The Ocean at the End of the Lane, book review. (Neil Gaiman)

During a visit to the area where he grew up (for a family funeral), our narrator is drawn back to his old stomping ground where he re-experiences a childhood summer living up the lane from Hempstock Farm, Old Mrs Hempstock, her daughter and her granddaughter, Lettie.
The year he met Lettie, Ursula Monkton, and death for the first time, was full of the weird and wonderful, scary and sad, from the opal miner who had recently taken lodgings in his bedroom (meaning he had to share with his sister), killing himself in his parent's car, to a spirit giving out money (which seemed to be the only thing that made humans happy), to Old Mrs Hempstock and her daughter, cooking the most amazing pies, breads, soups and cakes which were so well described I could almost smell them on the page.
Lettie (who appears to be just a few years older than our narrator but has lived a thousand years many times over, has a pond in her garden that she calls an ocean [which, with the assistance of Old Mrs Hempstock, manages to transfer to a bucket later in the story], as well as curling cat tails protruding from the grass which, if you give them a firm enough tug, pull up kittens), takes our narrator with her when she goes to bind the money giving spirit and send it back to its own realm.
When our narrator gets scared and lets go of Lettie’s hand whilst she’s binding the spirit, a worm lodges itself into his foot and, although he manages to get most of it out (in a superbly written but rather gruesome episode in the bathroom), just enough remains, which forms a connection between realms which allows the spirit (Ursula Monkton) to stay, with dire consequences.
As Ursula gets bolder and more powerful, Old Mrs Hempstock has to summons the hunger birds. As the rain lashes and the winds howl, the hunger birds devour the spirit and you think everything is rebalanced but the birds need the tiny piece of worm (Ursula) that’s still inside our narrator, which has worked its way from his foot to his heart. In spite of Old Mrs Hempstock's attempts to banishes the hunger birds, she only succeeds after Lettie makes the ultimate sacrifice to save her friend and so, with deep sadness, she is laid to rest for a while in the ocean - which is back in its rightful place - with the promise that she may return one day.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a mix of fear, loss, loneliness and bitter memories of a time gone by, which Gaiman manages to weave into a tale that can be enjoyed by all. There's fantasy, magic, good and evil, all expertly mixed with a reality that bend the rules, and it’s a rollercoaster of love, wonder and amazement with a cold chill running down your neck, accompanied by the most beautifully threatening illustrations and, like the best books, takes you on a journey that is difficult to forget.
Four Stars for, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, then; the book that has hopefully, got me blogging again.

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The Diary of a Young Girl, book review. (Anne Frank)

Okay, this might get a bit controversial but here goes.

Have you ever read a book where the subject matter is so boring but for some reason, be it the overarching premise, a genre you like, a character you gel with - maybe it's a favourite author so you feel obliged to read it - or a myriad other reasons, you still continue? Well, this book is like that, just not for any of the above things I've mentioned.

Let me explain.

Reading three hundred plus pages of anyone's diary when you don't know them, have little to nothing in common with them, grew-up fifty years apart in different countries, would be boring in itself but add to that that the author of the diary was a young girl, that the diary spans over two years of confinement in just one house/apartment, and that she lived with only her parents, her sister and four others, and you might be forgiven for thinking she'd have nothing to say, and to some extent she didn't.

There are many days where Anne Frank documents the mundane: what she ate for lunch and dinner, how she argued with her mother, got frustrated with the selfishness of others, particularly over food, cooking and chores but over time she writes about her love for her father, her total indifferent to her mother and sister, her feelings for the boy they are living with, her periods and how proud she feels at becoming a young woman - she even questions her sexuality at one point - but in most part the book is repetitious in nature. Under the circumstances I wonder what anyone else would have had to say, day in day out, if nothing ever changed, and so the monotony is to be expected.

This diary however is more than that. If you read between the lines, pick up on the subtext it underlines the author's loneliness, her frustrations, her inability to vocalise her feelings - she is the youngest and therefore often chastised for being silly, selfish, ignorant and too young to be told or to know things - so she painstakingly wrote everything down and it is this that takes the diary out of the boring category and adds an element of intrigue.

She writes about her longings for the future, how they spent hours on edge each day making no sound: unable to use the loo, have windows open, even walk around whilst the workers were in the shop below. She writes about her fears when the allied planes fly over, when the anti-aircraft guns fire, when she hears both good and bad news over the radio and dares to dream of an end. How she had the energy, the will power to continue writing through those dark days and nights, is testament to what a strong willed and determined young women she was.

Knowing how this book ends before you've even picked it up, adds a deep sadness to all those hopes when you read them, for as a reader you already know that they have been dashed and that she, Anne Frank and her family - with the exception of her father - will all die before the war's end.

This book is full of emotion: fear, happiness, loneliness, love, and the emotions you as a reader bring to it, but most of all it is filled with hope but, due to the nature of the author's death and that of her family, it left me with a profound feeling of sadness when turning the final page and reading Anne Frank's last diary entry.

I shan't put a star rating on this book and never will, but I have added it to my Goodreads bookshelves as a 'Must Read', which should tell you all you need to know.

Happy Easter to all those who celebrate.

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How (Not) To Be Strong, book review. (Alex Scott)

I've never read a biography/memoir before and truth be known, in spite of the many authors, actors, musicians and historical figures I admire, no-one in the public eye has ever really grabbed my attention before now, until . . .

The 2018 football world cup and, Alex Scott.

Now, those of you who know me will know that I have little interest in football at club level but when the Euros or the World Cup comes round, I'm there, cheering on the team, following their journey. So, there I am, like the rest of the country, watching the action, getting more and more invested as we progress and more and more intrigued by the new fresh-faced pundit.

I don't know that Alex Scott is the second most capped player in English footballing history, that she's an east end girl from Poplar, that she's won virtually every footballing trophy there is to win whilst playing for Arsenal and England (which in some peoples' eyes' still didn't qualify her to comment on 'men's' football by the way!!!), but for reasons I couldn't explain, I wanted to know, and there in was the issue.

Alex Scott was an enigma. Yes, she was on Instagram and Twitter, where I learnt what I could, she was on the television dancing - Beyoncé is now on several of my playlist because of her Paso-doble - but unlike so many others in the public eye, her private life was, well, private.

Wow, I thought, how the hell has someone in her position achieve that? And it was the mystery, her infectious smile, her 'Strictly journey' as she liked to call it (she's the first person I ever voted for on any television show by the way), that fuelled my desire to know more.

So, fast forward to 2022, and as the year progressed it started to become apparent what this book was going to be about and, domestic abuse, trolling, racism, sexism and spite make for a tough read but in spite of all the abuse the author suffered through the years my overarching take from this book was love and hope, and I couldn't help but think that the (Not) in the title was profoundly wrong. For if there's one thing this author has shown throughout her life, it is strength, resilience.

For such a personal book, I won't comment on the writing style other than to say it broadly reads chronologically and sped me through in a few days - I'm not a fast reader but as I delved deeper into the book, I continued to be both fascinated and horrified in equal measure - the taxi ride in Russia and the car crash are both eye openers I can tell you - and I found the book very insightful in more ways than one.

Enjoying a book when the subject matter is so personal and to a large degree about abuse, is probably the wrong word to use but I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the discovery, both mine and the author's because, having listened to a few interview/podcasts about the book with the author, I got the profound sense that she discovered something about herself whilst writing this memoir and is finding her way out of her darkness and moving towards the light - at least I hope she is.

So, a very good read in my opinion, very much a, konnichiwa rather than a, konnichi-nah (you had us laughing out loud with that one Alex), and I look forward to seeing more or you now that the football World Cup has started.

NB: All proceeds from this book are being donated to the domestic abuse charity, Refuge. refuge.org.uk

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The Kite Runner, book review. (Khaled Hosseini)

This is a first time read for me and I am well aware of how much has been said and written about this book over the years (over eighty-two and a half thousand reviews on Goodreads alone when I last looked), so I will do my utmost not to replicate and bore you with the same, and so . . . shocking as it might sound, I liked this book but preferred both, A Thousand Splendid Suns (blog post 22/09/19) and, And the Mountains Echoed, which in a way is a good thing.
Too many times have debut novels defined an author, outshining what followed, an extreme example of this being Harper Lee and her own belief that she could, or would, never be able to better her sublime, To Kill a Mocking Bird and so, wrote nothing else until very late in life, which I think was a real shame.
So, the huge hit that was The Kite Runner, has not, in my opinion defined the author, but it is a most excellent beginning to his trilogy of books based in and around Afghanistan and the troubles it and its people have gone through over the last fifty years or so. It is a book about fierce loyalty and friendship, jealousy, envy, fear, hope, death and possible redemption, and is a book about people.
There isn't a single character in this book that steals the limelight, in my opinion, all it seems are equal, be it our main character Amir and his best friend and fellow kite runner, Hassan, Amir's father, Baba or his best friend, Rahim Khan, Amir's wife, Soraya, Hassan's father Ali, even Hassan's mother seems to have influence over the narrative beyond the few pages on which she is mentioned which I liked, and the ability of the author to create a cast that occupy the same time and space but with such opposing storylines but all on equal footing, I thought was clever, whether intended or not.
This book is also about hypocrisy; secrets and lies.
Some big, some small, but, as usual I suppose, it is the big ones that shape the story and those in it, following them to the next village, town, country or halfway around the world, and those secrets have consequences, consequences that again, shape the people they impact, giving peace to some, death, family, hope and a future unimaginable to others.
Hosseini's writing is brilliant throughout and has a way about it that elicits multiple emotions, sometimes even on a single page, and I praise him highly for that - the chapters that deal with the 'changing of the guard' shall we say, when Baba's influence and power is no more and he and Amir have to make for Pakistan, had my heart in my mouth, whereas the chapter where Hassan takes a beating and more, and Amir is too scared, to cowardly to intervene, (which comes back to haunt him, of course), made me both angry and sad and then there's the euphoria that Hassan and Amir feel when flying their kite and running it down, which I wish could be bottled.

Well, I'm glad that I've now read all this author's books, albeit out of sequence and can highly recommend them - as long as you are aware that they are gritty and don't pull any punches - and eagerly await whatever he comes up with next.
Four stars then and well worth investing your time.

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The Midnight Library, book review. (Matt Haig)

There was a lovely moment when I neared the halfway point of this book, a light bulb moment if you will, when I didn't so much know how it would end but knew how it would end!

To clarify: the finer details were still a mystery of course and would be until the very last page, but the general premise, where Nora Seed (who had just lost her cat - dead - her job - economic downturn - hadn't heard from her best friend in ages and so, believed there was little else to live for) would end up. Whether she would find her perfect life, the one she should have lead from her first beginning - be it the fame of a world renown rock band, being able to hold an audience with the perfect rendition of a Mozart concerto, holding the world and Olympic record for the four hundred meters breaststroke, or surviving the extreme climes of the coldest places on earth as a glaciologist - I had the answer.

Although I was but halfway through, knowing what was going to happen - or at least thinking I did - did nothing to lesson my enthusiasm; if anything it help, fuelled me, pushed me to see if I was right, and when I found out that I was, again, it didn't matter, I felt no less cheated, it was exactly how it should have been and made for a better book.

With myriad scenarios at the author's disposal it could so easily have been different. He could have fallen by the wayside, been temped by vainglory and excess or dwelt on the pitiful and despair but instead he went with what in this humble readers opinion was, the right road. It was a bumpy one, there's no question about that, with many a precipice for our weary protagonist to have tripped and fallen down, but she didn't, she made it, made it to her final resting place, and there was just so much right about where that was.

The way Matt Haig writes here grabs you straight from the off ,and with short sharp chapters and Nora's contrasting lives of excess, fame, quiet solitude, helplessness, addiction and the very serious subject of loneliness, there wasn't a page turned that didn't reveal some new and intriguing facet of a life not lived and it became a very emotional journey.

You want Nora to live, to love, be loved, find her happiness, wherever that might lie but you want to shake her, too; shout at her for wanting to give up, but not once did I ever stop routing for her, through good decisions and bad I was loyal to the end because as I said at the beginning of this post, I had a sneaky suspicion I knew the outcome.

Thank you Matt Haig, for this book, which is my first taste of your work, for I truly enjoyed it and will be wholeheartedly recommending it to all. I will no doubt be acquiring your back catalogue over the coming months and look forward to whatever you come up with next.

Four star for The Midnight Library. An enjoyable but thought provoking book which, especially at this time of year, brings the very important subject of loneliness to the fore and it's just won the Goodreads book of the year for fiction, too, so go check it out; it does not disappoint.

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