Six Degrees of Separation: Dangerous Liaisons to Tomorrow When the War Began

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

This month's starting point is Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. I looked and thought yay! An opportunity to choose some books set in France. And then I looked at last month's post and realise that the majority of them were set in France! Let's see where the chain takes us this month. 

Another French classic is  Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I read this a long time ago now.  I just bought tickets to see this in an arena show in May. Should be interesting to see it in a crowd of around 10000 people, presumably singing along in some parts. Will have to watch the movie version to refresh my memory between now and then.

I have seen a number of plays and shows that were originally based on a book. A while ago now we went to see Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, and I also saw her live at Melbourne Writers Festival. 

Recently, I read There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. I saw her online at Adelaide Writers Festival a few years ago. In There Are Rivers in the Sky, there were a couple of paragraphs musing over the nature of numbers and words, something I end up overthinking about myself on occasion. I tend to think more about who was the first person who called something it's name and why did they choose that, or how did the words evolve in the first place, because some words just look a little odd. I couldn't fit the passage into my review but I thought I would share it here instated. 

Sniffling, the boy pulls up his collar and rubs his hands. It is not good. The wind pierces through his frayed garments, chilling his bones. He does not mind the cold as much as the hunger. Hunger is a beehive in his abdomen, one that has been stirred with a stick, buzzing day and night, jostling, irritated and frantic. He reckons the bees need a distraction, something to keep them busy and out of mischief. So he seeks help from mathematics. Whenever he feels worried, he does sums and multiplications in his head. He takes a gander at a lady with a parasol strolling along the park or a gentleman in a top hat sprinting across the square, and he sets himself the task of calculating how many ruffles are on her skirt or how many lines pattern his frock-coat. Numbers, with their unwavering reliability, comfort him and make him forget the pangs in his belly.

Hearing the snap of a whip now, Arthur instinctively recoils. As he has reached a busy high street, he needs to be extremely watchful. Last winter on this very spot a man was trampled to death by a hansom cab. The horses slipped in a rut in the road, pulling the carriage a full tilt even as they charged on over human flesh and bones. No sooner does the boy reflect on that day than the word 'accident' flashes through his mind, leaving a curious taste in his mouth Words always come to him with their distinctive flavours. 'Accident' is gamey, like burning fat and stale sausages, bags o'mystery, whose ingredients no one really knows. 'School' has a pungency that lingers on the tongue, like licking old boots. And 'mother' is buttery, warm and sweet, though with an acidic undertone, reminiscent of an apple pie gone sour. For years, Arthur assumed it must be the same for everyone, that other people also experienced similar associations, until he realized this was not the case. Since then he has been careful not to mention it to anyone. A quiet boy by nature, there are lot of thing she keeps to himself.

Keeping with the idea of words, my next choice is The Beautiful Words by Vanessa McCausland. I still need to read her latest book.

I recently bought a new book called Pipsworth by Simon Van Booy. The only book I have read by him previously is Everything Beautiful Began After so I am using the word beautiful to create this link.

I am finishing this month using the word began as my link. I am choosing Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden, who recently passed away. Vale John Marsden. 

Next month, the starting point is the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

Will you be joining us?

Bookish Quotes: Anniversary of Harry Potter

This week is the 25th anniversary of the publishing of the first book in the Harry Potter series of book. I'll just let that sink in a little. 

25 years!!

That means that for pretty much anyone under the age of 30, this book has been around their whole lives! 

This is the book that started the whole thing. The books, the movies, the stage shows, the spin offs, the careers and more.

However, rather than share a qhote from J K Rowling, I thought I would share a quote from a book that I read and really loved last year. 

I remember reading this passage and thinking how this character was going to love Harry Potter when she did finally get to read it. And, of course, I totally relate to the whole buying a book and not having read it thing too!

Do you remember when Harry Potter hadn't yet been released?

I walked over to Pop's bookcase and looked at his shelf of well-thumbed Stephen King novels; all those cracked spines and wrinkle lines on the covers, musty pages and the puffy bold typeface of his name that I liked to trace with my fingertips.

"He misses his mum," I said, as I pulled one of Pop's favourite books off the shelf. It was called Different Seasons and it was thick and yellowed with age, many of the pages bent from Pop's dog-ears.

Pop once told me that the world splits into two types of readers: those who bend the corner of a page to dog-ear when they read a book, and those who use a bookmark (and maybe there's a third kind who choose not to read, period - but he couldn't figure them out). Luca was the bookmark type. But Pop believed that dog-ears in a book were like laughter lines on a face - signs of love. All the books on his shelf had cracks and creases, and pen marks in the margins of his favourite stories, like rivers and roads leading to the best bits, the parts he wanted to remember.

"I think you miss her too," Pop said.

I put the book back but didn't know what to say to Pop that wouldn't hurt him. Mum was his daughter, and Anika wasn't mine to miss.

"I'm happier now that you're home," I said instead. And then to change the subject I asked, "Will you take Sam and me to Farrells one day these holidays?"

Pop opened his eyes and smiled - Farrells Bookshop in Mornington was the best around, and ever since I was a little kid, Pop had been taking me to the corner bookstore for a special treat every school holiday and plenty of weekends too. Any chance we could get, really. But between Pop's fall and his stay at the RRC and everything that had been happening, it was a while since we'd been. I bought this book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone last time we were there. I hadn't got around to reading it yet, but it sounded like a good story.

"It wouldn't  feel like proper holidays if we didn't go to Farrells," Pop said, and I smiled.

Bookish Quotes: What is Philology?

 A couple of months ago now I read The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (who also has written under the name and really enjoyed it. This is far more fantasy than I normally read, in that the world, place names, language etc are very much imagined as part of the whole story. It's been quite a long time since I have read something this fantastical.

A brief summary is that Maia is the fifth son of a reigning emperor. He has been cast out and is being raised in an obscure, impoverished corner of the empire. When his father and his elder brothers are all killed, Maia suddenly becomes the emperor. He has no idea of rules and rituals or reigning, not everyone is happy that he is now the ruler and he needs to navigate his way through various challenges, not least of which is surviving.

The book is full of interesting characters, and I do intend to read more of the books set in this world.

For today's Bookish Quote, I thought I would share a scene where the emperor is talking to some of the men who were his father's advisers and Maia is mentally admiring a wedding stole that one of them has on display

"Put tactfully," Pashavar said, and for the rest of the time until dinner was announced, Lanthevel and Pashavar told Maia stories of his father, giving him a glimpse, at least, of the man Idra and Vedero and others who had loved him had known. But Maia kept thinking abou the wedding stole, and after the sliced pears in yoghurt were served, he asked Lanthevel, "How did you come by that wedding stole? And - forgive us if this an impolite question, buy why do you hang it in your receiving room?"


"Not impolite at all," Lanthevel said. In fact, he seemed pleased. "Your Serentiy knows that we are a scholar of the University of Ashedro?"

"We did not know," Maia said. "We had understood that scholars mostly remain in the universities."

"True," said Lanthevel, "but our elder brother became a votary of Catheio when he was forty."

"Oh," Maia said.


Lanthevel made a small, ironic nod of acknowledgement. "A scholar may be plucked from his university to sit in the Parliament, but not as a votary. We have found, though, that we are able to continue our studies at least in small ways - and perhaps that makes them more precious to us."


"But what do you study, Lanthevel?" Pashavar interupted. "You'll talk all night and still not have answered the emperor's question."

"Have some more wine, Lord Pashavar," Lanthevel suggested. "Your disposition hasn't mellowed yet."


Pashavar laughed, like a crack of thunder; Maia realisd that these two men were genuinely friends, and they were doing him the honor, and the great kindness, of letting him see their friendship.

"As it happens," Lanthevel said, collecting the attention of the table, "we study neither textiles nor the history of Csedo -our studies are in philology - but a close friend left us the stole as an ulishenathaan, and we treasure it."


"Forgive us again," Maia said, dogged because he was trying not to imagine having one of his mother's embroidered pillows to remember her by, "but what is philology?"


The silence was sharp; Lanthevel's raised eyebrows said he suspected Maia of mockery, and Maia said, "We ask in all sincerity. Our education was somewhat erratic."

"Did you not have tutors?" said Pashavar.

"No, only Setheris," Maia said, realizing too late to catch himself the insult in using his cousin's given name unadorned.

Pashavar snorted."Setheris Nelar must have made the worst teacher the empire has ever seen."

"No, he was a very good teacher, when he could be bothered." Maia bit his lip, appalled, and only then realized that the warm drifting feeling in his head meant that he was beginning to get drunk. Lanthevel's wine was stronger than he thought.

"Yes, but how often could he be bothered?" Pashavar said, with a horrible sharp knowingness in his eyes.

and then a bit later

"And there is a question we have not answered," Lanthevel said."Philology, Serenity, is the study of the origins of words."

"The origins of words?" Maia said.

"We study how languages change," said Lanthevel. "Why a word has one form among the silk favmers of the east and another among the herdsmen of the west. Why some words stay in use from generation to generation, while others are discarded. For example, for we see that you are still dubious, the word 'morhath' is the word for 'sky' that was used in the court of Your Serenity's great-great-great-great-granduncle, Evdrevechelar the Fourteenth. But no one uses it now or even knows its meaning. Our study is to track the course of its disappearance and the emergence of the word that took its place."

"Actually," Orthema said mildly," that's not quite true. We know the word 'morhath' because we heard it used by the Evressai barbarians."

"You did?" said Lanthevel, all but pouncing on him, and Maia became less worried that this was an elaborate joke to discomfit the emperor. For one thing, he didn't believe Orthema would be party to any such joke: for another, Lanthevel had become so intent on extracting details from Orthema that he seemed almost to have fogotten the emperor's existence. Maia bent his head over his plate and listened as Ortema was slowly encouraged to speak, to describe the people he had spent much of his adult life fighting.

Bookish Quotes: Flowers in the Attic

 Over the last 18 months or so I have read several Viola Shipman books and I think it is probably time to read my next one. 

The Clover Girls was full of references to the 80's. So full in fact, that I did a Top Ten Tuesday post all about it.

One of the things that was mentioned in the book is the series Flowers in the Attic. Those books were everywhere in my late teens, but it was a series that I was most definitely not allowed to read which is why this quote appealed to me. Oh, and the part about reading under the covers too.

Lost in thought, I suddenly look up to find myself standing in front of The Cottage Book shop, a bookstore I consider the cutest in the world. It's an antique log cabin that looks as if it should be sitting in the middle of the woods with smoke streaming out of its chimney. Instead, it's jammed with books. The Clover Girls always came here, led by Em, whenever we'd escape camp. Em was obsessed with books. I always told her she should be a writer instead of a librarian.

Did fear stop her, too?

I walk inside and feel as if I'm on a field trip in school, exploring an old homestead. I browse through the selection of new book's before I head into a corner of the old log cabin.

I wonder if they have a copy? Oh, Em, I think. Can  you imagine?

I head to the front of the shelf, my fingers moving across all the A authors.

There it is!

A paperback copy of Flowers in the Attic. I smile, grab the novel and hold it to my heart.

Em sneaked a copy into camp one summer because her mom didn't want her to read it. She'd tried to convince her mom it was a sweet little book about a girl who loved flowers but her mother didn't buy it: she'd already heard about it and didn't want Em to get nightmares. So, after all the other campers went to bed, Em crawled into my bunk and we read Flowers in the Attic  with a flashlight under the covers.

And you had nightmares, Em.

Bookish Quotes: Wise words

Last year, I read and LOVED, or should I say LOVED The Heirloom Garden by Viola Shipman. It was a soothing, feel good read, so I did know it was only a matter of time before I read my next Shipman book, and I have to say The Summer Cottage didn't disappoint. I now have two more of his books here to read in the next couple of weeks. Actually, as I write this intro it is early Saturday afternoon, and I don't have any real plans for the rest of the day (thank you lockdown!) so maybe I will read one of them this afternoon. What a good idea.

Anyway, I often share quotes from books about food and books. or other things that catch my eye. Today, I am sharing a passage from The Summer Cottage. 

The one thing that you need to know about this passage is that Darryl is a mooseheadhung on the wall.

My parents were voracious readers, and they made me one, as well. My mother loved fiction - from literary to commercial, even pulpy paperbacks - when my father adored non-fiction, especially historical or political biographies. The towering bookcases cover the entire wall around Darryl and the fireplace, my mom's books on the left, my father's on the right. My father always removed the dust jacket to the books he read. He would take the shiny jacket off, fold them and place them in a trunk he kept in the attic.




"This is the way a book is meant to look, Adie Lou," my father would tell me every time he started a new book, holding the hardcover as adoringly as he held Evan when he was a baby. "Unadorned, without all the commercial rigmarole. Nothing but the author's own words. In the old days, the cover would have been leather or linen." He would stop and turn the book over in his hands, before taking a seat next to the fireplace, Darryl reading over his shoulder. "Hard shell. Flexible, sturdy spine. And inside filled with stunning beauty and wisdom. Just like the best pople, Adie Lou."



I stare at the high-back chair and can still see the impression of my father's body in it.




Frank scans the right side of the bookcase for a few seconds, before plucking a hardcover as if it were calling to him.




"Your dad loaned this to me a long time ago, when I was taking over the business from my dad," Frank says. "A biography of Winston Churchill. Your dad admired him greatly." Frank smiles and begins to flip through the biography, which I notice is underlined and highlighted, sticky notes jutting everywhere.




"Ah," Frank says. "Right here. Can I read you this?"



I nod, my back still pressed against the Cottage Rules sign.



"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."




I smile. "That sounds just like my dad," I say.

Paris in July: Visiting Shakespeare and Co

When I am reading, I am always on the lookout for quotes about books, food and Christmas with the intention of sharing them at some point. The other quotes I look out for are about Paris and I save them for when I need them. An example of when I would need them would be during Paris in July!

I read The Flip Side by James Bailey late last year, and it was a fun, easy read. It sits firmly in the rom com category, written from a male perspective. It was a somewhat entertaining read. Just don't look for too much depth. The premise is that the main character, Josh, proposes to his long term partner he had no idea that she would not accept. Suddenly, he is alone, jobless, living at home with his parents and quite depressed. 

He decides that given that he has made such a mess of his life, that it can't be any worse to make all of his decisions, whether big or small, on the flip of a coin. 

Without spoiling a tiny fraction of the book involves a quick trip to Paris in search of "her" which I thought I would share as part of Paris in July.

When we were planning to visit Paris last year, part of our plan was to spend a day walking along the Seine including the bouqquinistes! Visiting Shakespeare and Co and the bouquinistes was also definitely on our must do list. It feels like you can't be a book lover and visit Paris without doing at least one of those things right?

By the time I reach the yellow facade of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore opposite Notre-Dame, my feet are exhausted from all the walking. There is a hive of activity outside, with people sitting out, eating slices of quiche and cake at the adjuoining cafe. Inside, the shop is packed, with tourists flowing in and out, many flouting the request for no photographs as they upload an artsy picture to Instagram. The shop is indeed extremely photogenic. It's beautiful. From the mosaic floor to the rustic chandelier swinging overhead to the quotes painted on the walls and stairs, the books look happy to be here. There is a warren of narrow passageways for customers to navigate, and a traffic jam is forming between the Blue Oyster Tearoom and the Old Smoky Reading Room. I squeeze through, taking the creaky red staircase through to the first floor, and that's when I see it, painted in black type above the door frame.

'Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.

And then.....

With renewed hope, I bound around the first floor, desperately hoping to turn a corner and see her. I walk past someone typing away on a vintage typewriter and listen in to what appears to be a book club with a collection of people, all wearing cardigans, pretentiously debating the meaning of Tristam Shandy. I step into the dimly lit Piano Room, where a small chandelier with only two of the three bulbs working illuminates the old-fashioned piano in the alcove. A hastily handwritten sign in red felt-tip asks customers not play after 7pm, as it wakes the cat. As I go to make my way back down the stairs, I catch sight of a mirror adorned with notes. People from all around the world have left message written on scraps of paper, ticket stubs and postcards. I read one that says: 'Icarus didn't think things through, maybe you shouldn't either.'

Bookish Quotes: On literature

This quote comes from The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte, a book I read a couple of months ago and absolutely loved. It will definitely be on my list of favourite books this year. There were lots of passages I enjoyed in this book, but I liked these two passages so I thought I would share them in the hope that others will be inspired to pick up the book.

Firstly, a short passage about reading War and Peace as a distraction.

One distraction was reading, and in spare moments and at at night he took to lying in his bedroll and blankets, engrossing himself in War and Peace. As usual he found it consoling. Whatever  the fate of individuals might be, Tolstoy seemed to say, the rhythms of life would remain the same. The young would be foolish, hopeful and  wild, would fall in love, and out of it, become sadder, ,maybe wise. Some would meet their deaths sooner than others, yet there would come a day when everyone engaged in the struggles of their age would without exception die, bequeathing the world they had mode to those strangers, their children, who would struggle to change it again.

In the second passage, the two main characters, Paul and Katerina are discussing his work as a surgeon:

"And yet for all that you love it, don't you? I could tell from watching you work on Irina."

"It was a rather special operation."

"Perhaps, but that's not what I was seeing. Irina could have been anyone, I thought: one of yours, one of ours, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin - it would have been the same. You were so absorbed, so immersed in what you were doing. Here is a man in his element, I thought, doing what he loves and doing it well." with mock severity she added, "At least I hope you were doing it well.

"I do enjoy it," he said, "though I can hardly claim credit for that, can I? Especially lately. a war for the likes of me is a bonanza.

"You monster."

"War is filthy, of course. It hurts and it hardens. But the fact is that for surgeons it's also an opportunity. Every month we're making medical advances: honing old techniques, inventing new ones, even upending a dogma or two."

"You're a seeker after truth."

"Is that irony I detect?".

"Yes, but go on."

"Truth be told, professional satisfaction is the least of it, because as well as seeking truth I'm also revelling in mystery. I delve into people, and you've just seen how strange, how wondrous that can be. What I'm trying to express," he said, "earnestly..."

"No matter, go on."

"...is that surgery is more of an art than a science. There's an imprecision to it - a fuzziness, if you will -that's maddening but also compelling."

Katerina said, "Well, I confess I envy you. To apply a Marxist analysis, it's hard to image a worker less alienated from his labour."

"But I envy you!" Bauer said. "All right, my work is important.For the individual it's vital. But the body is transient, we all know that. It's stuff. You writers, you forge culture - and culture is eternal.Or as good as."

She pulled a sour expression."Well, firstly, I'm no longer a writer. Secondly, I fear you're exaggerating literature's influence on the world."

"You more or less told Metz that Lev Tolstoy was going to win the war for you."

"I was trying to provoke him. If literature exerts any influence at all it's subtle and slow. Possibly not even beneficial, at least not always."

"I believe it is beneficial," he said. "And enduring. Even the worst of it survives its author, and the best outlives the language it's composed in . I can't imagine what it must be like to be you and know that in fifty, one hundred, two hundred years there will be someone, somewhere reading your books.

Are you tempted? I hope so because I really loved this book!

Bookish Quote: Books as weapons?

Today I thought I would share a quote from A Weapon of Choice which is Susanna Kearsley's contribution to the novella collection in The Deadly Hours. As I have mentioned before I am a Kearsley fangirl from way back.

When I read this section, I couldn't help but think of the saying "the pen is mightier than sword".

I reviewed this book here.

She showed a smile now to Vautour, and said, "You'll think me very ignorant, I fear, but I confess that I know little of the siege apart from stories I've been told, and stories, as I'm sure you know, are often wrong."

Vautour's face cleared. "Exactly."

When he looked at her this time, his eyes were openly admiring. "I would never think that you are ignorant, madame. You may be young, but already you know this truth: you cannot trust a book. It is an unforgiving weapon."

Hugh could tell that Mary, with her love of books, was keen to intervene in their defense, and he could see the effort that it cost her to keep still as Vautour continued on, not noticing, to Anna, "All these stories you have heard came from a book - you know this? A book written by the nobleman who led our raid, betrayed us, and then scurried home to France  to publish his relation of events and twist the truth to his own purposes. The great Baron de Pointis." He all but spat the name, and Mary could not hold her silence.

She lightly said, "I think you are unfair to blame the book, sir, for a book cannot be faulted for the writing that it holds. It is the baron, surely, who deserves the blame."

He seemed unswayed by her opinion. "But the baron has been dead longer than you have been alive, madam, and yet his book lives on, and wounds my reputation still. How does a man fight that?

Vautour then tells his story and then a bit later there is this

"This is the unkindness of history, madame. The exploits of the greatest general will not be remembered if none choose to write them down for him, yet all men's lives lie vulnerable to any who would hang them out and twist them on the page with the cruelty of a common executioner. Now I would rather face the Scottish blade that your unsmiling friend here carries at his belt" - he gestured to the dirk that Hugh wore openly - "than battle with a book, for as I say, it is an unforgiving weapon."

Bookish Quotes: Real Art

I have both listened to Normal People and watched the TV adaptation over the last few months. 

One of the things about listening to a book is that if you hear something that think would make a good quote, it's really difficult to get the quote to share. It's also a bit difficult to skip to the end of the book I probably shouldn't mention that.

When I was listening to the book there were a couple of lines in this quote that really caught my attention, so I straight away requested the ebook from the library. It has taken months for the book to come in and then I nearly missed it because you don't get a notification when the books comes in on the app. Luckily, I checked just in time.

This was also the only book that I borrowed from the library this week too, so this post is doubling up as my Library Loot post as well.

But here's the quote:

This is what it's like in Dublin. All Connell's classmates have identical accents and carry the same size MacBook under their arms. In seminars they express their opinions passionately and conduct impromptu debates. Unable to form such straightforward views or express them with any force, Connell initially felt a sense of crushing inferiority to his fellow students, as if he had upgraded himself to an intellectual level far above his own, where he had to strain to make sense of the most basic premises. He did gradually start to wonder why all their classroom discussions were so abstract and lacking in textual detail, and eventually he realised that most people were not actually doing the reading. They were coming into college every day to have heated debates about books they had not read. He understands now that his classmates are not like him. It's easy for them to have opinions, and to express them with confidence. They don't worry about appearing ignorant or conceited. They are not stupid people, but they're not so much smarter than him either. They just move through the world in a different way, and he'll probably never really understand them, and he knows they will never understand him, or even try.


He only has a few classes every week anyway, so he fills the rest of the time by reading. In the evenings he stays late in the library, reading assigned texts, novels, works of literary criticism. Not having friends to eat with, he reads over lunch. At the weekends when there's football on, he checks the team news and then goes back to reading instead of watching the build-up. One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it  seems like Mr Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and walk home in a strange state of emotional agitation.  He's amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it "the pleasure of being touched by real art." In those words it almost sounds sexual. And in a way, the feeling provoked in Connell when Mr Knightley kisses Emma's hand is not completely asexual, though its relation to sexuality is indirect. It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he uses as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries

Paris in July: Cheese and Books

And so, we come to the end of this year's Paris in July event. I have had a lot of fun talking about food, books and just generally feeding my desire to visit Paris again some day soon. Of course, like everyone else I have no idea when that might be! We were supposed to go in April this year but COVID got in the way. Maybe we will be able to go next year, although I suspect that might be a bit soon. Maybe in 2022!

This is a quote from Aria's Travelling Book Shop by Rebecca Raisin. I enjoy Rebecca Raisin's writing, especially when she writes about France, food and books, and this quote ticks all those boxes.

We head into our new town, chattering about the beauty before us as we wander down narrow medieval streets. The brisk morning air is like a tincture and I feel refreshed after the long drive the day before and I soon forget Jean-Pierre.
"I didn't even consult my maps for a bookshop for you," Rosie says.
I raise a brow. "Progress."
"No, it's not that. I know you'll sniff it out, you're like a bloodhound when it comes to books. Is it something you learn, or does it just come naturally to bibliophiles like yourself?"
I knock her with my hip. "Very funny."
We zigzag our way through the streets full of colourful buildings before Rosie stops at un epicier to stock up on baking essentials for the fete. The figs are lush and ready to burst and will make the most delicious jam for her French twist Devonshire teas. The grocer promises to deliver her haul to the campsite in a few hours' time.
Onwards we go, stopping at the fromagerie which is ripe with the smell of exotic cheeses. Rosie gets to talking to the fromager about all the various types. She's a wealth of information about French cuisine from her fifteen years at Epoque, a French restaurant in London. He offers us a taste of an aged comte that is so delicious I'll die if I don't eat more. Next he cuts a wedge of gooey camembert that's so creamy and lush I vow to only eat French cheese for the rest of my natural born life. I spend far too much money but leave the fromagerie happier than when I came in.
And I put all thought of a budget to one side. The universe will provide, isn't that the Van Lifer catch phrase.
The hair on my arms stands on end and that can only mean one thing. I'm close to a bookshop. I can almost smell it, the heady scent adventure trapped between parchments. Eventually I spy it. The most beautiful bookshop I've ever seen; the curved old stone building that leans slightly to the left as if seeking tentative rays of sunlight that eke in from the open square. Pale-blue weather-beaten shutters are thrown open, ivy snakes through the wood.
Rosie sees the excitement on my face and with a sigh glances at her watch. "No more than one hour, Aria."
I scoff. "It depends on how many floors it has." I gaze up at the windows, sheer curtains flutter in the breeze as if welcoming me in: We've been waiting for you, Aria...
"One and a half, that's my final offer." I grin as I pull her inside. "OK, nope. I  take that back. I'm going to need two hours," I say breathlessly. Tiny fairy lights blink in the shadowy space, dark wooden shelves curve around the room in an arc, snaking from the floor all the way up to the ceiling.
It's my kind of bookshop, shelves full to bursting, novels spilling over, double and triple stacked. In the centre of the room sit two antique French chaises in pale pink and ruby red, chenille throws draped over the arms patiently waiting for a bookworm to plonk down and relax for a time.
Magazines sit atop a coffee table, all that's missing is a pot of tea and a tin of biscuits and then no way would one and a half hours suffice.
A staff member wanders over and asks in perfect English,"May I help you find something?"
"Where are the cookery books, s'il vous plait?" Rosie asks.
"Back there to the left." She points to another rabbit warren of rooms. "Let me know if you'd like any further assistance.
"Thank you." We watch her walk away on sky-high heels. Even booksellers are glamorous in France.  I dip my head to my own outfit which could be described more as bookworm chic. Jeans and a literary tee is about as fancy as I get these days. I don't think I can even walk in heels anymore.

I am all about the comfy shoes these days too! In fact, this week my lovely husband bought my new slippers because that is literally all I am wearing on my feet all day every day whilst we are back in lockdown!

Thank you to Tamara from Thyme for Tea for hosting, to everyone who shared posts and who visited during Paris in July this year. I hope we get to do it all again next year!

I am also sharing this post with Weekend Cooking.

Paris in July: French bookstores

This excerpt comes from Rebecca Raisin's recent release, Aria's Travelling Book Shop which I read a few weeks ago. I have enjoyed a couple of books by this author this year, and this is not the first quote I have shared. I have shared previous posts about an old bookstore in Paris, about a patisserie shop and about that first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower

I love the way that this author talks about food and books. Today, it is all about books, but I may post another quote later in the month as well which is more about food!

"I'm going into town to hunt out all the glorious bibliotheques and bookshops, do you want to join me?" I ask Rosie who holds a cold compress to the back of her neck in an effort to cool down. French libraries are next level, a home for books that more resembles a grand chateua with their rich wooden shelves and antique furniture. So different to the stark libraries back home.
"I'd love to, Aria but I don't feel up to it. I'm sorry!" It's hard seeing Rosie so sick. I want to help her more but don't have the first clue how. Dr Google says lot of rest and relaxation is key, so I figure with us noisy nomads out of her hair she can at least nap in peace.
"Don't be sorry. I'll spend the entire day getting lost in dusty stacks of books so it's probably better you stay here and rest up. "Message me if you need anything. I'll find Wi-Fi in town"
"I will. Enjoy."
I head into Bordeaux in my van, taking in the old town which is so different to Rouen and Blois but equally beautiful. These towns all have their own historical charm and I fall in love with them as I go.  Bordeaux has a plethora of bookshops and libraries and I'm determined to visit as many as I can. The French love their literature, they revere writers and artists so much they're worshipped, even those long dead.
I find a place to park and hear to Librairie Mollat on rue Vital-Charles. According to my guidebook it's the oldest independent bookshop in France and it is also one of the biggest. Inside is a brightly lit, book lover's wonderland and I relish the fact I have plenty of time on my hands to explore.
There's something about French books; they whisper about secret worlds in a language I don't understand but want to try and decipher. My search continues and I find a photographic book about Chateau de la Brede, a gothic castle where famous French philosopher Montesquieu wrote his books. "Ah..." a man in a linen trouser suit appears. "You found it."
"Sorry?" I say and take a look behind me to make sure he's not talking to someone else.
"Have you visited the chateau yet?" He speaks as if we're old friends, and it's quite disarming.
"No, not yet."
"You must." He speaks perfect English with only a slight French inflection. "It's only twenty-five kilometres from here."
"Then I must." And I wonder if it is on Rosie's list of haunted chateaux to avoid. From the photographs inside the book, it definitely gives off that vibe.
He smiles. "You sell books?"
"How did you know?"
"I can sense a like-minded soul."
I give him a wide smile. "I'd have picked it on your too."
"Oui. We know these things." He taps his nose as if it's  a secret  we share. "Ihope you enjoy your timein Bordeauz."
"Merci." I smile as he walks away, charmed by such an interaction.

I am sharing this post as part of Paris in July, hosted by Thyme for Tea and for Sunday Salon hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

Bookish Quotes - Kondoing books.. and other things.

I am currently reading The Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke and I am really enjoying it.  I really like the tone even though there is some subdued subject matter in one thread of the story.  And I love the idea of a lost song that has the power to draw people together.

For a bookish quote this week I thought I would share a few little sections where one of the main characters is taking stock of her possessions after returning from a long time overseas. The reason for the little sections is that this section goes for several pages, and I more wanted to give the idea of the passage rather than the whole passage. I am sharing it because....well....it sparked joy for me.

"Do you spark joy?" she silently asked the Husqvarna.
"I do," the trusty old sewing machine confirmed, reminding Evie of dresses past. It would be nice to make herself some new clothes, whenever, wherever she settled. Evie moved the heavy case to the side of the room she intended for the keep pile.
Next, she identified which of the cardboard cartons contained the china dinner service that had been handed down to her mother, from her own mother. When Evie's mother had died, Jacinta - the eldest of Evie's half-sisters - hadn't wanted the china, and neither had Stella. Evie had been only eight years old at the time, and Stella had decided to pack the boxes away in case Evie grew into the kind of young woman who would on day want a Royal Worcester dinner service.

A couple of paragraphs and then...

"Do you spark joy?" she asked the boxes full of china.
"Actually, no," was the answer from the dinner plates and the side plates, the soup plates and the bowls, the teacups and the saucers and the matching salt-and-pepper shakers. " We give you guilt and a storage problem."

And then a bit later

She sighed, summoned another modicum of strength, and approached a series of cardboard cartons clearly marked BOOKS. Inside, she knew  there would be novels and poetry, plays and non-fiction, old books, new books, books, books, books....
"Do you - "
"Don't you dare even ask," the cartons replied, and Evie moved them all to the "to keep" pile.

Evie then finds a box filled with old diaries

By the time Evie came to the last page of the last diary - I am casting off into the world, I wonder what I will find there - the light coming in through the shutters had the golden tone of late evening. She felt drained. Diaries, after all, had a habit of sifting out the average parts of life and leaving only the extremes, but sixteen years' worth of highs and lows was a lot to absorb in a single sitting. She loaded the diaries back into the archive box and replaced the lid.
"Do you spark joy?" she asked the box.
"What a dumb question," the box replied. "I hold the archive of your heart, Evie Greenlees - its joys and its sorrows."

And finally

Since arriving in Tavistock Row, she'd been contemplating the prospect of the banana lounges in the brick-paved courtyard in the front garden, and now seemed like the time to try them. On her way out the door, she picked up her guitar case.
"Do you spark joy?" she asked it.
"Cheeky cow," the guitar said. "You know I do."
"Just checking."

Bookish Quotes: A good book

I've been reading Conspiracy of Lies by Kathryn Gauci over the last week or so. I will confess that I have met Kathryn a few times because of a shared love of historical fiction author Sharon Kay Penman which is part of the reason I wanted to give her books ago.

This book is a split narrative but predominantly set in WWII and tells the story of a female spy.

For today's Bookish Quote I am sharing a short passage from the latter part of the book. The book below was mentioned another time later in the book but I can't share that part. I like what the author says here about books teaching us things.

"Will we meet again, Fraulein Bouchard?" he asked
"We will, when the war has ended. In the meantime I want you to continue your French lessons. Will you promise me that?"
She gave him a French edition of a book as a keepsake, with a dedication written in French: To Oskar, a student who shows great promise. Your friend and teacher, Fraulein Bouchard.
"One day when you grow up to be a successful you man, you will be able to read this, and when you do, I would like to think you will remember me. It's by a very famous American writer," she told him.
He read the title, trying to formulate the words. "The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. What's it about?"
"It's about a man who loves someone so much he reinvents himself to win her back."
Oskar looked puzzled. He wasn't sure what she meant.
"Oskar, one day you will understand that all good books teach us something. This one is very special. It teaches us that we can be anything we want, but we can't always have who we want."
"And I have something for you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his toy soldiers."It's Frederick the Great. Papa said that even your Napoleon Bonaparte admired him."
Claire was deeply touched. "That's certainly true. I shall treasure it."

Bookish quotes: The Lending Room in the Little Bookshop on the Seine

Back in the blogging days I used to randomly do a feature called Bookish Quotes whenever I came across a quote that capture my attention about writing, books or bookshops in a book. I thought I would start doing them again now as well.

This quote comes from The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin which I recently read. There were so many quotes about books and food in this book it was hard to limit the choice to just one. So, this is a longish one, but hopefully you will enjoy reading the passage as much as I did.

If I thought that I could find this place in Paris I would totally try to find it! I do intend to at least take a peak in Shakespeare and Sons whilst we are there soon.

Oceane smiled. "And next, we have the lending library." She led me through an archway, where someone had scrawled in thick, black permanent marker 'This way to paradise'.
The lending library was ripe with the thick stench of old tomes and the lemony scent of new novels. Their fragrances mingled together in the space, almost like a perfume, a heady combination of past and present.
Sophie's bookshop was so alive it hummed, dust motes danced, and I had to fight the urge to flop on a chair, and snatch up the nearest book.
An antique grandfather clock stood to one side of the room, its chimes long since stopped, the golden hands paused on the witching hour. "Who runs the lending library?" I asked.
Oceane leant against the wall. "Bertie, Francois, and Philippe. They organize their shifts between them, and keep track of the loans. You don't need to do anything for it. Sophie's pretty lax about the whole process. There's index cards, and stamps, it's very old school. The lending library is hallowed - it's been available for locals since the doors opened here back in the twenties. During the Great Depression, no one could afford much of anything, especially books, so strangers found their way here, and knew they could take whatever they wished. They became members, friends and weren't faceless or nameless any more."
"This history practically seeps through the walls." I was in awe of the shop, it had presence, almost like it was a character unto itself. "Do you ever wonder who sat here a century ago, and rummaged through these boxes of books?"
Her eyes grew bright. "Of course. I imagine people back then stopped past with rumbling bellies, their lives grim because of the depression, until they found their way here, and they could forget their troubles, escaping into the pages of a good book, a warm drink in hand. What could be better than that? Sophie's grandfather opened the store. When he first started, he only used the front parlor, but as time went by his reputation spread, he grew more successful and expanded into other rooms, eventually buying the apartments above. He never changed his principles....everyone was welcome here whether they had money or not. It was popular among American writers back then, a meeting place for literary itinerants."
"I get goosebumps, thinking about the stories they could've told. Do you think when they finally settled, back on home soil, they remembered their time here fondly?"
"Oui," she said, crossing her arms against the chill in the room. "A lot of them were young. Travelling after the war or just because they were free, who knows? And when it was time to move,or go back to reality, they always had this place in their heart. Sophie has a thick folder of correspondence, letters sent over decades, people thanking them for their hospitality, some dedicating the books they wrote here to Sophie's grandfather. Others saying they searched their whole lives for  the simple happiness Paris provided, but never found it again. Over a bottle of two of vin rouge, I read each and every one of them. I've told her she should publish them...an epic love story of people and place."
"That would be an amazing book..." Taking in the room, I thought of the people who once inhabited this space; I pictured the scene in black and white, like an old photograph. "The room has a sense of timelessness to it." As if time truly stopped, just like the grandfather clock. And those people long since gone from this world had found the place just as it was now, a sanctuary for word lovers.
"The store has a rich and famous history. It's why people come here and don't want to leave." Oceane spoke in reverent tones, gazing wistfully around. The rooms were weathered, the furniture battered, the store's once former glory dimmed, faded like late afternoon sunlight through a dusty window, which made it one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen.
"Why would you want to leave?" I said. It was like a grand old dame, this shop. Once haughty, now a reflection of it's past, and all that happened here..
She laughed and surveyed me. "Your face is flushed like you've fallen in love too."
I promptly closed my mouth,and scraped back my hair. "How could you not? It's like nothing I've ever seen before...almost like their ghosts are still here, those readers. Maybe that's why the sign says 'this way to paradise'?
Her gaze softened once more. "Like heaven? Well why not?" Soft laughter burbled out of her. "If I died and had to choose a place to spend eternity, it would be here."

Bookish Quotes: The library as a refuge

This week I read and thoroughly enjoyed Hate is Such a Strong Word by Sarah Ayoub. This is a debut YA novel that looks the experiences of a second generation Australian whose Lebanese parents have very set ideas of how a young lady should behave. It is an excellent book, a fact I hope to show if/when I write a review of it! In the meantime, if you want to know more head over to Bree's blog as it was her review that convinced me to give this book a go!

Today I wanted to share a passage from the book where the author name drops another book, one that I have happened to have read. It is not the only time it happens in the book. One of the other books mentioned is one of my absolute favourites, The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons, although I have to admit I was a bit surprised that it was one of the male characters that was reading it.

However, the passage resonates for more than just the book name dropping. Is there anything better than having your library buy a brand new book that you have requested and you get to be the first person to read it? How mind blowing to have a librarian purchase a book specifically with you in mind!

The quote comes from pages 123-125.

Across the quad, Shehadie is reading a book under the pergola, like he's done every day since he came to CSC. Zayden and a few other boys from our class are playing football, and as usual they don't ask him to join in. Instead, they ignore him, or occasionally throw a snide remark his way. My eyes meet Shehadie's and he smiles. I smile back awkwardly, and look from him to Vanessa's group, like we're all part of some confusing game.

I start to walk over to him, but my fear gets the better of me and I go into the toilets instead. I sit in a cubicle, take out my journal and doodle over some of the pages.

After five minutes, I'm over being pathetic and make my way to the library. Mrs Morton, the librarian, sings out my name as I walk in."

"Back again today?" she says.

I nod, embarrassed.

"Don't worry, we'd rather have thirty of you than half the other kids in here." She gestures to the noisy juniors milling about. "Plus, I bet we're good for you too. You must be making headway on all your assessments."

"Something like that," I say. "Got anything new for me?"

"Actually, I ordered something that I think you'll really love," she says. "If you mind the sign-in book for a moment I'll go find it. Mrs Richards is at the canteen stocking up on chocolate for her 2pm craving so I'm on my own right now."

She returns holding a novel for me and my face lights up. There are definite perks to having a good relationship with the librarian.

"Diane Armstrong's Empire Day," she says. "As soon as I read the blurb I knew it would be perfect for you. It's set in Sydney in 1948 and looks at some of the issues around post war migration. It'll be useful for your Society and Culture assessment, but I thought the themes - identity, ethnicity, belonging - would interest you anyway."

"Wow, Mrs Morton, am I that transparent?"

She smiles. "Let's just say that your borrowing record says a lot about your interests. Now, it's not officially on the system yet, so please take care of it and bring it back as soon as you're done."

"I always do," I say, grinning. "Thanks heaps. I appreciate it."

And just like that, I have even more of an excuse to spend the rest of the week in the library. Books, unlike people, never let me down.

Bookish Quotes: A bookish romance

Today's quote comes from Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett. It isn't so much my normal quote about the love of books or libraries but rather about people/dwarfs/trolls who love books. It also seems appropriate for Library Lover's Day which is today.

The quote comes from pages 244 and 245. Enjoy!

The rain poured down on the Sto Lat terminus, water gushing off the roof as people scurried to get out of the downpour, seeking a respite from the deluge. The little coffee shop of Marjorie Painsworth was dry and as an extra attraction on this dreadful night she had warm buns on sale. It was a beacon of solace for the young troll lady, who stirred her cup of molten sulphur uncertainly while waiting. She watched people coming in and out, and was surprised when a dwarf gentleman indicated the chair next to her and said, "Excuse me, is this place taken?"

Crackle had never had much to do with dwarfs, of course, but since the whole Koom Valley business had been sorted out, it was surely in order for her to talk to a dwarf, especially since this one was very well dressed and, well, looked human; an Ankh-Morpork dwarf as they called them. So she smiled and said, "By all means do take a seat, sir. Isn't the  weather inclement for this time of year?"

The dwarf bowed, sat down and said, "Forgive my intrusion, but I am so happy to hear you use a word like "inclement". The very word itself paints a picture, don't you think? A grey one, but nevertheless....Oh, where are my manners? Please let me introduce myself:  Dopey Docson at your service, madam, and  may I say you speak extremely good dwarfish?"

Crackle looked around. People were still coming in out of the rain and leaving as the trains came and went. Sto Lat as, after all, a hub of the railway and almost all traffic passed through there. She had one ear cocked for the porter announcing her own train, but she managed to say, "Your grasp of troll is likewise also remarkable, if I may say so. May I ask where your travels have taken you?"

The dwarf smiled again and said,"I'm a librarian in Klatch, but I've recently buried my father in Copperhead."

And Crackle stifled a laugh and said, "Do excuse me, I'm very sorry to hear about your father, but that's amazing! I'm also a librarian, in the service of Diamond King of Trolls!"

"Ah, the Diamond Library! Alas not available to us at the moment, even under the famous Accord. I'd give anything just to see it."

And the two librarians ordered more drinks and talked about books while whistles blew and train after train left the station. Crackle told Dopey that her husband didn't like books and considered that mumbling should be good enough for trolls like it was in the old days, and the dwarf told her about his wife who even after the Koom Valley Accord still thought of trolls as a kind of animal, and they talked and talked and talked about the meaning of words and, indeed, the love of words. Marjorie recognised the syndrome and kept the hot coffee and sulphur flowing, with the occasional warm rock cake.

Of course, it wasn't her business, she thought, it wasn't up to her how other people led their lives and she definitely didn't eavesdrop, well, not much, but she couldn't help hearing the dwarf say, "I've been offered a post as librarian at Brazeneck University and they've already  told me I can bring my own assistant."

And Marjorie was not surprised to find two empty cups and an empty table when she next looked: this sort of thing was bound to happen with the railway. It expanded horizons, inside and out, people went looking to find themselves and what they found was somebody else.

Bookish Quotes: The school library

When I listened to this passage from Breath by Tim Winton, I was reminded of my own adventures in the school library, although I never found a boyfriend there (my lack of success with men started early!). For me, the stories I read taught me about the lives of people in times gone by. I remember devouring as many Jean Plaidy novels I could, learning all about queens of England. How about you? What do you remember learning about from the books in your school library?

The quote comes from pages 77-79.

I did my share of whining when the new school year began, but in truth I didn't really mind going back. There was no more swell that summer, no opportunity to test myself any further, and the days began to hang heavy. Within a week of the term commencing, I rediscovered the aisles and recesses of the Angelus school library. There was nothing like it in Sawyer and the only other collection of books I'd seen was out at Sando's. During my first year of high school I'd turned to reading as a kind of refuge, but that second year it became a pleasure in its own right.

I started with Jack London because I recognized the name from Sando's shelves. After I saw Gregory Peck gimping across the poop deck on telly I tried Moby Dick, though I can't say I got far. I found books on Mawson and Shackleton and Scott. I read accounts of Amundsen's race south against the English and the ruthlessness that made all the difference. I tried to imagine the Norwegian eating the very dogs that hauled him to the Pole - something harsh and bracing about the idea appealed to me. I read about British commandos, the French Resistance, about the specialized task of bomb disposal. I found Cousteau and then mariner-authors who recreated the voyages of the ancients in craft of leather and bamboo. I read about Houdini and men who had themselves shot from cannons or tipped in barrels over Niagara Falls. I fed on lives that were not at all ordinary, about men who in normal domestic circumstances might be viewed as strange, reckless, unbalanced. When I failed to get more than sixteen pages into the Seven Pillars of Wisdom I thought the failure was mine.

It was there in the stacks that I met the girl who decided without consultation that I was her boyfriend. She was a farm girl from further out east and she boarded at the dreaded hostel. Like me, she came to the library to escape, but she was already bookish. Her name was Queenie. She was handsome and wheat-haired, with the slightly intimidating shoulders of a competitive swimmer, and there was plenty about her to like, yet I suspect I only really liked her because she liked me first. Although I did very little to encourage such baffling interest, I somehow got used to it, and even came to expect it. She slagged off my books of manly derring-do while I razzed her for her taste in stories about crippled girls overcoming cruel odds with the aid of improbably gifted animals.

Bookish Quotes: On Fear and Myths

For my first bookish quote for this year I thought I would share a quote from The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman which I read towards the end of last year.

I took a book and went out into the garden.

It was a warm spring day, and sunny, and I climbed up a rope ladder to the lowest branch of the big beech tree, sat on it, and read my book. I was not scared of anything, when I read my book: I was far away, in ancient Egypt, learning about Hathor, and how she had stalked Egypt in the form of a lioness, and she had killed so many people that the sands of Egypt turned red, and how they had only defeated her by mixing beer and honey and sleeping draughts, and dying this concoction red, so she thought it was blood, and she drank it, and fell asleep. Ra, the father of the gods, made her the goddess of love after that, so the wounds she had inflicted on people would now only be wounds of the heart.

I wondered why the gods had done that. Why hadn't they just killed her, when they had the chance?

I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.

Adult stories never made sense, and they were so slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets, Masonic, mythic secrets, to adulthood. Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?

Good question!

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

A few weeks ago now I read How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. I really enjoyed it, partially because it was a quick read, but also because Hamid does interesting things with the structure and language of the book. Whereas the tone in my favourite Hamid book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, is very much structured as a conversation through which the reader learns the story, this book is, as the title might suggest, structured like a self help book. There are the chapter titles which reflect the learning principle to be covered, the story is told to "you" as the reader and then the reader skips through to the next principle meaning that there can be big jumps in the narrative time line.

One of the other interesting about this book is what the reader is not told. We never learn any of the characters names or where the book is specifically set (we know that it is a South East Asian country so my guess is possibly Pakistan but that is just a guess), and even the time frame is somewhat fluid. Some of the action takes place now but given that two of the characters bond over a love of movies by watching videos and then we see them when they are older I am thinking that some of it may well be in the future.

We first meet our main characters when he is a sickly young boy living in a village. His father works in the city as a servant but then comes home to see his family. After moving with his family to the city, we see the boy as he matures into adulthood and his initial attempts at entrepreneurship and then as a successful businessman selling bottled water through to his older years. We see him as he is married and becomes a father, as he occasionally interacts with the "pretty girl" who he first met as a young man and more.

It is important not to go into this book thinking that you are going to really like the characters. It is not that the main character is unlikable but he is not necessarily admirable. He is not above a little shonky business dealing, bribery, violence and more in order to make the transition from poor to filthy rich. This is also not a funny book, but there is a sense of humour that shows through in parts, or perhaps a better description would be satirical cleverness. I don't normally get satire, but this book is clearly satirising the whole idea of self help books. The fact that Hamid does that whilst still telling an interesting story about a particular set of characters is part of what makes this so interesting.

Initially when I sat down tonight I was intending to write a short introduction to the quote I am about to share as part of my irregular Bookish Quotes series. However, the intro has turned into a review! I still want to share the quote, which comes from pages 97-98, because I liked it, particularly the second paragraph.

Like all books, this self-help book is a co-creative project. When you watch a TV show or a movie, what you see looks like what it physically represents. A man looks like a man, a man with a large bicep looks like a man with a large bicep, and a man with a large bicep bearing the tattoo "Mama" looks like a man with a large bicep bearing the tattoo "Mama."

But when you read a book, what you see are black squiggles on pulped wood or, increasingly, dark pixels on a pale screen. To transform these icons into characters and events, you must imagine. And when you imagine, you create. It's in being read that a book becomes a book, and in each of a million different readings a book becomes one of a million different books, just as an egg becomes one of potentially a million different people when it's approached by a hard-swimming and frisky school of sperm.

Readers don't work for writers. They work for themselves. Therein, if you'll excuse the admittedly biased tone, lies the richness of reading.

Rating 4/5

Synopsis

From the internationally bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the boldly imagined tale of a poor boy’s quest for wealth and love.

His first two novels established Mohsin Hamid as a radically inventive storyteller with his finger on the world’s pulse. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia meets that reputation—and exceeds it. the astonishing and riveting tale of a man’s journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, it steals its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over “rising Asia.” It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a striking slice of contemporary life at a time of crushing upheaval. Romantic without being sentimental, political without being didactic, and spiritual without being religious, it brings an unflinching gaze to the violence and hope it depicts. And it creates two unforgettable characters who find moments of transcendent intimacy in the midst of shattering change

Bookish Quotes: From The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal

Barbara O'Neal is rapidly becoming a must read author for me. I love the combination of her voice and her stories, of the way she includes books and food in particular in her stories among other things.

For today's Bookish Quote I thought I would share a couple of passages from a book I read a while ago now, The Lost Recipe for Happiness.

This first section is from pages 48-49 of The Lost Recipe for Happiness

Elena, the little girl born on a windy moonless night, was left a lot to her own devices. Donna was a party girl who left Elena with her own mother, Iris. All three lived in a little apartment nearby the roadhouse where Iris worked, and Elena had her own bedroom overlooking the river. Mexico was there on the other side, looking much the same as America. But it was different. Everyone said so.

She went to school with migrant workers and played jacks with the children of soldiers and learned that she was very smart. Every year, she was the smartest girl in the class, and there was one reason why - they lived right around the corner from a library.

Elena's grandmother Iris loved reading, especially big sagas by the likes of Sidney Sheldon, and historicals and gothics by the thousands - Victoria Hold and Mary Steward and Norah Lofts. It was her escape. She didn't drink and she didn't like people very much and thought television was idiotic, so she would sit on the porch and smoke cigarettes and read novels. To this day, when Elena heard someone cough in that rattly, heavy-smoker way, she had a flash of Iris reading, her breasts spilling over her ribs and down her sides beneath a housedress, a light shining over her shoulder, smoke rising in a blue cloud around her.

The pair of them went to the library every week to check out books. By the time she was seven, Elena could read chapter books, and she read them by the zillions.

and from page 50, after her grandmother had died and her mother had left her with her other grandmother:

All she had with her were the clothes she'd worn, a pair of extra underwear, and a Victoria Holt book her grandmother had been reading when she died, The Mistress of Mellyn, which Elena was ashamed to have stolen from the library.

and finally from page 51

Every night, Elena curled around the book and buried her face in a blanket and cried silently. It was like she had a whole in her heart, or maybe even worse, like there was a hole in her chest where everything she loved had been cut out. She couldn't breathe with it.

I am really looking forward to reading Barbara O'Neal's next book which is about a group of food bloggers apparently.