The Gospel of Gods and Crocodiles | Elizabeth Stead

What an extraordinary book! This is the second book I've read by this author and I really enjoyed both for the inventiveness of the stories and characters we get to know and care about. 
This novel is set on a equatorial island belonging to Australia. It begins with a beautiful description of its volcanic inception and the uncomplicated lives of its inhabitants until....One by one missionaries from all denominations invade the island. 
Amen, the first, is seen as harmless, more like a pet than a menace. They like his gifts. Then there is the  Adventist, dark and brooding. Two RC priests arrive with pomp and ceremony, with money and a building program. Miss Wong arrives, a Chinese woman who opens a store and runs a few escort ladies for the comfort of the many men who arrive to build an airbase and organise the settlement. 
Over all is the heat, the relentless humidity, the crocodiles who are demigods and villagers who try to incorporate the changes into their mythology.
Two of the main characters are Dr Glass, a GP from Wales who treats all manner of ills and becomes part of the very fibre of the island's society. Sam Maitland is a misfit in his home country of Australia and through a series of circumstances ends up being a Jock-of-not-many-trades on the island, but is the only one who truly embraces the island and all it has to offer. The native people embrace him and fully accept him in his simple ways as the only one who can see them as human beings of great value.

Please read this book, it is astoundingly beautiful , insightful and very very funny.
The other novel  have read by Stead is "The Sparrows of Edward Street", which I also highly recommend.

The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton | Elizabeth Speller

I've been keen for Elizabeth to publish another book, as I found The Return of Captain John Emmett an excellent book. And in this novel, Speller has crafted another intriguing and well told story.

 There are many elements in this novel, it's complicated. There are equal measures of history, intrigue, ancient rites, architectural trends and a fair few characters to keep track of but the narrative is so well done that it all melds together into a great tale.

We come to care about the characters, we love the idyllic coutry estate and we desperately want to know what happened to Kitty Easton. 

The main character from The Return, Laurence Bartram goes to a country estate to help his friends (also from The Return) in the restoration of an old church on the property. Central to the church and the surrounding gardens is the idea and the design of a maze. 

It is set just after WWII and the characters are all affected by it and there is quite a bit of social commentary woven into the story. Bartram served and so did the men and boys from the estate. Not many came back.

Bartram meets the family of the estate, the Eastons, over whom lies a cloud of misery and darkness since the disappearance of the fiver year old heiress, Kitty. She was gone in the middle of the night and no amount of searching over the ensuing fifteen years has provided even a clue of what happened. Everyone fell apart and the family cloaked themselves in silence. One of the characters put is beautifully "We talk a lot but we don't say anything."

Bartram falls into the role of confidant and slowly puts together the puzzle and searches for answers.

Very satisfying and beautifully told story. I hope Elizabeth is busy writing another novel! 

The Woman with the Bouquet | Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

This was an interesting read, if somewhat unsatisfying. These are short stories which almost read like morality tales. The foibles of flawed humanity are explored. Often they revolve around mis-communication or lack of communication. The one I liked best which illustrates this is the powerful story "Perfect Crime" in which a wife pushes her husband off a cliff. She is accused of murder and remanded for two years, in which she professes her innocence. In that time she tells over and over the story of her happy life and happy fulfilled marriage to a great man. In the telling she convinces herself she didn't really do it, but mostly she finds it hard to understand why she could have done it. And it stems from her suspicions of a too happy life and a noxious friend who is a gossip monger. When she finally gets her hands on her husbands possessions, which she thinks will reveal his unfaithfulness and duplicity, she discovers he has a secret... which I won't spoil.
The style isn't all that fluid and I think it is because of the translation. I imagine it reads beautifully in the original.
Worth a read but won't be for everyone.

Homecoming | Bernhard Schlink

I've really enjoyed reading this new (for me) author and have just started a second book by him. The reason I picked this one up is because Schlink wrote "The Reader", the movie of which I thoroughly enjoyed.
In this novel, homecoming as a theme is explored through the main protagonist, Peter Debauer. He explores his childhood mystery regarding his absent father, a figure he only knows through brief details from his mother and a wonderful relationship he has with his paternal grandparents. 
The Odyssey forms part of the story's structure as we compare its journeys and homecomings and the one WWII soldiers had to endure. As Peter explores both he begins to look for his father and travels around Germany and eventually America to make contact with him.
It is a scholarly work, a lot of classical references and a whole lot on law and justice. Neither is surprising given Schlink's background as law professor, judge and crime writer. 
It could have been a heavy dry read, but it isn't . I really enjoyed it, the writing is superb, and even though in translation, it's an excellent read.

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Just a Little Run Around the World | Rosie Swale Pope

This is a remarkable book because it is about a remarkable woman. Unbelievable in the face of hardship, grief and the astounding round-the-world-run is Rosie herself. I kept on reading and turning each page in wonder as Rosie tells us of her desire to honour her husband by doing something momentous. He died of prostate cancer and Rosie wants to encourage people globally to get checkups so as to pick up any early warning signs of the disease. 
Most of us would plant a tree or donate to a charity, Rosie runs. She sets off with the support of friends and family from Teny, Wales. She is determined and succeeds thanks to the amazing people she meets in every country and her supporters who meet up with her to deliver her next pair of Sauconys, or PHD designed extreme exploration gear, or villagers who dried her stinky socks along the way. 
Rosie runs through Europe, Russia, Syberia in winter, Iceland and Greenland...Alaska in winter...you name it, she ran through, consecutively. The sheer determination she shows is an inspiration. 
We are going through tough times here in Christchurch right now and Rosie has helped to grasp the bigger picture, what is within our grasp even in hardship. Mostly she shows an attitude of great thankfulness and humility at people's ability to give, to help and to encourage. 

Read this book, be encouraged. Check out her at http://www.rosiearoundtheworld.co.uk/

I would like to read of her other adventures, including her solo sailing round the world, her 26 marathons in 26 days to raise funds for hospices in the UK.. Boundless energy!

The Lake of Dreams | Kim Edwards

For those who read The Memory Keeper’s Daughter and eagerly awaited for Edward’s next book, you will not be disappointed! This story is well written and seems effortless in the telling, the sign of a good author.

In this novel Lucy Jarrett returns to her hometown of Lake of Dreams to find many changes in the town and in her family. Her brother is settling down, her mother is starting a relationship with a local guy, after being a widow for a long time. The lakeside is being developed and mansions appearing. Wildlife is marginalised and the wetlands are in peril.

Interwoven with Lucy’s journey is her family history which begins with her ancestors coming from England to America and watching the passing of Haley’s comet. In her mother’s house Lucy discovers a finely woven blanket with a moon and vines motif woven into the fabric. The motif appears in stained glass windows in a small local church being renovated. For Lucy it is all part of the mystery of her family’s past and the women the family doesn’t mention. Her pursuit of these women leads Lucy to discover something about herself and allows the family to move on from secrets that bind it.

Very good read, enjoyable on many levels and satisfying.  

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The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid | Bill Bryson

After the earthquake of February 22^nd (Christchurch, New Zealand) I found it very hard to concentrate on any reading, something quite foreign to me. A friend lent me this book, and having enjoyed Bryson in the past, I thought I’d give it a go.

It was perfect. In this book Bryson tells about his childhood in the 50’s middle class America. There are anecdotes and reflections on life, the new rich, the lifestyle that American’s settled into after World War 2. It is told in a delightful voice full of the innocence and insight only children have.

Anyone can enjoy this book and it helped to get back into reading. Bryson can be relied upon to tell a good story and make you laugh out loud. Thanks Bill!

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Love Beyond Reason | John Ortberg

There is something bewildering about the human condition in that we all need to and want to be loved. And God has revealed himself as LOVE but we find it hard to grasp. Ortberg in this book deals with the misconceptions we have of God as an old man in the sky with a big stick ready to smack us for every misdemeanour. Ortberg writes this book in the hope we can understand the true and real nature of God’s love for us, which is beyond reason, beyond our expectations and can change our lives if we truly grasp it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it’s refreshing and well worth passing on once finished.

 He also wrote ‘The Life you’ve Always wanted’ which is also very good. 

Incidentally

This is an incidental blog post, not a review as such. I haven't been able to post reviews due to the fact that I live in Christchurch, New Zealand and on the 22nd February we suffered a horrendous earthquake. We are in the process of post-quake life, which will take some time to get used to. We have not lived in our home since. he CBD is devastated and many have lost their lives. Kia Kaha, Christchurch.

Toast | Nigel Slater

I have mixed feelings about this autobiography. I read it because it is well regarded and has won awards but for me it was an unsatisfying read.
Nigel seems to have had a sad and lonely childhood. He loses his mum at a young age and as he was really close to her, he suffers well into his teens from this loss. His Dad marries the housekeeper and life just gets worse for Nigel as he has a distant relationship with his father and a dismal one with the stepmother.
The only ray of hope in Nigel's life is food. There is a lot about chocolates and sweets, food he tried to cook himself and his mothers terrible attempts at cooking. His stepmother is far better at it but there is an inference that all the good cooking and baking caused Nigel's father 's heat attack and death. Amongst it all are the dubious sexual encounters, as a child and as a teen.
The title of each chapter is a food of some sort and the vignetter of life he describes centers around food, so we see and interpret the people in his life through a particular food group or disaster. the short chapters leave us wanting to know more and have some resolution to what he describes. It seems like we are looking at a photo album full of family photos of which we are given fleeting comments on before we rush off to the next photo.
He is now a renown chef, which I guess is the resolution of his obsession with food.

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Started early, Took My Dog | Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson is amazing. I've read everything she's written and each story shows how she's developing her style and adding depth to the novels.
This is one in the Jackson Brodie series. He's getting older, more musing, private investigator who has a lot of baggage and is trying to improve himself. And now he has a small dog....An innocent sounding email is sent to him from New Zealand asking him to trace the blood family of an adopted child. There seems to be no clue as to her provenance, but the more he looks into it the more threats are directed at him.
Tilly the aged actress, Tracey, the retired Superintendent, an ex-con, and a small girl are all wrapped up in the mystery of the adopted child.
As always with Atkinson, it's really well written, it tells a good story and has style. Not a graphic crime CSI style, but no less striking and page turning in it's accurate portrayal of human misery, ingenuity and compassion.
Well worth reading this and all her others: "Behind the Scenes at the Museum", "Human Croquet". Emotionally Weird", One Good Turn", "Case Histories","When Will There Be Good News?"

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Notwithstanding | Louis de Bernieres

This is one of my favourite authors and so I'm not surprised to have loved this, his latest novel. A Frenchman once pointed out to de Bernieres that Britain was the most exotic country in Europe and this sent him off on a journey of recollection. He grew up in what people call an idyllic country village which is in fact a community of eccentric people and landscape. He says in the afterword " On reflection I realised that I had set so many of my novels and stories abroad, because custom had prevented me from seeing how exotic my own country is. Britain really is an immense lunatic asylum. We have a very flexible conception of normality. We are rigid and formal in some ways, but we believe in the right to eccentricity, as long as the eccentricities are large enough. We are not so tolerant of small one. Woe betide you if you hold  your knife incorrectly, but good luck to you if you wear a loincloth and live up a tree".

In this novel each chapter is a story about someone in the village. Other characters from other chapters play a part as does the landscape and the village so as we read we get a feel for this place. Some of the stories are set in the past and some are of families in different eras. well structured and a pleasure to read.
This is an author who observes people, can spin tale and writes beautifully with a vast vocabulary. Well worth reading all his other work.

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The house at Sugar Beach | Helene Cooper

I like autobiographies because everyone has a story to tell, but only some people get around to writing them. Helene Cooper has an amazing story to tell of her childhood in Liberia in the 1970’s. It begins in idyllic childhood memories of a well off family who were part of a big extended family, integral to local high society, local business and were very well regarded.

Her ancestors were from the founding fathers of Liberia, freed slaves who deliberately and determinately forged a free nation of Africans. From this strong foundation came a strong nation which tore itself apart in a civil war which lasted 25 years.

Helene and her family are persecuted and dispossessed and flee to the United States. She writes with detail and feeling about what it was like before and after the war and we get a real sense for the hardship many families went through in her country.

Cooper writes well and we can see, smell and hear the things she experienced.

In America she has to reinvent herself, no longer part of the privileged elite. She becomes a journalist with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and while in Iraq on assignment the Humvee she traveled in was crushed by a tank. That moment was like a catalyst for her to confront the past and write her story, and it gave her the impetus to go back to Liberia. She returns to the ruins of the House at Sugar Beach, she discovers her foster sister and other survivors of the war and the years of poverty which followed in the wake of Charles Taylor’s government.

This memoir is well worth reading and insightful into a nation we don’t hear a lot about.

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Blood Men | Paul Cleave

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, where this story is set. Cleave is a good crime writer but I think for me, the portrayal of the city as dark, sinister and Gothic seemed a little strained, as I live here and it doesn't seem that bad! I 've been thinking a lot about the book as I am trying to figure out why I didn't love it outright, as with Paddy Richardson's crime books set in Christchurch.
I think that with Cleave's type of serial-rapist story if it had been set in New York or Los Angeles it would have been a lot more believable for me. maybe other readers who live there would be ok with reading of a far off city which seems steeped in darkness where horrid things happen. Our city is called "The Garden City" and its genteel calmness (others would call it boringness) just doesn't seem to match the story.
In this crime novel a serial rapist's son is caught up in a bad bank robbery where his wife is shot. He spirals out of control and in a matter of days has come to acknowledge that some of the violence he knows is in his father, is coming out in him. He makes contact with his father in hope that he'll know who was involved and then the body count starts to mount. It is mostly resolved but as i turned to the last page I was left with the feeling this was going to lead into a sequel. I hope it's a good one, as I will read it, in support of a local author. But I hope I like it a bit more than this one. It's not a bad read, it's well written, but not as satisfying as Richardson, whom I've read concurrently.

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A Year To Learn A Woman | Paddy Richardson

What a writer! I am so pleased to have discovered this wonderful author from New Zealand. Richardson lives in Dunedin, in the South Island and this landscape features strongly in her work.
This is the second novel I've read of hers and I am out hunting down her other two novels. She is very talented and I highly recommended her work to anyone who wants a great story, very well crafted characters and stories which are absorbing and keep you turning the pages even when you should be out there doing something else.
In this story, Claire Wright is a freelance writer who became widowed at a young age. She lives with her teenage daughter and together they have a pleasant suburban life in Christchurch. Out of the blue is is asked to write the authorized biography of a serial rapist who is in prison and has specifically asked for her to ghost write the book. Although full of apprehension Claire takes on the contact due it the huge amount of money she will be paid for it, money which will alloy her and Annie to be able to travel and pay for university fees.
Doing the research leads to contact with Travis Crill, the rapist, and his six victims. There is a lot of discussion among Claire and friends about rape and the impacts on their lives as they become involved in the details of the crime.
At school Annie meets a new arrival, Savannah, from USA who is forceful and possessive and they become best friends. Savannah isn't a great influence and over the year Annie's life turns upside down.
As I read I knew we were heading for disaster, I just couldn't see from which direction it was coming or what form it was going to take...i just braced myself for it and read on! It was like bracing for a car crash and when it happened, it was dramatic, but well handled and resolved. Stunning book. Read everything she's written.
Hunting Blind is her latest.

The Long Song | Andrea Levy

Levy is English, born of Jamaican parents who emigrated in 1948 to England. This novel is about the lives of white planters and black slaves in the time of the Baptist Rebellion and beyond. The narrator is July, a slave on Amity, a plantation in Jamaica. The slaves are many, the overseer cruel, the masters feeble and incompetent, the mistresses, an embarrassment.
I found it a good read, but I became impatient with some of the white characters who were drawn in a less favorable light than the blacks. The story is primarily about the abolition of slavery and Jamaica's history since then so our sympathies are very much with the slave population but the tedium of engaging with the whites made me impatient to finish the book. I also found it very similar to "James Miranda Barry" by Patricia Dunker. I'm not sure if it is because of this that I didn't find it an altogether satisfying read, but on the strength of the writing I will chase down some of Levy's other novels and read them as she is very talented.

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Winter In Madrid | C J Sansom

Having just been in Spain, I was looking forward to this book. It was easy enough to imagine the scenes and cityscapes but it was quite hard to relate to the story. It is mostly about the British in Madrid at the beginning of WW2 (1940-1) and a lot of the story takes place within Diplomatic circles, embassies and is very stiff-upper-lip. The Spanish are being courted by Hitler, the British are trying to influence the Spanish by blockading the ports and the citizens of Spain are just trying to survive the starvation and unrest. The novel centers around the main character of Harry Brett who is asked by the British forces to become a spy after being injured in Europe. He is to watch an old school friend of his, Sandy Forsythe, who appears to be involved in the black market in Madrid.

Harry had been to Spain a few years before while looking for another friend Bernie Piper, who disappeared in the civil unrest and is presumed dead. He helped Barbara to look for him. Now she is involved with Sandy and .is trying to make sense of it all. Most of the book is slow, with the action taking place in the final chapters.

The relationship between the three men is very much developed at the public school they attended as teens and it colours everything they say and do as adults.

There is a certain amount of intrigue but not edge-of-you-seat kind of stuff. I read “The shadow of the wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and it is a much better story than this one.

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Menagerie of False Truths | Greg French

I learned a new word reading this book ‘friction’, which is the way French describes his novel: a mixture of fact and fiction giving you ‘friction’. In the telling of any story the mix of fact and fiction rub up against each other creating friction between the two to the point where both are melded together. French draws on his experiences growing up in a family with various degrees of autism, a distant mother, a love of nature and fly fishing to weave a beautiful story.

A young man out in the Australian bush meets a young woman in a bogong. They have a weird conversation about native moths and fly fishing for trout and are mutually intrigued. Over the next ten or so years they write letters, using them as a means to tell their stories and piece together the truth about themselves. Cherry is in Dunedin, New Zealand, and Zack is in Australia. Both have autistic siblings and this has shaped their families. They also have friends in common and a love for art and nature.

I loved the way the story is interesting, it captures both the Australia and New Zealand landscape and a love of nature. A beautiful read.

Hunting Blind | Paddy Richardson

I'm so glad I've discovered this author. Richardson is a Newzealander, writing from the city of Dunedin and she has set this gripping story in familiar territory around the city of Dunedin, Central Otago, Kaikoura and the West Coast.
It is the story of a family in Wanaka,who at a school picnic, lose Gemma their four-year old daughter. It is devastating for the family and the community. No trace of her is ever found and the general belief is that she drowned in the lake. Stephanie, her older sister, becomes the main narrator of the rest of the book as she studies in the city of Dunedin to become a Psychiatrist. In one of her rounds she comes across a woman who eventually reveals her sister disappeared in the middle of the night and was feared drowned. She mentions a teacher who was friends of the family at the time...on a hunch Stephanie takes leave from work and wanders around the South Island hoping to answer some questions and come to terms with what she fears happened to Gemma. It is totally gripping and I couldn't put it down.
Totally engaging, intelligent and gripping (what DID happen?) this book is very well written. For those who have traveled in the South Island, the landscapes, town and cities described are familiar and the story takes on different dimension for being so recognizably set in New Zealand. I highly recommend this story and will look for her other books to read.

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Tinkers | Paul Harding

This is the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I try and read as many Pulitzer winners as I can so I can 'meet' authors I may not have read before. With 'Tinkers" I was underwhelmed. It describes the last few days of George's life where he is bed ridden and surrounded by relatives. He drifts in and out of consciousness and in the drifting revisits his life's story and more poignantly his relationship with his father, Howard.
George grew up on a New England farm which just made ends meet. His brother Jo seems to have had some mental illness, his mother worked hard to keep things going with the help of George and his two sisters. The Howard was an itinerant salesman to rural properties and suffered from epilepsy. Whether it was this illness or another condition is unclear but he had weird sensory hallucinations which he wrote in a notebook as he traveled through the countryside. He also muses a lot on his own father, a preacher whose mental state deteriorates to the point where he tells his congregation the Devil isn't all that bed. He is ousted by the parishioners and put in a mental institution
George struggles to relate to his father, and as his father's mental state deteriorates George is more and more confused in his emotions towards him. As an adult he became a clock repairer and he compares the intricacies of clocks to the intricacies of life and of his own family.
In his last few minutes of life we discover that Howard left his family and remarried and started a new life. He shows up at George's home and tires to reconnect but the impression is that George was distant and too removed to make any meaningful emotional connection with his father in the end.
There is a lot of reflection and musing on life and families and it is well written but I didn't feel it was a satisfying story and when finished it didn't linger in my mind at all.

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Fame & Infamy | Ed Wright

I picked up this pocket book at an airport when I finished my book too soon. It is part of a series called Pocket History of which I have two others. They are gorgeous books to hold, small 'pocket' size with fabric covers. Lovely. This one is "History's most shocking frauds, scandals and intrigues". It is very well written and each chapter dedicated to someone in history who was a fraud or a scandalous figure or just bizarre.
Wright starts off with Caravaggio's life of passion and art. Tchaikovsky, Fatty Arbuckle, the Petrovs, Lord Lucan and Jim Bakker are among those written about. There is a lot to learn in each chapter about human behaviour, and how each person had an Achille's heel they wrestled with and succumbed to. These wee books are much better than your average airport read and I will try and get more of the series.

The other books I have in this series are "Good Girls don't make History" and "Obscure Events that Shaped History."