Page Turners

Review: The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

2012-01-31T14:18:00.000+11:00

The first book in Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri detective series, The Case of the Missing Servant, sounded fun and promising. With a quote like this on the back "If Mma Ramotswe is an African Marple, Puri is an Indian Poirot…" I didn't think I could go wrong.

Here's a taste of what you can expect from this book: "Meet Vish Puri, India's most private investigator. Portly, persistent and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swathe through modern India s swindlers, cheats and murderers. In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centres and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri s main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri s resources to investigate. How will he trace the fate of the girl, known only as Mary, in a population of more than one billion? Who is taking pot shots at him and his prize chilli plants? And why is his widowed Mummy-ji attempting to play sleuth when everyone knows Mummies are not detectives? With his team of undercover operatives Tubelight, Flush and Facecream Puri ingeniously combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago -- long before that Johnny-come-lately Sherlock Holmes donned his Deerstalker. The search for Mary takes him to the desert oasis of Jaipur and the remote mines of Jharkhand. From his well-heeled Gymkhana Club to the slums where the servant classes live, Puri's adventures reveal modern India in all its seething complexity."

I really enjoyed this book. It was everything it promised to be.

The mystery was exactly that – quite a mystery. There were many twists and subplots that kept me entertained and it was interesting to watch it all unfold and see the roles that the individuals in the story each played in the resolution.

Hall was also able to work into his story the many different ways of life within India, from the slums to the middle and upper classes. I imagine that what I read was an accurate portrayal of the lives of many people in India (I say imagine because I have never been there).

If I sound like I am holding back a bit it is because of this: there was nothing original about this book. I know I know. What kind of originality could I possibly expect of a book of this nature? It's been done before; Puri is just a new character in a very well defined literary tradition.

I suppose I didn't expect it to be quite as unoriginal as I felt it was. In my mind I couldn't help but compare it with Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder. This is a very similar book I read in 2011 that I still felt added something new in a way that The Case of the Missing Servant failed to do. Puri was a bit too close to Poirot for comfort, everything from the round body to the perfect moustache and the affected manners. This may have been done deliberately but it turned me off a little bit I have to admit.

Having said that, please don't let this turn you off the book. It was a very compelling read, with larger than life characters, mystery and heartbreak. For people who enjoy this genre, this is certainly a series you won't regret reading.

5.5 / 8

Enjoyable. I would recommend it.

Do you think I am being a bit harsh expecting something a bit more original from a book like this?

Happy Australia Day! You know you're Australian if......

2012-01-27T17:07:00.001+11:00

I know it's a day late but happy belated Australia Day. I found this on someone else's blog and couldn't help but laugh. It certainly coinjures up images that wouldn't apply to all Australian's by a long shot, but it's still worth sharing with you all.

You know you're Australian if....

* You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn.

* You're liable to burst out laughing whenever you hear of Americans "rooting" for something.

* You pronounce Melbourne as 'Mel-bin'. You believe the 'L' in the word 'Australia' is optional.

* You can translate: 'Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas.'

* You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep.

* You think 'Woolloomooloo' is a perfectly reasonable name for a place.

* You're secretly proud of our killer wildlife.

* You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that's twice as big as its $2 coin.

* You understand that 'Wagga Wagga' can be abbreviated to 'Wagga' but 'Woy Woy' can't be called 'Woy'.

* You believe that cooked-down axle grease makes a good breakfast spread. You've also squeezed it through Vita Wheats to make little Vegemite worms.

* You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis.

* Beetroot with your Hamburger... Of course.

* You believe that the confectionery known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year.

* You believe that the more you shorten someone's name the more you like them.

* You understand that 'excuse me' can sound rude, While 'scuse me' is always polite.

* You know what it's like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose.

* You know it's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle and a seat belt buckle becomes a pretty good branding iron.

* Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules for beach cricket.

* You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call 'Anzac cookies'.

* You still think of Kylie as 'that girl off Neighbours'.

* When working on a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer.

* You know how to abbreviate every word, all of which usually end in -o: arvo, combo, garbo, kero, metho, milko, muso, rego, servo, smoko, speedo, righto, goodo etc.

* You know that there is a universal place called "woop woop" located in the middle of nowhere...no matter where you actually are. *

* You know that none of us actually drink Fosters beer, because it tastes like shit. But we let the world think we do. Because we can.

* You have some time in your life slept with Aeroguard on in the summer. Maybe even as perfume.

* You've only ever used the words - tops, ripper, sick, mad, rad, sweet - to mean good. And then you place 'bloody' in front of it when you REALLY mean it.

* You know that the barbecue is a political arena; the person holding the tongs is always the boss and usually a man. And the women make the Salad. (sad, but true in my experience)

* You say 'no worries' quite often, whether you realise it or not.

* You understand what no wucking furries means.

* You've drank your tea/coffee/milo through a Tim Tam.

* You own a Bond's chesty. In several different colours.

* You know that roo meat tastes pretty good, But not as good as barra. Or a meat pie.

* You know that some people pronounce Australia like "Straya" and that's ok.

All questions welcome if you need something explained!!

Review: The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

2012-01-27T11:12:00.000+11:00

John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos is another of his eery science fiction classics with universally significant themes.

The rural village of Midwich in country England was little known until "Dayout". The entire town becomes enclosed in an invisible dome. Everyone inside the dome falls asleep, and no one outside it can enter or determine what is happening. Just as inexplicably, the dome is soon lifted and the inhabitants come to.

Everything seems to go back to normal fairly quickly, but one by one each of the women of child bearing age and ability find themselves pregnant. Each bears a child, but these children are not what they seem. It soon becomes clear to the villagers that the Children have an ability to make people do their bidding, as well as a very special connection between each other. Eventually the town must make a choice, do they save themselves or do they save the world?

There was much to love about this book, although I found it somewhat of an anticlimax compared to his other books.

I think the reason for this is that the action that is so integral to his other novels takes a back seat to Wyndham's own philosophising on matters such as evolution, race, religion and justice.

The story of The Midwich Cuckoos provides the perfect mechanism for exploring these fascinating issues. Are the Children really men or some other species? If they are some other species, is it murder to kill them? Is it murder if they kill people in the village? How do the laws of one species govern the behaviour of another? Is justice about getting even or is there something more to it? If God created all species, did he intend that mankind's supremacy on earth come to an end when he created the Children, is it simply a part of evolution?

Then there is the more over arching question of collectivism vs individualism - should mankind as a whole be prioritised over the lives of some individuals that comprise mankind? How can such decisions be made and by who?

I am not quite sure where to place this in my thinking of the book, but it did occur to me that what Zellaby does at the end of the book reflects to a certain extent what Jesus Christ is said to have done for mankind. Going hand in hand with the question of individualism v collectivism is this idea of self sacrifice and what role it plays/should play in our lives. How far would be go for others and in what circumstances? This is something that is worth further thought, especially in conjunction with Wyndham's (through his characters) reflections on religion throughout the book. It's something I will reflect more on during a second reading of the book.

There were so many fascinating questions explored, but I felt at times as though Wyndham was pushing his own agenda and views on me through the character of Zellaby, who does most of the philosophising in the book. It was somewhat frustrating, especially when it was mixed with what I consider old-fashioned ideas about religion and more particularly female gender roles.

Don't get me wrong, I loved this book. It was tense when it needed to be; there was danger and mystery. The premise of the story was unique and thought provoking. It only needed a little more action and a little more talk to make it one of my favourites.

6.5 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I recommend that you buy it.

How did you find this one compared to his other books? Does it bother you when you feel like the author is more concerned with getting a message across than getting on with the story? I would also love to know what people thought of the movie adaptations if you have seen them.

Some personal reflections on the year ahead

2012-01-20T11:09:00.000+11:00

I thought long and hard about whether I should even have gaols for 2012.

I vacillate between wanting to achieve something with my reading (and blogging to a lesser extent) and just reading what I am in the mood for at any given moment without any thought for anything but my own interest and enjoyment.

Both options have good and bad things about them.

If I aim to achieve something with my reading then no doubt I will find many more new authors, challenge myself, read a wider variety of books from a wider variety of countries etc. I suppose I would have to define what it is exactly I hope to achieve and how I want to set about doing it. My fear though is that in doing so I might read books I am not really all that interested in reading at points in time when I am not really interested in reading them. This would remove the pleasure from the activity (or some of it anyway) and I don't want to lose my pleasure in reading for the sake of achieving some currently undefined 'something'.

Then there is the option of reading for the moment – reading what I am in the mood for and when I am in the mood for it. This option appeals to me the most I have to admit. Reading is a pleasant thing to do to pass the time and activate my imagination, not something serious I do as a vocation or anything at all like that. So why not treat it as such? On the other hand, this does need to be balanced with making sure that I do challenge myself on occasion and try new genres and authors. Otherwise I risk becoming bored.

What I feel like I really need to do is start asking myself some bigger questions about my reading:

What do I expect of myself as a reader?
Do I challenge myself enough and if not, how important is it to me to challenge myself more?
I listen to podcasts, read other blogs, read the papers and a literary magazine. There are always mentions of authors I would like to try and literary movements I have never heard of waiting to explore. Do I want to broaden my knowledge of literature, and if so, how and where do I start?

I think that these are questions that really need to be answered for me to really figure out whether I want to start pushing myself a bit more or keep cruising as I am now.

Having all that in mind, what I think I have decided is that this year my main goal should be to be realistic.

My goal originally was going to be a very simple one – keep my reading the same but stay up to date with my reviews. This year I was very guilty of writing reviews weeks (even months) after I had read the book. This of course meant that my original impressions and thoughts had disappeared as my experience with the book faded from my mind.

It seems like the perfect goal to at least stay on top of reviews and write them as soon as possible after I have read the book. The purpose of the reviews ultimately is for me to reflect on the books – meanings, themes, styles, intentions, language etc. By reflecting I hope to learn. I can’t do this if I am writing reviews months down the track.

Upon further reflection my goal is simply this – be realistic.

I am due to have a baby in 5.5 weeks (can you believe it!). I have absolutely no idea how this will change my life. I know that it will, but I don't think it's possible to fully appreciate what these changes will be and how significant an effect they will have on my life until they are actually here.

I have no doubt in my mind that in reality, this baby will give me a bit of perspective and questions like the ones I have posed above will seem very silly and unimportant in the scheme of things.

When I say my goal is to be realistic – at this point in time it means to not expect anything of myself. I will read when I can, what I want. I will blog when I can, what I want. I will leave the bigger questions to later.

So, all in all for my readers that probably means that you shouldn't expect anything different this year from Page Turners. I will be keeping things as is and the volume of posts will no doubt decrease. I am happy with that and I hope that you all will all be too.

Review: Embassytown by China Mieville

2012-01-17T12:53:00.001+11:00

China Mieville’s Embassytown had a lot of potential. Modern day science fiction from a universally admired author with a reputation for producing quality writing and exciting plots. I only wish it could have lived up to my expectations.

Embassytown’s plot certainly seemed to have potential. It is written from the perspective of Avice Benner, a woman who grew up on the planet of Arieka in a town called Embassytown. He describers herself thus:

“When I was seven years old I left Embassytown. Kissed my shiftparents and siblings goodbye. I returned when I was eleven: married; not rich but with savings and a bit of property; knowing how to fight, how to obey orders, how and when to disobey them; and how to immerse.”

On Arieka, the human colonisers live side by side with the original inhabitants or Hosts, who have a completely different Language system and who are incapable of telling lies. Avice leaves the planet to travel the Immer and is only convinced to her return to her home planet when she marries a linguist named Scile who is fascinated by the Hosts.

This is about as far as I got into the book.

I could recognise that there were some interesting ideas in this book, particularly about the use of language. It seems an interesting and rather unique subject matter for a hard science fiction novel.

The issue I had with the book, and ultimately the reason I abandoned it, was because I found it far too conceptually challenging to be enjoyable. I don’t know if I used the correct phrase there, but this is what I mean. There were too many invented words and Mieville provided no explanation for what they referred to. In fact, Mieville invented many fictional concepts, characters, names, words, experiences, existences etc names, but he didn’t devote enough time to explaining what they were or what they meant.

I don’t mind having to figure things out for myself, but I at least need some descriptive clues to do it, and I felt that these were completely lacking. What it meant was that I spent the entire time I was reading Embassytown trying to figure out what I was reading instead of just enjoying the story.

In the end, I felt as though he left me with no choice but to move on to the next book.

1 / 8

Abandoned

Has anyone else has a disappointing experience with China Mieville? I really want to read something of his that I enjoy, but now I am nervous about exploring his works further for fear of being disappointed again. Any suggestions?

I think it only fair to add that since I attempted to read this book and since I wrote the review of it, I have read a couple of reviews that have made me re-think my initial reaction to Embassytown. This is a book that requires a lot from the reader and I think that perhaps I might not have lived up to my end of the bargain. At the time I read it I was pregnant (still am come to think of it) and this has had a serious effect on my brain capacity (no joke sadly). I was also on holidays, and if there is one thing I want from a holiday read it is that it is easy and fun (ok, two things).

I am not going to give up on this one entirely. I think I will approach it again when I am in a better frame of mind and am willing to put in the effort that Mieville has asked of me. I hope that this effort will eventually be rewarded. Since this is unlikely to happen any time soon (need to get the baby out first) I might see I have better luck with another of his books.

Review: Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

2012-01-09T19:00:00.000+11:00

Although Dumb Witness is not one of Agatha Christie's best novels, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Dumb Witness centres around the death of Miss Emily Arundell. On her death, her estate is made over to her companion Miss Lawson, a move that is greatly resented by Miss Arundell's money hungry family. Miss Arudell's death is taken by everyone to be one of natural causes. Hercule Poirot, however, receives a letter some weeks after her death from Miss Arundell herself, outlining her fears that one of her family members is trying to kill her.

Fascinated by the circumstances and convinced that a murder has taken place (despite all initial evidence to the contrary), Poirot cannot help but attempt to bring the murderer to justice.

I did enjoy Dumb Wintess because it delivered everything I have to expect from an Agatha Christie novel. Interesting characters. Tight knit plot. A certain Poirot and a doubting Hastings. A murderer I could never have guessed at. In short, a page turner.

Having said that, Dumb Witness was not up to Christie's usual standards. My complaint is twofold. Firstly, some of the story elements were too farfetched and too convenient, even for a Christie novel (I am thinking of that nail, string and varnish being set up in the middle of the night for example). Secondly, the story was just a little lacklustre compared to her normal fare. There was no real drama or compelling force pulling me into the novel. Instead it just plodded along from one event to the next without any great feeling of… 'oomph' so to speak.

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it.

Have you read Dumb Witness, and did you find it lacklustre compared to some of her other books? What other Christie books have you found a little disappointing?

Review: The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

2012-01-05T13:57:00.000+11:00

ALIEN'S BORING, REPORT SHOWS

An official report confirms what most of us had already suspected; that the alien visitors who arrived unexpectedly on the planet four years ago are not particularly bright, nor interesting. The thirteen page government document describes our interstellar chums as being 'dull'and únable to plan long term'. The report, which has been compiled from citizenship application forms and interview transcripts, paints a picture of a race who are 'prone to put high importance on inconsequential minutiae'and are éasily distracted from important issues'. On an entirely separate note, the aliens were reported to be merging into human society far better than has been expected - the reason for this is unclear.

~extract from The Owl, 4 June 2001.

Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy is the first in his Jack Spratt detective series; a pastiche of nursery rhymes, fairytales and the 'real world' that is hilarious from beginning to end.

Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is head of the Nursery Crime Division, based at Reading Central Police Station. His job is to investigate all crimes involving nursery rhyme characters, with his new partner.... Mary Mary. Their Easter takes a complicated turn when Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III is found dead beneath his wall and they find themselves with one complicated murder to solve.

Not only does DI Jack Spratt have to solve the murder, he also has to gain a place in the Guild of Detectives, keep his division from closing and hold his arch enemy DI Friedland Chymes at bay as he tried to muscle in on Spratt's investigation.

Everything is funny about this book; the nursery rhyme characters who don't know that they are nursery rhyme characters, the nursery rhyme and fairy tale jokes and the appearances of the Ginerbread Man, Mrs Hubbard, Rapunzel and Willy Winkie, just to name a few. Mary Mary, well what can I say? She's quite contrary. And Jack Spratt seems to be blend of Jack Spratt and Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. And that's right, you can expect an appearance from that magic beanstalk.

Fforde is at his best in The Big Over Easy with his plays on words and the fun he has with language in general. Take this extract for example from page 82. It's a discussion between Mary Mary and Tibbit (another member of the Nursery Crime Division):

“…Father liked word games. He was fourteen times world Scrabble champion. When he died, we buried him at Queenzieburn to make use of the triple word score. He spent the greater part of his life campaigning to have respelt those words that look as though they are spelt wrongly but arent.”

“Such as….?”

“Oh, skiing, vacuum, freest, eczema, gnu, diarrhea, that sort of thing. He also thought that ‘abbreviation’ was too long for its meaning, that ‘monosyllable’ should have one syllable, ‘dyslexic’ should be renamed ‘O’ and ‘unspeakable’ should be respelt ‘unsfzpxkable.’”

Fforde's cleverness and ingenuity never cease to amaze me. I was a big fan of the Thursday Next series, but I found The Big Over Easy to be a more fun and easy read. Some familiarity with nursery rhymes and fairy tales is essential to really appreciate this book, and thankfully I had thorough enough familiarity with them to really appreciate the jokes. I couldn't stop laughing the whole way through this book.

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde is a funny and satirical piece of detective fiction, and one I recommend to everyone who likes to have a bit of fun with their reading every now and again.

7 / 8

Brilliant, couldn't put it down. Recommend that you buy it.

Have you read this, did you enjoy it as much as the Thursday Next series? Do you have a weakness (like me) for modern day parody's of nursery rhymes and fairy tales? If you do, I recommend The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke. If you like Jasper Fforde, you are likely to enjoy it.

The. End.

2012-01-02T12:14:00.001+11:00

2011 has come to an end and so I thought I would jump on the wrap-up post bandwagon and do one of my own.

2011 has been a big year for me. I certainly haven't done as much reading as I ordinarily would but I have read quite a few wonderful books in between all the other things that have been keeping me very busy.

So far the highlight has been receiving my Sony Reader from my wonderful boyfriend for Christmas. Although it could be the novelty value, I have to admit that it is much better than I expected it to be. I can't stop playing with it; adding books, creating collections. It's incredible to think that I can carry so many books around with me. It isn't the feel of a book (which I will always love) but it is just so incredibly light and portable it makes reading a whole new experience. Already I have 114 new books that I don't have to find shelf space for!

Enough of that gushing. It's time for the roundup.

I have split it into four sections. If there is one section that particularly interests you, please click on the title to be taken directly to that section. Other wise happy browsing!

Highlights

Reading Statistics

Blog Statistics

HIGHLIGHTS

A quick word before I begin - I wrote this post before I read the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Had I read them before I wrote this post, they most certainly would have won at least a couple of these categories, for example, Biggest Page Turner and they definitely get an Honourable Mention as well.

Best book of 2011

Easily Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. My girlfriends and I decided to read this as part of our book club and quickly became not only the best book read of 2011, but one of the best books I have ever read. Jane Eyre has everything I like in a book. Beautiful writing, adventure, strong female character, adventure, heartache, romance and much much more.

Honourable mentions

Honourable mentions go to the following three books.

The Messenger by Markus Zusak: Most of us by now have read The Book Thief, but this is another book from the brilliant Australian author Markus Zusak. It's unique, well written, tense and a complete page turner.

Swords and Crowns and Rings by Ruth Park: Ruth Park is incredible. What else is there to say. If you haven't read anything by her, now is the time to start. I have read several, but this Miles Franklin award winning novel about the love story between dwarf Jackie Hanna and his childhood friend Cushie Maloy is one of the saddest and happiest romances I have ever read. I loved this book so much, I wasn't capable of reviewing it.

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham: I love John Wyndham but there was something about this one that stood out for me. It was a scary glimpse of a possible future, one that it is almost too easy to envisage actually occurring at some point in the very distant future (although without the mutants). If you are looking for something different, give this one a try.

Books I really wanted to love, but found disappointing instead

Of those that I finished reading, the most disappointing was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Having enjoyed Jane Eyre so much I had high expectations for this book, but sadly I found the writing to needlessly dense that I had trouble connecting to the story.

Most boring

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne was far too bogged down in scientific detail to be anything other than boring.

Most unique

A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper: this book was... unique. It is a debut novel by an Australian writer, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2002. It was dark, it was creepy, it was different.

Funniest

The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke was hilarious. It is a detective story, very Jasper Fforde-esque. The protagonist, Harry Pig, is a private detective hired by Grimm Town's richest inhabitant, Mr Aladdin, to find his stolen lamp. If you like Jasper Fforde, this is a book you would also love.

Most out of my comfort zone
This would definitely be The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale. I say that this was the most out of my comfort zone because it is non-fiction, which I very rarely read. It was however interesting in two ways. First it is an account of a true crime from the 19th century and secondly it explores how this crime effected the development of detective fiction.

Biggest page turner
There were many, but I have to admit that One Day by David Nicholls stands out as a book I couldn't put down. I just wanted to keep reading and reading.

Can't believe I waited until now to read it
Easily Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Best book I read all year and one of the best books I have read. I can't believe I waited so long to read it!

Best reading experience
This is another easy one - reading by the beautiful ocean in New Caledonia this October.

READING STATISTICS

I read 74 books in 2011.
This is a few less than last years 112 and strangely enough I am not sure how I feel about it. I know that it shouldn't really matter how many books I read, but there is something satisfying about hitting that magic number 100. The reality is that for 3 months of this year I was battling severe morning sickness and these last couple of months my concentration levels have been so low that I have barely been able to finish any books at all. So in the scheme of things 73 is quite an achievement and that is what I am going to focus on.

Fiction: 72 & Non-Fiction: 2
Actually, 2 non-fiction reads is pretty good for me. I'm not much of a non-fiction reader. I think that perhaps I do much reading at work to enjoy reading anything other than fiction. The two I read were The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale and Shakespeare by Bill Bryson. Of the two, Shakespeare was easily my favourite. Bill Bryson has a wonderfully dry and sarcastic sense of humour that gets me laughing every time.

Male Authors: 42 & Female Authors: 32 (58%/42%)
This means that 58% of the books I read were written by men and 42% women. I have to admit that I rarely pay attention to whether I read male or female authors more than the other. Having considered it this year, I had a book at the rest of the reviews I have done here at Page Turners and discovered that 54% are books by male authors and 46% are books by female authors. So my reading this year reflects my general habits which I think is fairly even in the scheme of things.

Genre's read
I started trying to write a list of all the different genre's I have read this year and I discovered something about myself as a reader. I had never really thought of myself as much of an eclectic reader, but I most definitely am. I read many different genre's, ranging from YA to gothic to classics and science fiction. Obviously some I read more than others, but it was actually far more even spread than I expected.
It's nice to know that I have eclectic tastes. I don't like the idea of being a reader who only reads one genre of books. There is just so much out there, I don't think that I could grow as a reader without experiencing everything that is out there.

17 re-reads
There are 17 official re-reads on my list of 74 books, although I did a lot more re-reading than that. Before I go to bed at night I read to help my wind down, and I always re-read something that I have read a million times before. That way it's easy to put down. I don't count these books toward the total of the books I read per year. So, for example, I have read the Harry Potter series at least twice this year, but they don't appear in the list of books I read this year.
The books I have re-read and counted toward my total were all re-reads of old favourites and comfort reads.

Most read author
This is Agatha Christie, with a total of 8 of her books read. What can I say - she keeps me coming back for more!

Mine: 59 Library: 5 Borrowed: 5
I know this doesn't add up to 74 but I tried over and over again to add it all up and kept getting it wrong - maths isn't my strong point. I am pretty pleased that the bulk of what I read was from my own library. I have far too many unread books sitting on my shelves that need reading!

BLOG STATISTICS

New Resources
I spent quite a lot of time creating a page where you can see my reviews according to genre and author: Reviews by Genre. I also created a page which keeps a track of what I have read per year, including links to the reviews: Reviews by Year.

Most Popular Review
Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie. Although this has been the most popular review this year, it has only received 2 comments. I wish I knew what was attracting people to this review, especially why this Agatha Christie novel over others.

Most Popular Discussion Post
This is easily Book club discussion where the author is present. I have noticed that although it is the most popular post, it hasn't actually attracted a comment for a very long time, so I can't be certain what about the post is attracting people to it in such high numbers.

Most Commented On
The life and times of a book-a-holic and where she buys her books for cheap - everyone had lots of ideas where to get cheap books from.

Review I Wish Had Received More Attention
The Barforth Trilogy by Brenda Jagger. The first in this series particularly, The Clouded Hills. Seriously people, these books are fantabulous!

Miscellaneous
I have to admit to being pleased about seeing my followers reach over 300. Thanks to all of my new followers, I hope that 2012 brings a lot more interesting reviews and discussion for everyone.
I am also pleased at my new HTML skills which I taught myself to prepare my new Reviews by Genre page. It looks me weeks and many many hours to learn how to do it and then actually get it done and I have to admit to being very proud of myself.

Thanks to everyone who joined me here at Page Turners in 2011, especially to my regular commenters (you know who you are!). Blogging wouldn't be half as much fun without you. Here's to a great 2012.

The end is nigh....

2011-12-23T15:14:00.000+11:00

Christmas is almost here and so my blogging for the year is coming to an end.

There was no Weekly Blogging Tip this week, but I still have a few so they'll be back next year.

I posted what I think will be my last review the day before yesterday: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, which I gave an 8 / 8. Whether or not you enjoy The Lord of the Rings will definitely come down to personal taste, but for me this book has everything that I could possibly ever want in a book.

The reality is that my reading has slowed down significantly since I entered my third trimester and if I were to continue posting the reviews I have drafted then I would quickly out of reviews all together.

I do have to have a look over what I have achieved this year, so I am sure I will be jumping on the 2011 round-up post band wagon soon.

In the meantime:

Review: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, a fantasy masterpiece

2011-12-21T14:45:00.000+11:00

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien is a fantasy classic that has held me in its clutches since the first moment I began reading it.

Now, in my late 20's I have read it probably more than I have read any other books and I am still in awe of how magically fabulous it is. This of course means that reviewing it has proved to be almost impossible because no matter what I write I can't possibly do Tolkien's masterpiece justice.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that the Lord of the Rings is one of the best examples of fantasy fiction that there is. In it, Tolkien has created a perfectly formed alternate history that is as enthralling as it is real. Everything about it; the characters, the setting, the history, the creatures and the language are inescapably real. The details that Tolkien includes in every element of this breathtaking book are mindblowing and Tolkien's skill as a writer renders the story and setting so perfectly that you might as well be in Middle Earth while you are reading it.

Sometimes I feel as though I have lived Frodo's journey over and over again. I can only imagine how he must have felt when Gandalf revealed the truth to him about the true nature of the ring that Bilbo bought back from his travels. In fact, it is this scene that is one of my favourites of the entire book (along with the flight to ford for those of you who are familiar with the book):

"… All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. And already Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. The enemy still lacks the one thing to give him strength and knowledge to beat down all resistance, break the last defences, and cover all the lands in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring".

I get shivers up my spine when I read this even now. It perfectly conveys a sense of ominous foreboding that is present throughout the entire book.

I think that what Tolkien did so effectively in order to create such a realistic fantasy world, is to blend elements of fantasy and reality to the point where they are almost indistinguishable. We know that Hobbits like songs and food, are courageous and courteous and enjoy those simple things in life. Dwarves on the other hand are more concerned with material wealth than anything else. Elves are mysterious and philosophical creatures.

We also know that Hobbits, Dwarves and Elves aren't real, but it is their incredibly human qualities that make this easy to see past and to bring them alive in our minds.

A lot of complaints about The Lord of the Rings centres on its pace, or lack thereof. I agree that the pace changes significantly throughout the book. There are incredibly tense parts of the book (the flight to the ford) and then there are longer more drawn out parts of the book (for example, when Frodo and Sam are on their final journey across the Morgul Plains to Orodruin to destroy the Ring).

This has never been a problem for me. The book has an epic length because it is an epic tale. Also, the variation in pace seems to accurately reflect what is occurring in the book at that time. The flight to ford goes at a cracking pace because it is perhaps the most dangerous moment in their entire journey. Frodo is about to be captured with the ring and has one chance to get across the river to save it, himself and the rest of Middle Earth. When they are crossing the Morgul Plains, however, they are all alone, tired, dehydrated and at the very end of their journey. These moments for them would have seemed long and drawn out and so the book is long and drawn out in these parts.

I only wish that I could do The Lord of the Rings more justice than what I have done here. Although I don't recommend it to people very often (because whether you enjoy this book is largely going to be a matter of personal taste I think), it is easily one of my favourites of all time.

I can't think of another book that displays such a sense of majesty and admirable human qualities as The Lord of the Rings.

8 / 8

One of the best books I have ever read. Everyone should read it - it is totally amazing. I am in love.

Am I entirely alone or are there other people out there who feel the same way I do about this masterpiece of fantasy fiction?

Review: The Witches by Roald Dahl

2011-12-17T17:42:00.000+11:00

The Witches is one of Roald Dahl's fabulous kids books that brings back fond childhood memories.

Interestingly though, I don't think that I ever read The Witches as a child. I remember reading The Twits over and over again, but I can't recall reading The Witches. I was, however, a big fan of the movie version of The Witches with Angelica Houston playing the Grand High Witch.

In The Witches, a young boy, Luke, goes to live with his grandmother when his parents pass away. His grandmother teaches him lots of useful things about witches, real witches, who live all over the world and who make it their business to kill as many children as they can. Eventually, he finds himself trapped in the witches clutches when he mistakenly gets locked into their annual convention and overhears their plot to turn all the children in the world into mice! Things go badly, and it then up to him and his grandmother to save the rest of the world's children from the evil fate that awaits them.

What's not to love about this book as child! There's magic, there's excitement, there's fear and there are the wonderful illustrations provided by Quentin Blake to go with it.

There's not a lot else to say about The Witches by Roald Dahl, except to say that even as an adult the story retained most of its magic. I wouldn't mind re-reading a lot of his other books and my new little addition (coming soon) might just give me the excuse to do it!

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it

What was your favourite Roald Dahl book as a child? Did you enjoy The Witches or did it give you nightmares?

#6 Weekly Blogging Tip: Review Content

2011-12-15T10:53:00.000+11:00

Content of book review posts

Last week's Weekly Blogging Tip was about keeping your blog design simple and clear in order to make your content more readable and encourage repeat visitors.

This made me think more specifically about the content/design (however you want to think about it) of our books reviews.

So this week's tip is:

Let the review itself be the main focus of your book review post.

What do I mean by this?

What I am referring to is what people often do (and what I used to do in all honesty) which is to start of every post with the full details of the book; the title, author, publisher, year published, number of pages, edition, paperback, hardback, ebook, audiobook etc.

Some blogs might commence with this information, and then include the blurb from the back of the book, and then maybe some quotes from the book – all before they have reached the actual review of the book.

I know I repeat myself a lot when I say this, but I do recognise that everyone has their own style.

Having said that, my own thoughts on this are that most people who are out there reading reviews on book blogs want to know what you thought of the book. What is your summary of what the book was about? Did you connect with the characters? What was the prose like? Were there any interesting issues or themes the book raised?

The potential problem I see with commencing your review post with all the additional information is that the post isn't focussed on the review itself – it contains a lot of other information before the reader even gets to what they are looking for.

Another way of looking at it is this. I am a solicitor who appears in courts before Magistrates and Judges. If I were appearing in, for example, a sentence matter I would raise my strongest points first. What does the Magistrate really need to know about this person? What makes this person different to other people that come before the court? If I can get the Magistrate's attention straight away with these strong points, they are more likely to stay with me throughout my submissions.

I think the same thing can be said of review posts. Get straight to the point – which is the review.

If you think that your readers might also enjoy reading all the publishing information about the book and perhaps they might also like to read the blurb from the back of the book – then why not include it at the end of the review? That way people can read the most important information first without being distracted by the less important information. If they want more information when they have finished reading the review, then they have some bonus information at the end of the post. If they don't, they have least read your thoughts and experiences on the book, which let's face it, is what we want to share with everyone.

That's why I say: Let the review itself be the main focus of the book review post. Don't distract your readers with information they may or may not want to know before they get to your thoughts. They are there for your wonderful thoughts, so think about giving your thoughts to your readers first up.

Given we are talking about the content of posts; I thought that it might be useful next week to talk about the frequency of posts.

#7 WEEKLY BLOGGER TIP: FREQUENCY OF POSTS

Just a quick reminder that these are tip based on personal taste and experience and may not be suited to everyone. Quality of content and enthusiasm are what counts most.

PAST TIPS:
#5 Blog design
#4 Third party commenting systems
#3 Commenting habits
#2 The obsession with followers
#1 The follower gadget
An Introduction

The Readers: A podcast for everyone

2011-12-14T13:35:00.000+11:00

I just had to share my enthusiasm for this new podcast I have recently discovered.

When a I say recently, shamefully, I have known about it since it first became available. Unfortunately, due to my old laptop having my iTunes on it, and my sheer dislike of doing anything on my laptop because it takes so long, I only subscribed to the podcast in the last few days.

I can't believe I waited so long!

The Readers is a podcast by two book lovers, Gav from Gav Reads and Simon from Savidge Reads. I have followed Savidge Reads for a little while now, but this podcast has introduced me to Gav Reads which I am very much looking forward to reading more of.

In The Readers, Gav and Simon basically just talk all books. So far I have listened to them discuss the Man Booker Award, short stories and how to get out of a reading slump - amoungst many other things. So far, I have listened to them interview Carol Birch (short listed for the 2011 Man Booker for Jamrach's Menagerie) and Ian Rankin (most famous for his Rebus series).

I have enjoyed it so much that I listened to the first three episodes almost straight through. It's great because it's listening to two people just talks books and all things book related, just like you and I might do with friends, except that Gav and Simon know what they are talking about and have a wide range of interests and tastes which makes it incredibly interesting.

I will looking forward to listening to more of their podcasts and having a look through their show notes.

So, if you haven't listened to this podcast - please do. I can guarantee that you won't be disappointed.

The Best and Worst of Ian McEwan guest post

2011-12-12T13:36:00.000+11:00

This Wednesday (which incidentally was my birthday!) I did a guest post over at Alyce's blog At Home With Books.

For those of you that don't know her blog, she has been doing a wonderful series recently called 'The Best of Worst Of' series, where each week a different blogger does a post about the best and worst books by a particular author.

It was my turn and I chose: The Best and Worst of Ian McEwan.

Ian McEwan is one of those authors that is either hit or miss for me, so I thought that I was a great choice for her series.

I hope that if you have time you will head over and have a look.

Review: Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland (Australian)

2011-12-11T16:23:00.000+11:00

Adrian Hyland's Diamond Dove came to me as a highly recommended book from some other bloggers. I also listened to a fascinating interview with Adrian Hyland on the ABC Radio National Book Show, where Hyland was interviewed about the sequel to Diamond Dove, Gunshot Road, and also spoke about his 10 year experience living and working with remote Aboriginal communities in northern Australia (click here to listen to the interview).

The books protagonist, Emily Tempest, was born to a white father and Aboriginal mother. Although she identifies as Aboriginal, she has always moved freely between the communities and has never been quite sure of where she belongs.

The book begins with her return to Moonlight Downs, the property on which she grew up and which the Aboriginal tribe to which she belongs has been awarded Native Title land rights over. Her return, however, is not smooth and she soon finds herself embroiled in an investigation when one of the elders, also her old friend, is found murdered and a mentally unstable Aboriginal man named Blakie is blamed for the murder. Initially, Emily sets out to help the police capture Blakie who disappears after the murder. Instead what she uncovers are a series of strange events and occurrences that lead her to think that Blake may not be responsible for the murder at all. So follows the story of Emily's adventures as she tries to solve the crime, and come to terms with her own identity in the process.

The story in Diamond Dove had a lot of promise, but sadly, for me, it just wasn't realised.

Hyland certainly did a good job of drawing upon his extensive experience working with outback Aboriginal communities to Hyland has clearly used that experience to provide the reader with (what I imagine is) a very honest and accurate portrayal of what life for the both the Aboriginal and white population in isolated areas can be like. In Diamond Dove, we see the clash of traditional customs and beliefs with the attraction of larger more urban communities and what they can offer. Hyland also uses the story to explore the practical side of native title land rights and what it means for the traditional and white owners.

My complaint is that the plot itself moved too slowly and lacked a sufficient amount of tension that would have been fitting for what is essentially a work of detective fiction. Perhaps Hyland was trying to mirror the pace of life in the outback for these isolated communities, but in the end I was willing the book to pick up pace. I also found the characterisation somewhat lacking. I wanted the characters to be more fully formed and a little deeper than they were.

Although the traditions of detective fiction are observed here and the story is not unique in that sense, I did appreciate the uniqueness that the outback setting and the Aboriginal characters bought to the story.

5 / 8

Good and worth reading if you have the opportunity, but there's no need to prioritise it.

Do you appreciate it when an author uses the conventions of a traditional genre, but sets their story in a more unique or unusual time or place?

Also, let me know what you thought of this book if you have read it. I would be very interested to hear your view on Hyland's depiction of this Aboriginal community.

#5 Weekly Blogging Tip: Blog Design

2011-12-08T13:32:00.001+11:00

Clear and simple blog design

Last weeks tip was to consider your options with regard to third party commenting systems, especially if you are using the native blogger system which is pretty un-user friendly when you compare it to what else is available.

That made me think of other ways we can make our blogs more user friendly, and the first thing I thought about was blog design.

I know this is dangerous territory because everyone's taste is so different, but I do still think that there are some fundamental things that we can all so to make our blogs as user friendly as possible when it comes to design.

So this weeks tip is:

Keep you blog design simple and clear.

Regardless of what layout you use (one sidebar on the right, two sidebars on the right, a sidebar on either side etc etc) there are ways of keeping your blog design simple and clear.

First - there are always exceptions to these suggestions that work really well. If you do the opposite to these suggestions, I don't think that you have an unattractive blog :-) These are suggestions not rules.

Here are some suggestions for keeping for blog design simple and clear and your readers happy:

Light coloured backgrounds: A light coloured background with dark writing makes it easy on the eyes of people who are reading the content of your blog. Don't get me wrong, I love many blogs that have dark backgrounds, but there is no denying that they are harder to read than blogs with light coloured backgrounds. Good content will bring people back, but it can't hurt to make it as simple and easy as possible to read that content either. (When I say a light background, I mean under the area where you are writing).

Solid background: I only raise this because I know that there are some blogger templates that have a see-through option, so your writing is visible over the top of your background image. Again, this can make it a lot more difficult for people to read the content on your blog.

Avoid bling: I couldn't think of another word for this, but essentially what I am talking about are things such as moving graphics, flashing fonts and music that automatically plays when a visitor open the web page. Why avoid it? Generally speaking, if not used well (and I reckon its pretty hard to use that stuff well) it just becomes distracting from what people are really there for - your book reviews and other book discussion. Also, if someone is checking it on an old computer or just a crap one, then a lot of that stuff either isn't going to load or its going to load super slow which is super annoying and might turn people away from your blog.

Standard font: Standard fonts are easiest for people to read. That's why they are standard. Some blogs I have come across use font that looks a bit like cursive handwriting, which is so much harder to read than a standard font.

Clearly marked sections: By this I mean using headings in your sidebar so that it is clear to readers what information they are looking at and it doesn't all blend into one.

De-clutter: Sometimes the more information in your blog (particularly your sidebar), the more difficult it is to find things. For example, rather than including images from all the blogger awards you have received, why not create a page/post where you keep this information and leave a link to it somewhere in your sidebar or About Page? At the risk of repeating myself, the clearer it is, the easier it will be for your readers to navigate.

An 'About' section: This is really useful for new people who are visiting you. It means that there is one place that they can go to learn about your website and decide whether there is anything that interests them.

I am sure that there are many more suggestions people might have for keeping your blog simple and clear.

Why is it important to have a simple and clear blog?

In my view, simplicity = easier on the eye = easier to navigate = more user friendly. You might have the most interesting content in the world, but if your blog isn't user friendly or easy to read you risk losing visitors. The more user friendly your blog, then hopefully the more people will come back for more :-)

Given I have posted today about blog design being important, I thought that it might be worthwhile also talking about what to put in the contents of your book review. Again this will be very personal, but I will be brave and make some suggestions anyway!

#6 WEEKLY BLOGGING TIP: REVIEW CONTENT

Just a quick reminder that these are tip based on personal taste and experience and may not be suited to everyone. Quality of content and enthusiasm are what counts most.

What other tips do you have for a simple and clear blog?

Review: 4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie

2011-12-06T12:16:00.000+11:00

This is barely a review, more a nod in the direction of Agatha Christie – whose books I love reading but reviewing them can sometimes become a little repetitive.

4:50 From Paddington is the story of Miss Marple's investigation into a murder that took place on a train. Her friend Mrs McGillicuddy arrives at her door one day with a story about seeing a woman murdered on a train. The police don't believe her because no body was recovered, but Miss Marple knows better.

She uses her personal common sesnse approach to come to the realisation that the body must be hidden somewhere at Rutherford Hall, an old family home alongside the railway tracks. She arranges a friend of hers to gain employment at Rutherford Hall and do some investigations into the family.

These investigations lead to a whole host of hidden secrets, but Miss Marple is determined to catch the killer before they kill again.
Not one of Christie's best, but then I am more of a Poirot fan than a Marple fan. Miss Marple herself barely lifted a finger to help solve this crime and the other characters didn't have enough charisma to keep me interested in their plight.

All in all, the story was a bit slow and….. English for my tastes. I know that sounds crazy, but there you have it.

5.5 / 8

Enjoyable. I would recommend it to Christie fans.

Did you feel a bit..... blah, about this one?

New review resources on Page Turners

2011-12-05T12:37:00.000+11:00

I have been working very hard lately to bring two new pages to Page Turners:

Reviews by Genre

and

Reviews by Year.

In Reviews by Genre, you will be able to find reviews to the books I have read in one of two ways. The first is by genre. There is a link to each book under the appropriate genre. Where a book falls into two or more genres, you will find multiple links. The second is by author surname. So if there is an author you are particularly fond of, or are interested in knowing more about, you can see whether or not I have reviewed any of their works and, in the event that you find them, read a review of their worlds.

In Reviews by Year, you will find reviews of the books I have read in the order that I have read them. You might notice that at times there are books I haven't reviewed. In almost all cases, this is because the books have been so wonderful they I haven't been able to do them justice in a review and so have not reviewed them. In 2009, however, there are many books referred to without links to their reviews, and this is because I started blogging in June 2009 and therefore haven't reviewed books read prior to that date.

Why these two new pages?

Sometimes when I find a new blog I like to have a look at what books they have reviewed recently and who they read a lot of. This helps me to determine whether we have similar taste in books and whether I might become a more regular visitor. For blogs I am already familiar with, it helps me to find reviews of books I want to read and to see what their opinion of that book is. In other words, I have found pages like these helpful when looking for new blogs and navigating blogs I am already familiar with. So, I thought that it might in turn be useful to have pages like these for my readers.

On a more personal level, it allows me to keep track of my reading. With these lists, I can determine whether I favour a particular genre, who my most read authors are as well as a variety of other patterns in my reading. One of the reasons I started my blog was to become a more critical reader. I hope that these new pages will assist me to be more critical of my own reading habits, and make changes and improvements where I think that it might help me to become a better reader.

So, I very much hope that you find Reviews by Genre and Reviews by Year useful. I have to admit that I am particularly proud of my Reviews by Genre page because I had to teach myself a large amount of HTML in order to complete it and it took many tens of hours to do it.

There is still always my master list of reviews on the Book Reviews page if you find that more to your tastes.

Happy blogging and reading :-)

The Sunday Salon: Pride and Prejudice and a reflection on my reading

2011-12-04T15:50:00.000+11:00

It is Sunday and the end of the weekend is nigh.

I have had a lovely weekend. Yesterday I spent all day at a local park with my friends. We were celebrating my birthday (which is next week) and having our yearly Christmas gathering where we passed around our secret santa presents and ate far more food than was necessary. What could be a better way to spend a beautiful sunny Saturday?

And now it's Sunday. I am relaxing on my bed with my blog, the BBC Pride and Prejudice and a bowl of poporn. Lydia has just eloped with Mr Wickham and Mrs Bennet is keeping to her room in a very distressed state. Can't blame her. That Lydia. What a hussy :-)

And in only 10 minutes my football team (that's soccer to most people) Sydney FC will be playing at Kogarah Oval and I must remember to switch over to Foxtel to watch the game. Although I am a season member, the weather just isn't good enough to tempt me out today, even for Sydney FC.

On an entirely different note, I has a look at my reading for this last month - and it isn't pretty.

When I do the maths, I read on average 7 books a month. In October, I read 9.

In November... I read 2 books. That's right, 2. And one of those books I actually started reading in October.

I don't know what it is. I like to think that it's because I am entering my third trimester and my concentration is drastically lacking. That's right, I just blamed the baby. Nothing is beneath me now :-)

Seriously though, I have been reading The Sunday Philosophy Book Club by Alexander McCall Smith for over a week now, a book that would usually take me two or three days of reading on the train for me to finish it. The one book I started and finished in November was Shakespeare by Bill Bryson, one of the shortest books I have read all year. I wish I knew what was responsible for this reading malady. I can see that it is continuing into December. I hope it is baby related and will wear off soon. Until then, I will keep persevering.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend as much as I am.

Literature recommendations for non-literature-readers?

2011-12-01T21:21:00.001+11:00

The Blue Bookcase posed an interesting question to its readers this hop: What work of literature would you recommend to someone who doesn't like literature?

I actually think that this might be one of the hardest questions ever posed over at The Blue Bookcase. Why do I find it so hard?

Firstly, because if I knew someone didn't like literature I probably wouldn't recommend anything to them. When I first started seeing my boyfriend (years ago now), he had never read a book (or no more than 2 or 3). I talked him into agreeing to read one Harry Potter novel a year. Bless him, he did read The Philosopher's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets for me, but I could see that it was making him miserable. He didn't enjoy a single moment of it, and I didn't want reading to be something that made him miserable. After that experience, my gut feeling would be to accept that everyone has different interests and leave it at that.

Leaving that aside, if I did decide to recommend something, it would probably depend on the person. There are so many different kinds of people out there, it only makes sense we all have different tastes. If that person already wasn't a fan of literature, I would want it to be a fairly specific recommendation to them personally in the hopes that it might help them enjoy their reading experience.

So where does that leave me?

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden comes to mind. As does A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz, an amazing Australian book. Lovesong by Alex Miller is another beautiful Australian book I would definitely consider recommending to the hypothetical literature-phobe. If I were brave, I might suggest a Margaret Atwood book, perhaps Alias Grace or The Year of the Flood. If I were even braver I would definitely consider recommending The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck, a really beautiful book.

I am trying to choose books with language that is both beautiful but straightforward. I wouldn't want to scare anyone off with challenging prose or poor pace and lack of plot. All of these books I feel are unique but accessible to a wide range of people, and those are the qualities I would be looking for when I made the recommendation.

What about you? If you were brave enough to recommend literature to someone who doesn't like reading, what would you think about recommending?

#4 Weekly Blogging Tip: Commenting Systems

2011-12-01T10:03:00.002+11:00

Choosing the right commenting system

Last weeks tip was to be a thoughtful commenter. I thought that it might be a good idea to also have a post about the different commenting systems there are available for people to use.

Never having had a wordpress blog, I don't know what the native wordpress commenting system is like. If it is similar to the Blogger native commenting system, I hope that this post helps you as well. This weeks tip is this:

Consider replacing the native commenting system with a third party commenting system.

What's wrong with the native blogger system I hear people asking? Well, perhaps this is just a matter of personal taste, but since I have seen other people complaining about the same thing I thought it was worth having a post on.

The problems with the native commenting system:

Spam: I got spam all the time in my comments. Well. Not all the time. But frequently enough for it to become really annoying.

No one likes getting spam, and the blogger commenting system just seemed to make it really easy.

Comment moderation/Captcha: I know that the blogger system has ways of getting around the problem of spam, and that is either to enable comment moderation or Captcha. Neither of these options seemed particularly desirable to me.

The problem I had with comment moderation is that there are only so many hours in the day. I just didn't really have the time to go through every comment and approve them before I allowed them to be published on Page Turners.

And Captcha? Well, I don't know about you, but I find Captcha really annoying to use. I love nothing more than reading through a whole heap of people's posts. I open up lots of tabs in my browser and go through and read them and comment on them. Only problem is that sometimes I hit submit on my comment and then move on to the next post, only to realise a captcha has come up which I haven't filled out. Then when I am ready to comment somewhere else, I have to go back to a previous blog and finish captcha-ing. Depending on how the site is set up, I have even been known to lose that original comment. Also, if I am blogging on my lunch break at work sometimes my work computer makes it really hard to read the letters. This is quite off putting when you want to leave a comment but the commenting system (in combination with my computer to be fair) is making it really difficult. Plus. It's just annoying. As you might have already figured out, I am a seriously impatient person. I want to write my comment and submit.

Leaving replies: My biggest problem with the blogger commenting system, though, is that you can't directly reply to people. I like to reply to people who take the time to write on my blog. I don't think it's something that you necessarily have to do, but I like to do it. I was finding it really hard with blogger though, where I had reply to everyone in one single comment. Unless those people came back to Page Turners specifically to check if they had been replied to – that reply might never have seen their reply. Not very conducive to starting or furthering discussion.

The solution: a third party commenting system

There are lots of different commenting systems out there that you can use to replace the blogger commenting system. These include systems such as INTENSEDEBATE, DISQUS and LIVEFYRE (links coming).

I only have experience with intensedebate (and so most of the following will mention that), and I can tell you that downloading it on to Page Turners has been the best thing I have ever done for my blog.

The benefits of a third party commenting system are these:

Easy installation: These commenting systems can be loaded onto your blog from the system's own website, which makes the installation of them super easy (even for technically useless people like me!).

Spam gone: Since downloading intensedebate, I have ever again had a spam comment (from a non-blogger anyway, see last week's post).

Creating discussion: With third party commenting systems you can reply directly to a comment, and they can in turn reply directly to your reply. Other people can join in as well. That way, people can really interact with each other. I receive emails directly from intensedebate when someone has replied to one of my posts and one of my comments. I imagine it emails all commenter's directly if someone replies to their post (although I don't know if you need an intensedebate account for this to happen???).

Tracking other comments: With the third party commenting system I use, I can keep an eye on all of my comments. If I leave a comment on someone elses blog I am notified by email that I have received a reply. This is great. It means that I am reminded to check back in to other blogs when I might otherwise forget to do so.

Single sign on: Once I log into my intensedebate account, I don't have to sign in each time I comment on someones blog (so long as they use intensedebate as well). The system just automatically remembers my details. Easy!

Commentluv: Commentluv is a great plug-in which I could never get to use with the native blogger system. It allows a commenter to leave a link to their most recent post. It isn't included in the body of their comment, so it isn't distracting or spam. It does, however, means that I have one extra way of finding new and interesting posts/blogs to read.

[I feel at this point it is worth saying up front that I have heard of some issues, and experienced some issues, when installing the third party commenting systems. I don't know if this happens with other systems, but when I installed intensedebate it deleted all of my blogger comments so it looked like I had lost about 1.5 years worth of comments. I googled the problem and found sites saying it was a common problem and I should wait it out. Within a week, all of my blogger comments had returned without a problem. It was scary, but patience proved to be worth it.]

So, if you want to make things easier for yourself and, more importantly, for your readers I would very much recommend that you consider using a third party commenting system on your blog.

Given I have mentioned this week that I think third party commenting systems can make it easier for your readers (as well as you!), I thought next week might be a good time to talk about how blog design can make things easier for your readers as well. I am aware that this might be heading into dangerous territory because there's nothing more personal than taste in blog design, but I am going to give it a shot anyway.

#5 WEEKLY BLOGGING TIP: BLOG DESIGN

Just a quick reminder that these are tip based on personal taste and experience and may not be suited to everyone. Quality of content and enthusiasm are what counts most.

If anyone else has any tips they think might be worthwhile sharing - please email me your ideas to pageturnersbooks (at) gmail (dot) com

PAST TIPS:
#3 Commenting Habits
#2 Obsession with Followers
#1 The Follower Gadget
An Introduction

Review: A Certain Justice by PD James

2011-11-29T11:05:00.000+11:00

A Certain Justice is a modern day legal crime thriller, and it delivers what you might expect from such a book.

DI Adam Dalgiesh is asked to investigate the death of Venetia Aldridge, a famous criminal barrister found murdered in chambers. At the time of her death, had just successfully defended Gary Ashe, accused of the bloody murder of his Aunt. Her life is turned upside down when she discovers that Ashe has commenced a relationship with her daughter and that they intend to be married. Could it be Ashe who has killed Aldridge, or even her own daughter who has killed her out of spite? Or is it more complicated than anyone can imagine?

I certainly enjoyed the book nad while I was reading it, I couldn’t put it down. The plot was engaging in a very dark way and it certainly felt significantly more realistic than a lot of crime novels.

I believe that the last point is largely because of the author herself.

I had heard PD James spoken of as one of the best as well as one of the most prolific modern day crime writers. Naturally this meant that I was keen to read one of her books. This was only enhanced when I heard her speak about her life on the ABC Radio National Book Show on the occasion of her 90th birthday. She seemed to have led a fascinating life in various government departments, including a lot of criminal and forensic sections of the government and so I was interested to see how her books were informed by this experience.

As said, it definitely seemed to. The book displayed an understanding of the criminal law system (I feel able to say that because I am a criminal lawyer in NSW Australia and the Australian system is based on that of England) and it also displayed an accurate understanding of the approach criminal barristers take to their work.

People are often harsh about crimnial solicitors and barristers. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me how I could represent guilty people I would be a very rich lady (well, I'd be well off anyway). The reality is that most people who choose the criminal law as their career path (from a defence perspective anyway), it is more about the bigger picture than the smaller picture.
My only reservation with this book is that it hasn’t proved to be very memorable. Although I can remember being hooked on it while I was reading it, now that I have read it some time ago I can’t remember much about it. Certainly not much of the detail.

In the end, I would say that it was a great example of modern crime writing, nothing more and nothing less.

5.5 / 8

Enjoyable and worth reading if you have the opportunity.

Have you read much PD James? How do you think her books compare to other crime fiction writers?

Review: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

2011-11-26T19:38:00.001+11:00

We have all heard fantastic things about Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and there were certainly some astonishing things about the book that I appreciated.

Unfortunately though, there were other less astonishing and ultimately tedious things about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea that prevented me from enjoying the book at all.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is written from the perspective of Professor Arronax. Professor Arronax is recruited, along with his servant Conseil, to find what is assumed to be a monstrous sea creature that has been attacking ships throughout the ocean on a world wide scale. He joins a mission with expert whaler Ned Land to locate and destoy the sea creature.

Instead what the three of them discover is a man-mind underwater ship, the Nautilus, captained by the enigma that is Captain Nemo. Captain Nemo has given up his life on land in favour of a life under the sea in what would now be known as a submarine. He holds the three men captive on his submarine, leaving them with no choice but to join his adventures throughout the ocean.

What was astonishing about this book was how scarily accurate Jules Verne's creative imagination was. Although submarine's did exist at the time Jules Verne wrote this book in 1870, they were not at all as advanced as the machine depicted in his piece of fiction, that is, a machine powered by electricity which was derived from a battery on board the ship. After doing some brief research on submarine's after reading this article, it seems that the first time electricity and batteries were used to power submarines wasn't until 1896. The double hull design of the Nautilus didn't feature in real submarines until 1900.

Similarly, although at the time Jules Verne wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea the ability to go underwater diving existed, the characters in Jules Verne's books were able to wear self-contained diving suits that enabled them to go on expeditions away from the Nautilus for quite some time. My research indicates that the first self-contained diving suit using compressed oxygen wasn't invented until 1876, 6 years after Jules Verne wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

There were many more examples in this book of other such predications in this work of science fiction that actually came to pass.

Unfortunately, the knowledge that Verne's creative imagination in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea contained eerie predications of the future, wasn't enough to overcome the big weaknesses in this book.

The first was that far too much time was spent writing about such things as the design and capabilities of the Nautilus and cataloguing the underwater sea creatures that were encountered by the adventurers. This meant that the pace of the book was incredibly slow. Although looking back at the book it is possible to see that many things occurred in the plot, it didn't feel as though much was happening at all while I was reading it.

With the feeling that the book was lacking so much action, it would have been nice to have the character development to focus on. Instead, the characters were flat and two dimensional. Ned Land became frustrating for all the whingeing he did, and the servility of Conseil was equally as wearisome. Although I am sure that Verne meant for Captain Nemo to be a mysterious enigma of a man, because of his seeming lack of interest in his new passengers and in anything other than himself and what directly effected him for that matter, I found myself completely uninterested in what it was that had lead him to this life under the sea.

Ultimately, I had to drag myself through the entire book (and I have to admit that there was even some skimming involved). Although I wanted to enjoy Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the slow place and lack of action made for a slow and uninspiring read.

4.5 / 8

Worth reading if you have the opportunity and are a fan of science fiction, but don't prioritise it.

I know that a lot of people love this book. If you are one of them, what did I miss?

If, like me, you were disappointed by the book what do you think it was that disappointed you?

#3 Weekly Blogging Tip: Commenting Habits

2011-11-24T10:02:00.001+11:00

freshinkblog.wordpress.com

Thoughtful comments

Last week my tip was about the risks of becoming too obsessed with the number of followers you have.

There was lots of interesting discussion, and one of the issues that came up was how else to judge the success of your blog? It was suggested (by me and some others) that comments was another way of judging whether you are achieving what you want from your blog and so it seemed appropriate that this week we talk about our commenting habits.

It's difficult to frame this discussion topic as an actual tip but here goes:

Be a thoughtful commenter.

I can hear everyone asking what I mean by 'thoughtful commenter'. Let me try and explain.

I am going to generalise and say that there are about 3 kinds of comments.

Spam comments: So far as I am concerned, these are a big 'no no'. What are spam comments? They are those comments you get from someone (usually on a meme related post) that say something along the lines of "Great post. I love your blog, check out mine". You later discover that this same comment has been copied and pasted onto a lot of other people's blogs as well. This doesn't happen to me as much anymore (although I don't really participate in memes very often anymore) but when it does, it drives me crazy.

Spam comments are never cool. The purpose of a comment shouldn't be (in my view) to get someone to come to your own blog. That might be a lovely and welcome side effect but it shouldn't be why you are leaving a comment. This is not thoughtful commenting. This is rude commenting.

I also include in this group any comments in reply to a meme post that might have some personal comment such as 'I really enjoyed that book' quickly followed by 'I hope that you will come and check out my [insert meme post name and link here] post'.

Although this is slightly better than an outright spam comment, I still don't think it's cool. Perhaps if you interacted with what the blogger was saying in their post on a more significant scale it might be acceptable, but otherwise I think it is barely distinguishable from the outright spam comment. If you are participating in a meme, then the link to your post is on the hosting blog and it shouldn't need to be spread about on every single blog you comment on. The purpose of leaving this kind of comment seems simply to be to direct people back to your own post (this is different to sharing a link to your own review on a review post which I think is actually great). That's spam in my books.

~~Minor comments~~ Brief comments: What I am referring to hear are those comments that go something along the lines of "Great review, I want to read this now" or "Thanks for the reminder, I have been meaning to read this for ages" etc. I want to be very upfront and say I leave comments like this.

These comments aren't necessarily bad comments. They are polite. They show that you have read the post (or at least that you appear to have read it). Most importantly, these comments can reflect all you have to say about a particular post. I read posts sometimes where they serve to remind me that I wanted to read a particular book, but I don't necessarily have anything additional to say. In such cases, the choice is either to leave no comment at all, or leave a minor comment that reflects how you feel. We all like comments, so I tend to leave it anyway.

So, I would suggest that although these aren't the worst kind of comments, they probably aren't ideal if they are the only kind of comments you are leaving on other people's blogs.

Interactive comments: This should be fairly obvious. These are the comments that demonstrate that someone has read the post and thought about the content. It might be that you have read the book that has been reviewed and so you offer your own opinion. It might be that the blogger has said something in their post that has caught your attention and so you respond to it. It might be that you offer a different perspective to the one offered by the blogger (in a nice way of course!!) or saying that you share their perspective for certain reasons.

Even a ~~minor~~ brief comment, take 'Great review, I want to read that' for example, has the potential to become an interactive comment simply by adding a reason at the end: 'Great, review, I want to read that because you talked about the use of hard boiled writing which is a style I want to explore after reading The Long Goodbye recently OR I found what you said about the language used by the author to be quite compelling because I enjoy a very descriptive style of writing'.

Interactive comments can start or continue discussion. They can lead to the sharing of ideas and introduce us to new books.

So, I would argue that interactive comments are the best kind of comments because they encourage other bloggers to keep posting, they help to build community and they really get our bookish thoughts flowing.

So what's a thoughtful commenter?

I believe a thoughtful commenter is someone who participates in the blogging community by reading other blogs and leaving mainly interactive comments (with some ~~minor~~ brief comments as well of course so long as they are used in moderation).

We all put so much work into our blogs. Leaving a nice, interactive comment is one way of showing our appreciation to other bloggers who share our interests and are providing us with lots of interesting content for us to read and think about.

Given all this discussion about commenting, tune in next week for:
#4 WEEKLY BLOGGING TIP: COMMENTING SYSTEMS

Just a quick reminder that these are tip based on personal taste and experience and may not be suited to everyone. Quality of content and enthusiasm are what counts most.

PAST TIPS:
#2 Obsession with Followers
#1 The Follower Gadget
An Introduction

Page Turners is on Twitter!

2011-11-22T22:05:00.001+11:00

Page Turners can be found on Twitter!

@blogpageturners

That's right ladies and gentlemen, I have joined the 21st century and created a twitter account. It was people's responses to my Weekly Blogging Tips posts that inspired me to give something new a try and I am very much looking forward to seeing how/if Twitter affects my blogging.

I intend to use this account primarily as an additional means of sharing with people when Page Turners is updated. No doubt as I become more proficient I will have many other interesting bookish things to share.

It is now possible for you to follow Page Turners on Twitter, as well as to share posts on Page Turners via Twitter.

I am looking forward to adding people to my twitter feed and reading all the interesting things people have to share. Feel free to leave your Twitter name in the comments if you want to.

Review: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (her highest selling book)

2011-11-22T13:26:00.000+11:00

And Then There Were None is Agatha Christie's most popular novel. In fact, I did a bit of research (ie. looked up Wikipedia) and was informed that is actually one of the best selling novels of all time.

It was originally published as Ten Little Niggers, but given the clear racist meaning behind this title, it was renamed in the 60s as And Then There Were None.

Eight different and otherwise unknown to each other people are invited by an old acquaintance to stay on Indian Island (originally Nigger Island). When they arrive, they discover that although there are two additional people on the island, the help, their host has yet to arrive. The boat that took them there has left and they find themselves stranded. Each person has the poem "Ten Little Niggers" framed on the wall of their room. On their first evening there, they discover that they have been trapped on an island by a person determined to kill them all one by one – and that person must be one of their number. And yet, at the close of the book, all ten people are dead.

Who killed them?

I was very taken by this story and had absolutely no idea until it was revealed at the end who the murderer could possibly have been. It was certainly very creative story telling on Miss Christie's part, but I can't help but wonder what makes it the most popular of all her books, to the point where it is one of the highest selling books of all time? It certainly has a lot of murders, more so than any other of her books. And it has one of the trickiest endings to figure out in my view. But I missed having a central detective to follow around as they attempted to solve the crime.

For myself, there are other books I have enjoyed more than this one. I think though I am a little biased toward the Hercule Poirot novels, I just can't help myself.

6.5 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written, couldn't put it down. I would recommend it.

Is this Agatha Christie one of your favourites and what's your theory about why this one might be her most popular novel?

Review: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

2011-11-19T11:46:00.000+11:00

"Charles Ryder, a lonely student at Oxford, is captivated by the outrageous and decadent Sebastian Flyte. Invited to Brideshead, Sebastian's magnificent family home, Charles welcomes the attentions of its eccentric, aristocratic inhabitants, gradually becoming infatuated with them and the life of privilege they inhabit in particular, with Sebastian's remote sister, Julia. But he gradually comes to recognize his spiritual and social distance from them, eventually discovering a world where duty and desire, faith and happiness are in conflict."

I would like to be able to give a better review of Brideshead Revisited than I am able too, but as it turns out, I can't.

I wanted to like this book. I really enjoyed the movie and so I thought that the book would be bound to be better. Unfortunately, I didn't find it so.

I think the first problem I had was that I was unknowingly pregnant while I read this. I felt sick all the time, my concentration levels were unaccountably low and I just found reading anything hard slog. Perhaps, if I read this book while I wasn't under the influence of pregnancy hormones and morning sickness I might have enjoyed it more.

But then again, perhaps not.

I couldn't identify with any of the characters. I couldn't identify with their lifestyle. I couldn't identify with the class and religious differences and the conflicts that arose because of it. I didn't care whether Sebastian and Charles were gay or not. All the characters were definitely on the irritating side. Everyone whinged too much. Not enough happened in the plot to otherwise distract me from the 'irritating-ness' of the characters and their general whingyness. Waugh's writing was great, but again, it still wasn't enough to help me engage with the story or the characters.

There you have it, not much of a review but because of the state of mind I was in when I read the book it's all I can manage.

If anyone else has a proper review of this book they would like to share, please leave a link in the comments. I would love to know what you thought of the novel if you have read it. What did I miss?

#2 Weekly Blogging Tip: Obsession with Followers

2011-11-17T07:47:00.000+11:00

from freshinkblog.wordpress.com

Obsession with Followers

Last week, my tip was to put your follower gadget close to or at the top of your blog.

I ended my post last week with a warning that having a follower gadget on your blog, which displays how many followers you have, can have a bad effect on your psyche.

This leads me to this week's tip:

Don't become too obsessed the number of followers you have.

Although we all blog for ourselves and in order to share our love of reading, it is very easy to become obsessed with the number of followers you have. You begin to wonder why more people aren't following your blog, and then you start comparing yourself to blogs with more followers than you. Then it's all downhill from there.

I admit that I go through periods of time where I pay more attention to the number of my followers than I would like to. It was actually part of the reason I was inspired to write my recent post "A changing blogging community and some self evaluation".

Why having followers is a good thing

I hope that I made it clear in last week's post that there is nothing wrong with wanting a following and hoping that you will attract one.

It's normal to want followers and it's normal to do things that might attract followers. It's also normal to worry about how many you have sometimes.

We spend so much time and effort on our blogs, it only makes sense that we hope that other people will see our websites and enjoy the work we have put in.

Making attracting followers your priority

The danger though, is that you can then fall into the trap of doing anything you can to attract followers, instead of concentrating on the quality of your content and participating in the blogging community.

These are example of what I mean:

Competitions that are only open to followers: One half of me understands the argument people might make for this practice. The blogger only wants their prize to go to someone who follows their blog and not a random person in it for the prize.

The cynical half of me though thinks that this is often just a way of covering the fact that people are hoping that by having a competition only open to followers, they will gain new followers because people will sign up just to enter the competition. Those new followers might up your count, but they are still in it just for the prize, and not because of any original admiration for your blog (I am a very cynical person, I should warn you).

The follow back syndrome: This is where bloggers advertise that if you follow their blog they will in turn follow yours back.

On the one hand, this could be seen as polite and a valid form of participating in the blogging community, if you then actively participate in all of those blogs that you have signed up to follow in return for their following.

But that's the thing. Does everyone then actively participate in everyone else's blog? What I think is more likely is happening is Blogger #1 in an attempt to grow their following, advertises that they will 'follow-back' anyone that follows them. Blogger #2 therefore becomes a follower knowing that they will gain a follower in return.The your feed becomes cluttered with blogs you aren't necessarily entirely interested in. Everyone has different interests, and so it makes sometimes that someone might follow your blog and yet the content of theirs doesn't 'float your boat' so to speak. That's ok. It's variety.

Why could becoming obsessed with followers be bad?

I think it probably comes down to what you want from blogging and what you want for your blog specifically.

Do you want it to look like a lot of people follow you, or do you want genuine participants?

I would suggest considering quality of your following, not your quantity. Do you have 600 followers but your post gets 3 comments each? Or do you have 200 followers but you get many more comments on your posts from people keen to offer their views and experiences about what you have written about?

By becoming too follower focussed I think that there is a significant risk that people might lose what it really means to be part of a community. Don't we want to meaningfully participate in discussion with other bloggers and have other people do the same with us?

Good quality content and a genuine interest in participating in the blogging community are great ways of attracting followers.

Please know that I am not telling you that I don't think you should have follower only contests or follow-back policies or whatever else you do to attract followers. A lot of these types of things so doubt work to attract genuine followers, especially when used well.

This tip is simply a warning against becoming so preoccupied with attracting followers that you forget to enjoy yourself, produce good content and participate meaningfully in the blogging community.

Since I talked a lot here about building a following and participating in the broader book blogging community, I thought next week might be a good week to talk about comments. So tune in next week for:

#3 WEEKLY BLOGGING TIP: COMMENTING HABITS

Just a quick reminder that these are tip based on personal taste and experience and may not be suited to everyone. Quality of content and enthusiasm are what counts most.

PAST TIPS:

An Introduction
#1: The Follower Gadger

Review: The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, a timeless novel that provides insight into modern society

2011-11-15T16:55:00.001+11:00

"Watch thou for the Mutant;

Keep pure the stock of The Lord"

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is one of my new favourite books of all time.

I was completely hooked from the beginning to the end by the story, the characters, the setting and the nail biting tension that made me grip the book so hard that my knuckles turned white.

The Chrysalids, written in 1955, is a dystopian books set in a post apocalyptic future where vast tracks of the earth have become inhabitable because of what we assume has been a nuclear disaster. The protagonist, David Strom, live in an isolated agricultural society where no one really knows that happened to wipe out the 'Old People' who built cities and machines but who were unable to save themselves from disaster. There is one religion in this future, a fundamentalist Christian religion where people consider anything outside of the norm to be a 'Deviation', an un-God-like perversion of what is considered normal and therefore acceptable. Anything, be it animal, plant or person that is considered a Deviation is destroyed. Children who are considered Deviations are killed at birth, and those whose abnormalities are not apparent until later in life are sterilised and sent to love on 'The Fringes'. It is a dark and somewhat depressing view of the future, and yet there are clear similarities between this future and our present.

David Strom is a Deviant – born with telepathic powers he uses to communicate with other people within his community who have a similar abnormality. They understand that their abnormality places them at great risk and they are able to hide it until the birth of David's younger sister Petra, born with the same abnormality, puts them all at risk.

David, Petra and the other's with telepathic abilities find themselves racing across the country to avoid capture and are only able to do so when they are discovered by a far away community of people from Sealand (New Zealand?) who travel across the globe in order to rescue them.

There is so much to say about The Chrysalids that I barely know where to begin. In relation to the story itself, Wyndham has portrayed an entirely plausible possible future for mankind, based on the weakness of mankind in the present. In addition, the plot itself is entirely captivating. Putting the book down was like ripping myself out of one world only to find myself back here where I belong. The characters were fully realised and unique, the landscape was vividly described and the tension Wyndham created was palpable.

It's when you get underneath these wonderful qualities to consider what the book is really trying to say about society that you really realise just how timeless The Chrysalids really is. In it, Wyndham really goes deep into subjects such as religious fundamentalism, prejudice, intolerance, self-identity and fear and condemnation of the 'other'.

In The Chrysalids, Wyndham asks those questions most ask at some stage; who am I, who decides what the norm is and how do they decide and where do I belong?

In the end, it was this theme of intolerance and bigotry that I found the most fascinating and the most applicable to today. Wyndham effectively reminds us that behaviours such as intolerance, prejudice and racism are rarely as black and white as they seem. Although to the reader the people of David's town are religious fundamentalists, creating 'others' and destroying them as they see fit, the reader cannot help but ask themself how different the Sealanders are for all of their noble ideals. Everyone has a different perspective and view point on life and what being a 'good' person entails – how do we decide what perspective is right and which is wrong?

8 / 8

One of the best books I have ever read. Everyone should read it - it is totally amazing. I am in love.

Have you ever been bowled over by a book whose message is just applicable as it was 50 or 100 or even 200 years ago. How does it make you feel when an author seems able to really get inside what makes society work and how that might affect the future? If you have read this book, how did it resonate with you?

Review: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (Christie's first novel)

2011-11-13T12:22:00.000+11:00

The Mysterious Affair at Styles is Agatha Christie's first published novel and therefore the world's first introduction to the wonderfulness that is Hercule Poirot.

This has always been one of my favourite Christie novels, even before I realised it was her first published work. I read it over and over again as I was growing up, but always with enough time between readings to forget who the criminal was. Now sadly, I have read it so much that I can't forget 'who did it' but I still enjoy it nevertheless.

The narrator, like most (all?) of her Poirot novels is Hastings. He is resting after an injury in the war and is invited to stay at a country property, Styles, with an old friend. While there, he finds himself embroiled in family drama as the matriarch of the family, Emily Cavendish, is poisoned, and it is clear that someone in the house must be responsible for it.

By luck, Hastings runs into his old friend Poirot, who on the request of hastings and the family, sets to work using his little grey cells to solve the murder.

I really loved that the Poirot introduced in this book is the Poirot we see in all the books. Christie just got his character so spot on right from the very beginning that he is thoroughly consistent throughout all the books in which he appears. He finds himself in England as a refugee from the war, a fact that had escaped my notice until this reading of the book.

In this book we also have the varied cast of characters upon whom suspicion is thrown. There is Alfred Inglethorpe, Emily's new and much younger husband upon whim suspicion in naturally initially thrown. There are her sons, Lawrence and John Cavendish, both of whom have their own motives for doing away with their mother. Also in the house is Mary Cavendish, John's beautiful but unsatisfied wife who may or may not be having an affair with the dark and handsome toxicologist (yes, a very suspicious profession when someone has been poisoned) Dr Bauerstein. There is Cynthia Murdoch, an orphan who has been taken into the family and of course the eccentric Evelyn Howard, Emily longest friend and paid companion.

Then of course there are the marvellous clues that Christie scatters throughout the book. Who left the footprints outside the window? Why is there a green fabric caught in the latch of the murdered woman's bedroom door? Can Cynthia really be that sound a sleeper? Who was arguing with Emily on the day of her death and what was that argument about? Why is there a crushed coffee cup on the floor of the bedroom, next to a puddle of candle wax?

Despite it being her first work, this is a book that is bound to keeping you guessing until the end.

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it.

Did you realise that this was Christie's first novel when you read it (if you have read it)? If you didn't, does it change the way you think about the book?

#1 Weekly Blogging Tip: The Follower Gadget

2011-11-10T13:15:00.001+11:00

image from freshinkblog.wordpress.com

The Google Friend Connect follower gadget

The follower gadget provided by Google Friend Connect is a convenient way of allowing people to sign up and become members of your blog. They are then notified directly (using different means) when you update the contents of your blog.

If you choose to utilise this useful blogging tool, my tip is this:

Place your follower gadget close to or at the very top of your blog.

My reasoning is this. When people visit your blog they will certainly see the top of your blog and the content of the post that you are reading.

Although we very much hope that they will scroll further down, there is no guarantee that they will. If they do, there is also no way of knowing how far down they will scroll.

I know in theory if they like your blog they might deliberately scroll down looking for your follower gadget, but then again, they also might not.

So, by having the follower gadget at the top of your blog you are making it easier for people to follow your blog if they like what they see.

I know from personal experience that when I moved my follower gadget from lower down my sidebar to the very top, the rate at which people followed Page Turners definitely increased.

If you use other methods of allowing people to follow you (as I do as well) such as subscription by email or RSS feeds, I would still suggest that you consider having them toward the top of your blog.

More about Google Friend Connect

I know that if you are using the Blogger Platform, you can go into the design page from your Dashboard, click on "Add a gadget" and look for Google Friend Connect. I don't have any advice how you can add the gadget using other platforms.

If, however, you would like to learn more about Google Friend Connect consider reading the Wikipedia entry or go straight to the Google Friend Connect page.

The positives

The Google Friend Connect follower gadget is only one of many different ways to follow other people's blogs, but it certainly seems to be a quick and easy way and one which I would say most bloggers like to use and are familiar with.

The negatives

The downside of the Google Friend Connect follower gadget is that you can see, right there in front of you, how many people are following your blog. This can have a definite affect on your psyche, and not necessarily a good one.

This will be explored more fully in next week's Weekly Blogging Tip:

#2 WEEKLY BLOGGING TIP: OBSESSION WITH FOLLOWERS

image from justintadlock.com

Just a quick reminder that these are tip based on personal taste and experience and may not be suited to everyone. Quality of content and enthusiasm are what counts most.

PAST TIPS:

An Introduction

Weekly Blogging Tip Series: An Introduction

2011-11-09T13:39:00.000+11:00

image from freshinkblog.wordpress.com

For most of us, it is our love of reading that has lead us to start a book blog.

We divide our time between reading and writing about what we have read in the hopes that by sharing our love of reading with other people we will learn something new and entertain other people.

The result is that (for some of anyway), out blogs become very important to us. Some of us may even spend almost as much time blogging as we do reading. I would guess that a lot of us are on some occasions working on new blog design and content and otherwise seeking to improve ourselves as well as readers.

I am definitely always working Page Turners the best that it can be. This means that on many occasions I have emailed other bloggers for tips and advice on anything from design to HTML coding.

Similarly, I often receive emails from other bloggers asking me questions about blog design and use.

This got me thinking; maybe it would be helpful if I started a series of posts containing blogging tips that I have picked up over the last two and half years. This might help me solidify my ideas about what I want here at Page Turners, as well help other people who are just starting out blogging or thinking about what they want from their blogs.

The Weekly Blogging Tip Series

So I am starting a weekly series of posts containing my personal blogging tips, which will be posted every Thursday until I run out of tips.

What these tips are:

All of these tips are obviously based on my personal taste (something I want to admit up front).

Some of these tips are things that have worked well for me.

Some of these tips are related to questions that other bloggers have emailed me.

Some of these tips are things I think it is important to consider in relation to the design of your blog.

Most importantly, some of these tips are about making your blog as accessible and easy to use as possible for the people who visit it.

What these tips are not:

These tips will not all be relevant to every blogger. I use Blogger as my platform and as such a lot of my tips might be relevant only to other people who use the blogger platform. I have never used Wordpress or any other platform and so I may not be able to identify whether a tip is relevant to Blogger users or all book bloggers.

image from justintadlock.com

This is very important. I don't want people to be offended if I offer a tip which you don't utilise on your blog. In fact, this series of posts isn't at all about what people should or shouldn't do on their blogs.

I am happy to admit that some of the tips I will be sharing with you are things I believe improve a blog, but things I don't do myself.

Also, I know for a fact that there are many blogs out there I regularly follow that do things differently to what my tips will be. This doesn't mean that I enjoy their blogs any less and I certainly don't want people to think I am suggesting that your blog isn't effective or enjoyable if you something differently.

What makes blogs special is that that each is unique and personal to their individual author. Ultimately and regardless of design, it is a bloggers content and enthusiasm that will create a successful blog and keep people coming back.

I am a bit nervous that I am heading into dangerous territory with this series of posts, but I hope that people understand that I am doing this with good intentions and a genuine enjoyment of blogging.

Please feel free to let me know what you think and if you have any tips that you think are useful, which I might consider including in my series.

TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR TIP #1: THE FOLLOWER GADGET

Also, check out my most recent review of The Black Russian by Lenny Bartulin, a funny and satirical novel set in Sydney about a second hand book seller caught up in a whole lot of trouble!

Review: The Black Russian by Lenny Bartulin (Australian)

2011-11-09T11:55:00.000+11:00

I first heard of Lenny Bartulin's The Black Russian, when it was shortlisted for the 2010 Ned Kelly Award for crimewriting. After leaving a comment on one of Bernadette's blogs (see Reactions to Reading and Fair Dinkum Crime) expressing my eagerness to read the book, she kindly sent it to me to read. So a big thank you to Bernadette for her kindness. Please take some time to have a look at her blogs.

Crime fiction is a greatly underrated genre, and so recently I have been deliberatley making and effort to explore it further.

Lenny Bartulin's The Black Russian ticked a lot of boxes for me. It was crime fiction, it was Australian, it was set in Sydney (my home town), it had a reputation for being funny and, as a bonus, its protagonist was a second hand bookseller.

It had all the makings of a great read, and Bartulin delivered.

"After yet another slow week at the cash register, Susko Books - that fine purveyor of second-hand literature - is facing financial ruin. Jack Susko heads to a gallery in Woollahra to scape up some funds with the sale of an old art catalogue. With his characteristic panache and exquisite timing, he arrives just as De Groot Halleries is being done over by masked thieves. Along with a mysterious object from the safe, the robbers seize a valuable first edition from Jack's bag, too.

The owner of the gallery refuses to call the cops, and Jack is offered a sizeable sum to keep silent. But when de Groot arrives at the bookshop with his heavy to renege on the deal, all bets are off. With an ease that almost constitutes a gift, Jack Susko finds himself at the centre of a world full of duplicity, lies and art theft."

Although this might sound a little shallow, what I enjoyed most about this book was that it was based in Sydney, and much of the action took place in areas I am very familiar with. I liked seeing those areas depicted in fiction; roads I drive along several times a week, buses I regularly catch and at one stage, a street my parents in law actually live on. I think Bartulin really captured what Sydney feels like - the weather, the streets, the people. He is able to capture the different atmospheres and lifestyles of Woollahra, the city and the western suburbs for example.

In fact, The Black Russian has a distinctly Australian flavour, expressed in the accuracy of the depiction of the setting as well as the dry Australian humour in Bartulin's writing.

The characters were perfectly formed stereotypes. There was the money hungry art gallery owner, the evil and morally repugnant crime boss, the femme fatale and of course the cynical and frustrated small business owner. Fortunately, Bartulin was a skilled enough writer to prevent the steotypes from becoming cartoonish caricatures - thus maintaing the humour that they each provide.

Perhaps another risk Bartulin took was with the entirely implausible plot, but rather than distracting the reader with its implausibility Bartulin provides comedy, larger than life characters, accurate and atmospheric setting and witty one-liners to ensure that the reader sees past the implausibility and becomes drawn into the story.

I would even go so far as to say that the implausibility of it is all is almost part of the point of this book. Bartulin uses the larger than life characters and outlandish plot to poke fun at Sydney's 'try-hard' preoccupation with art, culture and money.

Although this is a comedy, it is primarily a piece of crime fiction. Scribe Publications, the publisher, has quotes on its website comparing Bartulin's writing to Raymond Chandler and Ian Flemming. I haven't read Ian Flemming, but I think that a direct comparison to Raymond Chandler's work is perhaps taking things a bit far.

There is certainly the influence of the often talked about hard-boiled style of crime fiction writing in Bartulins writing, most clearly in the dialogue of Jack Susko. This was the books main weakness for me, but a weakness I see in a lot of hard-boiled style pieces of crime fiction (and so probably more a question of personal preference than weakness). A lot of the time Jack Susko's sarcastic sense of humour is very funy, but at other times it felt false and unauthentic. Consider these exchanges in the early part of the book between Jack Susko and the two thevies who are holding him at gun point.

In the first exchange, Jack Susko is being duct taped to a chair by one of the thieves:

"'Nice mask,'said Jack.
Shane ignored him, concentrated on winding the tape.
'Why didn't you wear the cape?'
'Lone Ranger doesn't wear a cape.'
'You mean you're not the Scarlet Pimpernell?'"

The second exchange takes place as the second thief goes through Jack Susko's bag and pulls out his copy of a valuable first edition Ian Flemming book:

"Walter picked up Jack's bag from the floor. He lifted the flap and had a good look inside. He pulled out a package and waved it around. 'What's this then?'
'A bomb,' said Jack."

Maybe it's the criminal solicitor in me, but I can't suspend my sense of reality quite enough to believe that this is how any person would react when being held up and robbed at gun point, I don't care how financially unstable they are.

Ultimately, The Black Russian is an incredibly humourous book. It is the second in a series of three books, A Deadly Business, The Black Russian and De Luxe. Although I hadn't read the first book in the series this didn't affect in any way my understanding or enjoyment of this one.

You could read this book if you were looking for a witty example of modern-day crime fiction with a good dose of black humour. It is also a good book for a person who is interested in reading an accurate depiction of the people, the life and the atmosphere of the Sydney I know and love.

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it.

Have you ever read a book set exactly where you live and in the time that you live? What did you think of the depiction of your city?

Review: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

2011-11-07T12:46:00.000+11:00

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff is a fascinating look at the role of polygamy, historically, in the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS).

Not only does it give historical consideration to this practice, but it also looks at its existence in modern day break-away LDS groups/sects (or whatever word you would like to insert here).

Ebershoff achieves this with two distinct story lines.

The first is the historical story line of Anne Eliza Young, one of the wives (the 19th in fact) of the Prophet Brigham Young. It is set in the late 19th century and although it is a fictional story, it is based on the real Anne Eliza Young, who was actually married to the Prophet and who became famous when she broke from the LDS and began a campaign to end polygamy.

There are parallels between this historical storyline and the modern day story of Jordan Scott, a man who grew up in a breakaway group of the LDS which still practised polygamy. Although polygamy is now illegal, the story is also based on real break away groups of the LDS that are based somewhere in America (sorry, I'm an Aussie, can't remember where, maybe Utah?) and who still practice polygamy. Jordan becomes involved with the community again when his mother, the 19th wife of his father, is accused of his father's murder.

Through the eyes of Anne Eliza we see how polygamy affected the women and children at the time when the LDS was in its early days, and through Jordan's eyes we see the impact it has had for current practitioners of this religion (both the breakaway groups and the main body of the Church).

Although fictional, The 19th Wife is clearly well researched, and it is this sense of authenticity that really peaked my interest.

Ebershoff tells Anne Eliza's story through her own words, but also through a series of fictional documents, including memoirs of her family members, letters and newspaper articles. Whilst this was a novel approach to presenting the story of Anne Eliza, at times it meant that her story wasn't as cohesive as it could have been, both as a standalone story, and how it sat in the context of the entire book. The book was at times frustrating because it moved frequently between the two protagonists, as well as the additional mediums used to tell Anne Eliza's story. This meant that just as you were settling into one story, you were quickly moved onto the next.

The storyline involving Jordan Scott also had the additional element of being somewhat like a murder mystery. When his mother is accused of murdering his father, he sets out to investigate what really happened. Jordan was also a gay man, which played a significant role in his character development. At times, Ebershoff handling if his character's homosexuality was a bit cheesy and added more complication to the story than was really needed. My other complaint with this story was the resolution to the murder mystery – it wasn't as satisfying as it perhaps could have been.

Although the two narratives do not always work well together, by using the two narratives Ebershoff is able to cover many aspects of polygamy: it's rise, its affect on those that practice it (now and in the past), arguments for and against it as a religious practice and its eventual formal demise from the Church of LDS.

Some of the parts I found most interesting were where the characters in the modern day storyline discussed the reasoning behind the LDS formally renouncing the practice of polygamy when in fact their original Prophet declared it to be the will of God. There is an interesting exchange on an internet chat board where someone questions how seriously you can take the entire Church when it is willing to renounce the word of their God for the sake of the laws of man.

Overall, Ebershoff's straightforward prose and well researched stories meant The 19th Wife was an easy and fulfilling read.

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it.

Have you read this book? I would love to know what you thought about it if you had. I am not normally into books that have an agenda to push, but Ebershoff does a good job of considering all sides of the debate around polygamy (I thought).

My analysis of literature: the good, the bad and the ugly

2011-11-04T15:19:00.002+11:00

from stuffscenekids.com

The Blue Bookcase posed an interesting question to its readers this hop: To what extent do you analyze literature? Are you more analytical in your reading if you know you're going to review the book? Is analysis useful in helping you understand and appreciate literature, or does it detract from your readerly experience?

To what extent do I analyse literature? I feel a little bit awkward about answering this question because I think that it highlights my biggest weakness as a blogger.

That's right. I am going to admit to you what I see my biggest failing as a blogger is.

First, I am going to answer the final two questions.

Am I more analytical in my reading if I know I am going to read the book?

Yes. The reason I started Page Turners in 2009 was because I was ploughing through books at the rate of knots and not giving them any consideration once I was finished with them. I started to long for the times in high school English class when the books I read were so much more fulfilling to me as a reader because I studied them; looking into their construction and plots and characters in so much more detail. Having analysed the book in that way made the book so much more enjoyable to me.

So I started Page Turners to try and find some of magic again. Since then, I definitely read books differently. I mark passages that capture my attention. I think more about the characters, plot and writing in the book and consider what the author was trying to achieve and whether they did. Knowing that I am going to review the book means that I pay attention to the finer detail because it is often those details that really add to a review.

Is analysis useful in helping you understand and appreciate literature, or does it detract from your readerly experience?

As said above, it is useful in helping me understand and appreciate literature. By analysing it as I read, I can more fully understand the story, the characters and the author's intentions. I find little details that I otherwise might not notice and I can attribute meaning to why those details are there.

It means that when I recommend a book to people, or just talk books with people, I am more able to engage in a meaningful discussion.

It doesn't detract from my readerly experience, but I think that this might be something more to do with my analytical abilities than anything else.

To what extent do you analyse literature?

And that brings me to my weakness. Although I analyse literature, it is only the extent that my abilities allow me too. Sometimes, I wish that those abilities were more developed than they are.

I have no system in how I analyse books. I have nothing specific that I am looking for, no plan of action or method. I just read the book and take mental notes of the things that grab me.

Is this even analysis? I don't know.

I try very hard to think about the content of books (the themes, the language etc) and then express my thoughts in my review. Often though, I am not all that satisfied with the outcome. I read so many exceptional blogs where the blogger really gets into the heart of the book and can express themselves so effectively. When I compare those reviews to my own, I feel as though I am lacking. I've never studied anything remotely English related since I left high school (I did a law degree…. say no more) so I don't feel as though I really know how to identify some of those aspects of a book I would like to be analysing. I also feel as though I lack the vocabulary and the writing ability to express my thoughts as well as I would like.

If I was more skilled at analysing literature, I wonder if it might detract from the reading experience. I wouldn't like to be someone that is constantly taking notes as they go etc, I just want to read.

So there, you have it folks. I don't even know if what I do counts as analysis but if it does, I certainly wish I was better at it. I know that over the last 2.5 years my reviews have definitely improved so perhaps I am on the way to gaining more understanding of how to really analyse and appreciate literature.

What about you? Are you satisfied with your analysis?

What do you even consider literary analysis to be in a blogging context?

I just wanted to add that after reading everyone else's response, I am more than ever questioning whether what I do is really proper analysis. I think I focus more on myself as the reader - my response to the book, why I felt like that and what the author did that made me feel like that. I wonder if that's analysis or not?

The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

2011-11-02T11:27:00.000+11:00

The following review was was written by a close friend mine who has given me permission to post here her review of controversial author Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam. She has previously had her review of Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality ed. Sarah Husain published here on Page Turners.

* * *

As I perused the shelves of my favorite New York feminist bookstore, the sub-title, ‘An Emancipation Proclamation for Women’, jumped out as a prefect candidate for my inspiring holiday reading. Having recently read Voices of Resistance , I was keen to further explore the realm of Muslim feminist writings, and eagerly handed over my $25.

Unable to contain my enthusiasm, I took out my new book on the packed Brooklyn train and started to read, ready to be invigorated by some inspirational writing. However by the time I arrived home, I was far from inspired - I was irritated and confused. A third of the way through the book, I realized that Hirsi Ali has a very particular vision for the so-called ‘emancipation’ of women and Islam; a vision that requires all Muslim women to leave their ‘pre-modern’ existence and embrace the enlightenment of ‘the West’. By the end of the book, one could be forgiven for believing that all Muslim women were terribly oppressed, unhappy and uneducated; never left their homes, were ‘married off’ in their teens and uncritically adopted a religion and life that could not possibly be satisfying or liberatory. Hirsi Ali actually manages to disempower the women her book claims to speak to. This makes me wonder – who then, is this book written for?

In her opening chapter, Hirsi Ali briefly explains her background, and motivation for writing the book. This is expanded on in Chapter 6, which conveys her history as a girl who left her Muslim upbringing, sought refugee status in the Netherlands, attended university and found herself in Parliament. These chapters usefully put her argument into context; however Hirsi Ali also uses this as a means to legitimate herself as an ‘expert’ on Islam everywhere. This is problematic because she offers her opinions in a way that generalise her experience to that of any Muslim woman anywhere in the world. She fails acknowledge the diversity of Muslim communities and experiences, making far-reaching statements such “millions of Muslim women are sentenced to domestic work indoors and hours of endless boredom” and “very few Muslims are capable of looking at their faith critically” . These statements typify the language used throughout the book - factually ambiguous, value laden statements that are damaging to the many Muslim communities who are painted as something they are not.

Her project for liberation, while never clearly stated, can be adduced from discussion throughout the book. She argues that the “world of Islam” needs to embrace individual freedom, “the pursuit of reason” , separate church from State, develop science and technology and allow sexual freedom for women. Throughout the book she speaks of ‘the west’ and ‘Islam’ as counter-posed monoliths; describing Islam as “pre-modern” and “fossilized” , with Muslims “lagging behind the west” . The West is said to be ‘modern’ and ‘developed’; valuing education, employment and individual responsibility, with “several ideologies that exist alongside one another” . In this construction, Hirsi Ali imposes her own world view, and privileges her own experience of ‘liberation’. She assumes that all Muslim women who have not taken her path need emancipation, going as far as to say: “one day their blinkers will drop” .

It is unclear the position Hirsi Ali is writing from in this text. She identifies with her stated audience by saying ‘we Muslims’ throughout, however also self-identifies as an atheist and a member of ‘the west’. Further, she denounces authoritarianism, while at the same time arguing for state enforced solutions to many of her criticisms of Islam, such as compulsory screening of girls ‘at risk’ of genital mutilation . The most curious contradiction arises in her closing chapter, where she says that most Muslims are “decent and law-abiding people” who “are not fervent believers of every ritual of Islam” , a stark contrast to the pre-modern peoples in the rest of her text.

This begs the question then: Do Muslim women really need saving?

* * *

Great review.

Has anyone ever read any of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's books? What do you think about her controversial views? (and please keep it polite)

Genre question for everyone about indigenous fiction, please help

2011-11-01T12:44:00.002+11:00

from maggiecakes.blogspot.com

What genre is that?

I am in the process of splitting my book reviews into a list of reviews by genre.

I hope that this will give me some idea of what kind of books I am reading and where I should make more effort to expand my knowledge of the different types of literature.

I also hope it will make it easier for my followers to find book reviews that might interest them.

But I am having difficulty with genre's (as you can imagine) so here is my first question for you all:

Australian Aboriginal fiction. I have a category for all Australian books called "Australian Literature" and I have a category for all books by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors called "Australian Aboriginal authors".

What I am not sure about is whether I should have a category for all books that deal with Indigenous Australian themes/stories, regardless of who the author is and what that category should be called?????

Books that come to mind are Diamond Dove by Adrain Hyland, The Timeless Land by Eleanor Dark and The Secret River by Kate Grenville - all about indigenous/Aboriginal issues/themes, but all by white authors.

Any suggestions?????

Back from holidays and a reading update (It's Monday, so why not?!)

2011-10-31T14:05:00.001+11:00

Well, another Monday has arrived, and this is my first Monday after my beautiful holiday in New Caledonia. I'm telling you, if you ever need a nice holiday away on a tropical island, New Caledonia is definitely an option you should think about. Lazing on the beach drinking cocktails (well, juice cocktails, the down side of pregnancy!) and swimming in that beautiful clear turquoise ocean. Sigh. Heaven.

But now I am back and ready to take on the world again. No, not really :-)

Current Read

This is an old favourite of mine, in fact, the entire book is. I have two copies of The Lord of The Rings. One is as it was written originally, with all of them in the one book. The second and my most used copy has each book separately. I took The Two Towers and The Return of the King with me on holidays and I am still finishing it off. I don't know what it is about The Lord of the Rings, but it just seems perfect to me. It's everything I want from a book. Real emotion. A real sense of place. In depth characters. Complexity. It's perfect.

Just finished

Having just come back from two weeks holidays I have just reading a lot and I loved reading them all! Some were re-reads and some were new to me books and some were new to me books and authors! Here's a list:

The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien (re-read)

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde (new to me book)

Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie (new to me book)

The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke (re-read)

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (new to me book) (how brilliant is John Wyndham!)

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall (new to me book and author)

Up Next

Who knows. I like to keep a bit of spice in my life.

Review: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, the real-life inspiration for detective fiction

2011-10-30T15:45:00.000+11:00

"Since Whicher was sure that the murderer was an inmate of the house, all his suspects were still at the scene. This was the original country-house murder mystery, a case in which the investigator had to find not a person but a person's hidden self. It was pure whodunnit, a contest of intelligence and nerve between the detective and the killer. Here were the twelve. One was the victim. Which was the traitor?"

~ Quote from The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

For a non-fiction book, Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher has many different, but equally interesting layers to it.

Firstly, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher provides detailed insight into the development of the profession of police detective. The book centres around one of the first murder investigations in 19th century Victorian England to significantly capture the public's attention - what is known as the murder at Road Hill House. One morning on a day in 1860, the inhabitants of Road Hill House, the Kent family, awake to find that young Saville Kent, aged 3, had been taken from his nursery during the night only to be found in the outdoor bathroom, brutally murdered.

What follows is an account of the investigation and resolution of that crime by Detective Jack Whicher. Detective Whicher was one of the original 8 Scotland Yard detectives. Whicher used his controversial methods to dig deep into the secrets of the Kent family and in doing so threatened many Victorian values and norms that were held dear by the population.

This is another layer of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - the examination of Victorian society through this singular case study of the murder at Road Hill House. Summerscale explores the roles of things such as family, privacy, gender roles and class distinction in the lives of the people of 19th century England, as they were reflected in the media coverage and popular opinion of this singular murder.

Finally and most most interestingly, in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Summerscale goes so far as to claim that this murder and Jack Whicher's investigation of it had a significant influence upon the development of detective fiction as its own unique genre. Sumerscale claims that prior to this public murder, detective fiction only took the form of short stories but that after the public attention it received, detective fiction began to evolve into longer pieces of fictions. She argues that the case had a profound effect on authors such as Wilkie Collins, Henry James and Charles Dickens and that the influence of Mr Whicher's personal characteristics and investigation methods can be seen in fiction from the 19th century to the present.

So, in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Summerscale sets out to achieve a lot and I would say that she is largely successful. I certainly found for arguments about the effect the murders at Road Hill House had on detective fiction the most interesting aspect of the book. Sadly, the tension surrounding the actual murder itself wasn't maintained throughout the entire book and I found my attention wavering from about two thirds of the way into the book. It may have been more effective in achieving its aims if it has been a little shorter and more directed.

Although it is essentially a book focused on a single murder in Victorian England, by looking at this murder in such depth Summerscale is able to bring so much more of interest to the attention of her reader, and I admire her for that.

5.5 / 8

Enjoyable, and worth reading if you have the opportunity.

I did a brief post about this around a month or two ago and a lot of people had read the book and enjoyed it. I would love to know how people feel about Summerscale's opinion on the role that this single murder played on the development of detective fiction as a genre. If you have read the book, do you think that she has over-estimated the role it played, or were you convinced by her arguments?

Holiday reading - what do you take with you?

2011-10-23T19:57:00.000+11:00

I actully read this question on another person's blog, but I thought it was so relevant to me right now that I couldn't help but pose it to my followers as well:

What kind of books do you like to read when you are on holidays?

I am currently on holidays in beautiful New Caledonia. Since our first baby is due in 19 weeks, we thought we had better have a nice holiday away, and where better to have a relaxing trip than a beautiful tropical island?!

Needless to say I came prepared with 7 books for my 2 week holiday. I had thought that I was maybe going a little overboard but so far it is proving perfect. These are the books I have bought with me:

The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien
The Return of the King by JRR Tolkien
The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

All of these are either re-reads of very old favourites (The Two Towers, The Return of the King, The Third Pig Detective Agency) or they are books that I consider will be easy and engaging reads. I have never been able to put down a John Wyndham book once I have started it, so I am especially looking forward to that.

So that's my answer - when on holidays I usually read re-reads, easy reads or reads I know I won't be able to put down.

I know a lot of people like to use the excessive reading time to get stuck into something big and challening, but I much more into giving my mind as well as my body a break while I am on holidays.

So what about you? What is your ideal holiday read?

Review: The Barforth Trilogy by Brenda Jagger (some of my favourite reads of all time)

2011-10-19T15:06:00.001+11:00

The Clouded Hills by Brenda Jagger has the honour of being one of the best books I have ever read. I fell in love with this book as a teenager and I have never quite recovered.

The Clouded Hills is the first book of the Barforth Trilogy by Brenda Jagger, all of which are based around strong female characters who are struggling to find a sense of self and independence in the 20th century.

The Clouded Hills is set in early 19th century England at the time of the industrial revolution. The protagonist, Verity Barforth, is the daughter of the most prominent cotton manufacturer in Cullingford, a manufacturing town in Yorkshire. Her life is turned upside down when she suddenly becomes heiress to a fortune when her father and elder brother are killed by the workers of their factories when they attempt to introduce labour saving machinery that will see the loss of many jobs for the workers and subsequent starvation. All control is taken out of Verity's hands, and she soon finds herself married to her elder and incredibly ambitious cousin Joel Barforth.

The Clouded Hills follows Verity Barforth as she attempts to carve out an identity of her own in the face of opposition from the society in which she was born. It is her journey of self discovery and an attempt to find true love in world that seems determined to make sure that it can't be found.

What can I say? You may never read a better book. Not because it is a wonderful piece of literary fiction. Not even because you will learn more about the industrial revolution in the early 19th century than you ever knew before.

It is because if you are anything like me, you will fall in love with the characters. Their challenges will become your challenges, their disappointments will become your disappointments and their triumphs will become your triumphs. You will feel as though you there with them for every step of their journey. You will live the life of the people in the slums, as well as the lives of those in the manufacturing classes. You will become part of the early 19th century itself; understand its social, political and economic complexities and how these really affected the lives of women at the time.

The following two books in the Barforth Trilogy, Flint and Roses and The Sleeping Sword are equally as enjoyable as The Clouded Hills.

Like The Clouded Hills, both books centre on a strong female character who is hindered by her sex, each in the generation following the one before.

In Flint and Roses, it is Faith Aycliffe, the daughter of Verity Barforth's (the protagonist in The Clouded Hills) counsin Eleanor. Little has changed for women in the interceding years between the two books, and Faith finds her abilities and desires must come second to the economic and social choices she must make about her future.

In The Sleeping Sword, it is Grace Agbrigg, Faith Aycliffe's niece who is the central protagonist. Like Faith and Verity before her, Grace finds that her own desires must come second to the reasoning she must apply when making decisions about her future, which are more about economics and social positioning than anything else. There is, however, a discernable change in the role of women by the late 19th century. Grace is able to make decisions somewhat more independently than the women who have come before. In fact, when she finds herself in a miserable and bordering on emotionally abusive relationship, is able to make the ultmate sacrifice and seek divorce from her husband. Although the consequences of this decision haunt her for the rest of her life because the change in social status it brings upon her, it is at least a sign that times are beginning to change for women.

It isn't, however, just the changes for the role of women throughout the 19th century that this trilogy focuses on. Through the three books, we also see the changes bought by the industrial revolution and developments in technology, public amenities and greater human rights.

For me though, what I learnt most from all three of the books in the Barforth Trilogy that what women were really fighting for in the past was for independence of thought and action. Choice. An ability to make decisions for themselves and about themselves. That decision might in the end be a decision to conform to societal standards and expectations or it might not. But what counts is autonomy of person and reason.

8 / 8

Each of these books, but most especially The Clouded Hills, are some of the best books I have ever read. Everyone should read the - they totally amazing. I am in love. Although the first book definitely had the greatest impact on me, I am giving them each 8 / 8 stars.

Have you ever felt as though you have become part of the book while you were reading it? Which book did that for you? If you have read this book, how did you feel about it?

NEW CALEDONIA

2011-10-19T15:05:00.000+11:00

Yep, I am in New Caledonia so I wont be commenting on anyones blogs a. because im on holidays and b. because this is a european keyboard and i cqnt find the right keys very quickly. I hqve some posts saved up though so I wont be totally absent. Hope everyone is well:

Authors behaving badly: do you allow an author's personal life affect your reading or enjoyment of their books?

2011-10-14T13:54:00.001+11:00

Yesterday I was listening to an episode of ABC Radio National's "The Book Show" in which a book entitled Writers Gone Wild by Bill Peschel was discussed with the author.

The books full description reads "Virginia Woolf is known for her modernist works: Orlando, Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. But something you might not know is that as an 18-year-old Woolf dressed up as an Abyssinian man and with five others duped the British Royal Navy into giving them a tour of one of its battleships. When it was all revealed in the press the navy was mightily embarrassed. This is just one of the anecdotes told in Bill Peschel's book Writers Gone Wild: the feuds, frolics, and follies of literature's great adventurers, drunkards, lovers, iconoclasts and misanthropes."

Toward the end of the interview, the interviewer Ramona Koval asked Bill Peschel a question to the effect of:

"are there any authors you can no longer read because of what you now know about their personal life?"

Before I talk about the answer he gave, I want to pause and consider the question first.

This is a question that most of us have considered at some stage; I know I certainly have and I have a good idea of what my answer would have been.

When I heard Romana Koval ask the question, however, my mind automatically jumped to an almost completely unrelated topic.

Sport.

I know, seems weird, but bare with me. In Australia at the moment, there is currently a lot of debate around the all too common misbehaviour of National Rugby League players (the NRL, a national sport of Australia). There are constantly media reports and even criminal charges related to a variety of incidents involving players; players defecating in hotel corridors, drunken brawls, drug dealing, drug and alcohol addiction, wife beating and even sexual assaults. Many of these players face little to no professional consequences and are given chance after chance to keep playing because of their ability on the football field.

There is a debate about what impact their personal misdeeds should have on their professional career. Are their personal lives and their professional lives so completely separate that no matter what they get up to off the field, they should be respected for what they achieve on the field and be allowed to continue to play?

Or, does their position as a person in the public eye and as a role model for young children mean that the two cannot and should not be separated and they should face professional consequences for bringing themselves and therefore their team and the game into disrepute with their behaviour.

I personally have always been firmly in that second camp in relation to football players.

So, back to authors.

When Bill Peschel was asked by Romona Koval whether there were any authors he could no longer read because of what he had learnt about their personal lives, his response was to the effect of "No, I think a great piece of literature will always stand alone." Before my mind drew parallels to the current debate around the bad behaviour of footballers I believe that I would have given the same response. Now, I am questioning myself.

Why would I excuse an author's bad behaviour because of the quality of their work, but not excuse a footballers bad behaviour for the quality of their work?

My initial reaction would be to argue that it is because a piece of fiction has the potential to have a greater impact on a broader scale than a sporting achievement. A brilliant piece of fiction might contribute something important to culture from which it comes. It might form an essential part of the development of a particular genre. It might even go on to inspire a new genre or a new style of writing. It might inspire other authors to other great works of literature. It might become a classic - with a message that is universal throughout the world and through time.

A good footballer is a good footballer. They're going to be great to watch on the field, and their achievements will mean a lot to the supporters of the team they play for. Otherwise, they are public figures who lack a broader influence on society.

Is that really a fair conclusion though? I can't help but wonder whether that argument lacks some perspective on what culture really means and just generally sounds a bit snobby and value laden.

There have been many magnificent sporting achievements that have gone into the history books as forming essential moments in their particular sports. In the example I used, the NRL is a national sport and undoubtedly forms a part of Australian culture. A brilliant player might go on to create new records, inspire new methods of play and encourage physical activity in an otherwise sedentary society (something that could have long reaching effects).

I should make it clear, that I am not talking about bad behaviour being swearing or even being drunk in public on the odd occasion. I am talking about more serious misbehaviour like drunken brawls, assaults and other criminal activity.

Am I being too judgemental to have different rules for authors and footballers?

As is usual for my posts, this has now spiralled into many more questions than I have answers for, or even that I have an opinion about.

What do you think? Do you allow your knowledge of author's personal lives affect your reading or enjoyment of their books? If not, why not and how/where do you draw the line? Would you feel differently if it was a sportstar or movie star who behaved in the same way that the author did? If you do allow your knowledge of the author's personal life affect your reading/enjoyment of their books, why do you and where you draw the line on what counts of misbehviour significan't enough to affect your reading of their works?

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-10-10T15:16:00.000+11:00

Another week has gone by and here we are again at It's Monday! What are you reading?

Well, it's Monday… and I am currently reading a few books at once because I just can't seem to settle on any one thing. I don't know what it is. I think partially it's my pregnancy brain which I do blame for a lot but I also think it’s true. My concentration just isn't the same.

Also, I am definitely someone who likes reading what they are in the mood for and at the moment I am having difficulty identifying what I am in the mood for.

This means I have been all over the place.

Currently Reading

I just finished Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien, an old favourite that I just can't re-read enough.

At the same time I have been reading Talking About Detective Fiction by PD James; a fascinating look at the development of detective fiction by a wonderfully talented detective fiction writer. I had never read PD James before this year, but I heard an interview with her on the ABC Radio National Book Show and I have rarely heard anyone speak who I have been quite so enthralled with. So I have now read one of her books, and I thought that this book might be a wonderful follow up read to The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale. You can all expect a post from me about detective fiction as a genre in the future, that’s for sure.

Lastly, I am also reading Lord Edgeware Dies by Agatha Christie. Basically, I was lying on the lounge on the weekend after a terribly stressful day with baby dramas and hospital and all those bad things, and I needed something easy to sink into and distract me. Lord Edgeware Dies did the trick, and hopefully I will finish it in the next few days.

I did start The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde on Sunday but only got a couple of pages in.

Up Next

With any luck I will be able to identify what I am in the mood for. Otherwise I am thinking I might just have to go with The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien or maybe The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde. But who knows.

Is anyone else suffering from a book choice lethargy at the moment?

Review: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

2011-10-10T11:42:00.000+11:00

Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden is a timeless story about the power of love, friendship and positive thought.

I fell in love with Mary Lennox and The Secret Garden as a child primarily through my love of the 1993 movie version of this classic.

Amazon.co.uk says of The Secret Garden: “Mary Lennox was horrid. Selfish and spoilt, she was sent to stay with her hunchback uncle in Yorkshire. She hated it. But when she finds the way into a secret garden and begins to tend it, a change comes over her and her life. She meets and befriends a local boy, the talented Dickon, and comes across her sickly cousin Colin who had been kept hidden from her. Between them, the three children work astonishing magic in themselves and those around them.”

It was this astonishing magic that held me enthralled as a somewhat older reader. It is easy to forget sometimes how strong the power of positive thought it. Sadly, I often find themselves having negative thoughts about myself and other things around me, and I am painfully aware that negative thoughts only prevent us from living a happy life.

What the children in The Secret Garden teach us is the importance of believing in yourself, believing in others and the benefit of leading a positive and fulfilling life.

Rather than go on too much about the important lessons I think we can all take from The Secret Garden, I am going to share with you two quotes that perfectly illustrate what I think the most important lesson to take from this story is.

"At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can't be done, then they see it can be done - then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts - just mere thoughts - are as powerful as electric batteries - as good as sunlught is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get it over it as long as you live." ~ Quote page 238

And my favourite:

"So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he a was hysterical, half crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the sping and, and also did not know that he could get well and stand upon his feelt if he tried to do it. When new, beautiful thoughts began to push out the old, hideous one, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins, and strength poured into him like a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and rush it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be done in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow." ~ Quote page 239

This is a book that we can all benefit from reading, regardless of age or country of origin. I hope everyone has an opportunity to read this delightful story soon.

7.5 / 8

Brilliant, couldn't put it down. Everyone should read it - it is totally amazing.

Did you take any important lessons from this wonderful children's book?

Guess who's coming to dinner? Three literary guests

2011-10-07T13:17:00.003+11:00

Here's an oft repeated question, but one that never gets easier to answer: If you could invite any three literary figures from different eras to a Sunday Dinner who would they be? Magic takes care of the language issues

Tricky..... very tricky. I want my three authors to really get on with each other so that we can have a good night, but at the same time I am guilty of being the kind of person who doesn't know much about authors outside of their actual books. This means it's hard to judge who might make a good combination for a fun dinner party.

So, I'll just stick with people I would like to meet.

Jane Austen: no doubt most people will say Jane Austen, but that doesn't mean I don't feel the same. I just want to know what she was really and what she really though. Was she hilarious or was she shy? Was she sarcastic? Was she gregarious or unfailingly polite? So many things I could find out.

Agatha Christie: I bet she got sick of questions like this, but I just want to know how she came up with it all - how did she think of the ideas of then structure the murders and their solutions? Did it take a long time or did it come naturally?

Margaret Atwood: I don't know, she just seems like a really interesting lady who would have really interesting things to say about everything!

Those were the first three that came to mind, and I have to admit that I am proud of myself that they are all women.

If I could add a fourth, mine would be JRR Tolkien and maybe Arthur Conan Doyle too, that would be nice. It would be great to have PD James, together with Agatha Christie and Peter Temple. That's a dinner party I want to go to, maybe Raymond Chandler could come too.

Oh no! Someone stop me!

If you want to answer this yourself and share it with others, then go to Literary Book Blogger Hop at The Blue Bookcase.

What makes you leave a comment?

2011-10-05T12:42:00.000+11:00

Image from birindersignh.blogspot.com

I have what should be a fairly easy question to answer for you all today, but one that I have been contemplating seriously over the last week or so.

What makes you leave a comment on someone else's blog?

I first started pondering this question when I noticed that a couple of my reviews had gone up and although they had attracted many viewers, not a single person had left a comment.

I had a look through some of my statistics and noticed that this is actually a bit of a trend. Take for example, my 'Most Popular Posts'widget in the sidebar. I have this set to display the top 5 most viewed posts in the last week. At the moment, one of the 5 posts is a very old post from last year. Even though it has attracted the most views this week, none of those people have actually left a comment on the posts. Then another of the top 5 posts is a more recent one, but again no one has left a comment on despite the large number of visitors.

So what is it that makes us leave a comment?

I actually find it harder than I expected to identify the reason I leave a comment on some posts and not others. Most of the time, I leave a comment on reviews of books I have read before and can therefore contribute something from my own experience of it, or else I leave a comment on reviews of books that I want to read at some time in the near future.

A lot of the time, it depends on what I feel like I contribute with my comment. I am guilty to leaving those comments that say something along the lines of: "I would really love to read this because of all of the good reviews about, thanks for reminding me to give it a go". Although these comments are well meant, I do sometimes worry that they aren't very useful - they don't contribute anything to the discussion or review of the books that's for sure.

Image from The Reputation Manager

Most of the time, when I do leave a comment I want to contribute the discussion about the book. I want to comment on something the reviewer has said about the book - something that shows I have read the review and given some thought to what I have said.

I think this means that I probably comment more on reviews of books that I have read, rather than those books that I haven't. But this is very limiting. On some occasions, where someone has read a stunning review of a book that I have read, but the review is so thoroughly insightful, I don't leave a comment because I feel like I would only sound dimwitted in comparison with the reviewer.

These are some of the factors that influence how I comment on other people's blogs, but I wonder what it is that influences other people. No doubt these factors, plus many others infuence our decision. For example, things such as the length of the review, the quality of the review, the genre of the book, the content of the review, the images (or lack thereof) in the review, the length of the paragraphs and many many others.

I also wonder if there is something more to it. Something related to our modern day use of social media, which is let's face it, what blogging is a form of. Why we use social media to interact with people and how we use to interact are no doubt big influences on how we use blogs and therefore how and why we leave comments on other people's blogs. At the moment, I don't feel qualified enough to espouse an opinion on how our use of social media in general might effect these types of decisions - but I would love to hear other people's opinions on this issue.

I don't have the answer to this question, but I would very much be interested in what other people think. It is the sort of question that could answer many other questions. How do you attract follower/readers? How do you build an online community? How do you make your reviews interesting and appealing to others to read? How can you use social media to share your interests with others?

So what do you think? What is it about a review that makes you leave a comment and more broadly, why do you think people in general might comment on other blogs?

Review: The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle (the original dinosaur book)

2011-10-02T15:09:00.001+11:00

Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World has inspired some great movies and further works of fiction, and for my part I understand the effect it has had.

Most people know Arthur Conan Doyle more famously from his Sherlock Holmes novels. The Lost World was actually written in 1912, after Conan Doyle had killed his character and before he was pressured into resurrecting him. It appealed to me not just because I love the Sherlock Holmes story, but because I still harbour a lingering fascination from childhood about all things dinosaur related.

The writing in The Lost World is far more formal than it is in any of the Sherlock Holmes novels. It is very Victorian one might say. It has a very dry and scientific tone and moves along rather slowly.

The plot itself though is definitely more than dry. Each for their own reason, four explorers set off, with "native half-breeds" and "blacks" in tow (yes, it's a tad racist!), to an unknown plateau in South America where they believe they will find prehistoric life. Find prehistoric life they do. They also find themselves in a horrifying predicament when they are isolated on the plateau with seemingly no means of escape. On the plateau they find dinosaur life in abundance. Strangely enough, they also find both ape-like and homo-sapien-like men who are coexisting with the dinosaurs.

The writing and the characters are not what is enjoyable about this book. As said, the writing was dry and uninspiring and the characters were too two dimensional to be interesting.

It is the depiction of prehistoric life that is fascinating and brings the book to like. We now know that Conan Doyle's depiction of prehistoric life in The Lost World does not all reflect the reality of what it must have been life, but it does depict the beliefs that were held at the turn on the twentieth century. This knowledge does not at all detract from the story. From the beginning, the reader is forced to use their own imagination to picture what the creatures and landscape looked like.

Our imaginations are so activated that there isn't space to remember that what we are imagining in our minds is unlikely to be close to what we know the world back then would really have been like.

What we are reminded of though, is that in the past men like these really did set off on great expeditions and really did make significant scientific discoveries. Without real men like these fictional ones, we wouldn't have been able to develop the knowledge that mankind currently has. It is perhaps this theme of the persistent search for knowledge that has meant that Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World has proved to be so inspiring.

5.5 / 8

Good and worth reading if you have the opportunity.

Do you think the appeal of a book like this lies in its depiction of the lengths that man will go for knowledge, or more simply in the excitement of getting a glimpse of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life?

My favourite book has fallen apart, it's a sad day

2011-09-29T14:46:00.000+10:00

Yes, RIP my most beloved copy of The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien.

Although it has been threatening to do this for quite some time, today a whole chunk of pages officially fell out of the book. Just goes to show how many times I have read this book over and over again. I feel like it's a really good friend, and now it has fallen apart far too early in it's life.

I have tried everything to hold it together. Well. If sticky tape is everything.

But to no avail.

Truth be told, I may be being a bit dramatic at the moment. I could still read it technically, but I can just see the pages coming loose from the section of the book that has fallen out, then I will start losing pages and it will be all over.

It's part of a matching trilogy set too, so to replace it I will need to find an exact replica so that it matches the other two books. But right now, replacing my wonderful book seems like a painful thing to do.

How do you feel when one of your favourites finally falls apart? Do you replace it as soon as you can or hang on to it for as long as you can?

Review: One Day by David Nicholls

2011-09-29T11:13:00.001+10:00

One Day by David Nicholls explores the heart of friendship and what it means to really love someone and it is one of the most compelling reads I have had in many months.

The premise of the book is fairly simple. It is about Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, two university graduates, whom we meet on the night of their graduation. Emma is a down-to-earth lefty girl from northern England who is keen to change the world. Dexter on the other hand is from a posh, rich family and is only interested in girls, and later, fame. Despite their differences, on the night of their graduation they form a strong and lasting friendship, bordering on a romance.

Every July 15 the reader is given an update on what is occurring in the lives of the two main protagonists over the next twenty years. We see them grow up, grow together and grow apart. It is clear, however, that no matter what is happening in each of their lives, their love for each other draws them to each other over and over again.

Although you only see a glimpse of their lives on one day of each year, it doesn't feel as though you are missing out. Nicholls is able to weave their past year into that one day so effectively you barely notice that it's happening. The only place where I feel this wasn't done so effectively was in the last few chapters of the book, following a cataclysmic event that irrevocably changes the lives of both Emma and Dexter. In these final chapters, I wanted more than I got.

I do think that Nicholls took a risk in One Day in that both of the protagonists felt incredibly stereotypical. Emma Morley was the stereotypical middle class university educated lefty who is determined to change the world, even if she only changes the part around her. Dexter Mayhew on the other hand is the stereotypical upper class male. Apolitical and out for a good time, his greatest priorities are fame, girls and drugs.

The risk in having two such stereotypical characters is that the reader has trouble believing in their authenticity. In my experience, people rarely fall so easily into stereotypes like these.

Despite this though, Emma and Dexter both felt acutely real to me, as did their friendship. You could identify with their lives and their feelings, even as they each changed. Even if you have never felt what they have, you have seen it in other people and so it makes more real in these fictional characters.

Also, their story was endearing. No matter where their lives took them, they were there for one another. There was no one else in the world that they wanted to share things with as much as each other. They enjoyed flirting. They enjoyed the comfort they found in one another. They enjoyed each other.

What more can you want from friendship?

Yes, One Day book is chick-lit, but it also provides so much more than what you might expect from a book of this genre. The writing is witty and in it Nicholls explores the heart of friendship and what it means to really love someone.

7.5 / 8

Brilliant, couldn't put it down. Everyone should read it - it is totally amazing.

Have you read this or have you let the hype turn you off it? I would love to know whether you loved it as much as I did if you read it - I would especially like to know if you think it's an accurate representation of what friendship between a man and a woman can be like.

Review: The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

2011-09-23T16:46:00.001+10:00

Agatha Christie has a whole host of different detectives, and it is in The Secret Adversary that Tommy and Tuppence are introduced to the world.

There's not a whole lot to Agatha Christie novels, so I won't torment you with a long and boring review.

What I really enjoyed about this plot was that it was significantly more complicated than most of her other books in my experience. I appreciated the complexity of it; it built the tension up nicely and kept me guessing close to the end.

Having said that, what I also loved about this book was that I actually guessed who the 'bad-guy' was before the end of the book, something I rarely accomplish with a good Christie novel.

Tommy and Tuppence are not my favourite of Agatha Christie's detectives, but they fit the nature of this plot very effectively.

If you are a Christie fan, but are looking for something a bit out of the ususal, then this could be a good choice for your next Agatha Christie read.

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend that you read it.

Are Tommy and Tuppence your favourite Agatha Christie detectives? Feel free to share your thoughts of this one if you have read it.

What are you in the mood for reading?

2011-09-20T13:25:00.000+10:00

I know I am jumping on this bandwagon a little late, but I just saw yesterday's Musing Monday question and I couldn't help but throw my two cents worth into the ring. The question reads: How often do you read a book, just because you’re in the mood to read it? (not because you’re obligated to for a book club, or a challenge, or for review).

Strangely enough, this is something I have been thinking about ever since I started participating in 'It's Monday! What are you reading?' again.

I am constantly surprised by the amount of people that have their next read all planned out, even though they are still reading another book.

This is very rare for me. I no longer accept ARC's so I don't have to read them anymore. I am not in any formal book club and I don't participate in challenges.

Essentially, I read whatever I am in the mood for. It is a completely spontaneous choice. Once I have finished reading a book, I go around my various bookshelves, staring at all the titles until one catches my eye. it's as simple as that. Sometimes I will start reading the book I have chosen and then realise I'm not in the mood for it - so it will be placed back on the shelf and a new one will be chosen until I find something that suits.

This probably isn't very good for my 'literary development' (to get all wanky about it), but it works for me. If I chose my next read before I finished my current read (with a few limited exceptions) I just wouldn't be as motivated to read it.

I like a bit of mystery in my life and I like where my spontaneous choices lead me in my reading.

For example, I finished my last book (The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff) yesterday and so this morning I chose The Last Warner Woman by Kei Miller. Kei Miller is a Jamaican author I was introduced to at the Sydney Writers Festival this year. He seemed really funny and I liked the rhythmical way his books seemed to read (he is a poet which I imagine explains that). I was in the mood for something a little unique so I chose one of his books.

What about you? Are you a planner or a pantser? What made you choose your current read?

Nemesis by Isaac Asimov (science fiction with an environmental message)

2011-09-19T19:32:00.001+10:00

Isaac Asimov's Nemesis is set in the 23rd century. Man has had to populate the solar system because of overcrowding on Earth, but it is soon discovered that the Earth itself is under threat from the impending approach of the previously unidentified star, Nemesis. The race is on to invent some method of travel that would allow the human race to move out of the solar system in order to save themselves. In the meantime, out on a planet circling the dangerous Nemesis is a young girl who may hold the key to saving the planet.

Asimov's vision of the far distant future in Nemesis is certainly a scary one. Increasingly, we are all encouraged to consider the effect of our modern lifestyles on the planet. We know that climate change is already effecting the natural environment, and its negative impact will only get worse over time. Everyone knows (whether they act on it or not is another question) that we all need to do our part to help slow down this process. We know that the planet cannot sustain mankind in current state. What we rarely think of is what real effect this will have on the world in say 3 or 4 thousand years for now.

That is what Nemesis gives thought to. Earth has reportedly become barely liveable. There are food shortages and such severe overcrowding that there was little choice left to mankind but to live elsewhere in the solar system. Although Asimov's picture of the Earth's future is undoubtedly bleak, it certainly made me wonder how accurate it might be.

Racial superiority is also an issue that Asimov has concerned himself with in this book. There is much discussion amoungst the politicians on Earth about the lack of racial variety in the colonies of mankind throughout the solar system. The reader is lead to believe that these colonies are essentially Aryan groupings of people, with anyone not falling into this racial category left the poverty of Earth. Asimov may have meant this as a warning.

Although there were some interesting ideas and themes in the book, there were also a lot of weaknesses.

The story became someone repetitive about half way through the book. The characters tended to have the same conversations over and over again which I began to find very frustrating. Also the characters themselves were not well formed and for the most part were irritating more than anything else. I am not a reader who needs her characters to be either good or bad, but I do need characters that don't irritate me. Marlene, the young girl destined to save Earth, is essentially your common bratty teenager. She thinks she knows everything and she is able to get people to do whatever she wants simply by throwing tantrums. Her mother is your typical overbearing mother who nevertheless always gives into her spoiled child. The list goes on.

Having said all that, Nemesis definitely kept me eagerly reading to the end. I was carried away by the plot and didn't want to put it down until I had finished it. In thinking about all the problems I had with the book, I can't quite pinpoint what it was that kept me so hooked.

5.5 / 8

Really enjoyable and worth reading if you have the opportunity.

How do you think this compares to Asimov's other works if you have read them? If you haven't, what do you think you would find the most compelling aspect of a science fiction novel - the science fiction-y (thats the technical term!) aspects, or the characters?

Catweazle by Richard Carpenter

2011-09-16T10:54:00.000+10:00

Richard Carpenter's Catweazle is a children's book that I used to love as a child and so thought I would revisit as an adult.

It is the story of Catweazle, a 13th century wizard who manages to send himself into the future, landing at Hexwood Farm in the late 20th Century (the 70's to be exact). Here, he is befriended by Carrot, a young boy who hides him on and near the family farm until Catweazle can find a way of getting himself back to the time from which he came.

In the meantime, Catweazle has a lot of trouble adjusting to life in the 20th century. He thinks that most forms of technology are forms of magic and he is particularly interested in the magic he calls 'elec-trickery'.

I loved this book as a child. As an adult though, it really wasn't anything special. Its appeal lies in the slapstick humour provided by Catweazle as he bumbles around, all the trouble Carrot has to go to in order to keep his friend's existence a secret. As a child I found this slapstick humour hilarious, but as an adult its appeal has faded.

What I didn't realise before I started writing this post and went looking for a picture of Catweazle from the televised Catweazle, was that this was actually a tv series before it was a novel. The novel was written after the television series proved to be so popular. I have to admit that holding such find memories of the book from my childhood I was a little bit disappointed to read this - but in the end, what does it matter?

This might be a fun book to give to a primary school aged child, but I can't recommend that you read it as an adult (unless like me you remember reading it as a child and feel like a trip down memory lane).

4.5 / 8

Worth reading if you have a fondness for it already, otherwise give it a miss.

The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

2011-09-13T10:15:00.001+10:00

Before the publication of Tea Obreht's The Tigers Wife, I can’t remember the last time there was so much anticipation and hype about a work of literary fiction. But anticipation and hype there was about this Orange Prize winning novel. Although I hold some reservations about the book, I can honestly day that the praise of this beautifully written novel is well-deserved.

In The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obreht brings to life the cold harsh reality of the Yogoslav Wars in the 1990's, and the impact it had on the lives of the people of those regions. Her narrator, Natalia Stefanovic, starts out on a journey to discover what happened to her grandfather in the last few days before his death.

Woven around this main story are the stories of many others; the story of Luka who travels far to learn the Gusla, a traditional instrument of the region, and Gavran Gaile, the deathless man and, of course, the tiger's wife herself.

Underlying everything that happens in this book is the common idea that death is something we all have to come to terms with throughout our lives and that this journey is not always easy and not always what we expect – but it is a necessary one and one that can't be undertaken lightly.

Given this was a debut novel from a 25 year old author, I was surprised at how elegant the writing in The Tigers Wife was. It was skilled and creative and just… delicious. The way the fables weaved in and around the main story was done so well made me feel as though I was something truly unique.

Having said all that, although intellectually I was able to recognise a well written and well constructed book, my emotions weren't at all touched by the book. I wanted to be interested in the story of the tiger's wife and of course the story of Natalia's grandfather, but sadly I wasn't. I loved the writing, but in the end the beauty of the writing wasn't enough for me. I can't help but wonder if Obreht fell into the trap of spending so much time perfecting the craft of writing, she forgot to add that elusive element that really plays on the reader's emotions, helps them to identify with the characters and keep them interested in the story.

The Tiger's Wife is only Obreht first's piece of published fiction and so no doubt her future works will build upon what she has created here. I hope that there will be more of a balance between the beautiful writing and the emotional pull that a novel needs to have in order to keep it's reader's attention.

Read a recent review of this book in the Sydney Morning Herald here.

5.5 / 8

Well written and worth reading if you have the opportunity, but there's no need to prioritise it.

Did you get swept up in the hype and read this book? I would love to know if you loved it as much as you expected, or like me you felt like there was something missing. Do you like stories that include fables like the ones in this book or do you find them distracting?

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-09-12T14:55:00.000+10:00

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Here I am again, after a week of some wonderful reading. I have read two book in this past week that I have been completely unable to put down once I picked them up.

Hopefully this week I will find some other great suggestions for future reads out there.

Currently Reading

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

This is the story of a young boy ex-communicated from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints after he is caught holding hands with one of his step-sisters because the "Phrophet" has decreed it is the will of God. Some years later, his mother (the 19th wife) is accused of killing his father.

I only started this book this morning, but it is already clear to me that this will be the third book in a row that I will be completely unable to put down.

Last Read

One Day by David Nicholls

My friends and I chose to read this for our book club and it was a wonderful choice. I can't remember the last time I read a book that kept me up reading till late. If I could have read this in one sitting I would have. I know that the recent hype about the book, especially with the movie being released, will turn a lot of people off, but don't let it get to you. Each July 15th, the book has a look at what is happening in the lives of Em and Dex, old friends who don't realise they are in love. This is a lovely and romantic book - very The Time Travellers Wife. When my friend finished reading it she sent me a message saying it was the first time in a long time she finished a book and could have gone back to the start and started reading all over again.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

This was actually a re-read. I loved this book so much the first time around, although I had some difficulty adjusting from the early parts of the book which are set in the near future, and the latter parts of the book which are set in the far future. Second time around, this wasn't a problem, and I actually noticed a lot more that I think will turn out to be important in the following sequels. I know a lot of people look down their noses on these types of books, but I really recommend it. Here is my review if you are interested in it.

Up Next

What can I say? I like a bit of mystery in my life :-)

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

2011-09-10T12:46:00.000+10:00

This adventure story, first published in 1873, failed to win my attention and as a result Around the World in Eighty Days is the second Jules Verne book I have abandoned this year.

The premise of the story is this: Philleas Fogg a rich and reclusive Englishman, makes a bet with his companions at the Reform Club that he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days. In fact, he bets his entire fortune that he can do it. So, he sets off with his french valet Passepartout to win the bet. Hot on their trail is a police officer by the name of Fix, who believes that Fogg has committed a bank robbery only days before. He follows them around the world, waiting for the perfect opportunity to arrest Fogg.

Sounds like it has the makings of a potentially great story. Instead what follows is a series of one off adventures in the various countries that they find themselves. After awhile, this just became too tedious to keep reading. Disaster after disaster which they miraculously manage to extricate themselves from before wandering into the next disaster.

My previous experience with Verne has been with his works of science fiction, some of which I have enjoyed and others that I haven't.

This adventure story just didn't have the tension or the excitement that it needed to keep me interested and so sadly I abandoned it at some point past half way.

1 / 8

Abandoned.

I know that there are movie versions of this book that I haven't seen. Has anyone read the book or watched a movie? What did you think?

Must all literary writing be difficult?

2011-09-08T15:47:00.000+10:00

This weeks Literary Blog Hop question is a more thought provoking one than I initially thought.

Must all literary writing be difficult? Can you think of examples of literary writing that was not difficult?

I have really been struggling to write my reply to this question because I think the answer rests a lot on what you consider literary fiction to be. This is difficult because everyone will have a different idea of what literary fiction is.

I think literary fiction has a much greater focus on the characters themselves. There is plot of course, but the plot revolves more around the characters development, morals, values, dilemma's and other such personal, social and cultural issues. I would also suggest that literary fiction has a more artistic quality than genre fiction.

To me, this means that any genre of book could also be literary fiction. You could have a literary piece of crime fiction or science fiction for example.

But where does that leave us on the question of whether all literary writing must be difficult?

At first blush, I thought that there was an easy answer to this question: No, all literary writing doesn't have to be difficult, nor is all literary writing actually difficult.

On second thoughts, I think that we maybe need to break this up a little bit more.

Firstly, I want to think about the prose in a work of literary fiction.

I have said that I think that literary fiction has a more artistic quality than genre fiction but this doesn't necessarily mean it's more difficult to read.

Some literary fiction uses prose that it is definitely difficult to read; it uses long convoluted sentences and you are really required to put in a lot of work to follow the story and the journey of the characters because of it. Examples of this for me would be books such as Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie or Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. These are the types of books where the complexity of the language creates a barrier between the reader and the story.

On the other hand, there are works of literary fiction that use quite simple prose to tell their stories. Examples that come to mind are The Book Thief by Markus Zusak or Lovesong by Alex Miller. I would suggest that the prose in these books, which in my view would be considered works of literary fiction, is no more difficult than many other works of literature that are not considered literary.

Having said all of that (and I know I am repeating what Lucia said in her answer), what is difficult writing will vary from person to person. Everyone has different taste, experience and education. What I find difficult/easy to read, others may feel differently about.

So does the prose in literary fiction mean that it is more difficult to read? Sometimes.

Secondly, I want to think about the contents or nature of a book of literary fiction.

I would argue that the nature of a work of literary fiction does mean that it is likely to be a more challenging or difficult to read. This is because it isn't a case of just watching a character follow a course of actions throughout the plot. Instead the plot of the book is more internal, more focussed around the character and their development. This means that often the reader is required to read between the lines, to go deeper into the characters to really understand their inner motivations and their actions.

This means that the reader has to engage more with the story; that to really get everything you can from the book, you have to put a lot of yourself into the book itself.

In that sense, I think that literary fiction will always be more difficult or challenging than other types of fiction.

What do you think? Must all literary fiction be difficult?

I am joining the masses at the RIP VI Challenge

2011-09-08T12:11:00.001+10:00

If everyone jumped off the Harbour Bridge, would you do it too?

That's advice parents often give their children in the hopes that their kids will realise that whatever it is they want to do isn't necessarily the best idea.

Well, I am ignoring that advice. Everyone else seems to be signing up for this challenge lately, so I am joining the bandwagon (and I haven't participated in a challenge for at least 1 year!).

It's the RIP Challenge, hosted at Stainless Steal Droppings.

"The purpose of the R.I.P. Challenge is to enjoy books that could be classified as: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Horror, Supernatural." The books are read between 1 September 2011 and 31 October 2011 and there are many different levels you can participate in.

Given its a month long, I am going to aim for "Peril the First", that is, read 4 books that fall into the above categories over the four week period.

I am sure I can do it and I am very much looking forward to it. Now I am going to have to comb my bookshelves for appropriate books to read!

His Dark Material Trilogy by Philip Pullman

2011-09-06T13:40:00.000+10:00

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman is a YA fastasy series about a young girl and boy's journey to save the human race. Although it's marketed to a YA audience, the themes of the books are so adult that I can't help but wonder if they were better marketed for adults.

The series comprises of three books:

The Northern Lights (published as The Golden Compass in America – I wonder why it was thought that American's couldn't cope with The Northern Lights?),
The Subtle Knife, and
The Amber Spyglass.

I have to admit that although I really enjoyed The Northern Lights (couldn't put it down in fact), the other books progressively lost my attention. Maybe it's because I read them all in a row, which I sometimes find isn't a sensible idea with series. Maybe it's because the religious themes were a little bit too much for my tastes. It could even be because I haven't read (and nor do I intend to) Milton's Lost Paradise, upon which The His Dark Materials trilogy is based. Most likely, it’s a combination of all of these things.

The plots of each of the books are far too complex for to summarise effectively for you here.

I will say though, that I can't understand why I haven't heard about any particular controversy caused by these books?

The ideas of God and religion that Pullman displays in His Dark Materials Trilogy are really quite subversive.

The books are very critical of organised religion and how the word of man, in the name of God, is used to rule man with an iron fist.

Perhaps even more controversially, the purpose behind most of the characters actions in these books is to destroy God and rid human kind of his rule. There is in fact an ultimate battle to destroy God's regent and God himself – both of which are portrayed as evil dictators, bringing misery to the people through oppression and tyranny and then tormenting them for eternity after death in the bowels of the earth.

Although I can’t say I enjoyed the entire series, I certainly admire Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy for the interesting philosophical and theological ideas, the fabulous fantasy elements and the unique characters (Ruta Skadi being my favourite) contained therein.

Northern Lights

6 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it

The Subtle Knife

5.5 / 8

It needs to be read to follow on from the Northern Lights, but it doesn't contain the same level of excitment.

The Amber Spyglass

5 / 8

It has to be read to finish off the series, but although there were some interesting ideas, I felt as though the books were dragging by this point.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

2011-09-05T15:55:00.000+10:00

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

This is the first time I have participated in It's Monday for a very long time, but I think it will do me good to recap what I have been reading lately and have a look around at what other people are up to. I haven't heard of a case of curiousity killing the cat yet, so I am going to be curious!

Currently Reading

Nemesis by Isaac Asimov

Asimov is one of my more recent discoveries and at the moment I can't get enough of him. By education he was a biochemist, and he is also spkoen of as one of the most prolific writers of all times. His works of fiction come under the banner of hard science fiction, that is, science fiction that is based on real scientific theory or detail.

Nemesis is set in the 23rd century. Man has had to populate the solar system because of overcrowding on Earth, but it is soon discovered that the Earth itself is under threat from the impending approach of the previously unidentified star, Nemesis. The race is on the invent some method of travel that would allow the human race to move out of the solar system in order to save themselves. In the meantime, out on a planet circling the dangerous Nemesis, is a young girl who may hold the key to saving the planet.

Despite its sometimes long and repetive conversations, I am loving this book and absolutely can't put it down. If you are feeling brave and are looking for something a little different, give it a try. If it sounds a bit too much, you could try Asimov's Space Ranger, another great (but much shorter) science fiction novel.

Last Read

The Secret Graden by Frances Hodgson Burnet

I read this as a child and absolutely loved it. Fortunately, I loved it again as an adult It is one of the sweetest stories I have ever read and would recommend it to everyone.

Up Next

Only the universe knows

A changing blogging community and some self evaluation

2011-09-05T10:41:00.000+10:00

Signficant Elements

Lately I have been pondering this blogging thing.

I started Page Turners in June 2009 with a simple desire to review every book that I read. That's all. Nothing noble. Nothing particularly intellectual either. I just wanted to be reminded of times back in high school when a book became so much more special and enjoyable because of the deeper understanding I gained of it through study.

Once I started, I then discovered the wonderful world of book blogging. I truly felt as though I was part of a community that valued the same things that I did, and valued my participation in it, just as I valued everyone else's contribution to the community. I explored the community by surfing the blogosphere, joining memes, starting a few memes of my own and slowly getting to know more and more people. I was familiar with a lot of people's blogs and a lot of people were familiar with mine.

That sense of community still exists out there and I am very grateful for it.

All the same, I can't help but notice the changes that have occurred over the last couple of years. Lately, people seem to have an increasingly directed approach to their blogging. People now seem to blog about particular genres or for a particular audience. There are classics blogs, YA blogs, crime blogs. These more targeted blogs have always existed, but 2 years ago there just didn't seem to be the same quantity that there is now.

Don't get me wrong – I think that this is a great thing. If I am looking for a good crime book to read, I can have a look at my favourite crime blog. If I am looking for a good science fiction book to read, I can have a look at my favourite science fiction blog.

In the face of this change, I have begun to consider more critically my own blogging experience.

Lately I have noticed things like my reviews are only getting 2 – 6 comments instead of 12 – 15 or sometimes more. My followers have remained steadily at around 264 for the last few months instead of growing gradually as they did in the past. I am not discovering many new blogs and there seems to be a decreasing amount of posts in my blogger dashboard Reading List.

These things aren't necessarily bad things except that I can't help but wonder how they reflect my participation in the book blogging community and what I want from that participation.

Alexander Technique

My reading has no direction; unless reading what I am in the mood for can be considered a direction. My blogging equally has no particularly direction or target audience. I can't help but wonder much this is a factor in the stagnant followers or my decreasing volume of comments. The sense of community I once felt is slowly slipping away and I feel as though my inability to change in the face of a changing blogging community is to blame.

I admire blogs with direction and a purpose, who write for a target audience and build up a large community around their blog. I equally admire readers who are reading with a goal or focus and not just whatever comes to hand.

I no longer want my blogging just to be a record of what I have read. I want it to be something more than that. I want something more from my reading as well. I just can't identify what that something 'more' is.

A good starting place might be to get back into some solid memes and find some fabulous new and refreshing blogs to follow in the hopes that it will inspire my own development.

From there who knows? I am a directionless blogger and reader looking for some direction in a changing online community. This is where my journey has lead me and who knows where I will end up.

Thank god it's Friday, bring on the weekend!

2011-09-02T12:42:00.003+10:00

This is the first time in quite some time that I have participated in the Book Blogger Hop and I am pleased to be back.

After a 2 month break from blogging forced upon me by poor health, I am now back into the swing of things.

If you have never visited Page Turners before, or you are interested in a quick recap of what happened this week, then this little review is for you.

If you are interested in reading some reviews of great books here is my review of a fun novel called Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint.

If you are after something a little more literary (and my favourite book of all time if I were forced to choose one), here is my review of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

I also recommended a great non-fiction book about the introduction of detectives into the police force and the impact it had on literature entitled The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.

If you are interested in joining some literary discussion, you could check out my post "Why are the titles of books changed according to where they are published?"

Finally, if you want to find out a little bit more about me and my reading habits, you could read Page Turners is having a baby! (yes, that means me) or What was the last book you…..? where is talk about some of the books I have read recently and whether they made me laugh, cry… or die of boredom.

On the other hand, you could be interested in none of those things and you just want me to answer this weeks question. Ok:

“What are you most looking forward to this fall/autumn season – A particular book release? Halloween? The leaves changing color? Cooler temperatures? A vacation?”

Perhaps I am the only person from the southern hemisphere this week? Autumn is long gone for us here in Australia and instead we just had out first day of spring. What am I most looking forward to this Spring? Easy.

Firstly, the end of morning sickness. Ah, heaven. Bring it on.

Secondly, my holiday to New Caledonia in mid-October. A nice long tropical island holiday with just me and my other half before the arrival of bubba next year. That will be heaven too.

That's enough from me. Looking forward to finding some wonderful new blogs this week.

Has anyone else using intensedebate lost their comments????

2011-09-02T11:41:00.002+10:00

My last post has lost its intensedebate comments and reverted back to blogger comments. Ayone else have the same problem or have any clue how to fix it?

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (my all time favourite)

2011-09-01T11:42:00.003+10:00

If I had to nominate a single favourite book of all time, I think that I would have to nominate Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

I first fell in love with this book when I read it as an assigned text in high school English, and I have fallen in love with it over and over again with every re-read.

From the opening line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again", to the closing line "And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea" the lyrical quality of the language gives this book an almost ethereal tone that sends shivers down my spine.

Rebecca is everything you could want in a book. It is dramatic. It is romantic. The writing is emotive. The landscape is beautiful. The characters and the plot are compelling.

The story of Rebecca is told through flashbacks from the perspective of a woman who marries a much older man, Maxim de Winter, owner of the famous country house Manderley. After their world wind roman and travels through Europe they return to Manderley as husband and wife. Once there, however, they find themselves haunted by a past they can't escape.

All the characters in Rebecca are in some way haunted by the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, who it is believed passed away in a boating accident shortly before the events in this book.

The entire book revolves around the mysterious Rebecca and each of the characters unique obsessions with her, and it is this that gives the book a disturbing psychological element.

Although none of the characters are particularly likable, all of them are the most real characters I have ever read. I feel as though I know them as well as I know my friends.

I have never read another book where the scenery and characters come alive to the extent that they do in Rebecca. It is a beautiful piece of work and one that I recommend to everyone, especially to those that love lyrical writing and a compelling story.

8 / 8

One of the best books I have ever read. Everyone should read it - it is totally amazing. I am in love.

Have you read Rebecca and did you love it as much as I did? I have a friend who was so annoyed my the main character that she couldn't love the book, but it didn't stop me. What about you?

What was the last book you.....?

2011-08-31T07:49:00.004+10:00

I know that this is a little bit late, but this weeks Musing Monday asked the following question: What was the last book you.....

Just for fun, here are my answers:

• borrowed from the library? The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

• bought? Shakespeare by Bill Bryson (gotta love Bill Bryson, he has me laughing hysterically every time)

• cried over? Flint and Roses by Brenda Jagger (The Barforth Trilogy are some of the best books of all time!)

• disliked and couldn’t finish? Tricky. Last book I abandoned was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Not because I didn't like it; more because towards the end it just got too repetitive for me.

• read & loved? Flint and Roses by Brenda Jagger (it was the only book of the Barforth Trilogy I didn't read as a teenager and I can't believe I waited so long!)

• got for review? (or: got in the mail?) Again, Flint and Roses and The Sleeping Sword, both by Brenda Jagger (books 2 and 3 in the Barforth Trilogy).

• gave to someone else? The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, which I leant to a friend who had never read a Christie novel before.

• stayed up too late reading? Last night, I stayed up an extra 30mins (that's big for me!) reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I forgot how wonderful that book is.

What about you? I would love to know what your answers are!

Page Turners is having a baby!

2011-08-30T12:17:00.000+10:00

Image from Baby Gear

Well, Page Turners isn't having a baby but the author is!

That's right, I am expecting a baby in late February / early March. We are both very excited to be welcoming our own little bubba in to the world and we are looking forward to all the changes that it will bring.

You may have noticed some time ago that I went missing for about 3 months. If you had gone looking for me, you would have found me in the closest bathroom loosing my last meal :-) I have been too sick and my concentration levels too low to read let alone blog about what I have been reading.

Slowly though, I am starting to mend and you can expect to see more frequent posts from me from now on. I have a lot of reviews to catch up on, but some of the books I read so long ago, I would warn you not to expect to much from my reviews for awhile yet.

I am definitely looking forward to being back and visiting you all again soon. I know I have been awhile away but I hope no one has forgotten about me :-)

Why are the titles of books changed according to where they are published?

2011-08-29T10:32:00.000+10:00

What's in a name..... seriously?

I just finished writing a review of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman and it really got me wondering.... why are the titles of books changed according to where they are published?

As far as I am aware, Philip Pullman entitled the first book of his His Dark Materials trilogy The Northern Lights. Yet in North America is was published as The Golden Compass.

JK Rowling entitled her book Harry Potter of the Philosophers Stone (the philosopher referring to alchemist Nicholas Flamel). In America, it was published as Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone.

Markus Zusak entitled his book The Messenger (great book by the way). In America, it was published as I am the Messenger.

Why the differing titles? My first thought is that there might be some sort of cultural argument about the title of the book, but I really can't see how this can be the case. There just isn't a sufficient enough cultural different between the UK and the USA, or Australia and USA for this to be the case.

I suppose you could say that titles were chosen by the publishers that they thought the people in that particular country could identify more with.... but really - The Messenger vs I am the Messenger? Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone vs Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? Do they really think American's need a little bit of clarification in the title about who exectly the messenger is? Do they really think that American's can't figure out that an alchemist could also be considered a philospher? How is The Northern Lights just not going to work in America, but it can elsewhere in the world?

This isn't just directed at Americans or the American publishing indistry - I am sure there are example of changing titles elsewhere throughout the world. These are just the examples that came to mind first.

I hope that there is a good reason for changing the titles - because I for one tend to think that the integrity of the author's work should be maintained all around the world. If they called their book The Northern Lights, or the Philosopher's Stone or The Messenger, I think that there better be a really good excuse for changing it.

It's very likely that everyone but me knows the answer to this but can you please enlighten me? Why are the titles of books changed according to where they are published?

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint (a very fun book)

2011-08-25T17:03:00.003+10:00

For those of you enjoy quality writing and a fun modern-day murder mystery then Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint is for you.

I don't ordinarily start my reviews with the blurb from the back cover, but in this case I couldn't help myself:

Inspector Singh is in a bad mood. He's been sent from his home in Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to solve a murder that has him stumped. Chelsea Liew - the famous Singaporean model - is on death row for the murder of her ex-husband. She swears she didn't do it, he thinks she didn't do it, but no matter how hard he tries to get to the bottom of things, he still arrives back at the same place - that Chelsea's husband was shot at point blank range, and that Chelsea had the best motivation to pull the trigger: he was taking her kids away from her. Now Inspector Singh must pull out all the stops to crack a crime that could potentially free a beautiful and innocent woman and reunite a mother with her children. There's just one problem - the Malaysian police refuse to play ball.

Shamini Flint's A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder is one of the more unique modern-day murder mysteries that I have read.

I will also go out on a limb and say that Inspector Singh is one of the most unique fictitious detectives I have ever had the joy to read. He is essentially an unpopular grumpy middle-aged police officer sent from his home in Singapore to investigate a murder in Malaysia where the prime suspect is already in custody.

Despite the obstacles in his way, not least of which is his excessive weight in the tropical heat of Malaysia, he slowly but surely investigates the murder in an attempt to clear the name of the prime suspect Chelsea Liew who is accused of killing her husband.

Chelsea Liew is a Singaporean national, who married a Malaysian business tycoon Alan Lee many years before but whose marriage to her husband is going through the family law courts as he attempts to divorce her and take permanent custody of their children. The Lee family business comes from logging the forests in nearby countries. Inspector Singh's investigations lead him into the murky world of the logging industry and the atrocities such companies commit.

What I loved most about this book was not just the plot (which was definitely a page turner). In A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Shamini Flint effectively evokes the feel of the city and the characters. I felt hot and sweaty as I read Inspector Singh walk through the hot and dusty streets of Kualar Lumpur, and felt for Chelsea Liew's son when he discovered his fathers betrayal.

Flint also provides us with an insight into Malaysian culture and religion and how these issues permeate the every day lives (and the legal system) of its people. Although the book is a fun and easy read, Flint has managed to weave in amoungst the plot important religious and environmental issues that in the Western world we otherwise wouldn't give a lot of thought too.

A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder is the first in a series and I can't wait to read of Inspector Singh's adventures.

6.5 / 8

Really enjoyable and well written, couldn't put it down. Worth buying if you like to re-read your murder mysteries when you have let enough time pass to forget who committed the murder.

Do you think that a light-hearted detective fiction book can ever really effectively blend a fascinating plot with religious and cultural themes to create a great story?

A great non-fiction recommendation for fans of fiction

2011-08-23T15:27:00.002+10:00

Looking for a fascinating non-fiction book that reads like a good old-fashioned detective fiction book?

Have a read of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.

I am only half way through this book but I am loving it. It is a non-fiction account of a murder that took place in Kent, England in 1860.

Detectives had only been around for 8 years, and it was one of the first cases involving a detective that because a public sensation.

This murder and the detective who investigated the case, Mr Jack Whicher, are credited for having significantly influenced the progress and content of detective fiction, which had only started in short story form shortly before this murder.

This is the first non-fiction book I have read for 2 years, and I can't put it down. If you didn't know it was non-fiction, you would almost not know it was non-fiction.

If you enjoy good quality crime fiction, or are just interested in literature and learning about the origins of a genre, then I think you should give this book a try.

Temporary Absence

2011-07-31T12:49:00.000+10:00

Sorry everyone, you may or may not have noticed that I haven't been around lately. I expect that this state of affairs will continue for awhile yet. Hopefully I'll be back around in the next couple of months and get back in touch with everyone then.

Maybe cheaper books are possible in Australia?

2011-07-12T16:17:00.000+10:00

Image from SMH Article "New books look to flip e-readers"

Yesterday I was at Berkelouw books browsing the book shelves when I can across a cute little book called a "flip back" book. It is essentially a tiny little book that you can carry in your pocket and read at the your leisure. I loved this idea, even if the pages themselves were too thin to encourage me to purchase one.

This morning I then found an article on the Sydney Morning Herald website entitled "New books look to flip e-readers". The premise of this article is that these books offer an alternative to the ebook for those of us that prefer to hold a real book in our hands.

The article is well worth reading, but there was something in it that really got me thinking.

The article states that the "flip back" book costs "slightly more than to make than the average sized paperback partly because they are all made at the one printer in the Netherlands, but also because they use high-quality paper and have cloth binding on the spine. They are expected to retail for less than $20."

A new paperback book in Australia can cost a book purchaser up to $35.00 and yet these little books which cost more to print than the average paperback are retailing at less than $20. Presumably at $20 a pop, the publishers are still making a profit.

Doesn't this mean that books here in Australia actually could be sold for a lot cheaper than they are?

I do note that the books are printed in the Netherlands, a fact which may well be the key to answering my question.

All the same, this article has really got me wandering about the cost of books here in Australia, more than a lot of other articles have. Is it just that everyone is profit crazy? Isn't it crazy to continue to price books so high when chances are eventually you will lose your business altogether? Is it just that because the books are printed outside of Australia they can be so much cheaper, even when you factor in all the business related costs of getting them here and out into shops to be sold?

I understood the argument to be that books are expensive in Australia because the are required by law have to be published by an Australian publisher before international editions can be bought into the country and that is where the cost lies. But why does it cost so much more to print and publish books here as compared to overseas?

There are so many questions that this article raises for me, but the biggest one is this – does this mean that it is possible for books to be cheaper in Australia?

The Sunken Road by Gary Disher (Australian)

2011-07-05T18:04:00.000+10:00

I don’t want to speak badly about this book, even though I did abandon it.

I picked it up because I intended to go and see a Sydney Writers Festival event at which he was speaking (just as an aside, I was so busy at work that I actually forgot that I had rsvp’d to attend until the following day, so in the end I never made it to the event).

When I first started reading it, I was thoroughly impressed. This is not your average novel. The writing is perfect. It captured the feeling of the Australian farming countryside so well you feel as though you are there, on the land, in the heat, with the characters.

What I found most amazing about the book was the way in which it was written – not chronologically – but in topics. Like “The Beach” or “Moving House” (this was a library book which I no longer have with me so don’t hold me to the accuracy of those examples).

What then unfolds are glimpses of the life of the main character, Anna Tolley. We see her progress through each stage of her life in each of the chapters, each time gaining a new insight into her life. No doubt that by the end of these books, the glimpses we see throughout the book come together to form a full impression of the character of Anna Tolley.

This is one of the most unique books I have read in terms of its structure, and I admired Disher’s obvious talent.

Why did I abandon it? I think for two reasons.

The first was that I was beginning to find it a little bit repetitive. Not in the sense that the same material was repeated over and over again (it isn’t). Only in the sense that I felt as though I was seeing her entire development over and over again. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all – and leads me to the second, and purely personal, reason I abandoned it. At the time I commenced the book I was extremely overworked and dealing with some very difficult situations at work. A literary novel just wasn’t what I needed at the time. I needed a book that required no thought, that wasn’t challenging, but was fun and easy to read and escape into so escape my own miserable existence (ok, I’m exaggerating for effect there, but I was overworked). So I got stuck into the Northern Lights Trilogy (Phillip Pullman) instead.

Although I abandoned it, it was beautifully written and felt very unique and is definitely a book that I will revisit in the future.

What kind of book are you? (just for fun)

2011-07-01T12:48:00.000+10:00

You Are a Paperback Book

You are an avid reader, and you probably buy a lot of books. And nothing beats an inexpensive paperback you can carry around.

You read whatever you feel like reading. You aren't a snob, and you aren't ashamed of your tastes.

You always have a stack of books to get through, and it seems to be constantly multiplying.

You don't mind waiting for a book you want to come out in paperback. You have plenty to read in the meantime!

Are You a Hardcover Book or a Paperback Book?

Blogthings: If Quizzes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Take Quizzes

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel

2011-06-26T13:08:00.000+10:00

I hate to say this. I really really do. So perhaps first I will say that if you are an Earth's Children fan who hasn't read The Land of Painted Caves yet, do not read on. I should also add from the outset (because I know that some people like a whole lot of analysis in their reviews, supported by excerpts from the text blah blah blah) but this is going to be much more like a rant than a review. So here we go.

This was bad. I know that the last few in the series were pretty bad too, but I really thought that Auel would have pulled something really good out the hat for the final book in the series, especially after having had decades to write it.

Instead, the story drags. On. And. On. Seriously, too many long journeys. Too many caves. Too long becoming a Zelandonii. Too much repetition. I mean, we get it. There is a family in the cave that does not look after their children. Zellandonii (Zolena) is fat and has trouble moving around. Jondalar is a jealous bloke with a bad temper. Ayla can't sing. The special Clan root she chews for the important ceremony is very dangerous. Ayla believes that babies come from men and women having sex and this is a revolutionary thought that will change history.

I had heard most of this in previous books, and those things that I hadn't, I heard in this book way too many times.

My bigger problem was that I felt as though the Ayla in this book was almost a different Ayla to the one in the previous books. I'm sorry, but there is no way on earth that Ayla would ever agree to kill someone, no matter what the circumstances. And Ayla as a mother in this book just didn't feel right. It felt right with Durc, but not with Jondayla. Maybe it was just the stupid name, but there was no connection between them. It felt like Jondayla was a plot device rather than a real person. I want my characters to feel like real people.

Honestly, towards the end I was skimming the book, not reading it.

I'm glad that I read the book, and somehow I think that I could still recommend the series to people, because the first book connects with you so much (and the second and third books in my view) that it is worth reading the rest of the series just to experience how wonderful the story of Ayla and Jondalar can be.

I just wish that Auel had written a shorter and more concise series (and final book) that did her otherwise wonderful characters justice.

(I know this becoming a habit now, but again, this book won't get a star rating. If you read this series, you will eventually read this book, so there's little point trying to capture my feelings in a rating system.)

What did you think of this final book in the series? Were you as disappointed as me? What do you think happened? How is possible to start off a series so well and finish so badly?

Today is Page Turners second birthday!!

2011-06-22T07:05:00.002+10:00

abc.net.au

Today is Page Turners 2nd Birthday!

It is hard to believe that I have been blogging for two years now. Page Turners has a changed a lot over time, and I am not just talking about the design.

The quality of my reviews have without a doubt improved for the better.

The content of my blog has changed over time as well. When I first began bloging in earnest I was very keen to build a following. This meant that a lot of my time was spent posting as part of memes, starting up my own memes and participating in challenges. As time has gone by and my community has slowly built up around me, I prioritised book reviews and discussions more and more. Now I no longer participate in any challenges or memes - it's just about the books I read and some areas of literary interest I post about.

What this year has really impressed upon me as a book blogger is how wonderful it is to feel part of a community.

For the first time ever I finally met some of my fellow bloggers this year and a Sydney meet up event. Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader did a great job organising it and I couldn't have enjoyed myself more.

Then more recently, Bernadette from Reactions to Reading and Fair Dinkum Crime sent me a really fun book (The Black Russian by Lenny Bartulin) all because I left a comment on her blog saying that I wanted to read it.

It's people like Bernadette and Marg and the fun of blogging get togethers and the like that has really made blogging worth while for me.

I have been blogging for 2 years now, and I can't wait for the many more to come. Thanks for your support everyone, I hope I get to know even more of you in the future. Have a glass of champagne on me.

I just purchased my 500th book!

2011-06-20T14:38:00.000+10:00

I can't believe it, but this morning I purchased my 500th book (and my 501st).

Seems excessive I know, but you would be surprised at how compact 500 books can actually be. I have two full book cases (the tall kind), one large 1.5m x 1m chest full of books and I am just starting to fill a shelf on our DVD book case.

They are probably 70% second hand books and 30% new. I sill have quite a few I have saved from my childhood, including Freddie and The Enormouse by Hugh Scott (primary school) and The Clouded Hills by Brenda Jagger (high school).

I can hear you asking what book has the honour of being my 500th - so I won't keep you in suspense any longer! It was..... (drum roll please):

The Lord of the Rings: The Complete Bestselling Classic

That's right, all 6 books in 1. Although I own the 'trilogy' in individual books, I thought that this would be the perfect book to take on holidays. Its a story I know and love well and because its so long it will keep me occupied for a good period of time.

A perfect addition to my personal library and a perfect book for my 500th book.

My 501st book was Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. I am not familiar with the story but I loved Jane Eyre so much that I couldn't pass it by.

That's enough from me. If you are interested in doing any more reading (blog reading that is), feel free to check out my latest posts: