed that Francis Babbington (my answer to the "which fictional character would you marry" question) was made Lord of Misrule at the end of the novel, and have indeed cited this as the second reason for calling my website/blog "Misrule" (the first reason being it is the name given to the Woolcot family home). But I was wrong! I must have conflated it with another book, no doubt a historical novel of some description (Jean Plaidy, perchance?) I read as a ten or twelve year old. Anyone have any clues as to what it might have been?
And while I'm finishing up, please post your favourite reads in the comments facility. Cheers and here's to a wonderful 2008. (I have high hopes myself!)
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i voted!
I like him.
I like him, I love Mojizu!
this is great
so lovely