The Flatshare - Beth O’Leary Social Media Tour

Gotta say I don't normally do this, guys, add anything to an existing post. But today marks the publication of the paperback edition of this book and I thought it worthy to acknowledging what a journey it's has been. An anticipated debut novel that ultimately, I'm sure, surpassed initial expectations with the accolades and attention the book received. A best seller in every sense. But I'm really worried about the paperback. Why? Because surely EVERYONE has read this book already?! And if they haven't I suspect they'll be too embarrassed to admit it!! Anyway below follows my original post for the blog tour last year. 

So happy to be part of the Quercus Books social media tour for this already lauded debut novel.  And I'm going to begin with some blatant bragging.

I've got a signed proof of The Flatshare !! Who wants to touch me?! 😃

If we bring it all back to earth though I have to admit that I was so starstruck at meeting Beth that I barely spoke! Authors are like pop stars to me. Meeting them doesn't always bring out the best !! Thank you, Beth and sorry I didn't say more!! I was simply in awe!

This is a much heralded debut novel, with several accolades under its belt already,  celebrating the ‘new’ ‘uplit’ genre. Is it new? For it seems to me that ‘uplit’ has much in common with romance/chick lit but it’s more gender resistant. Does it matter? No, not really, I guess. A feature of the genre is that you know there will be a happy ending. You know that you're probably going to feel good after reading it. There’s a sense of inevitability and predictability about stories of this type so it’s often not what is going to happen but how it happens. 

Flatshare is a quirky tale with a unique and interesting premise. Two people sharing a flat, but not just the flat, the bed too! Plus they’ve never met! How does that work? Read the book!!! 

For me, anyway, books of this ilk have to be extremely well written to sustain my interest and my enjoyment or I end up becoming quite dismissive and derisive. Well, was it, I hear you ask? Was it extremely well written? Was my interest sustained? Oh, you bet!! Hard to believe it’s a debut for the narrative fairly bounces along pulling you along with it as if you are hanging on to the tail of a kite. It’s a dual narrative seen from the differing perspectives of our heroine, Tiffy, and our hero, Leon. Two very different people and their characters are well sustained throughout the two narratives. You never stop believing in either of them. In fact the characters are all believable. Most of them are ‘niceies’ with a couple of ‘nasties’ who will have you hissing and booing in the aisles. Rightly so. 

The plot goes that little bit beyond straightforward and ensures the reader keeps wondering. That’s another aspect of the romantic/chick lit fiction that has me yelling ‘Get on with it.” oft times because the plot is too simple and too obvious. But it isn't here at all. Although you’re fairly sure that everything is going to turn out okay in the end the plot is strong enough to sow a seed or two of doubt to keep hardened cynics like myself absorbed and desperately wondering and willing it all to be okay. 

There’s some snappy dialogue and some witty one-liners. The dynamic between Tiffy and Leon is explored through post it notes initially which is so well done. Ooops! Is that a spoiler?

‘The flat is starting to look like a scene from A Beautiful Mind.’

‘…  I like the blue and white dress on the back of the door. Looks like the sort of one the Famous Five might wear for going on adventures.'

....are just a couple....... you'll find your own favourites, I'm sure and chuckle away.

Whilst this is not intended as a work of social comment there is a subtlety in the sub text that wafts a few points and issues at you regarding justice, morality, manipulation, abusive relationships. The writer has a useful knowledge of the publishing industry which is put to good use here looking at office politics and dynamics. 

It can sometimes be a drab world out there. There are some challenging people in it who seem intent on defying human decency sometimes. Whilst this is a work of fiction it IS uplifting to read of decent people doing decent things with little or no agendas. People behaving with compassion. What Leon does for one of his patients is above and beyond and is so heartwarming and screams positivity. It’s a contemporary story that I think will resonate with many but it doesn’t place contemporary above classic storytelling. It's about love and friendship and making the world a better place. It's about good and right prevailing.  I wonder if reading books like these can make us better people? Stop people in their tracks and make them think, 'Hey, I can do something decent today.....'. 

There isn’t anything about this novel to not like. We read for many reasons. Often it is to be entertained, uplifted and ....‘uplit’! I can see this book being devoured by eager readers, the accolades will keep rolling in and I reckon it'll be the book to read this summer.

My thanks to Quercus Books for my proof copy and to Beth O’Leary for signing it!!

The bigger the book, the bigger the Social Media Tour! Check out everyone else contributing today to celebrate the publicity of The Flatshare.

OTD: 14th April 1912 Titanic Sank.

 I became fascinated by Titanic and everything surrounding the ship and the ultimate tragedy way back in the 80s when Dr Robert Ballard discovered the wreck on the ocean bed. I watched a National Geographic video  of his mission and was absolutely fascinated by what I saw initially. (Years, years later I visited Woods Hole in Massachusetts where Ballard's expedition set off and is home to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.)

 That led me to seeking out more information and for quite a while I was almost obsessed and I read and watched everything I could relating to the ship.  Since this is supposed to be a book blog I am including a photo of some of the many books I have about the Titanic. 

 For a while I was like a walking  encyclopaedia. I could offer dates, names of survivors, what happened, when, where........  I soaked up anything I could find about the ship, the White Star line, the Belfast shipyards, the part that Liverpool played in the fitting out of the ship,  the ports that were visited, passenger lists. I left no stones unturned.

But the icing on the cake came in 1988 when through a series of synchronistic circumstances I met a Titanic survivor! Sadly she is no longer with us. Her name was Eva Hart.  She was about eight years old when the ship sunk and whilst she admitted that her childhood memories might not have been 100% reliable the impact of that tragedy was forever etched on her memory. And what she told me will never leave me.  Some of it was her memories; for years no one believed that the ship had broken in two when it sunk. Eva said she SAW it break in two from the lifeboat she was in. She was a kid, no one believed her, told her it wasn't possible! She said that none of the books told how the children were hauled up onto the decks of the rescue ship, the Carpathia. They were too small to climb the ladders like the adults so they were put into canvas bags and pulled up the side of the ship.  She said it was terrifying, almost more frightening than the tragedy itself. She told me that for years and years after the tragedy she could not bear looking at the sea. If she were anywhere near it she turned her head aside. She would turn her seat with its back to the water. 

 She believed very strongly that the whole tragedy should never be forgotten. She devoted much of her life talking to people about it. She felt lucky to have survived because her mother had a premonition that something was going to happen to the ship. So her mother slept during the day and sat up at night in the cabin, fully dressed. That's how she was able to get herself and Eva to the lifeboat. Eva's father perished in the tragedy.  So for her that wreck on the ocean bed is her father's grave. She was firmly opposed to anybody interfering with it or bringing any of the artefacts back to the surface. 'Let the 'Titanic' rest in peace as a memorial to the arrogance of man and his presumption of God.'

 She signed one of my books for me.

There is a book - Shadow of the Titanic by Ronald C Denney who was a friend of Eva's and wrote down her story. It's well worth a read for she attempts to put everything in context. 

Thank you for reading. 

Readers and Writers, Chickens and Eggs

courtesy Flickr

I should really be writing book reviews. But I’m thinking about other stuff.  So it’s another blog post! Something that I think a lot about is the relationship between the writer and the reader, and vice versa of course. Why do readers read? What makes a reader? And why do writers write? What makes a writer? And what is the relationship between the two? 

I think the motivation readers have can vary greatly. I can only speak for myself. I’ve read since I learnt to read. And I’ve loved books for longer than that!  I read for enjoyment. I read to escape. I read to vicariously experience aspects of life hitherto denied to me, I read to compare aspects of life that I have experienced and I am keen to understand other's views, I read to be propelled into thought patterns that might elude me otherwise. I read to be uplifted. I read to have all my emotions stirred; to laugh, to cry, to love, to loathe,  and I read in search of that incredible high that it is possible to get from a truly exceptional book that makes my heart and my head almost explode. I think some readers read with their heads and some readers read with their hearts and some, I include myself here, read with their heads and their hearts. But every reader is different in their own way because all responses are subjective. 

courtesy Flickr

But nothing is possible without the writers. Reading and writing are inextricably linked. It almost doesn’t need to be said. But what makes a writer? I write. I always have done. Ever since I was a little girl. I used to spend my pocket money on notebooks and fill them with stories. I wrote diaries. I wrote teen angst poetry. I’ve started more novels that I care to remember. i write 'things'. But it’s never been a conscious choice. It’s something I simply have to do, like eating and breathing. I’ll be walking along the road when a phrase or sentence or idea will pop into my head from nowhere  and I need to, I have to, I am compelled to, write it down. I’m always jotting things down, ideas and pieces. Writing is a reflex, almost. But apart from a magazine article or two I’m not a published writer. So am I a writer? If my writing isn’t being read that vital relationship is missing. Lately I am a blogger and people read what I blog for which I am humbly grateful. Does that make me a writer then?

courtesy Flickr

As with readers it must be different for every writer. Do some writers ‘simply’ see writing as their job. They write to earn money. Can it ever be that straightforward? Do writers write with the reader in mind, and do they write with a specific target audience shaping their work as they think the reader wants it rather than how they want it? Does the reader shape or influence how and what they write? Or is it a case of ‘this is what I’m writing, this is what I have to say and I hope there are readers who will enjoy it?’. Are there writers who actually do not consider the reader at all? The readers are incidental to the process as a whole? 

courtesy Flickr

I’m throwing these questions out there because they are things I’ve been thinking and wondering about. They maybe naive and impertinent but if anyone wants to offer any answers or opinions it would be immensely interesting. 

Getting published isn’t be easy. Earning a living from writing is perilous. How many writers out there remain unpublished? What jewels of fiction are out there waiting? The other question is about the ‘right’ reader finding the ‘right’ book. I read a lot but there are only a handful books that really do what I referred to earlier and make my head and heart explode.  What is it about that handful that consume me? Is it the style? The story? The characters? The philosophies? Or an undefinable, subconscious connection between writer and reader? It starts to be about personality. 

And so I’m also interested in the writer as a person and the writer as a writer. And where they converge or diverge. It seems obvious on the face of it that they are one and the same, but I don't think it's as black-and-white as that.  And I'm curious as to whether the writers who affect me the most are because the writer and the person converge. 

As a reader primarily I read a lot of books, with enjoyment. There are some writers, I'll read all of their books but I have no further interest in them as people, just their writing. That's possibly a divergence. But of course it's by no means finite because it's my subjectivity. There are some writers, though, who motivate me to find out more. I want to know about them, about their lives, about the person they are. And it's their writing that's elicited that response. That's maybe where the convergence takes place. The writer and the work are indivisible.

But by this stage my emotions are so fully engaged that the opportunity to take it further and visit places, graves, see artefacts, belongings etc. becomes almost urgent. I've not been able to cement any thoughts as to why it is. 

And then it starts me thinking about synchronicity, even past lives, past connections.

Interestingly I have just 'discovered' Sylvia Plath. I had read the Bell Jar and the 'famous' poems but for years I could never get beyond the tragedy of Sylvia Plath the person and access Sylvia Plath the writer. But now - I understand true convergence, I think. 

Courtesy Flickr

Then I begin think about the convergence of writer and reader. I do not believe a single writer is not and has not been a reader first and foremost. Isn’t that where it starts? It’s still chicken and egg though! Something had to be written before it could be read and something had to be read to inspire the writer!

Perhaps there are no answers. Maybe there should be no questions. Every reader and  every writer is unique. And sometimes, just sometimes two 'uniquenesses' make a whole. 

Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment.

E-Books versus Real Books*

Photos courtesy Flickr

Not a new debate by any stretch of the imagination but one that has been waging a war in my head and my heart for, digitally, ages. I’m going over old ground here to a certain extent but it helps to clarify things in my head.

Let’s examine the benefits of e-books and e-readers. Space; If all my physical books were stored on an e-reader I could take in lodgers with the space that action would free up!! Travel: no more need to fill up a suitcase with enough books to keep you going for a fortnight away. Carry them all in one place. Convenience; just whip it out of your bag wherever you are and carry on reading where you left off. Immediacy; fancy a book? Get it right away and start reading, no trips to the bookshop or library, no waiting in for the postman. Physically challenged; e-readers weigh very little, no strain on wrists, arms and shoulders. Environmentally friendly; no paper harmed in the downloading of the book. 

So why do I loathe them so much? I love physical books. I love the smell, particularly of a brand new paperback. I like the feel in my hands, the weight feels substantial, worthwhile, satisfying.  I love my books arranged around my study. I feel safe and comfortable being surrounded by books. I feel rich, privileged, when I scan all the titles. I feel less alone, surrounded by ‘friends’. I love carrying a book around with me, from room to room, place to place so if there’s an opportunity to read I can. I often refer back in a book to check something, particularly if I’m reviewing, I like to find and re read an especially evocative passage, investigate maps and family trees. I like to mark the place with a book mark. When review copies arrive I still get a thrill. I never take it for granted. I feel warm and I feel affluent. I never get that frisson when I receive an ebook. 

So do I love reading? Or do I love books?  Emotionally, I want to say that it’s reading I love. But if I really, truly love reading should it matter how I read? It has become a cliche for people to say they are so passionate about reading they will read a cereal packet rather than not read. And I have done that myself. So why not an e-reader? It bothers me. Maybe I’m not a reader at all. Maybe I am only a collector of books. But I’m not happy with that. It doesn’t feel right to say it. And I don’t believe it!!

This sounds perverse but I DO read differently when I read an ebook compared to a real book. I had a book to review and I was sent the ebook. I was reading it and not especially enjoying it, it was okay but I wasn’t blown away. Then I got a print copy and the whole novel was elevated and I ended up loving the book. Rationally that does not make sense, I know. It has to be in my head? I get a sinking feeling in my stomach if I’ve agreed to review a book and I’m told there are no physical copies just electronic ones. 

The only consolation I can think of is that, conversely, there are people within my circle who will only read on an e-reader. And those same people will describe themselves as readers, loving reading. I can throw my conundrum back at them, if they were really readers and really loved reading they would read real books too.

There is no answer, I guess. And maybe there doesn’t need to be. Suffice to say that if Fahrenheit 451 became a reality I would turn to an e-reader if that was the only way I could read. That’s the bottom line. If there were no physical books I would embrace the e reader. For without reading there is nothing. And maybe that is an answer in itself?

*edited article which originally appeared on Nudge/NB's old website

Smallbone Deceased - Michael Gilbert

This novel couldn’t be more different to the last Michael Gilbert book I read - Death Has Deep Roots. And that delighted me because there’s nothing I enjoy more than some good old-fashioned diversity! There’s something so English and so dryly witty about this book that you wonder whether the writer is actually poking fun at the people he is writing about or perhaps the world of legal firms in general. 

Without giving too much away a deed box in a legal firm of some repute is found to contain a corpse!! Highly original and highly unexpected! What follows is naturally the unravelling of the crime and the pursuit of the perpetrator, with some red herrings thrust in front of us to confound and confuse. In fact it is forty odd pages in before Smallbone is even referred to! As a reader you start muttering to yourself and wondering if there's a mistake in the title or the printing then you are hit with it!

The endearing Inspector Hazelrigg hones his analytical intuition to perfection as he narrows down the potential suspects, ably abetted by Inspector Plumptree, how perfect a name is that? And Sergeant Cockerill who gets all the good jobs! The investigations are also helped by one of the law firm’s newer recruits Henry Bohun. There were moments when I thought he was a bit of a shady character but I think I suspected everyone during the course of the novel.

I found some of the accounting figures bewildering but I think I got enough of the gist to understand what had transpired but I would say it is quite complex. Ingenious! But complicated. Plus I never guessed ‘whodunit’ ! Not even when the clues were right there under my nose. In the minutest of details even. It was cleverly done. And I love it when that happens!! 

The characters are acutely observed, for example,  Mr.Birley - ‘Pedlar of words and a reduplicator of phrases.’ So apt. Even the names convey much of the character, Smallbone? He just couldn’t be called anything else! There are some pithy observations that remain pertinent even today, “With a Government like this one,” said Sergeant Cockerill,’you could expect a frost in August.”

If you’re a lover of modern crime I think it invaluable to read a Golden Age crime story such as this for it enables a reader to see how the genre has developed over the decades. 

Oh, don’t forget to read Martin Edwards’ introduction. It's a wonderful prologue to the main story. 

Heartfelt thanks to the British Library for  continuing to satiate my appetite for these wonderful examples of Golden Age crime writing. 

RETRO REVIEWING: Mend the Living - Maylis De Kerangal

I thought I had located all my past reviews and posted them firmly on my blog for posterity ( or until the internet implodes) but I came across this brief review that has somehow slipped through the net. I think I put it in the wrong folder where it has been sitting quietly, until now. I never seemed to write as expansively then. If I we reviewing this book today I know I would have written a whole lot more. The copy I received was not a physical book, it was that abomination - an ebook. So I think my thoughts of giving up on it were more to do with the format than the book. The paperback was published on 23rd June 2016 and  won the Wellcome Prize in 2017. Rightly so. 

If you told me that a novel about a heart transplant would be a compelling and beautiful experience I might have laughed at you. But this unique book, Mend The Living a.k.a. The Heart, is both of those and more besides.

Initially as I read the opening pages I was dubious. it didn’t seem as if it was my thing. I confess I had thoughts of giving up on it, not something I do frequently nor lightly. But I persevered, and thank goodness I did.

This book details the twenty four hours in the lives of all the people who play a part in a heart transplant operation. The detail is meticulous and the resulting prose within which that detail is enveloped is quite extraordinary and poetic, a credit to the writer and the translator. There are many paradoxes here between the subjective and the objective, the empathic and the clinical , a treatise on Yin and Yang. It is beautifully balanced.

There are no chapters as such in the book, it is almost one long prose poem to compassion and humanity. An acknowledgement  of grief and loss and the greater good. So forgive me if I am unable to comment on the plot and the characters etc, this book is beyond that, beyond comment. 

I feel in some ways changed by this novel and I commend it to you from the bottom of MY heart.

What is 'literature'?

I occasionally deviate from the main thrust of this blog which is to review the books I read. If I’m honest my departures from that norm haven’t met with a great deal of interest! Maybe I should learn from that. But it is my blog, and as I’ve said before I’ll do what I like!! So today I’m musing on some book related issues that have been occupying my thoughts recently.

The older you get the longer your Have Read list grows. By the time you get to my age you’ve probably read a large number of classics, best sellers and works that might be called literature amidst the majority of lesser works. (But by no means less enjoyable I do hasten to add). I should clarify that I am confining my thoughts to fiction only. 

Best sellers are best sellers because they’ve sold in significant numbers. Classics are classics because they’ve endured throughout time and people continue to read them. Best sellers are not necessarily classics nor are best sellers necessarily literature. Are classics always literature? And what makes literature? What makes books last? 

I confess that often when I read I’m ‘looking for literature’. I don’t always find it. I don’t mean that to sound deprecatory. Maybe I desire too much from a book? What makes a book literary? It is something I think about quite a lot. This is what does it for me. The literary book attempts more than mere storytelling. There is an intention behind the story going beyond just trying to entertain the reader. The characters have an inner depth that can sometimes allow them to step outside of the book and be considered by the reader almost as a real person. The prose is rich and intense, using language intelligently and expansively, poetic sometimes. The book is full of quotes! You find yourself going back and re-reading them because they offer some kind of maxim or aphorism that resonates beyond the cover of the book. The writer's intent is to inform the reader, convey something to the reader, make some kind of comment that would have little impact if just stated alone but when expanded within a fiction can demand of the reader that they think and consider outside of the fiction framework. You get a sense that this is a book that will last, that will endure, might be studied academically, will hopefully go on to become a classic in decades to come. It was suggested to me,  by an author who has written a work of literature, that to the list be added individual voice or vision, linked, though not a function of it, to style, which is appropriate for it also allows identification of the writing outside of the book and in some cases a writer ‘earns’ an adjective all of their own - ‘Kafkaesque’.

So if I’m getting all of the above from a book I’ll be likely to call it literature. However I think there can be a tendency for some writers to defy conventions of language or structure/ form believing it might, mistakenly in my opinion, elevate it to something literary.  However I don't think a writer can necessarily set out to write a work of literature. I think works of real literature are very rare in the fiction world today. (Is that because the more books you read the less likely you are to be ‘wowed’?) But there's no way of predicting, with the books we are reading right now, which will still impactful in say 50,100 years time. It's exciting!

If classics are books that last are they also literature? For the most part I think they are. But I’m basing that on current classics. I’m thinking of the Brontes, Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Eliot. I’m thinking of Woolf, Lawrence, Forster, Huxley, Orwell. (The lists are not definitive and cite only British writers.) To consider as well; is it the writer’s entire oeuvre we should consider as literature or specific titles?  Will those books that I consider as classics, as literature, now continue to be read in 50,100 years time? 

The future may yield a different dynamic. Society evolves in a sometimes unpredictable way. That can impact upon the longevity of anything, not just books. I wish I could be around to see! In the mean time I don’t doubt I shall continue to ‘look for literature’.

Thank you for reading. Pop a comment or two in the box if you feel disposed?