Adventures in Bombay, Contemporary Epics, review of Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, Curry.

I just went on another excursion outside of the YA and paranormal zones, and it was completely worth it.

I read the gigantic, extraordinary, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It's supposedly based on the extraordinary true life story of the author, and his adventures in India in the 80s. I was in India myself 6 months ago. To me it was all about the history, the wildlife, and the numbers of people. India hits you around the face with its population everywhere. This is the Victoria Terminal in Mumbai in a rare moment when there aren't - literally - millions of people there.

In Shantaram the lead character experiences or observes EVERY facet of Mumbai. Which is impressive. With a population of 20 million it's bigger than most countries. He describes life in slums, among gangsters, lepers, and film stars in depth. My Mumbai was mainly the tourist facet. The beautiful old Victorian buildings, the jungly trees, the huge eagles on the street, and the monkeys...

His book is also filled with mystery, and intensity. The mystery is cool, there's a couple of clever who-dunnits in the story. The intensity, though, can be a bit much. It might be just me. But there's much love and so much hate, and none of it makes sense, but it's enough to sign your life over to someone else, apparently...

The two biggest similarities between the book and my experience are lots of food and taxis. The cabs are replicas of British cars from the 1950s, with 'busy' signs tacked on the hood, that flip out like flags when the cab is busy. I've never seen such gigantic menus, lists of hundreds of amazing combinations of vegetables and cheese and multiple kinds of bread. When I was a kid I loved the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the fantasy world of Narnia, but Narnia actually resembles my suburban childhood more than the fantasy that is India.

If you want to get an in depth, exciting, dramatic over view of Bombay, then this is just the story for  you, and everything else in the book is worth it...

The Best Book I read in 2011

This recommendation is a tiny bit complicated, as its kind of not just for one book, but for three. The book I'm recommending is the last of a trilogy, and you really should read the first two. Interestingly I almost didn't get to the 2nd one. I think I downloaded it mainly cos I needed something to read, and I was going to be out of wifi range in a moment... Needless to say, I read it, liked it, got drawn along to the 3rd one...

I'm currently in the very early days of writing a long series of books, and so I have especial admiration for what the author of this one has done, really achieving a spectacular climax and answering a ton of questions.
What's the book?

City of Glass (Incidentally, full props to the guys who made this trailer, so imaginitive... )

I'm trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but apologies in advance if I give anything away, or tell you something I didn't think was obvious.

So in CoG the Mortal Instruments saga moves to Alicante - long time home of the Shadowhunters. And that makes a nice change. It's fantasy, without being too fantastic. I only have two quibbles, the first is with Venice-like canals, somehow halfway up a hill, the second is that though the setting is a massive confrontation between all the most important supernatural beings in the world, how come 99% of them are from New York? Including practically all the werewolves and vampires?

But that's picky. The Jace/Clary issues are resolved beautifully and Cassandra Clare plays her trump card - the revelation of the angels - with massive style. There's even a little hook left for us into another sequel - a good thing, considering hoe badly everybody wanted City of Fallen Anegls.
So there you have it, heroism, romance, drama, violence. Recommended to everyone.

A Scandalous Life... Mary Lovell's It Girl for the 1800s

Married to a Lord at 17, divorced soon after. Affairs with an Austrian Diplomat, a King, a Greek count and an Albanian robber chief, before she finds the love of her life... a Bedouin sheikh.

If she was a character from the 21st century, Lady Jane Digby - described by everybody who meets her as amazingly beautiful - might have dressed like the hottie in the Armani advert. But she's much, much more than a pretty face.

In a time when women more or less have to do as they're told, Lady Digby is an amazing free spirit. From her family's massive mansion in the countryside she hits London, aged 16, and snaps up a super rich government minister twice her age.

It doesn't take her long, though to fall in love with someone else, and someone else, and someone else. More than anything else the Lady Digby story is one of passion and following your heart. The other thing it's about is travel. Each time Lady Digby's life erupts in scandal she moves on, covering most of Europe in her escapades, and in this book it's beautifully described. She ends up in Syria, camping in the desert with her sheikh lover, twenty years younger than her, and building a house in Damascus.
I read this while the protests in Syria were really kicking in and it made it especially immediate and sad. Lady Jane loves the country, this place in particular.



This book is beautifully put together, with tons of insight into the times, and letters and diary excerpts from all the characters. The most amazing thing about it is that the author, Mary Lovell didn't make it up. It's all true.

Lady Digby and her adventures existed. In my writing I sometimes worry I make things too unbelievable. Is the heroine of  SONG TO WAKE TO unrealistically quirky or romantic? On the evidence of Lady D., definitely not.

Charlie Sheen's Secret, a Review of Hush Hush, and some Wayne Rooney

I didn't like Hush Hush. Why? Two Reasons. The first is because of the character Patch. He's rude, a bully, unpleasant. He works with a shy, sweet girl in class and he's unhelpful, makes sexual insinuations, and tries to scare her. He makes Charlie Sheen look like a saint. Why is it that in stories being a 'bad boy' somehow means you're guaranteed to get the girl. I don't get it. Watch the clip of Charlie Sheen, current bad boy supremo. Though he seems to have his Goddesses, he's also a laughing stock. That's how Patch would be treated in the sequel if I wrote it. everybody pointing at him and laughing.

The second reason is the heroine, Nora Grey. She's almost as mad as Charlie Sheen. She repeatedly realises that such-and-such a course of action is crazy dangerous, and then does it anyway. And gets in horrible trouble. She's rescued, and then proceeds to do something idiotic the next chance she gets

And now I've thought of a third reason. The way the mystery is revealed is cumbersome and completely unbelievable. Nora googles fallen angels and all the information is there there. Patch's secret is completely explained in three minutes.

Having ranted a bit, I should also say that the story's not all bad. It's well written and the dialogue is very tight. Considering she's such a wimp, Nora has some very sharp one liners, as does her best friend Vee. One of the funnest parts of the story is when they get into little confrontations with their arch enemy at schools. Most of the lines are about hair, clothes, and being fat, but some of them sting.

The other character with some sharp lines (though his are generally either about having sex with Nora, or hurting her somehow) is Patch himself. And now we've got back to the subject of the mystery man himself, let's look at another current bad boy, who demonstrates what REALLY happens if you get over excited even a little bit, and break the rules.

Look up! Is that a Floating Island?

It's been a while since I took part in a blog hop, but I like the question for this one. What book titles stick in your mind?
My answer would have to be The Floating Islands by Rachel Neumeier, though I was probably also affected by the awesome cover...

I came back to it a couple of weeks ago, when an amazing thing happened: Fiction became reality when an artist created an ACTUAL FLOATING ISLAND, which looked completely amazing, and then was released and disappeared, last thought to be somewhere over the Czech Republic....

That's my title story, but there are others on each of the blogs taking part in the Crazy for Books Blog Hop. Please check them out. Also, if you're flying, keep an eye out the window, you never know what you might zoom past... But before you go anywhere... PLEASE CAST YOUR VOTE...

UK Riots, True Blood and Sookie Stackhouse

Did you riot?

If not, why not?
Reading and Rioting (Ha!) are so incompatible that a big bookstore in Manchester, Waterstones,  posted on Twitter about it. On Wednesday, when chaos loomed, they wrote 'we're staying open, if they steal some books they might learn something.'
But they didn't.
Maybe reading -  and especially reading a lot - makes you more likely to see things from somebody else's point of view. You spend 300 pages looking at the world through someone else's eyes and you get good at it. You think about what it feels like to be them, and you know that it can't be good for their shop to be smashed in, their livelihood stolen, their restaurant burned down, their community ruined.
So you don't do it.

Of course there's different ways of seeing things from other peoples point of view. In 'Dead until Dark' by Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse can see right INTO other peoples minds. She reads them. What's really interesting, though, is that she hates it. It embarrasses her and she tries not to do it.
So many stories have characters mind-reading for advantage that it's a real breathe of fresh air to find a character who is so NICE that she never even considers it.
Sookie is the biggest strength of the story. The setting - the rural deep south - is strong too. The plot meanders a little, and is a bit improbable - even for paranormality (so many murders). Overall, though, I have to come back to Sookie. She's a barnstorming creation and 'Dead until Dark' is worth reading for her alone.
For all her mind reading skills, though, I doubt even Sookie Stackhouse could work out REALLY why people did such horrible things in London, Manchester, and Birmingham this week. Politicians are trying, a good attempt is made by RUSSELL BRAND, here, but the bookstore staff had as good a try as  any. We're not learning enough, understanding enough, reading enough.
Speaking of which, there will be a bit more reading available in September, when my book 'Song to Wake to' is published. In the meantime I'd be really grateful if you could help me out and - if you haven't already - HAVE A QUICK VOTE. Thanks.

The Final Selection - Decision Tomorrow

This is the final list of entries in the competition. If you want to have a look, tell me what you think, I'd be very grateful.

1. "Book Title: If I Stay

Author: Gayle Forman

In just one moment in time your whole life changes. Everyone you love is gone. Your body is now a hollow shell. Will memories and love keep her alive?"

by Beckie Voigts

2. "Small Blue Thing by S.C Ransom;

I found this book to be very romantic, but in a sort of tragic kind of way. I found it a tad slow at the beginning, but it got better!

by sarahseaturtle

3. "Ultraviolet by RJ Anderson

""I'm not really a neuroscience student. I'm a janitor""

""Oh ...""

""I'm also an alien.""

""Like ... illegal immigrant?.""

""No, from outer space.""

That's where the story lost me."

by Claudia Kruger

4. "Divergent by Veronica Roth

 Dystopian Chicago. Choose a faction, Candor (honest), Abnegation (selfless), Dauntless (brave), Amity (peaceful), Erudite (intelligent), change your life. Right or wrong. Tris and Four are Divergent, what are you? "

by Jules

5. "Hollowland by Amanda Hocking

Remy & co narrowly escape run-ins with zombies and random predators! This has it all - tons of action, suspense, emotion and a little romance, plus plenty of laughs."

Cindy H

6. "Title: Being. Author: T.R. Mousner

This book was amazing! Aliens, human nature, love, hate, faith and courage.  This author created this world in her book and sucked me right in! IT WAS AWESOME...READ IT!!"

by MELISSA WYER

7. "Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare:

A story set in gorgeous Victorian London, white gloved hands, secret glances and stolen moments. With proper and charming characters; but with the strong fierceness, blades and magic Shadowhunters have.

by Jude Henderson.

Full review: here...

and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! :D"

8.  "Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

A classic on the nature of right and wrong. It's about a man's struggle to understand his place in the world after committing a murder. Grueling, but a great read. "

by Mick Theebs

9. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

Upon finishing this book at promptly 9:52 p.m. last night, I realized exactly what I thought of it: It stunk up until page 770. Then it got really good. "

by Michaela Bean

10.  "Out Stealing Horses.  Per Petterson.  

Simply written with basic conjunctions such as 'and', the slow paced descriptions of life in a Norwegian Wood draw you in and then the 'real' story starts.  I recommend it."

by Fiona 

11. "The Shipping News" pulls your heart strings with a story of ill-placed love, displacement and return.  Chilly descriptions of the Newfoundland landscape contrast with the warmth of the characterisation.  Really loved it.

by Redge

12. "My review:Hex Hall by Racael Hawkins

Sophie Mercer thought that she was a normal teen. But after magic gone wrong Sophie is sent to Hex Hall. Now Sophie must uncover deep secrets about her and school."

by Patrick Castro

13. "Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

This odd but humourous read comes from the seasoned wit of the inimitable children's author. The Three Little Pigs and other classics get a ""revolting"" makeover that doesn't disappoint. "

by Paul Miazga

14.  "Flow My Tears the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

A 1984ish future.  A protagonist with the emotional depth of oatmeal.  What’s going on?  All I remember is the line where a character “stops speaking to fart silently.”  Thanks, Philip."

By James Steele 

15. "Next" by Michael Crichton

Instead of research that benefits mankind, every scientist is skirting the legal system so they can make money and get more funding.  The moral of the story: scientists are evil."

by James Steele

16. "When We Were Real by William Barton

The author can’t finish a...  Well...  You see, he can’t finish... Well.  I’m sure you...  Right.  Great.  When there isn’t a vagina around, the whole book is like this."

by James Steele

17. "The Forbidden Game by L.J. Smith

I cried, was tense and afraid, yet there was sweetness there. I met Jenny and Julian, a prince of darkness as evil and terrifying as he was beautiful and compelling"

by Ter05

18. Wuthering Heights fascinates; the obsessive relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy reflected by the raw charge of the wild setting. ‘He’s more myself than I am’ – raises hairs on my neck.  

by Casper

19. "Bird By Bird. By Anne Lamott.

A concise writing guide colored by Lamott's unusual experiences, Bird by Bird belongs alongside Zinsser and Strunk & White on any serious writers bookshelf. "

by Christopher

20. "Game of Thrones: George R. R. Martin

 Incest, sex, betrayal, violence, war, love, family, honor, and a witty dwarf! What more could you need to make an amazing book? Nothing! A must-read!"

Caitlin37

21. "Ebook - Essence by Diane Tolley.

Todd's scientist father has created 'Essence', which will turn anyone into the animal of their choice.

Now it's been stolen. Adventure ensues."

By Diane

22.  "The Glassman by Jocelyn Adams.

Fae realms, strong heroine, hot hero, amusing yet terrifying villain, and a rocket speed writing pace will drag you along for a magical and fantastical ride for the finish line."

 by J.A. Belfield

23. "City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Firecracker Clary Fray rips the glamour off New York’s underworld to rescue her enigmatic mother. Uncovered secrets reveal taboo snogging. Clare writes luscious romance, dynamite action but sickeningly wordy sentences. "

by Emma Madden

24. "Captain Underpants"-  Dav Pilkey

The chronicles of a cool-ass superhero principal with an underwear fetish make this book a refreshing, albeit slightly juvenile, read.   

by Po

25. Thirsty by M.T. Anderson

Teenage boys becoming vampires, lust after imperfection, and inexplicable celestial beings named Chet shape Chris's life.Tch'Muchgar and traitorism infiltrate the climax, while bittersweetness flavors the ending.

by M. L. P.

26. Artemis Fowl : The Arctic Incident by Artemis Fowl

 A nice blend of action and wit. Engaging language and realistic scenes. Awesome chemistry between characters. For action and faery lovers.Can be read alone / series."

by Jezebel Lee

What a selection! Again, thanks to everybody for taking part. If you've got an opinion, PLEASE COMMENT.
And in the meantime, I've got a little survey HERE that I'd really like your help with... 

Kim Kardashian, Apes and Whales, and Cassandra Claire's Mortal Instruments

             Fake tan, hair spray, perfume, make up. This is how glamour is achieved in real life, but in stories, it's better. In stories glamour equals magic. The celebrities on the red carpet use their version of glamour to minimise the ordinary, maximise the extraordinary. They make run of the mill features beautiful, and turn beautiful faces otherworldly. It's a kind of real life magic. In contrast, in The Mortal Instruments, by Cassandra Claire, magical beings use glamour to make themselves seem ordinary, to make themselves seem exactly like the rest of us. Art imitating life, but in an opposite kind of a way.
             A while ago I wrote a post about the appeal - in children's literature - of portals (rabbit holes, wardrobes and suchlike) leading to magical worlds.  Now we come across a second kind of magical world, the kind that exists all around us and we just can't see it. I've just read Claire's 'City of Bones' and 'City of Ashes.'  In these a 17 year old girl learns that the world is full of witches, werewolves, vampires and elves, walking alongside us in magical disguise.
             The theme of this blog, recently anyway, has been looking at ideas in books and trying to understand why they work. The idea of glamour is fascinating, but I think a more important part of the story is the idea of different, intelligent species walking among us. What's the draw? I think it comes from the same desire for the real world to be BETTER, more interesting, more romantic that also drives the appeal of glamour.
             I liked the stories, though not so much as it's raving fans, because to me there's tons of magic to be learnt about the intelligence of creatures we really do share planet earth with. 

            And we shouldn't forget that we know far more about the minds of our furry relatives than we do about whales and dolphins. The biggest brain ever to have existed belongs to the sperm whale, and we know practically nothing about what it uses all that grey matter for, what philosophies fizz through it. I've written an entire novel of guessing...
            The other pull of these stories is the plotting, but by the end of the 2nd it had begun to drag. There's lots of it that I seemed to half recognise from Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings and who knows where else. And the characters don't seem to move forwards as much as round in circles. It's very much a series, too, with not much ending to mark the movement from one book to the next. It seems fairly arbitrary.
            But if you're prepared to read all three, and you like the idea of hidden magic all around you, I recommend it. I also recommend finding out what whales and gorillas think, but that's likely to be a bit more tricky...
            If you're interested in the kind of magic distracting me in 2019, find out here... https://sxswx365.blogspot.com/

The Number One Place in the World, Floating Islands, and Armies of Wild Cows.

The new best place - or places - in the world, for this year at least are The Azores. There's something about islands, about archipelagos, that really catches the imagination. For me, I think part of it is the idea of self-contained, miniature worlds isolated, all by themselves, away from it all. Rachel Neumeier takes this a step forward in 'The Floating Islands,' an amazing young adults book that I'm reading. It's set, unsurprisingly on a small nation of floating islands. She manages the the world creation perfectly, interpreting it through the eyes of Trei, a fourteen-year-old orphan, arriving in the islands to live with his uncle. He decides he wants to join the flyers, men who defend the islands and travel between them on massive wings, constructed from borrowed feathers.

The Azores are the kind of place you can imagine housing dragons, like The Floating Islands. But actually, besides the hordes of frogs I wrote about here, the best Terceira can offer is a race of fearsome wild cattle. They evolved in the wild hills of the centre of the islands, and led the islanders to build weird structures, like really narrow, deep doorways, by the side of roads. These were so, if you got menaced by the wild cows, you could hide in them!

Once the cattle were famed because, when the island was attacked by Spanish warships, the islanders herded a thousand of the savage beasts straight at the Spaniards. The soldiers who didn't get flattened jumped back on their boats and didn't return! Now, sadly, the cattle are mainly used for these street bullfights.



Travelling through the centre of the island we saw the bulls, three or four to a special, spacious pasture, building themselves up for their exertions. They're kept there, far away from the dairy cattle, because if they could get to them they would cause all kinds of aggro. The dairy cattle meanwhile, produce some of the most amazing butter and cheese I've ever tasted in my life...

The Floating Islands have amazing stepping stones across empty air, and magic-hung stair cases. Terceira can't match those, but it does have astonishing volcanic chambers like the one on the left.

There are also weird, jet black, spiky volcanic shore lines, like the one below at Biscoitos framing a country cliff in the distance. The black stone also criss crosses the island in millions of black walls, that section it up into tiny fields, used to house the other, friendly cows, and protect the vines from the Atlantic winds. In the summer, the black walls heat up and keep the vines warm all night, like growing the grapes in an amazing volcanic outdoor incubator.

The people of the Azores are also slightly different, their lives a bit magical. They talk to every stranger they come across, unabashed, about the charm of life on an island. I asked the owner of our local bar about crime. He shrugged and said 'It's not really a problem, there are two people who might steal something, and we know who they both are, so...'

The Azores are actually so astonishing that to me, they were only fractionally less amazing than The Floating Islands. And Terceira isn't even the best one, next Pico and Faial...

Kate Middleton was picked on, living in hotels, and Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy

It's like living in a hotel with all your friends. Without your parents, but possibly with loads of magic furniture, secret passages and midnight feasts. No wonder boarding schools are a complete fixture of young adults books and children's stories. From Enid Blyton, through Harry Potter, to Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy.

This last is a great read. It starts slow, and is weirdly like the second in a series, with loads of flashbacks and explaining what has just happened to get our heroes in their current, very dodgy situation. In the middle it sags a bit, there's a lot of explaining how vampire school works, and messing around with red herrings and clues to the twists and turns and smashes and bangs that come at the end. Because of this the third act works very well, and also hooks the reader right in for the sequel.

In all fairness though, boarding school can be scary. Your parents aren't there to take care of you, and there's nowhere you can hide, as shown in the clip above. Mead's boarding school often has more in common with Kate Middleton being (possibly) picked on. There's lots of being ostracized and kept to your room. There are no midnight feasts, though some midnight boozing that I don't think they went in for at St Claire's... The lack of secret passages, given that the school has hundreds of years of vampire history is a serious lack, only just made up for by using fires in the bathroom to distract teachers and sneak into each others dorms. That old trick.

Children's stories are full of plots that allow kids to run their own lives without adults seeming to interfere. In fiction they go on for months, gigantifying the fun that real life kids get from a few hours of freedom. I remember the first time I went away on a school trip, staying in a hostel in London. We stayed up all night eating chocolate digestives and sneaking in and out of each others rooms. It was spectacular. Exhausting and excellent. If Kate Middleton had that kind of fun once a term, then it might have been worth the being picked on. And that's before considering that boarding school was the first step on the road to Buckingham Palace.

I doubt we've seen the last of the boarding school story, if for no other reason than I'm writing one...

Book Review: Anita Shreve 'The Weight of Water'

I've read four or five Anita Shreve books, and I feel that this one belongs lower down the heap. The problems are that from the beginning you know that things are going to 'come to a climax' and with that in mind there are only a couple of ways it can go, making it a bit predictable.
Telling two stories in parallel, with the story from the past filtered through a character in the present, is a nice structure, and one Shreve has used successfully in the past.
On the upside, the setting is very interesting, the Isles of Shoals. I've always had a thing about islands, something that I go on about a bit on my blog...
She makes the bleak, bare islands with their peculiar names practically become characters in the story.
As for the actual characters in the story, they're unsympathetic across the board, which though i didn't mind it too much, it might be a problem for other readers. The lead character is a photographer, and because of this the book is constantly focussed on detailed visual descriptions of characters and scenes, which are often poetic and sometimes quite beautiful, but there's just, quite a lot of them...
So, if you like very visual books, with unsparing character examinations, intense, morally vague and fairly clipped, this is for you...