I'm not scared....

So, it's Rose's choice this week... and what a choice.

Very much looking forward to an evening of vino tinto and spaghetti to accompany it.

Kate's suggestion that we went to a pub called The Coal Hole was considered by some to be inappropriate. Could have been worse. At least it wasn't an Austrian cellar.

The Crying of Lot 49

I should really let Joel do the talking here. But since I'm well keen, here's a copy of the cover...

To kickstart things too, there was lots of chat last night about books this reminded us of, and books it inspired. Would love to hear what those were again, since I was into my wine by then and so not paying due care and attention.

Am SO glad bookclub is revived.

Iso. xx

Bwa ha ha

I have the power to witter on in public now!

*waves*

woohoo!

We haven't posted a pic in a while....

...and by the way I'm loving it Iso. x

Beyond the Great Indoors

I'm annoyed I never wrote about this. So I thought I'd do it belatedly. Because it was my favourite book so far: about the trials and tribulations of two post-rehab depressives, who form an unlikely friendship. Bloody hilarious. Fantastic on the detail. Dry and witty, yet laugh-out-loud funny. Really wonderful. Just so you know. I'd suggest reading it to anyone who hasn't already. And I want a cat.

Red Right Hand....

Nick Cave

RED RIGHT HAND

Take a little walk to the edge of town

Go across the tracks

Where the viaduct looms,

like a bird of doom

As it shifts and cracks

Where secrets lie in the border fires,

in the humming wires

Hey man, you know

you're never coming back

Past the square, past the bridge,

past the mills, past the stacks

On a gathering storm comes

a tall handsome man

In a dusty black coat with

a red right hand

He'll wrap you in his arms,

tell you that you've been a good boy

He'll rekindle all the dreams

it took you a lifetime to destroy

He'll reach deep into the hole,

heal your shrinking soul

But there won't be a single thing

That you can do.

He's a god, he's a man,

he's a ghost, he's a guru

They're whispering his name

through this disappearing land

But hidden in his coat is a red right hand

You ain't got no money?

He'll get you some

You ain't got no car?

He'll get you one

You ain't have no self-respect,

you feel like an insect

Well don't you worry buddy,

cause here he comes

Through the ghettos and the barrio

and the bowery and the slum

A shadow is cast wherever he stands

Stacks of green paper

in his red right hand

You'll see him in your nightmares,

you'll see him in your dreams

He'll appear out of nowhere

but he ain't what he seems

You'll see him in your head,

on the TV screen

And hey buddy, I'm warning you

to turn it off

He's a ghost, he's a god,

he's a man, he's a guru

You're one microscopic cog

in his catastrophic plan

Designed and directed

by his red right hand

And now....

next.......

"And I couldn't get it up..."

Well, hmm, an interesting one. I really liked the language. But it was very short. And nothing really happened. And I thought Henry was a vile human being.
I felt it was only really clever because it's part of a bigger literary movement. But standing on its own, it's just a series of snapshots of a wasted life, with the occasional monumentally-clever metaphor.
I'm going to put it on the shelf in my bathroom, and it starts at 8/10 for the super language, but loses half points for (-0.5) No Plot to speak of, (-0.5) Awful protagonist, (-0.5) Overratedness... so I'm giving it:
6.5/10

Kate - its ambush time

...or Kate Bush time.....

I can't believe Kate chose this book and hasn't bothered to post yet....I'm sickened. Who is going to back me up on my mission????! x

A Pathetic Attempt at Pathetic Fallacy

Like many others in this group (sorry Anne!), I am not a fan of crime fiction- the vast majority of it is packed full of gore and unlikely characters in an attempt to cover up weak style. I was therefore quite surprised about the strength of emotion I felt whilst reading this book- I truly loathed it. The detective is an absurd imitation of all the TV detectives of the past 20 years, the method of his crime-solving bordering on insane, the narrative unbearably clichéd (‘how about making it rain all the time to add to the sense of foreboding?’) and the plot, of all things, boring.

What I found particularly grating was the author’s insistence on inserting his own narrow-minded viewpoints into the narrative. We realise the victim is a sick pervert when his computer was found to be full of bestial and gay porn! Later on, when the detective visits the anatomist who keeps brains in jars, he takes the child’s brain with him, regardless of the benefits such an organ could have on medical research, because ‘it just felt wrong’ that her body was buried without it. And the references to smoking being bad for your health were just too many to count.

I was actually offended by how poor this book was. However, in the pub the other night I do remember being won around on certain aspects (all of which now escape me), so I shall give it a generous:

3/10

Damian Brianson

Tainted tosh

When a lone septuagenarian (I LOVE that word!) is murdered in his apartment in Reykjavík, detective inspector Erlendur Sveinsson is called in to investigate. As he digs into the murdered man's background, so he unravels a sordid tale of rape, a fatal genetic disease, incest and suicide - with a drug-addicted daughter as a side. Just the ingredients for a rip-roaring police procedural right? WRONG.

For the first time in years I feel confused and unsure about a book and I don’t like it one bit. I think I liked Erlendur; he’s my kind of detective; quiet and morose with a whiff of wit. He smokes too much, I can relate to that. His floundering efforts to save his daughter ranged from heart-string-pulling sentimentality to the downright pathetic. But, like the character of Sigurdur Oli, the plot was sparse and underdeveloped, all the vaguely exciting elements of the story were underplayed, like the whole genetic pool thing, fascinating but barely mentioned.

For my first foray into the criminal underworld of Iceland, this was a serious disappointment. Too much lackin’ and too little learnin’ to be had. So this ‘prize-winning international bestseller’ can go jump.

5/10

Tainted love...

Dear god, I've just gone and given myself a soft cell, marc almond moment, first thing on a monday morning, but it suits my purpose so I'm sticking with it. Because TAINTED BLOOD was, for me, a tainted love kind of experience (by which i do not mean, under any circumstances, that it wore a tight t-shirt or made me want - du du - run away) but it just wasn't perfect enough to be the prizewinner it apparently is.
Whilst it was a quite interesting peek into a seriously inbred, closed-in culture, it just didn't do quite enough. Jen kept saying she wanted to learn more about Iceland, and although that struck me as odd at the time, looking back, now I kind of agree. Because (with its cliche cop and its predictable story, sans twist) it didn't bring anything new to the genre apart from being set in Iceland. But then I didn't actually come away knowing much more about the country than that only 15 people went missing from Iceland in the 1970s, and that everyone calls each other by their first names and a one-generation patronymic (I would be Isobel Robertsdottir... how cool is that?)
However the prize for most exciting thing I'll always remember about last week's book club for is that Jaime actually brought along A MOUSE'S BRAIN in a pot. Amazing!!! And that I got hammered and don't remember how i got home (think it involved a bus but still can't be sure). Can't wait for the next book!
Isobel Robertsdottir

I'm scared already...

Our new selection by the lovely Kate. It took a while but we got there in the end.

Charming at best. Pointless at worst.

Meg Rosoff's 'How I Live Now' is being marketed as a crossover novel. However, the crossover genre - which seems to be the bastard offspring of the Potter phenomenon and Mark Haddon - is a harder nut to crack than Rosoff seems capable of. For while this novel clearly has elements that would make it appealing to kids, there's little enough in it for adults. The fantasy level is depressingly poor (compared to writers such as Pullman, and even J K Rowling)... and the skewed-reality element - worse still (especially in comparison with someone like Haddon).
Basically Daisy, a fifteen year old American anorexic is booted off by father and wicked stepmother to live in an idyllic English country setting, with her strange and wonderful cousins (with assorted pets), when an unlikely war (World War 2 with terrorists and mystery) breaks out leaving them cut off, separated and evacuated. However, Daisy, rather like a misplaced and underfed Shakespearean heroine, rises to the challenge. And before the novel is out has saved at least one cousin, trekked along some footpaths, and started eating again, not to mention dallying in incest and blackberry picking, rather in equal quantities.
But basically I was bored. There simply wasn't enough in it for an adult imagination. And the daftness of the whole thing actually suggested we were heading towards some sort of Daisy-awakes-in-a-New-York hospital 'and it was all just a dream'. But even when this didn't happen, I didn't feel pleasantly surprise, because the end then became even more far-fetched.
Issues undealt with, charm undercut with silliness, Daisy being more or less the most insufferable girl in children's fiction to date, and my feeling that it takes more than a little freestyle writing to make a book like this clever, combined to make this an utter disappointment for me. Would be interested in seeing what a 13 year old thought of it though...

Aberystwyth n'est pas mon amour (sorry too)

I can only really agree with what Jenny and Jaime said. I loved how this novel started. And I really loved the idea. And it was full of charming anecdotal hilarious little jokes and daft ideas which did get me giggling. This really should have been my sort of book in spades. But I found that I was so utterly bored by the plot that the end of the novel honestly actually came as a blissful relief. Moments of comic genius were eventually blurred by an over-egging that made this pudding ultimately impalatable. So I'm not going to buy the second and third in the series. One was enough.
Still, I'm actually glad I read it. The cover was fab. And if it sends anyone careering in the direction of Raymond Chandler, then that's got to be a good thing. In fact, I think I may dig out my old copy of The Long Goodbye... hmm. Now there's pulp fiction with comic timing, and plots to die for, not to Dai for... (ok, sorry, I'll stop now.)

Talking of child/adult crossover fiction...

...here is our next installment! I'm rather excited about this one too. Just hoping the seriously expensive cover isn't hiding a multitude of literary sins.
Jx

Aberystwyth Mon Amour – Innocuity in its element, a novel so harmless, I needed to make up a new word to describe it....

I love Philip Pullman and Philip Pullman thinks this book is marvellous……Philip Pullman is wrong.

Mr Pullman is a master of the child-adult crossover market and, pertinently so, Aberystwyth Mon Amour screams juvenility. This child-adult game is hard to pull off, and especially hard to pull off well. I love Kate’s idea that Aberystwyth Mon Amour is a kind of Bugsy Malone lampoon, in fact I’d be rather impressed if a twist in that vain was thrown into the blend at the end. Sadly….

Anyhoot, it started well, in fact I actually underlined a few moments of promise within the first 50 pages or so. The pace was agreeable and the characters jovial; I LOVED Sospan and his layman philosophy and was extremely tickled by the thought of existentialist week at the ice-cream parlour – who else is dying to get their hands on a wafer of the absurd?

However I’m afraid the bottom line has to be that Aberystwyth Mon Amour is a pretty ropey pastiche that lacks the laconic wit and breakneck rhythm that drives a detective story of quality. Louie Knight certainly ain’t no Philip Marlowe – and no Philip Pullman can persuade me otherwise.

But its harmless – it questions nothing, it answers nothing, refutes nothing, avows nothing – and for me, my lack of drive to underline is a real mark of the innocuous.

Jitterbug Schmitterbug

Sorry I took ages to log my thoughts on this book - to be honest I just really didn't like it and didn't want to put a damper on things after the enthusiastic praise from Jen and Iso. However, in response to accusations of laziness and lack of commitment to the site I hereby offer up my thoughts on Jitterbug Perfume.

To give Jitterbug its due, I concede that the language was beautiful, albeit unnecessarily flowery at times (why use words of one syllable when you can use an almost-appropriate four-syllable word that will make the author sound intelligent, and who cares if the narrative flow - what little of it exists - gets disrupted in the process?), and there was some lovely imagery (and I'm not just saying this, some of the ideas really did make me stop and smile in appreciation). Overall, however, the characters remained purely one-dimensional and I just couldn't get into the story, such as it was. I think if I had read it in my teens I'd have loved this book and would have considered it groundbreakingly original. Now, however, having read reasonably widely, including a few stream-of-consciousness novels written by much more talented authors, I find I require certain basic elements, such as a plot, and characters I can get to know and empathise with, both of which were lacking in this disappointingly jejune effort.

Sorry guys, I just didn't think it was very big, or very clever. I didn't manage to finish it before we met to discuss it and frankly I can't be bothered to wade through the pretentious meanderings to try and finish it now. Ah well!

Good god, mun

What's going on? No action in the whole 2 weeks I've been away? Dear me. No reviews from Anne and Kate on the last book either? Shame on you both!
Aberystwyth tonight. Welsh sort of venue. Will get right on it.
Iso. x

Roll on part 2

Blimey, you can really tell that Isobel is away!!!!
Thought I'd alert your attention to this interview with Malcolm Pryce:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/bookshelf/pages/malcolm_pryce.shtml

Not sure if it is any good, haven't read it yet as I don't want to spoil the book.....which I haven't quite picked up yet, been struggling through a nasty Deaver. Bad taste, very bad taste. Anyway, I've heard mixed reviews so far, looking forward to Tuesday!

Jx

I love this cover....

...even if it does remind me of Jasper Fforde, which makes me shake with rage....

Aberystwyth here we come...

The books have arrived. Hurrah! Can't wait to read it, but I'll have to because otherwise I won't finish the other 15 books now piled on my bedroom floor. Reading books we don't publish is somehow becoming rather a habit...
Ah, but I'll have lots of time to do so, because I'm off on holiday on Friday. Yippee! During which time - may I point out - I expect a great deal of blogging action from y'all.

A happy combination of contradictions

The perfume to beat (or, erm, beet) all other scents is comprised of three ingredients. It is called K23 and it's the key to eternal life.

The top note is Citrus. It's cold, sharp, clean smelling. Then the middle note is Jasmine. Which grabs you so strong that it makes the bees swarm and you feel sick-dizzy from its headiness. And the crucial base note is the Beet ("the beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot... Rasputin's favourite vegetable, you can see it in his eyes..."). Well, more specifically - the scent is in the pollen of the beet, blown across from Bohemia.

These ingredients are key to the novel: through them we also get a sense of the places therein: Seattle (cold, clean, bluey-green), New Orleans (with its strong flavoursome food, wild dancers, bee-hatted flowerselleers), and ancient Bohemia (the beet of course, no more need be said). And the characters too: Priscilla and Wiggs, Lily and V'lu, Alobar and Kudra. They are the future, present and past... all muddled up in a bottle.

The only criticism I can level at the book is that it's thin on plot. But so heavy on description, and the language is so divine, that I found myself unusually not caring. Life's too short (however immortal you are) to worry about things like that.

I want to smell the perfume. But, after reading the book, I think I may already have done...

Jitterbug Perfume – A road novel at heart, but a million beets away from the likes of Jack Kerouac

It would be a great injustice to dismiss Tom Robbins, as many have, as merely another writer of 60’s nostalgia. Although reading a Robbins novel is like going on the biggest hallucinatory trip of your life, the lyrical beauty of his prose is what shines through from the base of his plots and although at times his writing may seem completely and utterly bizarre, it is always wholly coherent.

Jitterbug Perfume is no exception. Never before have I digested a novel in its entirety without once having to go back and reread a sentence. In fact, I didn’t feel I was reading it at all; the poetic elegance of Robbins’ prose seemed actually to be speaking (and at times even singing) to me. I was swept along effortlessly by a momentum as steadfast as a heartbeet (see what I did there?) while insights and epigrams dispersed like sparkling diamonds amid the text provided intermissions in tempo where I was literally forced to stop for a moment and contemplate the meaning of life.

At its most basic, Jitterbug Perfume is a celebration of scent, a nod to the romantic ideal of the poetic art of perfumery. It is a novel overflowing with unadulterated romping, where sex and spirituality are explored so inseparably the reader is left utterly befuddled; unsure whether to reach for a bible or the Kama Sutra. With all this comes the rampant eroticism of a god suffering the blues, the search for the secret ingredient of the most successful perfume in the world and the quest for eternal youth. Along the way we are introduced to a veritable menagerie of unforgettable characters; an immortal custodian, his Indian wife, a bisexual waitress, a French odour tycoon, his barmy relations, and an obese Creole bayou beauty. These characters, with seemingly nothing in common at the beginning of the story, save for a love of fragrance and the appearances of unexplained beets, in the end all find their ostensibly different agendas united in a mutual search for inner tranquillity.

The cogs of the plot are driven by a road narrative that begins in ancient Bohemia and ends in Paris, 9pm, in the back of a black limo. The story follows Alobar, an ancient king who narrowly escapes death a number of times, on his 1000 year odyssey across Asia, Europe and the Americas with his beautiful wife Kudra. Embarking on a quest to uncover the secrets of immortality they learn that everlasting youth can be achieved through breathing, bathing and bonking. (If only!) However, while Kudra and Alobar manage to maintain an amazingly harmonious relationship for six centuries, they do not see eye to eye on the value of extended life. For Alobar, “longevity for longevity’s sake is enough;” while Kudra believes “new worlds grow old” and seeks some greater purpose, a home and a place where she can belong. Their disagreement brings them to settle in Paris in the 1600s.

Some years later, in an effort to escape the threats of society in Paris, they attempt ‘dematerialisation’ and while Kudra is successful, Alobar is not. Over the next three hundred years Alobar travels with the less than ambrosial smelling Pan to the New World, where he continues, companionless, through a new series of escapades that include owning a spa in Montana, becoming janitor to Albert Einstein and bombing a laboratory in MIT. However, without Kudra, Alobar begins to deteriorate and eventually comes to realise that he must place Kudra above his desire for everlasting life.

It was at this point in the story that I became totally convinced that the secret of true immortality lies not in the longevity of physical life but in the timeless immaturity of love. Jitterbug Perfume is evidently then, a fantastic love story. Alobar and Kudra’s love is beautifully written, Robbins has a delicious way of making love in the old seem as young as the day they met and not once was I disgusted to realise the rampant sex scenes being described where those of two 1000 year old cronies!

Jitterbug Perfume is a story of epic proportions that has everything you could ever desire from a novel; Robbins will have you laughing out loud on one page and underlining passages of exquisite philosophical wisdom the next. Wrapped up in all the sparkling metaphors, sexy romps, beetroots and throwaway puns, you'll find a stench with an insatiable sex drive, spirituality with a sense of humour and everything you need to inspire you once conventional religion proves insufficient.

The Cork and Bottle

Blink and you’d miss the entrance to this little wine bar, whose entrance is flanked by twin pillars of excellence – the ubiquitous discount-ticket sellers and a sex shop - and is right near London’s Leicester (for any Americans out there – that’s pronounced Less-ter) Square.

Redolent of a Parisienne brasserie (ah, how appropriate), this is an unlikely delight, especially considering its setting. Low ceilings, good food, an enormous wine list (many available by glass or carafe), and not too crowded. You have to go to the bar to order though, which is annoying, as that rather interrupts things. And there are things growing in the toilets. But I liked it though, I think. And I’d maybe even go again, if I wanted to meet somewhere central, but realistically I’d say it’s not a destination bar.

For me this month, all in all, I'd say that the book was far superior to the bar, although both were v. well chosen. However, next month I’ll be living back in London, and so drinking properly, so perhaps this dynamic will change...

Don't put Descartes before de horse...

So, today, first Tuesday of the month, and we're meeting to discuss 'Jitterbug Perfume'. Very exciting. The bar has been selected (more on that later) and it's all looking good.

And, although it's a little strange to be thinking about the next book before we've even discussed this one, I'm selecting, and time is of the essence because I'm off on holiday in a week and a half, and will need to order them before I go. Was going to do 'The Poisonwood Bible' until a giant TV screen in Canary Wharf randomly announced to me that it was voted the most popular bookclub book of all time. We don't jump on bandwagons, so will have to read it in our own good time.
Here are my options for the September book (meeting on the 6th)... Let me know if you've read any of them. And then I'll decide...
iso. x

Aberystwyth Mon Amour

Mother London

The Kite Runner

A beet is a beet is a beet is a beet?

My best friend has dematerialized (on an aeroplane, to Costa Rica), and there is no hope of her rematerializing for over a month. I have mostly spent this weekend lamenting the loss and reading Robbins. I seriously considered setting fire to one of her shoes and blowing smoke rings in the shape of her left breast but eventually came to my senses when I realised that she would probably be pretty pissed off when she returned to find her favourite pair of shoes one short. I’ve also spent this weekend thinking a great deal about beets. I love beetroot, I always have, but I have to admit that the beets I indulge in are of the pickled in a jar variety. Do you think Alobar would consider me flawed? Do pickled beets count for anything?

Bringing the book to life...

I've had a lovely, quite wild weekend. But, in the midst of it (albeit more by coincidence than by intention) I found myself doing things jitterbug-perfume-inspired...

1. When I was very very drunk, I decided to practise circular breathing, like Alobar and Kudra. It made me dizzy though so I stopped. But I think if I'd been sober it would have been more effective.
2. In the salbriuous environs of London's worst nightclub, I think I remember doing a version of the jitterbug which would have put Morgenstern to shame. It would have also put me to shame, was I not surrounded by unattractive, sweaty sloanes, who still danced worse than me.
3. My Saturday hangover was cured by a very hot bath. My Sunday hangover took more than merely a bath to kill, but I definitely came out younger. The fact that the hangover had previously rendered me looking/feeling about 250 years old may be the reason behind this though.

What have you all done Jitterbug-perfumey? And how were your weekends? Best to communicate by blog today as I've almost totally lost my voice. But still - I'm not too bothered about that. Life's too short (or is it?) - erleichda!

Click on this title to go to an interesting article!

This is more about the author, than about J.P. But still quite relevant. It asks if Robbins is just a 'superannuated hippy' with a penchant for LSD and Seattle or if he is merely a genius?

Fragrance may very well be the signature of eternity...

"The trip left the girl gaga, goofy, tainted, transformed, her nose a busted hymen through which sperm of a thousand colors swam a hootchy-kootchy stroke into her cerebral lagoon...the smells filled in the fantasies that heretofore had been mere outlines, smeary contours scrawled in ghost chalk"

I sniffed my way along Tottenham Court Road this morning. (It was less than ambrosial. Pan would have approved.)

THE SECONDARY FUNCTION OF A BATHROOM MIRROR IS TO MEASURE MURMURS IN MENTAL MUD

Let the fun begin.....

Check this out for more Robbins nonsense:

http://www.rain.org/~da5e/tom_robbins.html

Jx

Hello! Guess I'd better get cracking on Jitterbug now it's all getting so official...

The Meaning of the Master and Margareader...

Suddenly realised that if anyone stumbles across our page, they may not realise what it is about. So it I shall tell you...

We the founders (Anne, Jenny, Kate and myself) all work in publishing. We read books all the time. Most of the time we only read books that we publish. Which can be a bit tiresome.

So we decided we should start a book club, which will meet on the first Tuesday of every month. It will also be a drinking society, of sorts. Because we'll be drinking while talking about books... or talking about books while drinking - whichever way you'll have it. Anyway, for this club there are three important rules.

1. It has to be a book none of us have ever read before
2. It cannot be published by the publlishing house where we all work
3. Whoever chooses the book also chooses the bar, which will be the location for the bookclub meeting that month. The bar ought to have some relevance to the book. But if it doesn't, then it must simply serve booze.

Any other ideas for rules are welcome... But that's all really. (Oh yeah, and it's called the Master and Margareader, because Jenny is a very witty girl.)

Risking it all for Robbins...

"A tale that begins with a beet will end with the devil"