April 18, 2010 – BooksPlease

Newbooks magazine arrived on Friday and as usual there are extracts from six books to read before deciding which one (if any) I’ll choose as my ‘free’ copy (*paying just for the post and packing). I haven’t read any of the extracts yet.

These are my initial thoughts on the books:

The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I have The Angel’s Game out on loan from the library so I probably won’t choose this one. It’s the second novel by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and like his first The Shadow of the Wind is set in Barcelona. It’s a stand-alone story about a writer of sensationalist novels in the 1920s; a tale about the magic of books. The author writes that it is a book to make you step into the storytelling process and become part of it.

Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

This is also a second novel, narrated by a sensitive thirteen-year old boy. It’s set in the 1960s in a small mining town in Australia and is a “coming-of-age” story. Silvey writes that he wanted to capture the thrill of that age, where everything seems bigger and the stakes seem higher. It’s a time of burned innocence. Infinite dangers. Fresh experiences that are never forgotten.

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds

This was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize and I borrowed it from the library last year. I read the beginning but it didn’t grab me then and I returned it unfinished. It’s based on the real-life story of the poet John Clare and the time he spent in an asylum in the 1840s. I was disappointed I couldn’t connect with this book, maybe it was just the wrong time for me to read it.

The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan

This one appeals to me. It’s Mari Strachan’s first novel and it’s about Gwenni, a Welsh girl growing up in the 1950s who is bookish, loves playing detective and can fly in her sleep. Mari Strachan writes about her contentment with quietude in the magazine and if her writing in the novel is anything like this I want to read her book. She writes

Quietude is a place in my mind that I travel towards on my own, a place that no one else is able to enter, a place far away from the babble of the world. It’s the place Yeats found in ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ where ‘peace comes dropping slow’, and the place Wordsworth described as his ‘inward eye that is the bliss of solitude’.

August Heat by Andrea Camilleri

This book appeals to me too. I’ve read one of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano Mystery books and enjoyed it. This is his tenth one and like the others it’s set in Sicily. Montalbano investigates the murder of a young girl whose body is discovered in a trunk. There is an article in the magazine by Stephen Sartarelli on translating Camilleri’s books. He writes:

They are written in a language that is not ‘just’ Sicilian dialect, but a curious pastiche of that particular Sicilian of Camilleri’s native region (Agrigento province) combined with ‘normal’ Italian, contemporary slang, comic stage dialogue, lofty literary flourishes, and the sort of manglings of proper Italian made by provincials who have never learned it correctly.

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan

This is a novel about the Brontes, which also appeals to me. I know nothing about Jude Morgan’s books but looking on Amazon I see he writes historical fiction. In the magazine he writes that he doesn’t ‘dislike contemporary fiction, but too much of it is preoccupied with the earth-shaking problem of finding the right sexual partner in NW1.’ I like historical fiction, so maybe this would be the one to choose.

Today’s reading will be the extracts from these books which I hope will help me decide which one to pick.

Rye in Sussex is one of my favourite places. We’ve been there a few times and explored its streets and coastline.

It’s got lots of history and some literary connections too. By the end of the 12th century it was described as an ‘Antient Town, worthy of veneration’ and it became one of the Cinque Ports in the 14th century. This meant that it had to supply ships and seamen for the defence of the Realm. Parts of the town still have a medieval look, with cobbled streets and narrow passages.

Here are some of our photos (click on them for a bigger picture) from our last visit in 2006. First the Parish Church of St Mary’s which is almost 900 years old, damaged by fire in 1377 by French invaders. It has the oldest working church turret clock in the country dating from 1561-2.

We climbed the tower – the view is spectacular (but I can’t find our photos!)

One of the highlights of our visit was Lamb House, a brick-fronted Georgian house in West Street once the home of Henry James, later E F Benson, and then Rumer Godden, now owned by the National Trust.

Rye Lamb House — West Street – Lamb House at the far end

Lamb House as it is today dates from 1722 or 1723 with some minor alterations made by Henry James and the addition of bathrooms by the National Trust. James lived there from 1898 until the autumn of 1914. There is a beautiful walled garden – I’m particularly fond of walled gardens – where in the summer James used to dictate his novels in the little Georgian pavilion that was later bombed in 1940. There is not a lot to see in the house with just three rooms open to the public but some of his furniture and books are on display.

E F Benson lived there until his death in 1940 and wrote many of his Mapp and Lucia novels there. Rumer Godden also lived there from 1968 to 1973. But nothing of their time here remains, as far as I could see.

We also walked round the harbour