Amazeballs!!!!!

I have a friend who constantly uses the word "amazeballs" on facebook, and it's been floating around in my head for a while now. I always think that made-up descriptive words make the object under discussion sound even better; like it's so good that an already existing word isn't enough to do justice to how fantastic it is. Please bear this in mind when I say that How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran is AMAZEBAAAAALLLLLS!!!!!

It's so awesome to read a book on an important topic that is superbly funny while simultaneously taking the topic seriously. I think pretty much everyone would love this book, apart from people who really don't want to read an entire chapter on vaginas. If you're a fence-sitter on this issue then trust me: Moran will convince you it's worthwhile. I can reluctantly imagine a couple of grandparental types, church ministers or 8 year old boys who may find it a bit much.

I am so excited about this book that I just want to rant and rave about it. I have been trying to write this post for 3 days now and I have reached the conclusion that I find it impossible to talk excitedly enough about How To Be A Woman without the use of hand gestures. It is a Wagnerian, Beethovanian symphony of a book. It is AMAZEBALLS!!! Read it!!!

A Pimply Youth With A Carving Knife

The Cook by Wayne Macauley is told in the first person narrative voice of a teenage boy. I found the writing style a little off-putting for the first page or two but quickly came to be charmed by it. It reads very smoothly but I suspect that each sentence took some time to get just right.

It follows Zac through his time at Cook School (a program for wayward teens designed to teach them cheffing skills and then get them decent work), and then to his first job as a cook. It was another read-in-a-day book for me; Macauley makes small moments compelling. The device of his naive narrator sheds new light on old ideas and keeps the reader keen.

There is a twist that I did not see coming at all; I actually threw the book down and had to stop reading for a bit. I didn't want to touch the book until I had calmed down. It was quite disturbing, and got under my skin for several days. Four and a quarter lamb carcasses out of five.

The Streets Are So Wide...

A treasure, a delight, a gem; Kerryn Goldsworthy's Adelaide is one of the most moving, interesting, personal and beautiful books I think I have ever read.

Several months ago, I discovered that New South Books were bringing out a series of books about Australia's capital cities and since that time I have been watching and waiting for the Adelaide volume. Although I have lived in Sydney for close to a decade, I was born and bred in Adelaide's wide, grid-patterned streets, and have spent long hours debating where "home" is, and what Adelaide is to me if it is no longer home.

Adelaide is about the history of the city, but it is also about how the residents and past residents feel about the city. While I adored every single sentence of the volume, I suspect the depth of one's association with the city would exactly replicated one's depth of enjoyment of the book. It is excellently written; full of beautiful phrases and quirky facts and I am sure anyone would love to read it but I do concede the personal, passionate attachment to it that I have felt would probably only be experienced by those with a connection to Adelaide itself.

Goldsworthy quotes Paul Kelly's song Adelaide a couple of times in the book, and this song has always said so much to me of my own push-pull experiences with the place:

The streets are so wide,

Everybody's inside,

Sitting in the same chairs

They were sitting in last year.

This is my town

Reading this book made me fall in love with Adelaide again, and want to forgive all the quirks and annoyances that I have held like petty grudges against the city of my birth. Chapter 6 reminded me so viscerally of the sights and smells of childhood Summers and my greatly missed grandparents that I cried. It almost(!) made me want to move back there.

Gimme Fame

How I Became A Famous Novelist (Steve Hely) -piss funny. Really, those two words sum the book up perfectly. But if it will take more than 2 words to convince you, here are a few more: It's about Pete Tarslaw, a character who hovers in the middle ground between Scallywag and Bum. He decides to write a popular novel (not a good one, because that would be too hard and he is all about minimum effort for maximum impact). .

Pete's project is a brilliant foil for Hely to mercilessly caricature the state of the book and publishing industry today, and his jokes are very, very close to the bone. The book is so funny that I had to read huge swathes of it aloud every time my laughing fits caught Tallboy's attention. It made me happy to be a reader.

I sort of wish the ending had been a little more nihilistic; it was a bit of a cop out after the punchy, pacey body of the book but I am being picky. Overall, it deserves 98 out of 100 Laughter Snorts.

The Publishing Event Of The Year

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides was a very difficult title for me to remember, mostly because the reading copy was covered in the phrase "The Publishing Event of the Year", so that is what Tallboy and I have been calling it. I loved this book so much that I want to use swear words for emphasis, but since this blog is pink it somehow feels wrong. For several years now, I've had people tell me on and off that I should read Middlesex, also by Eugenides. I finally understand what all the fuss is about; Eugenides is a fantastic, rave-worthy author. The Marriage Plot is one of those books that is so vibrant that it feels like a conversation with a live person when you're reading it.


The three central characters each had a huge bagful of flaws but I nevertheless loved each of them and wanted them to live happily ever after. Since they were caught up in a love triangle, this didn't seem likely but I still desperately wanted it to happen. I think this little nugget is the key to the book's success; at least for me.

I read Rip Tide by Stella Rimmington in a day. Not because I was compelled to, but because I was able to. It was ok: a bit slow to start then quite entertaining but nothing amazing. I guess that's why I don't tend to read crime much.

A Discovery of Witches: what a discovery this was! Deborah Harkness has written a book so fabulous and gripping and well-written that I am looking into getting hold of her previous work, which happens to be academic non-fiction. She is a great storyteller, and has managed to write an intelligent novel about witches and vampires. Not being a big fantasy or paranormal reader, I am small-mindedly assuming that this is unusual for the genre.

I like to read out of my comfort zone from time to time, and when I do, I usually end up enjoying what I've read in a lukewarm sort of way (see Stella Rimington above). A Discovery Of Witches, however, is going straight to my wild-eyed, breathless, "I LOVED it!!!!" department. Unfortunately for the people close to me, I will be ranting and raving about A Discovery... for weeks.

Because Harkness is actually an historian, it is an excellent read for anyone interested in history who is after a good piece of entertaining fiction. Despite her obvious knowledge, she doesn't overdo it; the historical detail isn't pushy or gratuitous. To sum up, I evny anyone who has the experience of this book before them!

A Fantasy

I have just freshly finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Liani Taylor. My struggles and (small) triumphs with reading teen fiction have been documented elsewhere on this blog, and I am therefore pleased to report that I have now read another teen novel and really enjoyed it!

I browsed through a few online reviews for Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and it has a very intense "best-book-EVAH" following. I wouldn't go that far, but I enjoyed it immensely. And far more than I had expected to, which was a nice bonus. It's a fantasy novel about unearthly creatures, magic, wars in other worlds and a 17 year old girl with blue hair trying to figure out who she is and what her place is in the aforementioned tangle. I loved the worlds that Taylor has created; setting the book in Prague means that even the "Earth" bits are magically escapist, dreamy and quaint.

I felt there was a certain amount of sophistication lacking in the peace/war analogies, but I think that's more a product of the book having been written for teenagers than a lack of ability on the author's part. It didn't stop me from enjoying the book, it was just something I happened to notice. All up, I would give it five stars as a teen book and three and three quarters as a grown up book.

Night Has Fallen

Last week I finished The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and wandered around in a daze. The best way i can describe how I felt was that it was a bit like entering the real world after having had a massage; you feel giddy, and warm and fuzzy. The light seems brighter and everything looks clearer.

I hate it when people say they don't want to tell you too much about the book or they'll ruin it... but I don't want to tell you too much about the book or I'll ruin it! I've mulled over this problem for a few days because it seems like a cop-out. So the conclusion I've drawn is that the plot is not the reason it is such a good book - the reason is really in how Morgenstern makes everything come alive for the reader, and that isn't something you can describe easily in a quick conversation. However, the plot is quite unusual so it is tempting to latch on that when trying to explain to someone why the book was so amazing.

So I won't describe the plot here, I will only say that a wonderful, whimsical, richly imaginative world was created by Morgenstern and I was enthralled by it. I enjoyed reading The Night Circus so much that I forgot to bring a critical eye to the experience; I just got wrapped up in the story which is really what it should be all about, all the time.