French Milk by Lucy Knisley

Recently I have been feeling nostalgic for the time that I was young and carefree and travelling around the world. A couple of days ago I posted again about my travels to Budapest, and today I find myself contemplating the time I spent in France and travellign around other European countries as I try to get my thoughts together about this book.

Lucy Knisley is a young graphic artist who gets the opportunity to spend 5 weeks in Paris, staying in an apartment with her mother who is celebrating her 50th birthday. Lucy is 22 years of age and is looking forward to hopefully going to graduate school. She has left behind her boyfriend and is waiting to hear whether she has been accepted into the school she wants so whilst she is in France, she is still also very involved in her life back home.

She is a graphic artist and so it is an obvious choice for her travel memoir to take this form. There are also some black and white photos scattered throughout the narrative but they are not the primary focus (which is lucky because some of them are pretty average). It is really the drawings about Paris which bring the most satisfaction to the reader, or to this reader at least.

Somewhere in my many moves since I returned from the travelling I have lost my diary of my travels and in some ways I am glad. It does mean that I can't necessarily remember what we saw and did and ate every day and I have probably forgotten a lot, but I think I would be quite surprised at how different my thoughts and opinions would be about many of the things we experienced. I am also pretty sure that my travel plans would include a lot of different places than it did back then too, reflecting more of the things that I have become interested in or learned since that time. I wonder if Lucy Knisley finds that to be true of this memoir? There were times where she comes across as being a bit bratty and selfish and it might well be a bit shocking to look back and see it recorded for all time in the form of this book, or maybe she wouldn't be! For example, I found it quite amazing that someone who is planning to spend five weeks in France would have made no effort whatsoever to learn even the basics of the French language.


In the blurb, it talks about dealing with the shifting relationship between mother and daughter and with Lucy grappling with the onslaught of adulthood. Whilst both of these were elements of the narrative I didn't necessarily think that Lucy displayed any particular degree of growth in either of these aspects or even examine them in any great degree of depth. I was more engaged with the story being told when the focus was less on Lucy and her relationships (particularly her griping about the fact that she couldn't see her boyfriend) and more on the daily details. I can see that some people might find the "and then we had baguette and sausage for dinner" type of narrative a bit boring. However, as someone who finds the idea of being able to spend a few weeks just wandering the streets of Paris exploring the art galleries, museums, cafes, markets and more completely mesmerising, it was very interesting to me and her love of culture and food shone through. Click on the image on the right for an example of Knisley's art.

I would add the disclaimer that there is no way known I could do four weeks anywhere with my mother. It's hard enough when she comes here for that length of time.

As you can hopefully tell, I had quite mixed emotions about this book as I read it. There were elements that I thoroughly enjoyed and others that I really didn't! I was sufficiently engaged by Knisley's style to want to see more of her work. I have recently requested her book Relish via interlibrary loan, which focuses more directly on her love of food and cooking.

Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A place where young Americans can seek poetic magic in the winding streets of a beautiful city. The museums, the cafes, the parks. An artist like Lucy can really enjoy Paris in January. If only she can stop griping at her mother. This comic journal details a mother and daughters month-long stay in a small apartment in the fifth arrondissement. Lucy is grappling with the onslaught of adulthood. Her mother faces fifty. They are both dealing with their shifting relationship. All the while, they navigate Paris with halting French and dog-eared guidebooks.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

The Historian Readalong - Midway point

The Historian is one of THOSE* books for me. You know, the ones that you buy as soon as they come out because you want it so badly and then.... you don't actually get around to reading. I bought this book in July 2005 and until this read along, which is being hosted by the good ladies at The Estella Society in conjunction with RIP VIII (hosted at Stainless Steel Droppings) I hadn't even read the first page.

These are the discussion questions that have been posted at the halfway point of the read along:

1. What do you think of the structure of the novel? It’s a story within a story (sort of within a story). We have Professor Rossi’s storyline, Paul’s reflections, and the daughter’s adventures. And letters. There’s a lot going on!
I love a story within a story structure when it is done well. In this book, I would go so far as to say that there are more levels of story within story in this book than just two because each time you meet a new character you get to know their story and the additional bits of information that they bring to the situation. There is a lot going on, in a lot of different places around Europe, at different times in history. You do have to work a little to keep it all straight!

I would say though, that there are times when the narrative doesn't match the structure. For example, after her father disappears the girl is supposed to be reading letters than tell the story of how he met Helen and the time they spent together but in the narrative it isn't told in letter form and doesn't read as if it is a letter that is being read but rather as if you are there.

2. What are your thoughts on Helen’s characterization? Have you warmed to her?

Helen is a bit of a cold fish really, and I think that at this point (which is 40 chapters in) she is just beginning to thaw a bit which part of what makes her characterisation is interesting to me.  For most of the people who our main characters coincidentally cross paths with you know straight away that they have been inserted into the narrative to help with the quest to find out more. Sometimes this is very blatant and could have been done with a bit more finesse. Whilst it was obvious from very early on what Helen's role in the book is going to be (as in I will be very shocked if we don't find out that Helen is Paul's daughter's mother and now I am beginning to think that we will eventually find out that she has been turned) I do find her whole story intriguing and so I am very much looking forward to hearing more about Helen and Paul's story and where she has been during her daughter's formative years.

3. What do you think of the peripheral characters? Are their motivations pure? I’m thinking of Turget, Helen’s family members, etc.
As I mentioned before I do find the way that many of the peripheral characters have been introduced to the story to be a bit heavy handed and relying way too much on coincidence and instant trust between the characters. We get to know all of the 'good' characters pretty well, but not much about the 'bad'. Some nuance wouldn't have gone astray. There are other examples of some heavy handedness. For example, when we see the portrait of Vlad Dracula and it is compared to one of the main characters it would seem to be a big dose of foreshadowing!

I did love the Bora's, and would love to be looked after by Mrs Bora - this couple knows how to entertain and cater big time! I am definitely intrigued by Helen's Auntie Eva, and I hope that we begin to learn more about her. I can't see how that will fit in on the voyage of discovery that our characters are on, especially seeing as Paul has already told us that he lost eventually lost track of her.

I have high hopes for Barley and that in due course he will be revealed to be much more integral to the plot than just being the daughter's company as she dashes all over Europe. By the way, have we learned the daughter's name yet?

I am finding that my reaction to the book is varied depending on what is going on and even then from minute to minute. For example, I love some of the description - of the libraries, of the food, of the places - and hope to share some of them over the next couple of weeks, but I do think there is too much description. This is a big book in terms of scope, story and the number of pages and even if we only got descriptions of half the places that the characters visited it would have been enough.

Having said that, I would have been extremely disappointed if one of the descriptions that had been cut was that of Budapest. Many years ago now, I spent a couple of days in Budapest. It was one of the destinations of my European tour and wasn't one of my must see cities, but I definitely enjoyed my visit. At the end of it though, I felt as though I had seen what I needed to see so probably wouldn't need to go back again. Now having read the section about Paul and Helen in Budapest, and bearing in mind that I haven't been there for 18 years, I was definitely tempted to want to return and to experience Budapest again. I have posted about a memorable meal that I had in Budapest before (goulash and chocolate cake for breakfast anyone?), as well as the drama we had on the tour bus trying to get back into Austria. I could do without the bus drama, but I would love to cruise along the Danube under the Chain Bridge, to walk on Castle Hill and near Matthias Church and see the Parliament Building again. I can ignore the fact that my passport expired more than 10 years ago and I don't have any money. Thank goodness for cyber tourism! As an aside, I would say that the Hungarian visa is probably the most interesting one that I have in my expired passport!

If I had time to spare I would make an effort to have a Turkish bath this time, and I would also try to see some of the Roman ruins as well. Sounds as though I would need at least a week in Budapest now to do all of these things and more! And I haven't even thought about the possibility of hunting down Dracula yet!


*Other examples of THOSE books - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, The Roving Party by Rohan Wilson and numerous others.

Fables Vol 11: War and Pieces by Bill Willingham

Finally! 11 books into the Fables series and we get to the battle to end all battles between the people of Fabletown and those of the homelands. And by finally I don't mean thank goodness we finally got there and now we can move on or after an 11 book lead in we finally made it! I do mean both of those things in some ways but in other ways it is more a celebratory finally, especially seeing as I suspect that this might be just the first battle and perhaps there is more to come.

I should take a step back though. As I mentioned this is the 11th book in the Fables series so it is difficult at this point to completely avoid spoilers so the now customary warning applies


************SPOILERS AHOY *************


Structurally, this book has two story arcs which dovetail nicely into each other, and in turn help resolve the story arc that has been developed since the first book in the main Fables series.

The first story arc concerns Cinderella. A few books ago, we learnt that whilst Cindy appears to be a businesswoman who owns a high end shoe shop, she is also one of the top secret agents that Fabletown has. Before the coming showdown with the Adversary, Cindy has to pick up a package from the very south of South America. The success of the whole war hinges on her success and she must use her feminine wiles, every trick in the book that she knows and a whole heap of ingenuity in order to get the job done! I loved the way that all of the Cinderella pages were bordered by a frieze of shoes. it added a degree of fun and whimsy to a book that could have taken itself a bit too seriously in the build up to the big confrontation.

And what a confrontation it is. All the various factions in the Fables lands come together in order to try and defeat the Adversary once and for all. The leaders, including all of our favourites like Bigby and Snow White, have been training their troops hard in the use of not only magical weapons but also in mundy (human) technology - technology that the isolationist Adversary may not have yet seen. Boy Blue is our narrator and thanks to the magical cloak that he has he manages to take the reader to each of the different battle fronts to observe the action.

It was interesting to see some of the character development that is still happening even after all these books. For example, over the last several books, Prince Charming has been the mayor of Fabletown but he always seemed somewhat narcissistic and still a terrible flirt and womaniser. Whilst I have no doubt that that man is still just below the surface, we also get glimpses of the heroic prince who we known through many of the fairy tales we have grown up with. It would be easy for these characters to become almost caracitures of themselves the longer the series goes on, but the writers and artists seem to be able to identify characters with capacity for growth and added dimensions relatively easily.


They are also adept at planting just enough new teasers in the storyline to make continuing the series worthwhile even as the major story arcs are resolved. I've already requested the next book via interlibrary loan. I was interested in seeing the final twist in the tail when it occurs late in the book and the final line offers up some foreshadowing that suggests that there is still plenty more conflict to be had in future tales.


Rating 4/5

 

Synopsis

The final battle between the free Fables of the mundane world and the Empire occupying their former Homelands is about to begin, and the scrappy storybook heroes have already managed to even the odds considerably. With his previously unstoppable wooden soldiers neutralized, the Adversary is about to get his first taste of high technology in the form of steel-jacketed bullets and laser-guided bombs. But the ruler who conquered a hundred different worlds didn’t do it by fighting clean—and he’s still got a surprise or two left to spring on the residents of Fabletown.

Other artits who contributed to this collection include Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Niko Henrichon and Andrew Pepoy

Sunday Salon: Musings on audiobooks, TV adaptations and Game of Thrones

I am currently listening to the audio version of the second book of George R R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, A Clash of Kings. This is the latest in a long line of audiobooks that I have listened to in the last year, some of them more than once.

Today, I thought I might muse on a couple of things about listening to audiobooks and then specifically focus on Game of Thrones, with particular emphasis on the adaptation that has taken the world by storm over the last couple of years. At least, that is the plan for this post as I sit down to write it. It could end up taking another direction all together!

In some ways I am a bit old fashioned when it comes to how I prefer to listen to audiobooks. I don't tend to download them from places like Audible or even through the library website but rather I like to get the CD and listen to that. There is no real reason for that preference. I don't actually download movies either, but that is possibly a thought for another day and another post.

In the case of a big book getting the CDs might mean a huge number of discs that need to be listened to. A Clash of Kings is 30 CDs long, but the next book is bigger again and that is still dwarfed by the audio book of A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon that I listened to last year which came in at a whopping 49 CDs long!  At the time when I was listening to that book I wasn't driving to work each day so I was only listening for about 15 minutes a day so it literally took me months to get through that audiobook.

Sometimes when you borrow from the library you may get the MP3 version which has both advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious advantage for the listener is the much lower number of discs to be managed. Recently I listened to both On the Jellicoe Road and Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta which were both one MP3 long. Now that I am driving to work most days, I appreciate not having to continually swap discs around while I am driving in order to hear what happens next in the story. I guess I should experiment a little with the whole download thing and see if it works a better in relation to this particular swapping disk aspect.

There is definitely at least one disadvantage to MP3 files though. Whereas a track on a CD might be anywhere between 1 and 10 minutes long, the MP3 tends to have much longer tracks, usually matching chapters. This makes it really quite difficult to know go back to a particular spot in the narrative if you want to listen to something again, either because it was a good bit or you got temporarily distracted and need to go back. The fact that there is often only one CD can also make it a bit difficult to determine how far through a book you are as well.

Regardless of which format you are listening to, one disadvantage to listening rather than having a book in your hand is that it is difficult to take a sneak peek at the end of the book to see how it ends!

I know that some people like to listen to audiobooks to reread books that they have already read but I am tending to use them to get to books that I want to read but I don't have as much time as I would like to actually get to read. For example, I think I know what my next three audiobooks are going to be. They are The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta (because I have recently become a MM fangirl and now I need to read everything I can by her!), then the third Game of Thrones book and then I might try the audiobook of Wolf Hall. I have owned Wolf Hall since it first came out but never actually read it, so by listening to it on audio I will finally be crossing it off the list. Also, someone mentioned that the audio version was very good so we will see.

The narrator of an audiobook can make or break the listening experience. Most of the time they enhance the listening experience but sometimes either the voice just doesn't work or the accents are wrong or whatever. Which brings me to the listening experience for Game of Thrones. The narrator for the first three books is actor Roy Dotrice, and I have to say that he is pretty good,  and he would have to be given the sheer number of characters he has to voice throughout the story. According to the box, he is now holds the world record for the most number of different characters (thank you George R R Martin!).

It has been interesting listening to the book after having seen the TV adaptation. Normally I make a my practise to read a book before seeing the movie or TV series but so far I have watched two and a bit seasons of the Game of Thrones TV series. I was watching the third series but I stopped when I started listening to the books as it was a bit distracting listening to a character do one thing in the book as I was driving and then see them do another thing when I sat down to watch TV.

Given that I have already watched the series, it is definitely the actors that I see in my imagination as I listen to the story, even when I know that there are differences between the book and the TV adaptation. I was pleasantly surprised at how true to the book the first series was and that where there were changes that they made sense. For example, one of the few changes I did notice was that some of the young characters were a few years older than the 12 and 13 year olds in the book. For example, Jon Snow was 14 in the book but older in the TV series and Daenerys was much older too - better for modern sensibilities I think.

Having already watched the series also helps with motivation to keep going because, as is more often than not the case with books that are so long, there were some slow parts in the action but knowing what was coming meant that you could clearly see the machinations at work. This is something that I am noticing more in the second book as well, mainly because it is not as clear. It feels as though there were more changes made to the second series compared to the book than there were in the first. All the major things are the same but there are times when I am listening when I think that events happened in a different place in the storyline in the TV adaptation.

I think how much you notice these changes depends on two factors. How well you know the book or how recently you either read it or, in my case, watched the adaptation and then read the book. How much those changes bother you might depend on one additional factor - how much you treasure the book. It is getting very exciting watching all the news coming out of casting and filming for the series adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, but that is one story that I will definitely see and notice the changes that they make.

Getting back to Game of Thrones, I am not going to attempt to cover the plot of Game of Thrones for this post, given it is more a discussion than a review post, but here is the synopsis for those who are interested. I would say that I did very much enjoy the listening experience, and hence went back for more. In my mind, I started using seven hells as a curse, but not yet out loud, and that particular phrase hasn't come up much in the second book. It's always fun when a book you are reading informs your thinking and language, ye ken! I ended up giving Game of Thrones a grade of 4.5/5.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyong the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assasins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror , the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts; the game of thrones.

Currently reading

Fables: War and Pieces by Bill Buckingham, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, The Briny Cafe by Susan Duncan and listening to A Clash of Kings by George R R Martin.

Up Next

A Song of Willow and Frost by Jamie Ford and The Jade Widow by Deborah O'Briend

Lilla's Feast: One Woman's True Story of Love and War in the Orient by Frances Osborne

In the Imperial War Museum in London there is an item that is described as "The house wife's dictionary and suggestions". It is a recipe book that was typed up on any scrap of paper that the author could get hold of and works through a variety of different chapters from soups to curries to roasts, tips for entertaining, desserts and cakes and so much more. Really what makes this item fascinating though is where it was written and who it was written by.

The where it was written is from within a Japanese internment camp during World War II. As a consequence, the sheets of paper may be a carefully preserved piece of rice paper that has a recipe for ice cream on it or it could be paper provided by the Red Cross. Regardless of the type of paper, the contents of the book do not reflect the daily privations being experienced by the author: the loss of property and freedom; the lack of privacy; the lack of food; the lack of information about the fate of friends and family as a war raged in both Europe and the Pacific and in so many other ways.

The who it was written by is a little more complicated to tell. The cookbook was written by Frances Osborne's great grandmother and in telling Lilla's story, Osborne bring to life not only a life filled with what might seem to us now great adventure and more than a little heartache but also a picture of a very different type of life that is now very much of the past - that of British colonial life in countries like China and India.

Lilla was born into a merchant family in the Chinese city of Chefoo in the late 19th century. After a family tragedy, her mother marries a wealthy man who raises the children with every advantage. Along with her identical twin, Ada, she was raised to be a lady and as such learnt many of the skills that would help her run her own home including how to look after her husband, how to run a busy kitchen and the staff that she would undoubtedly have and, as part of that training, how to cook. Given that she was growing up in a corner of China that was dominated by not only colonial British but also people from many other countries like Russia and Germany, the food she was exposed to was very culturally diverse.

Along with Ada, Lilla was a much sought after young lady and between them they could have had their pick of any young man. Always competing with her sister, Lilla appears to have made a hasty match and suddenly finds herself moving away from the place that she considers her home to India, where her reality does not match in any way the life that she has been raised to live.

Lilla finds herself shuffling between India and England along with her husband and eventually their children, but she constantly finds herself struggling to fit into the establishment. In Britain, she is considered an outsider but when she lives in China or India she is part of the British empirical establishment. Through Lilla's life we see the world as it changes throughout the 20th century. She does not remain untouched by World War I and in due course she finds herself living back in China married to a very wealthy industrialist. 

While in Europe the first signs of the looming second world war are coming to light, there are also signs in the East, with the rise of Chinese nationalism and then invasion of China by Japanese forces. When Japan declares war, Lilla and her ageing husband are among the many allied nationals who are rounded up and put into prison camps, spending several years incarcerated in increasingly harsh and desperate conditions, losing everything that they owned in the process.

After the war, the Caseys needed to try to rebuild their lives but this was Britain of rations and attempting to rebuild and so it seems logical for them to return to China but it isn't long before war breaks out, this time the Chinese Civil War, and the rise of Chinese Communism brings to an end the colonial life that Lilla was raised to live.

It is kind of astonishing to think of someone who is incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp with barely enough clothes to keep warm, eating watered down soup and the occasional piece of meat of dubious origins, sitting there and neatly typing up page after page of recipes. Delicious sounding soups and stews as well as undoubted luxuries like cakes and desserts fill the pages of the book. One can only imagine how hard intellectually and emotionally the contrast between the Lilla's writing and her existence must have been, or perhaps it was more of an escape from the realities of every day life.

The enjoyment that Frances Osborne found in telling the fascinating story of her great grandmother's life is obvious. Part of that enjoyment seems to have come from having spent time with Lilla, who lived to be more than 100 years old, but also in discovering the past story of Lilla's life through the letters that were exchanged regularly no matter where in the world the family were scattered, the stories from other friends and relatives and her own research. I found myself contemplating the fact that we are not necessarily going to leave a letter trail for our descendants to follow all that easily in future times.

There were times though that I felt that there was too much conjecture. Lilla must have thought this or that was used to fill in gaps for the convenience of the story a lot. Sometimes the conjecture was logical, but there were a few times where I found myself wondering how that leap was made. I would also have loved to have seen more recipes from the book. There were four included, but I would love to have seen more as well as some images of the actual book as well.

Frances Osborne has also written about her other great grandmother, Idina Sackville, in her book The Bolter which is set in colonial Africa. I am looking forward to reading that book too, and getting to know another fascinating woman's story.

Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

At the end of her life, Frances Osborne’s one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother Lilla was as elegant as ever–all fitted black lace and sparkling-white diamonds. To her great-grandchildren, Lilla was both an ally and a mysterious wonder. Her bedroom was filled with treasures from every exotic corner of the world. But she rarely mentioned the Japanese prison camps in which she spent much of World War II, or the elaborate cookbook she wrote to help her survive behind the barbed wire.

Beneath its polished surface, Lilla’s life had been anything but effortless. Born in 1882 to English parents in the beautiful North China port city of Chefoo, Lilla was an identical twin. Growing up, she knew both great privilege and deprivation, love and its absence. But the one constant was a deep appreciation for the power of food and place. From the noodles of Shanghai to the chutney of British India and the roasts of England, good food and sensuous surroundings, Lilla was raised to believe, could carry one a long way toward happiness. Her story is brimming with the stuff of good fiction: distant locales, an improvident marriage, an evil mother-in-law, a dramatic suicide, and two world wars.

Lilla’s remarkable cookbook, which she composed while on the brink of starvation, makes no mention of wartime rations, of rotten vegetables and donkey meat. In the world this magical food journal, now housed in the Imperial War Museum in London, everyone is warm and safe in their homes, and the pages are filled with cream puffs, butterscotch, and comforting soup. In its writing, Lilla was able to transform the darkest moments into scrumptious escape.

Lilla’s Feast is a rich evocation of a bygone world, the inspiring story of an ordinary woman who tackled the challenges life threw in her path with an extraordinary determination.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

Library Loot: September 18 to 24

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader 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!

It feels as though I haven't been to the library for ages but in reality it has been just a few days. Here's what I got when I did go:

What Katie Ate by Katie Quinn Davies - I have seen this mentioned in Weekend Cooking a few times and thought it was time I checked it out for myself.

A Clash of Kings - The second Game of Thrones audiobook. It is a mere 30CDs long so shouldn't take long to get through!

I Kissed an Earl - The next book in the Pennyroyal Green series.

Lady Luck's Map of Vegas - Having read all of the books by Barbara O'Neal, it is time to start reading her alter ego Barbara Samuels!

What loot did you get this week? Share you link on Mr Linky below:


Also, I forgot to mention that I borrowed an album by Scottish band Travis last week. I was reminded on Songpop how much I liked them and then went onto discover other songs by them that I liked too. The album is called The Invisible Band and here is one of the songs off it:

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Beautiful Objects (Melbourne Writers Festival)

Whilst the final day of the Melbourne Writers Festival for this year was a couple of weeks ago, I still have one session to write up. I could just let it go, but it was a session that I enjoyed so here we are. I feel as though the fact that I did enjoy it so much is something of a bonus as it was the last session I booked because I needed one more to fill up my pass. I had searched the program numerous times before in the end I kind of just went...well, that one looks interesting! And it was!

After having attended the Cooking the Books session early on Sunday morning (which I wrote about for last week's Weekend Cooking post) I had a short time to get to the local markets, buy a new handbag and eat lunch in time to be back for the Beautiful Objects session. The brief summary of the session from the festival program said

Antique books, first editions, and art books each harbour aesthetic qualities that transcend mere function. Author and book designer Kevin Kwan joins publisher Pauline De Leavaux and Stephanie Hicks to explore the beauty of books, their transposition from the everyday to luxury items, and whether the future of eBooks will be quite as beautiful.

The session started with each of the guests being asked to give examples of beautiful books. Pauline De Leavaux works for publisher Thames and Hudson. She talked about in her first jobs, and for a lot of bigger publishers, there is always a struggle between aesthetics and budget constraints. Thames and Hudson is different in that there are fewer limits placed on the pursuit of publishing beautiful books.

In her examples of beautiful books, Pauline started with a book called I Wonder by Marian Bantjes (pictured at the top of the post). This is a book that is at the absolute pinnacle of production extremes. The front cover is embossed and gilded, the paper edges are gold, there are many more colours used inside the book and there's a ribbon. It is a book that may well be seen as a cultural artifact in the future. To get some ideas of the production values of the book click here to head to the author's website.

The next book that Pauline offered up was The Architectural Photography of John Gollings, which has a cloth bound, foiled cover underneath the slipcover and is printed on special paperstock.

The third book though proves that a book doesn't have to be expensive to make in order to be beautiful. Owl Know How by Cat Rabbit and Isabel Knowles is a children's picture book. There is no special treatments in terms of paper or the casing or gilding. What makes this book beautiful is that all of the images in it have been painstakingly made out of felt by the authors and then photographed.

Next Kevin Kwan, author and designer, shared his beautiful books. He talked about being enamoured by gorgeous old books as a child visiting his grandparents library and finding objects of wonder there.

His first object was The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. At first this book appears as though it just has the iconic blue stripes that were used in so many of his designs but as you slowly pull down the white plastic slip cover you can see two other images as they are revealed. The first is of JPG himself and the next image is of one of his muse. I have included the slip cover on image and the whole cover above. Hopefully it will give some idea of how it works.

His next book was And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman - a year long journey that is told by way of incredible illustrations and a funny narrative.

The next two books both had the crowd reacting audibly for different reasons. The first was called A Flight of Butterflies which was a reproduction of a book from the early 1900s which features a number of woodcuts of butterflies. It is bound in an oriental style with no spine, so that each pages unfolds, in effect revealing more and more of the images. Hopefully this photo gives some idea of the effect of the book.

The final book was A Hundred Times Nguyen. This book features a series of images of a young girl repeated over and over again. I must confess to being a bit puzzled as Kwan was showing us this book, and then he read the only paragraph of text in the book which explains the images. I am sure I was not the only person who wanted to get hold of that book straight away.

The conversation went on to talk about the cover that Kevin Kwan ended up with for his new book Crazy Rich Asians, a journey that went through four very different incarnations before everyone involved in the decision making process was happy with it.

Other topics that were touched included how cover trends, and how ebooks are impacting on book productions. Whilst ebooks tend to be a growing market there is still a market for beautiful books as objects, especially in sections of the market like cookbooks and childrens books - books that will pull the reader into bookstores. What ebooks haven't been able to do is create that feeling of beauty. Even just getting images formatted correctly doesn't seem to have happened yet (one of the reasons I don't really do cookbooks on my ereader) but ebook design is really in it's infancy so those kinds of things will develop. For the time being though, ebooks are pretty much still functional items as opposed to items of beauty. A lot of readers will still go and buy a physical copy of the book if they love it as an ebook just for the physical sensation of being able to hold a book in their hands.

All of this discussion of books as beautiful objects has me wondering about the books I buy. Do I buy them as functionary items or are there some that I buy because of their aesthetic values, beyond a pretty cover, as well? I must confess that I get a little excited if I borrow a hardcover book from the library and it has a ribbon in it or if it has deckled edge paper - small things, but to me it makes a book so much more attractive. And if a book has end papers I am curiously pleased. The most recent example of that I can think of was Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore but there could be more. Of course, I like to look at the books where the edges of the pages are coloured but that in itself does not necessarily make a book beautiful. I saw some the other day where the cover of a book was black as were the edges of the pages, so it was kind of monotone in appearance.

I do really want to buy some of the cloth covered classics. They just look so pretty, but I haven't yet actually bought one yet. One day!

What is the most beautiful book I own then? The first book that came to mind was probably the collectors edition of The Arrival by Shaun Tan that I bought a couple of years ago now. It comes in a case that is designed to look like an old leather bound book, which opens up to reveal both The Arrival and Sketches from a Nameless Land, an accompanying book that explains some of the art and story told in The Arrival. The Arrival itself is a gorgeous book because of the amazing art that tells the story. There are no words so everything in the story must be conveyed through the amazing imagery. There is a ribbon (bonus!) and it is a lovely hardcover finish. Below are some images (taken hastily at night so hopefully they will at least convey some of the gorgeousness).

What makes a beautiful book for you? What is the most beautiful book you own?

Currently Reading

Lilla's Feast by Frances Osborne, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, The Briny Cafe by Susan Duncan and listening to A Clash of Kings by George R R Martin.

Up Next

I should check. At this point on a Sunday night I have no idea!

Weekend Cooking: Babette's Feast

About a month ago I mentioned that I was planning to start an irregular series of posts about foreign movies, and today I bring you the second one, this time about the Danish film Babette's Feast. This is an older film but it was very successful in it's time, winning an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1987. It does feel a bit odd calling a movie from 1987 older but it is more than 25 years ago now so it isn't recent!

I did like the film but it wasn't exactly what I thought I was going to see. I have no idea why but I always thought that Babette's Feast featured a bigger woman with blonde hair cooking lots and lots and lots of food maybe having moved to London. I can see a vision in my mind of the poster of the movie I was thinking of, but it most certainly was not this one. I have been racking my brains trying to think of the name of the movie I was thinking of so if those vague clues gave you an inkling of the film I thought I was going to see let me know in the comments. I did think maybe it had something to do with a laundrette but when I looked up My Beautiful Laundrette that was something completely different. Anyway, enough about the movie that I didn't watch. Let's focus on the one I did see!

Babette's Feast is based on a short story by Isak Dinesen set in an isolated fishing village in Denmark in the late 19th century. When the story opens we meet two beautiful young women who live with their Lutheran preacher father. He is a very austere man, living a puritanical life where service to god and community are the most important things and there is no need for beautiful objects or anything but the most basic types of food and drink.

Into the small village come two men, one a soldier and the other a famous opera singer. They each fall in love with one of the sisters but they leave the village alone and the sisters remain where they are, eventually taking over their father's role as the spiritual leaders of the village. Neither of the men forget the sisters despite the years passing, and in due course one of them sends a woman to them asking for their help. Babette has lost all of her family in the French Revolution and now she just wants to have a home away from France so she becomes the cook/housekeeper. Babette lives with the sisters, living very frugally. Gradually she becomes indispensable, helping all the villagers whenever she can and bringing a small amount of joy to those around her.  Babette's only link with France in the years that follow is the lottery ticket that her friends buy for her each year.

The villagers are a dour lot. On the surface, it is a very pious community, but running not very far under the surface of are jealousies, both petty and not so petty, grudges held for many years and more serious disagreements. The climate is harsh and, to be honest, so are some of the personalities.

When Babette wins the lottery it is close to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the sister's father. They were planning to have a simple celebration of the day but then Babette offers to cook for them - a proper French dinner. It is only as they begin to see the ingredients begin to arrive do they think that they might have made a mistake in accepting her offer. Determined to stick to their religious principles, the dinner guests agree that they will not make any comment about the food that is served up to them. The only guest who initially seems to be appreciating the meal is the soldier who loved one of the sisters who is now is a general. He once had the good fortune to eat a meal at the famous Cafe Anglais in Paris and the meal that he is being served in the film reminds him of that night. Eventually though, the rest of the diners begin to loosen up and enjoy themselves. I am sure there is a message there about the power of food to make you feel better which could be seen as a little hokey but there are plenty of movies and books which talk about food in this way. The other message is about the power of art, in this cooking, to transcend circumstance and, in a way, practicality!

It is really in the second half of the film when Babette starts preparing the feast and then is serving it up that this movie really came to life for me. Prior to that the plot was a little slow and I wasn't quite sure where it was going to go. Once the cooking starts, you see Babette's passion for food shining through and that enjoyment eventually spreads through the guests as well, enabling the viewer to see that it isn't all doom and gloom between the villagers. They do have strong bonds that just have gotten a little lost through all the years of being together. As the plot progresses even the colour scheme of the film seems to gradually change from a very monotone palette to bursting with colour in the final scenes.

This movie apparently made quite an impact when it came out with restaurants recreating the entire menu for special Babette's feast nights. I am not sure that I would necessarily have wanted to participate in such an event. What I found myself pondering as I watched course after course of the feast on the screen is how much fine dining has changed during the last couple of hundred years. I can't imagine walking into a restaurant, no matter how fine, and requesting turtle soup, made from real turtle. Similarly, the idea of the quail is not particularly appealing to me, especially with their little heads tucked into the pastry shell as part of the presentation. Maybe other people could, but I am not sure that I would. Or maybe it is that I am not ready for really fine dining yet!

Here is the menu that Babette served up for the dinner party.

Potage a’la Tortue (Turtle Soup)

Blini Demidoff au Caviar (Buckwheat cakes with caviar)

Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine (Quail in Puff Pastry Shell with Foie Gras & Truffle Sauce)

La Salade (Salad Course)

Les Fromages (Cheese and Fresh Fruit)

Baba au Rhum avec les Figues (Rum Cake with Dried Figs)

Someone needs to make a really good trailer for this film. The version with an English narrator speaking is terrible. This Danish version (with subtitles) is a bit long and all over the place but you do at least get a feeling for the film! The film took a while to get going, but once it did, it was a delight!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.

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

Library Loot: September 11 to 17

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader 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!

Another pretty big week of loot here this week. I am thinking it might be nearly time to have a month off of putting in requests so that I have a chance to actually catch up with some of the book I already have it. Then again, as of today I think I only have 5 books on request at the moment and for two of those I am way down the request list so they could take a long time to come in.

Here's what I got this week:

Safe Haven - Yes, it is a Nicholas Sparks movie! The plan is to live tweet it on Twitter with a couple of friends. We had so much fun the last time we did it!

Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid - I am slowly working my way through Mohsin Hamid's backlist.

Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar - After reading and loving a book that I have been encouraged to read for quite some time, it was time to request another book that people have strongly endorsed!

The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas - I can't remember why I requested this book. Maybe someone compared her to Susanna Kearsley.

The Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo - I think I heard about this book during Paris in July. I do wish I could see the TV series but for now the book will do.

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta - If you saw my gushing review of On the Jellicoe Road yesterday, you will have noticed that I am suddenly a bit of a Melina Marchetta fangirl. I borrowed the audiobook version, which happens to be narrated by the same person. I was worried that would be a bit too confusing but it isn't too bad.

Claire has Mr Linky this week so head on over to share your library loot posts.

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Is it possible to become a total fangirl for an author based only on one book? If you are me, and the author is Melina Marchetta, then apparently it is!

I loved this book so much that I ended up listening to the audio version of it twice in as many weeks. It isn't out of the question that I will listen to it again or read it in book form. Given how rarely I reread, and certainly never finish a book and just start it again straight away, this is high praise indeed! I love it when a book compels you to behave in a way that you don't normally do so.

I should mention that I have been being told for years that I should read Melina Marchetta. To those people (Kat, Bree and Belle amongst others) I say, yes, you were right.

So what is it about this book that makes it so good?

Taylor Markham is a senior at Jellicoe School. She has just been made the leader of the boarders. This means that her most important responsibility is to lead the school in the annual territory wars between the school, the townies from nearby Jellicoe and the cadets from the city who come and camp for six weeks nearby. These territory wars have been going on for 20 years or so, and it is a very serious business. There are rules of engagement, maps, and there will be consequences if anyone steps into enemy territory. Whilst Taylor has been elected as leader, her grip on the leadership is a little tenuous, so she must do everything in her power to ensure that the schoolies don't lose any territory, and if possible to negotiate additional rights and ground with the enemy. She has only one other house leader on her side, and he must stay by her side otherwise the other house leaders have the power to usurp her position. She also has her friend Raffaela who sticks by her despite Taylor's best efforts to push her away, and perennial pest, Jessa McKenzie, that Taylor can't rid herself of no matter how hard she tries.

Dealing with the enemy is going to be that much more difficult for Taylor because the leader of the cadets is a boy named Jonah Griggs. Three years earlier, Jonah and Taylor had run away together, heading towards Sydney to try and find her mother. They got to within two hours of Sydney before they were found by The Brigadier and returned to Jellicoe. Taylor has never, ever forgiven Jonah for the betrayal of ringing someone to come and get them. The leader of the townies is Chas Santangelo, whose father is the local cop, who seems to have some kind of history with Raffie, and who seems to have a predilection for leading the townies into punchups with the cadets at the slightest provocation.

I was warned going into this book that the first part was a bit difficult to follow, and it was. The territory wars are taken seriously by all involved. Very seriously. I found myself wondering how on earth this story was going to progress to the amazing story that I had been lead to believe I would experience. I also couldn't figure out how it was going to link in with the other story that was also being told in glimpses through the story. In this other story, we meet Webb and his sister Narnie, Tate, Jude and Fitz, a group of kids bought together through tragedy who form a bond that is so strong that it will last a lifetime, if it doesn't destroy them all first.

Taylor first learns of the group by reading the manuscript that is being written by Hannah, another person that Taylor has a difficult relationship with. Taylor first came to Jellicoe 6 years before. She was just 11 years old when her mother drove her to the 711 convenience store in Jellicoe and just left her there. Hannah came along and picked her up, brought her to the school and has since provided the only stability that Taylor has really ever known, but has always kept her at arms length. Now Hannah has disappeared without leaving any indication of where she has gone or when she will be back, and reading the manuscript is one of the few ways Taylor can still feel close to her. As Taylor reads through the manuscript she longs to know more about 'the five'. Who they were, why they were so close, why does she feel so connected to them and what, if anything, is the connection to the boy in the tree who visits her dreams every night?

There was a point in the book though where everything just clicked into place - the territory wars, the story of the give, everything - and suddenly I went from enjoying the story but being a little perplexed to OMG what a book.

From what I can tell, Melina Marchetta loves to torture her characters. Both groups of kids have tragic pasts and some of them even have a tragic present too. Given that, it would have been very easy for this book to tip into the overly angsty and melodramatic but the author manages to balance the drama with moments of joy, of fun and of poignancy. In short, she does an amazing job of engaging the reader and making you feel all the emotions! All of them! When I was listening to the book the first time I was getting towards the end of the book and I was crying my eyes out as I drove along, until I realised that I really needed to stop for petrol. I guess given how emotionally wrung out I was that it was no surprise when the petrol station attendant asked me if I was okay or not. I am pretty sure that I am never going to be able to hear either Flame Trees by Cold Chisel or The Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers without thinking of the characters from this book!

I think my favourite thing about this book is the way that Marchetta writes the development of the friendship between the characters. Slowly Chas and Griggs go from having to spend time together as punishment to begrudgingly spending time together as a result of shared friendships to genuine friends. Similarly, Griggs and Taylor begin to build on their relationship which really began three years before on a train platform. I loved the way that Marchetta slowly allowed both Taylor and the reader to find out exactly what Griggs feels and why he has done what he has done both in the past and in the present. All the emotions.......sob! At one point, one of the characters says to the others "we are going to know him for the rest of our lives" and I felt like cheering, between sobs, and it made me think of the friends that I have that I have known since my teenage years and who I will know for the rest of my life. I also really loved the echoes from the earlier story into the later one. We are not reading the same story repeated again more than a decade later though. It is more nuanced than that, more delicately done and very, very poignant.

If I had been reading the book I would have been bookmarking quotes all the way through. There were just so many beautiful moments. A fair few of them would have featured the amazing Jonah Griggs - one of the best teenage boy characters I have read in a long time. Yes, my son is only a couple of years younger than Jonah was in the book, and yes, that means that I am more than old enough to be Jonah's mother, but yes, I have a crush on him big time, and I don't care who knows it! Slightly more age appropriately, I also have a bit of a crush on Jude, one of the original five.

On the Jellicoe Road is being made into a movie, and I will be very interested to see who is cast and how the movie takes shape because it is a bit difficult to see how the story will come to life if it sticks exactly to it's current structure. There are so many flashbacks and dream sequences, not to mention the internalisation of emotions and thoughts by the characters. I will be just a little scared before seeing it, hoping that it will be an amazing movie. Melina Marchetta has worked on the screenplay so hopefully it still will be something special.

I was very glad to be able to go back and relisten to the book pretty much straight away. As I went through the second time I realised exactly how clever Marchetta's writing is. On the first read through, some of the plot twists seem to be pretty sudden but on the reread, you could definitely see that all the clues were all put in place, ready for the reader to make their discoveries later on in the book. I am sure if I was to physically read the book again I would find even more. I think this is a book that lends itself to being read over and over again!

I should mention that the narrator of the audiobook did an amazing job! It was such a pleasure to get in the car and listen to Rebecca Macauley tell me the story of these kids. I also really appreciated the way that the the production had small musical interludes whenever the narrative changed from one time to the other. Often if you are listening to an audiobook that does feature dual timelines there is just a gap and suddenly you find yourself in the other time and place and it can be a little disconcerting as you try to figure out what just happened. None of that confusion here. I am now listening to Saving Francesca, also narrated by Rebecca Macauley and I am once again enjoying it very much.

When I finished this book the first time through I gave it a rating of 4.5/5 but I think that given how much I am still thinking about the characters, the lasting impact I expect it to have on my psyche, and yes, Jonah Griggs, I think I have to change it to 5/5.

Synopsis

Taylor Markham is now a senior at the Jellicoe School, and has been made leader of the boarders. She is responsible for keeping the upper hand in the territory wars with the townies, and the cadets who camp on the edge of the school's property over summer. She has to keep her students safe and the territories enforced and to deal with Jonah Griggs - the leader of the cadets and someone she'd rather forget. But what she needs to do, more than anything, is unravel the mystery of her past and find her mother - who abandoned her on the Jellicoe Road six years before. The only connection to her past, Hannah, the woman who found her, has now disappeared, too, and the only clue Taylor has about Hannah and her mother's past is a partially written manuscript about a group of five kids from the Jellicoe School, twenty years ago.

I thought I would share just a couple of the songs from the book. There were lots more, but these will be the ones that will always remind me of the characters and the story of this book. I was never even that big a fan of the Waterboys song before now!

Public Service Announcement

Today I offer up a cautionary tale about the dangers of blogging tired. Not only are there the spelling mistakes that come with the territory but apparently your brain does very odd things.

I offer up this sentence as Exhibit A:

There were several blogs that were mentioned for my area, inlcuidng one where the dad was working their so dad would go running just as teh kid would disappear.

And here is what I was trying to say:

There were several blogs that were mentioned for my area, including a dad and son who visit establishments throughout the western suburbs of Melbourne and then share their thoughts

Please heed the warnings and never blog tired!