Sick Day Reads.

For the past week, I've been feeling fairly awful with the cold that seems to have swept everyone. After the stress of a dissertation hand-in, and then the further stress of getting a new job involving a big move, my immune system flipped me off and said, 'no more lady.' So I've been spending my days in bed with books (at the moment, Zadie Smith's NW which I've unleashed as a big treat to myself.)

Some books have the same effect as a big dose of Beecham's: clearing your head, giving you a little relief for a while. For me, its Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, which I first read at fourteen, and have read more times than I can count since. It's a great read in particular for teenage girls: I've tried to convince my sister to read it - the most frustrating endeavour of my life. The story is narrated by Cassandra Mortmain, seventeen at the start, who lives with her eccentric artisan family in a crumbling castle in Suffolk.

There's something so comforting about it: there's rain, there's numbing cold, there's a lot of sipping tea and snuggling into layers upon layers of clothes. Most of the novel is perpetual winter.  Eventually, towards the novel's conclusion, the cold melts away to spring. It's not quite wish fulfillment; its outlook is far too damp and bleak. But it's a beautiful snapshot of uncomfortable, chilly Britain, that perversely makes me feel better. Does that make sense?

In fact, I'm going to dig it out now. And if you're unlucky like me in suffering, snuggle down to your I Capture the Castle. I'd also suggest Scandinavian crime fiction, Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. 

What are your ill books?

'Sea of Ink' - Review

An independent London-based publisher specialising in beautifully crafted translation novellas, Peirene Press's tagline reads 'Truly big stories in small packages.' Their newest offering, Sea of Ink by Swiss writer Richard Weihe more than delivers on this promise.

Detailing the artistic life of the celebrated Chinese painter and calligropher Bada Shanren in 106 pages and 10 of his most beautiful works, the novella opens with the political turmoil that accompanied the fall of the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century. The artist was born Zhu Da, Prince of the central-eastern city Yiyang. Following the invasion of rebel forces, he chose to seek the safety of life as a Taoist monk. During his time in the monastery, he honed his skill with ink and brush: and although he left that life behind, he remained rigorously devoted to the craft.

This story of royalty turned wandering artist is compelling in itself, but what makes this work so special and so lingering past the moment when you close it, is the way in which Weihe used his words to reflect Shanren's works. Both share qualities of ostensible simplicity; the starkness and conciseness of Weihe's prose cuts through the page like Shanren's strokes of ink: and yet similarly, the words like the paintings resonate with a wisdom and understanding of beauty that is utterly mesmeric. Shanren's work invites the viewer to 'colour' the images in its absence; much of the artist's power is in his ability to evoke what is visibly missing, and this novella is the perfect companion to its aesthetic. Unsurprisingly Weihe has a background in philosophy.

Bada Shanren, 'Catfish'

What struck me most about the novella, although it is a novel about art, is it equally a study of identity. Bada Shanren appears to shift and metamorphosize through every chapter, and not only in the various aliases he develops for himself. He is a consummate artist at core, but his other layers are complex and conflicting: a master of inner peace, an aesthete, a widower, a man who abandons his wife, a celebrity, a recluse.

I can't recommend this stunningly presented book enough. I read it in a very swift sitting, but got more pleasure and food for thought out of it than from many books four times its length.
Peirene approaches their literary findings as a curator of a gallery or museum exhibition, by publishing books in series according to specific themes. I'll be sure to pick up the related titles of the 'Small Epic: Unravelling Secrets' series to which Sea of Ink belongs.

If you'd like to know more about Peirene press, visit their website. They do a year's subscription offer which entitles you to three handpicked titles from their back catalogue. Guess where I'm doing my xmas gift shopping...

Small update: find out what's next to be published by Peirene here. 

The Booker Shortlist 2012

In case you haven't heard, the Booker Shortlist 2012 has been announced today, and looks like this:

• Tan Twan Eng - The Garden Of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)
• Deborah Levy - Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber)
• Hilary Mantel - Bring Up The Bodies (Fourth Estate)
• Alison Moore - The Lighthouse (Salt)
• Will Self - Umbrella (Bloomsbury)
• Jeet Thayil - Narcopolis (Faber & Faber

It must be an exciting day for Hilary Mantel, who is a favourite to take the prize, which will make her the first Brit to win twice - an amazing achievement considering her last win for Wolf Hall is still so fresh in people's minds.Thayil and Moore are both nominated for their fiction debuts, which gives weight to the judges claim that this year is all about the novel rather the novelists: it really seems that they're concentrating on delivering a result that prioritises the work above reputation. I'll admit I haven't got around to really any of the novels either long or shortlisted; but I'm really keen to read Narcopolis and The Garden of Evening Mists.

Any thoughts? Has anyone read any of the titles? Are they worthy candidates for Book of the Year?

Links of the Week

Worth reading online this week: 

• Zadie Smith talks in-depth about her new novel NW, why her female characters are the guardians of time, and how Willesdon figures in her writing.

• Covering the front page of the Guardian's Review section: an overview of Naomi Wolf's new book Vagina: A New Biography, which, not surprisingly, has attracted some mixed reviews.

• Oracle to teenage girls around the globe (including me), YA fiction maestro Judy Blume has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and wrote on her blog about it with dignity, grace, and good humour.

• The very brave Emma from book blog 'A World of Randomness' is undertaking the unenviable task of writing about 26 books by 26 authors in 26 days in her Alphabet Author challenge throughout September.

• Amazon has announced the imminent release of it's new cash cow e-reader, the Kindle Fire HD, on 25th October, and a fifth generation Kindle, the Paperwhite, to be released after.

Happy reading! 

Norwich: Book City

I promise this post wasn't sponsored by the Norwich Tourist board or whatever. I spent 3 good years living and studying in Norwich, most famous for Colman's mustard, Alan Partridge and being 'A FINE CITY' (Stephen Fy). For those unfamiliar with the city, it's well worth a day or weekend trip: it has really great food and bars (but fairly horrible clubs), excellent live music, and is brilliant for Vintage - there's a really good trail of shops running from the city centre to Magdelen Street...

Off piste! Sorry. It's really great for books. 

The Book Hive on London St

As well as being the stomping ground of great writers, it's amazing for buying books. My favourite bookshop in the world (apart from Barter Books in Alnick, Northumberland, which deserves and may get its own post) is the Book Hive on London St. It's an amazing space, where you can just tell that each book is lovingly placed and ordered and spotlighted for very good reasons. 

When I lived there I spent ages looking at the displays and finding books that the staff had obviously read and loved and wanted to share. They have a fantastic array of art books, and a GREAT upstairs for proper fiction that makes you feel clever. They often have readings and events on from one of the numerous Norfolk-based creatives. (And it's parallel to my favourite bar in the city, Frank's Bar, which does a Shakshuka I still dream about...) You'll definitely find something brilliant to take home by a homegrown talent. The staff are the business too, and clearly love to read, so ask for their recommendations or what they've been reading lately. 

Well worth your time as a book lover in Norwich is trawling through the innumerable charity shops. The indisputable King is Oxfam Books on Bedford St, (Oh! Coincidently on the same street as Frank's!) which boasts a big fiction section, loads of sheet music and a good range of retro comics. The staff are (usually) friendly and helpful, and if you sweet talk them will go a-hunting through the sacred upstairs to find more obscure texts if you like. Another good bet is the Oxfam on Magdalen St, which has furniture, so if you fancy a big creaky reading chair to sip whisky and read Proust on, you're sorted. It's a favourite location for students to do their end of year book drop, so expect lit criticism, philosophy tomes and history books pencilled with notes of desperation and despair. Just how I like my secondhand books. 

So if you like books, go to Norwich. It's a couple of hours from London, less from Nottingham and Liverpool, and is really lovely. You might end up buying my old copy of Old Goriot. 

In praise of doorstop novels.

I'm feeling that my world is being slowly condensed to quick 150 word bursts of information. Twitter, Facebook, texts, quick glances at the news and my out of control magazine habit has fed my summer reading. I've also been working on 'the pig' - my 15,000 word MA dissertation which has seen me flicker between quotes and snatches of ideas, and thumbing pages for a quick fix to make some obscure point.

I haven't had the time to do my usual summer thing of being greedy with novels: gathering my wordy treasures and sitting around them covetously like Smoug on a pile of gold. Its been a sad summer; I've only managed Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (brilliant, throughly recommended etc. etc.) which is, getting back to my point, a doorstop novel at 597 pages.

Last week, the Penguin blog suggested to us all to 'Take the Anna Karenina Challenge': at 829 pages its the K2 of novels. I'm ashamed to say I haven't read it, but its in my BIG BOOK LINE-UP, along with A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (872), and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - an ungodly 1088 pages long. I can't bloody wait.

Taking on a doorstop novel is a terrifying thing: and it's horrendous to be seen reading one when you're on page 20. You just know that people around you are thinking, 'it's never going to end. S/he'll never finish that.' But around page 400, you are the balls. You are on a home-stretch that will end with a feeling of accomplishment and unbearable smugness that will override any qualms you may have over the novel's quality, or if it's to your taste. Finishing a doorstop novel is worth the sweat and blood, and produces a euphoria that could never be replicated by wading through thousands of statuses and blog posts. Even mine. (Kidding.)

As always, tell me what you're reading! Make me jealous with your reading endeavours and tales of the shoulder ache borne from lugging Finnegan's Wake around. Or join me in misery at your lack of time to read a BIG BOOK.

Showing off my Social Networking Skills.

If you like my writing, you can give me a self-esteem boost by liking my Facebook Page, and join my mother and my long-suffering friends, or if you hate it, you can like it for ironic effect and troll the page.

If you don't, I set my gorgon on you.