Three Enjoyable E-Reads

I'm on holiday and finally have some time to blog! Yay!! :) Here are my thoughts on some e-books I received from NetGalley:

Another 365 Days by KE Peyne

This is a YA novel about teenage lesbian Clem and her life told through her diary entries. I did not realise this was a sequal until I started reading this book, though maybe the "another" in the title should have rung some bells! However, enough of what happened before is mentioned in the book and it is not necessary to read 365 Days to fully enjoy its sequal.

Another 365 Days starts where 365 Days left off. Clem is very happily, too happily for it to last the whole book, together with her emo/goth girlfriend Han and they and their group of friends are starting to prepare for school exams.

I loved the humour of this book. For an adult reader Clem's comments on her parents gave some extra laughs. Though, I must say that sometimes Clem's ignorance of certain things felt a bit too much, like when she thought the Madonna picture her mother told their new neighbours had in their house was of the singer instead of Virgin Mary!

Another 365 Days covers many important issues: the joys and tribulations of love and relationships, what to do with one's life after school, and how and when -and if- to come out to friends and family.
All these issues are dealt with realistically and in a way that, I'm sure, will help teenage readers facing these same issues.

This novel was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it not only to LGBT teenagers, but any young person wanting to read a feel good novel about love and relationships.

A Barcelona Heiress by Sergio Vila-Sanjuán


Sergio Vila-Sanjuán is one of Spain's leading cultural journalists and has published several books on journalism. A Barcelona Heiress, a historical novel set in post WWI Barcelona, is his first novel. The story was inspired by real historical events and by figures from his family background.

I requested this novel believing it to be a historical detective story. I had been reading other books set in approximately the same time period and wanted to keep going with fiction set in the 1920s and 30s. That this particular novel was set in Spain and in Barcelona at that was definitely a plus for me.

However, at first I struggled with A Barcelona Heiress. I guess, in a way, this novel could be labeled a detective story, but I would not call it one. This is a story told by young lawyer and journalist Pablo Vilar. Barcelona of early 1920s is a lawless place with shootings and assassinations a plenty and with all political wings fighting for power. Through his work Vilar gets mixed up with the politics of the time.

In the beginning I struggled with the book, because it was a slow read and something completely different from what I had anticipated, but little by little Vila-Sanjuán's writing won me over. For me A Barcelona Heiress was above all a book about Barcelona. From the poor people living in the caves, to a certain heiress driving a tram during a strike to anarchists and royal visits Vila-Sanjuán painted a vivid picture of a city, a city in turmoil and in difficulty, a city very different from the Barcelona of today, but a city worth knowing to understand a little better what happened later in Spanish history. The book, in fact, includes a longish epilogue, which tells us a little about what happened to Pablo Vilar when the Spanish Civil War started in 1936.

I would recommend A Barcelona Heiress for anyone looking for a serious historical novel to read or anyone wanting to learn more about the history of Barcelona.

The Storm by Shelley Thrasher

This book goes with the one above in that it is set in almost the same time period. In this case in the late 1910s, the last years of WWI. Jacqueline, or Jac as she is most often called, Bergeron has spent some time on the frontlines in France as an ambulance driver and, even though she prefers women, she ends up marrying an airforce hero. Almost immediately Jac realises she has made a mistake. When her husband returns badly wounded and needs help with the farm his father owns, Jac promises to help in exchange of a divorce, but then in that little place in East Texas, she meets Molly.

I was looking forward to reading this story, but the first few pages made me hesitate. It felt all too much like a typical romance novel and those are really not my cup of tea. Luckily, I was proven wrong very soon. There was the romance, and very nicely written, too, but there was much more in the story than just that. I especially liked how real historical events were nicely woven into the fiction. All in all I ended liking The Storm very much.

I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a nice historical novel in general or one with a nice lesbian love story in particular.

Both Another 365 Days and The Storm count towards my personal goal to read at least 10 LGBT books in 2012.

The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer

I find ancient myths fascinating -and a good retelling extra so. I've read some of the retellings published as part of The Myth Project. However, the retelling I want to talk about today is not part of that project, but an individual work of art. The Dark Wife by Sarah Diemer is a retelling of the myth of Persephone and Hades.

In the Ancient Greek mythology Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and Zeus, the king of all gods and goddesses. She is abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld, and brought underground to the world of the dead against her will.

Ok, yes, but what if it did not happen quite like that after all? What if Zeus was a cruel bully, who enjoyed telling lies and destroying lives? What if one of his tricks were to bend the truth by reversing the genders of gods and goddesses in the stories humans told in the temples? What if Hades, lord of the dead, was in fact a woman?

Persephone has lived with her mother Demeter a sheltered life far from Mount Olympus and the other gods and goddesses. Her life changes when she witnesses Zeus violate her love Charis, one of the nymphs living in Demeter's forest. Not only does Zeus rape Charis, he also changes her into a rosebush. Persephone is devastated and even more so after she learns that Zeus is in fact her father.

Zeus commands Persephone to attend a party on Mount Olympus and reluctantly she does as she's ordered to do. In the party  there is also a mesmerising, black eyed woman.

"I looked up at her, and I was lost in the black of her eyes, and I did not see her take my hand, but I felt her hold it, as if it were meant to be in the cage of her fingers, gently cradled.
"Hello," she said, her voice softer than a whisper. I blinked once, twice, trying to shake the feeling I had heard her speak before -perhaps in a dream.
And then, "I am Hades," she said.
My world fell away.
Hades...Hades, the lord of the underworld...was a woman.
"But, but..." I spluttered, and she watched me with catlike curiosity, head tilted to the sound of my voice as I attempted to regain my senses. "They call you the lord of the Underworld. I thought-"
"It is a slur," she breathed." [p. 41]

Afraid of what will happen to her if she obeys Zeus' command to come live at Olympus, Persephone later flees to the underworld, where she finds not only refuge and a place to heel, but friendship -and love. Zeus, however, is not giving up so easily and Hades knows exactly what kind of lies he will tell:

"They believe I'm a man, Persephone, a cruel one. When they know you are here, when they piece together Zeus' furtive whispers, they will believe that I...took you, kidnapped you-" Hades voice faltered and I drew her close to me, my arms encircling her neck.
"Hades-"
"If I am a man, Persephone," she insisted, her mouth agains my hair, "and I have taken you against your will, they will say that I raped you..."
I held her closer still.
"...and that I forbid you to leave." [p. 177]

I loved every page of this book. I loved the innovative way Diemer had taken the ancient myth and turned it into its head. The writing was beautiful, the love story larger than life (well, what else could it be between two goddesses :)) and, as I already mentioned on Twitter a few days ago, after reading The Dark Wife I will forever think of the three-headed monster Cerberus as a goofey, little puppy! This novel is recommended reading for anyone enjoying retellings of ancient myths or wanting to read a beautifully told lesbian love story.

I borrowed my copy of The Dark Wife from the library, but Sarah Diemer has been so generous as to put the novel online for free. You can read The Dark Wife here.

Three Shorties

I had a quiet weekend, both figuratively and literally! No dance practise, just some tennis on both days, but I also tried to talk as little as possible as my throat has been a bit sore and on Friday & Saturday I had a rather funny voice. Luckily it's almost back to normal now.

I must say that this post is a rather random collection of thoughts, as the three books I'm about to write about are all totally different and range from pretty heavy stuff to the lighter side of romantic fiction! But, here comes:

The Madman of Freedom Square by Hassan Blasim
Blasim is an Iraqi-born writer and filmmaker who came to Finland as a refugee in 2004. The short story collection The Madman of Freedom Square is his first book. He wrote it in Arabic and the collection was translated into English by Jonathan Wright. Blasim's stories are powerful pictures of what life has been and is like for Iraqis either in Iraq or in exile from the time period of the Iran-Iraq War to the present. There is war and insanity, nightmarish and macabre moments in the stories, but also atempts to love, to survive, to find a way to live inspite of all the odds. One of the stories that made the biggest impression on me was Ali's Bag, where Ali, disgusted by the way his older brothers and his father always treated his mother takes his revenge after the mother's death by digging up her bones and carrying them in her old travel bag all the way to Europe in the hope of finding a safe place to bury them. My favorite story, however, was the title story The Madman of Freedom Square, mainly because first it is almost fairytale-like and much more optimistic than most, if not all the other stories, and then the ending is so dramatic! Blasim's stories are not easy reading. He writes about difficult, ugly things, but that is exactly why this is an important book. As the backcover of the book tells us "these stories afford us a rare glimpse of Iraq from the inside."

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Have you seen the 1999 movie made of this novel starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore? I haven't, but after reading the book I would really like to. This slim novel tells the story of a love affair between Maurice Bendrix (based on Greene himself), a writer, and Sarah Miles (based on Greene's then lover Lady Catherine Walston), the wife of civil servant Henry Miles, who Bendrix meets when he wants to get information on civil servants for a novel he is writing. We know from the start that the affair is going to end and we also know very soon than Sarah is going to die. What is interesting is how we get to the end and what happens afterwards. Greene himself has said that The End of the Affair is one of the only two books we wrote which is not melodramatic. Maybe so. At least the way some of the characters react to adultery and even death are almost too civilised. Henry Miles must really be the most understanding husband in the history of literature! Or how many betrayed husbands would not only befriend their late wife's lover but ask them move in with them? I had hard time believing some of the plot, but what I loved from the beginning was Greene's writing. This was the first novel by Graham Greene I've ever read and I want to read more just because he definitely was a very skilled writer. Mayde I'll try one of his spy stories next...

Lucky Loser by Yolanda Wallace
Last year the book I was most dissapointed in was Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner. It was supposed to be a satirical lesbian romance set in the world of women's professional tennis, but the satire was totally lost in me. When I learned that there was another novel, also this one a lesbian romance, set in the world of tennis, I approached the book with equal amount of fear and hope. :) I hoped it would be a nice read. It surely could not be as unlucky a reading experience as Grand Slam had been! And it wasn't! :)
I very seldom read romantic novels, but I'm happy I chose to read this one. Wallace had done her homework and the tennis bits were well researched, even though I must say Sinjin Smythe served a little too many aces in her Wimbledon matches! The story tells about Sinjin, a British player trying to come back from an injury and her French friend and former doubles partner Laure Fortescue, whose feelings for each other start to turn into something more than a friendship. I found it a bit amusing that Wallace had borrowed some characteristics of real tennis professionals for her fictional characters. And my only criticism (but just a tiny little one :)) comes from the fact that Laure Fortescue shared a bit too many characteristics with my all time favorite tennis player Amelie Mauresmo! However, all in all Lucky Loser was a lovely comfort read and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a feel good novel set in the world of tennis.
I'll add Lucky Loser into my list of LGTB books read this year.

Ok, now I'll retreat back to nursing my sore throat that is fast starting to turn into a runny nose... :-)

ps. The End of the Affair is missing from the photo as I already returned it to the library.

Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers

At the moment we have on display in our library a wonderful travelling exhibition from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It tells the story of Anne Frank and through her story and other personal narratives talks about human rights, various prejudises of our time and discrimination. The Anne Frank House and the Finnish Peace Education Institute co-operated in educating a group of Finnish youngsters to act as quides for their peers and this month we've had numerous school classes visiting the exhibition. So, I thought it fitting to read something relevant to the exhibition. I read Anne Frank's diary years ago, but did not feel I wanted to reread it at this point. However, Ana's post on a novel partly set in WWII Holland had caught my eye in January and luckily our library system had a copy. The novel was Postcard's from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers.

Postcards from No Man's Land, the winner of the Carnegie Medal in 1999, tells two connected stories, one set during the last months of World War II and the other set in 1990s Amsterdam. In more contemporary story 17-year-old Jacob (Jack) Todd arrives in Amsterdam to learn more about his grandfather, a soldier who died in a nearby town during the war. In 1944 another teenager, a girl named Geertrui, meets a British soldier named Jacob Todd and helps him hide as the Brits retreat from the Germans.

I have read a fair share of novels and nonfiction about WW II, but this was my first book about resistance in Holland. I liked the story of Geertrui and the soldier Jacob, but found Jack's story even more interesting. Jack faces some big questions about who he is, about love, identity, life -and death- during his stay in Amsterdam and in my opinion Chambers manages extremely well in making his story believable and interesting. My only criticism is that the ending was almost too neat! :)

Ana mentions in her review that Postcards from No Man's Land includes a great representation of bisexuality. I wholeheartily agree with her. Actually, it is great to simply find a bisexual character in a novel, they come wide and far apart, but in Postcards from No Man's Land sexuality in all its forms is represented very matter of factly and without angst which I found refreshing.

Postcards from No Man's Land is a wonderful novel and I would hightly recommend you to go and find yourself a copy to read!



The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister

Anne Lister was an upper-class English woman, who was born in 1791 and died in 1840. During her life she kept a journal, partly written in code. Her journals in their entirety run to four milloin words. It was her intention to destroy the journals before her death, but she died prematurely while travelling in Russia and the journals were saved intact at Shipden Hall, her home. It was only in 1887 that John Lister, the last member of the Lister family to live in Shipden Hall, decided to publish some parts of the journals in a local paper. The coded passages were not yet been deciphered and their content was unknown. However, John Lister and his friend, Arthur Burrell, a schoolteacher and antiquarian from Bradford, decided to try and decipher the crypthand passages. What they found out shocked these Victorian gentlemen to the core. In the coded passages Anne Lister described very honestly her feelings towards and relationships with other women. Mr. Burrell said that the journals should be burned, but John Lister understood them to be an important historical document and instead of destroying them hid the journals behind a panel in Shipden Hall. Mr. Lister died in 1933. Some time after the house opened as a museum. Prior to the opening there was an inventory of all the Lister documents, including the journals. They, together with other documents, now made the transition from private to public property. A copy of the key to Anne Lister's code was placed in the hands of Halifax's chief librarian, who kept it locked in his safe. A few people wórked with the journals in the years to come, but they omitted any reference to homosexual activities from any published material. Then in the early 1980s Helena Whitbread, a Halifax local, started working with the Lister journals. It was she who would finally bring to light also the coded passages of the journals. (Source: Introduction by Helena Whitbread in The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister)

The journals of Anne Lister are a very important part of not only lesbian history, but women's history in general. The entries published as The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister cover the years from 1816 to 1824. The journals make fascinating reading! The manners, friendships and feuds of a small English town told firsthand by someone who lived there make it all very real. And Anne Lister's honest accounts of her sexual and emotional relationships with women were endearing and hearbreaking, and sometimes frustrating :), and made me realise how similar to us people were back then. You might not like all of Anne Lister's ideas and opinions, she was actually terribly class-concious and held some very conservative views, but if you like your Jane Austen, you will also enjoy reading The Secret Diaries of Anne Lister. And for anyone interested in women's history, and especially lesbian history, this is an absolute must read.

There is also a movie titled The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister available on dvd. It's well worth watching and storyline follows the real journals pretty well, even if the moviemakers have changed some details in the story. The trailer is available on YouTube here.

I read this book for the GLBT Challenge.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down -Two Reviews

Finally I have an opportunity to post! I still have one books sales post to write, but as I'm totally lagging behind in reviewing the books I've read this year, I'll start with two reviews. (I'm also totally lagging behind in visiting all your wonderful blogs, but I hope to remedy that very soon, too. :))

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

I read numerous Agatha Christie mysteries while growing up. Back then they were sort of transitional books. When the books in the library's children's department started to feel too childish Christie's mysteries were for many the first adults' books they read. Christie's mysteries are also useful when as a non-native speaker one wants to start reading books in English. So, I first moved towards adults' books with Christie and then again moved onwards towards reading books in English by reading her mysteries. By the way, reading Christie in other languages works, too. :) The first and only novel I've ever read in Italian was a Christie mystery.

It has, however, been a long while since I read anything by Christie. When choosing themes for The One, Two, Theme Challenge,  I ended up choosing Mesopotamia as one of my themes. As we are supposed to read both non-fiction and fiction, Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia immediately came to my mind as a possible fiction choice. I'm not quite sure whether had I read it before, I think I had. I had seen it on TV, though, as part of the wonderful Hercule Poirot series starring the brilliant David Suchet. I had never before reread a traditional mystery (I don't really count The Woman in White as a typical mystery). Even though I was not hundred procent sure if I had read this one before, I did remember parts of the story and I had always thought that as a hindrance for really enjoying rereading a mystery. I was willing to give this book a chance, though.

I was not dissapointed. Murder in Mesopotamia is set in 1930s Iraq. Something is not quite right at an archeological dig in Hassanieh, and when the worst happens Hercule Poirot, who is travelling in the area, is asked to investigate. In this book the narrator was not Captain Hastings, but Amy Leatheran, a nurse appointed to take care of Mrs. Leidner, the wife of the archeologist heading the excavations in Hassanieh. I'm a great fan of Poirot. He's my absolutely favorite private detective, and I enjoyed Nurse Leatheran's comments on the little Belgian a lot. :)

Reading Murder in Mesopotamia put me in the mood for more Christie and especially more Poirot stories. It would be great fun to read all Poirot's cases in chronological order, but that might be a bit too great a challenge to incorporate into all my other reading. I might read some more Poirot stories this year, though. And I have another Agatha Christie mystery (sans Poirot) for The One, Two, Theme Challenge, namely They Came to Baghdad, waiting for it's turn.

This was my first read for my Mesopotamia theme in The One, Two, Theme Challenge.

Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner

Unfortunately this supposedly satirical lesbian romance set in the world of professional tennis has been my most dissapointing read this year. The story follows former corporate lawyer Stephanie Alexander during her year of being the girlfriend of first one and then another professional tennis player. I love tennis and I am an enthusiastic follower of especially women's professional tennis, and so, I was pretty excited to find a novel set in that world. However, this book did not live up to my expectations at all. The narrative was in parts incoherent and would have needed quite a bit more editing and the satire was mostly lost on me. For example Stephanie's thoughts on her first tennis player girlfriend Sydney Foster were often so mean that I started feeling sorry for Sydney and that surely was not the effect the writer was aiming for. All in all a huge dissapointment. :(

I read Grand Slam for The GLBT Challenge.

Teaser Tuesday 25.1.2011

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.


The rules are:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers
• Share the title and author too so that other Teaser Tuesday participients can add the book on their TBR lists, if they like your teasers!

I've been terribly busy with both work and dancing this past week and will continue to be so for a few more weeks, so I'm afraid I will not be able to post as often as I would like to. I will try to get the remaining two parts of Going Grazy in the Books Sales posts up soon, though, and hopefully at least one or two reviews, too, but just in case I go a bit missing in action during the coming weeks, know that everything is just fine. I promise to be back posting more regularly after the two first weeks of February.

I finished reading Mark of the Lion, a historical mystery by Suzanne Arruda a few days ago. I liked the book, but that's all I'll say now, as it's one of the two books I hope to review soon. :) Mark of the Lion was not on my original list for the books I want to read for the Historical Fiction Challenge, but I think I'll count it towards the challenge as it surely qualifies for it.

After Mark of the Lion I started another challenge book: Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner. This book actually is on my list for this year's GLBT Challenge. :) All too often I read books that qualify for some challenge I'm participating, but that I have not listed in my book lists. Not that it matters really, but anyways. :) Grand Slam is a lesbian love triangle set in the world of professional tennis. As a huge fan of tennis, when I found out about this novel, I simply had to get it! However, about 1/4 down the story my inner jury is still out on the book. I love the tennis tid bits, but am undecided on some other aspects of the story. We'll see how it turns out. My teaser is from page 94. Lawyer-turned-realtor-turned "professional girlfriend" Stephanie Alexander's relationship with tennis champion Sydney Foster is not going smoothly:

"Sydney, I'm dead-tired and this is not open to discussion. You have two choices -put your clothes on and stay here or put your clothes on and go home."

What are you reading at the moment?

More Challenges

There are so many interesting reading challenges popping up all around the blogosphere just now! It's hard to resist joining all too many of them, but I'm trying to choose a manageable number I will have a chance to finish, too. I've alreadty posted my lists for the TBR Pile Challenge and the One,Two, Theme! Challenge. Here come's my reading lists for the GLBT Challenge, the Historical Fiction Challenge, and the Steampunk Challenge. Both GLBT & Historical Fiction Challenges run from January 1st to December 31st. The Steampunk Challenge actually started already in October this year and will run until October 2011.

GLBT Challenge

Even though there is no required amount of books to read I have made a list of 12 books that I hope to read for this challenge in 2011:

1. Avery, Ellis: The Teahouse Fire
2. Boock, Paula: Dare Truth or Promise
3. Brenner, Samantha: Grand Slam
4. Daggett, Gina: Jukebox
5. Donoghue, Emma: Slammerkin
6. Garden, Nancy: Annie on My Mind
7. Jansson, Tove: Fair Play
8. Koja, Kathe: Under the Poppy
9. Murakami, Haruki: Sputnik Sweetheart
10. Sappho: It Not, Winter
11. The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister ed. by Helena Whitbread
12. Strachey, Dorothy: Olivia
 
Historical Fiction Challenge
 
My aim is to read 10 books (Struggling the Addiction -level):
 

 
1. Vladimir Bartol: Alamut
2. A. S. Byatt: Children's Book
3. Moyra Caldecott: Daughter of Amun
4. Emma Donoghue: Slammerkin
5. Sarah Dunant: Sacred Hearts
6. Ken Follett: Fall of Giants
7. Richard Harvell: The Bells
8. Kathe Koja: Under the Poppy
9. Hilary Martel: Wolf Hall
10. Kate Pullinger: Mistress of Nothing
 
Steampunk Challenge
 
I aim to read 5 books.
 

 
1. Meljean Brook: The Iron Duke
2. Cassandra Clare: Clockwork Angel
3. Kate Elliott: Cold Magic
4. William Gibson: The Difference Engine
5. Michael Moorcock: The Dancers at the End of Time (an omnibus of 3 novels)

Can't wait to start reading books for these challenges! :) 

ps. There's still time to enter my giveaway.

Tell It to the Bees

Lydia Weekes is a young woman in a failing marriage. When her 10-year-old son, Charlie, hurts his ribs in a fight her husband reluctantly takes the boy to see the local doctor, Jean Markham. In the doctor's office Charlie is fascinated by a wooden honeycomb and learns that Dr. Markham keeps bees. He gets to visit the beehives and little by little becomes Dr. Markham's little helper in beekeeping. Dr. Markham politely asks Charlie's mother for tea, so that she would know where her son spends so much time. During the visit Jean learns that Lydia likes to read. Jean has a room full of her late father's books she herself is not interested in and afterwards she takes some of the books to Lydia. 

Jean and Lydia come from very different backgrounds. The former is well-educated and has grown up in a wealthy middleclass family while the latter is a workingclass factory worker. However, somehow the two women are drawn to each other. Their friendship grows and during a picnic Lydia suddenly kisses Jean. That kiss opens a whole new world for both of them. They fall in love.

This is, however, a small English community in the 50s. Just the year before somewhere in Britain homosexual men have been imprisoned, and if people were to find out the truth about Jean and Lydia, the consequenses could be devastating for them both. And then the rumors begin to spread...

I enjoyed reading Tell It to the Bees very much. I liked Shaw's writing and both Jean and Lydia and also Charlie were all very likable characters. The story is told partly from Charlie's point of view and partly by Jean and Lydia. This structure worked very well. At one point I was so worried that the story would take a turn I would not like that I put the book down for almost a fortnight, but luckily I had guessed wrong. :) The latter part of the book was very dramatic, though, but to know more, you just have to read it yourself!

Tell It to the Bees was the 12th book I read for the GLBT Challenge this year. So, I'm happy to say rainbow level mission accomplised! :)

Here's a link to a video of Fiona Shaw and Emma Donoghue discussing their novels Tell it to the Bees and Room from the point of view of love and trauma through the child's eyes.

Room for a Review and a Wrap-Up

Sorry I dissapeared for a fortnight! I simply did not have the time to post anything, and also, I did not have much time for reading either. Actually, my September and beginning of October have been horrible reading months, I've only finished five books in a month and a half, and only one this far in October!! But dancingwise it's been perfect! :) Since the autumn season began we have danced in two grand prix competitions and won both of them!! (Imagine a very happy smiley here :))

My September wrap-up is here:

Books read: 4 (That's actually 1 more than in August!!??! Slump-ety slump!)
Books read in English: 2
Books read in Finnish: 2
Finnish books read: 1 (nonfiction, professional literature)
Fiction: 2
Nonfiction: 2
Books reviewed: 0

The books I read in September:

• Bowers, Chris: Roger Federer -The Greatest
• Donoghue, Emma: Room
• Joyce, James: Dublinilaisia (Finnish translation of Dubliners)
• Lahti, Leena: Monikulttuurinen johtaminen (A book about diversity management) 

To make up a little for the perfect zero in books reviewed last month I'll add my thoughts on Room by Emma Donoghue here:

As I've mentioned in here before Emma Donoghue has this year quite quickly become one of my favorite writers. I have now read four of her books and have enjoyed every single one of them. However, if, without my knowing who the author was, someone would have recommended me a novel about a woman abducted and kept in an enforced, soundproofed garden shed for seven years during which time she would repeatedly be raped by her capturer, get pregnant and bear a son and then try to raise that son in their roomsized world, I would have actually said no thank you, that is not a book for me. I find the subject matter deeply disturbing, but as it was written by Emma Donoghue I knew from the start that I wanted to read Room. And what a read it was!

Room is the story of Jack and her Ma. Ma was kidnapped when she was a 19 year old student. Two years later she bore Jack. What makes the story so special is that the narrator is the 5 year old Jack. The Room is his world. To make things easier Ma has told him that everything he sees on TV is not real, it's just TV. But things are changing and Ma has to tell Jack about the world outside. Jack has been happy in his and Ma's little world and he has a really hard time trying to understand that there really is an outside world.

Jack's world is totally turned upside down when half way down the book he is able to escape and also get his Ma out from the Room. In the Room he has been a clever little boy, who knows his surroundinsd, his little world. He is linguistically very gifted and well ahead of other 5 year olds when it comes to vocabulary and reading, but he has never descended stairs or even seen wide spaces, and in the outside world he is in many ways a total newborn. Also Ma has very hard time adjusting to her freedom.

Room is told by Jack in his own words, in his own vocabulary, in his own language. As a non-native English speaker I probably missed some of the specialities of the language of Jack, but I loved the way Donoghue used the 5 year old's perspective in the narrative. It was both shocking, heartbreaking and eye-opening when Jack at the end of his first evening outside asked if he could now go back to the Room to sleep. What was prison for Jack's mother was the whole world for Jack, a world where he had been happy.

I must say I liked everything in this book. I loved little Jack! What a wonderful little boy he was! And I admired his mother for her courage during the years of her ordeal. I was saddened that she found it so hard trying to adjust to normal life again. I was worried for Jack after it was made clear how much he still had to learn to really be able to function in the outside world. And as much as I had loved for a plain and simple happy ending I must say Donoghue was able to finish the story very well. After the last lines on the last page I was left with hope. And that was enough. It was plenty. It was perfect.

Room has cemented Emma Donoghue's place on my list of favorite writers. It has also shown what a versatile writer she is. Short stories, romance, historical fiction, and now this novel. Wow!

I'll count Room towards the GLBT Challenge. There is no GLBT characters or issues in the book, but Donoghue is an out lesbian.

The Sealed Letter

Novels about divorce or court cases have never been high on my list of favorite books, court dramas about divorce cases even less so. Thus it was with some hesitation that I picked up The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue. I had enjoyed the two other books by Donoghue I had read and I wanted to try some of her historical fiction, but I was not at all sure The Sealed Letter was a book for me. How wrong I was! :)

The Sealed Letter is a story of a marriage and a story of a friendship. It is based on a real-life scandalous divorce case of Vice-Admiral Henry John Codrington and his wife Helen nee Smith. Vice-Admiral Codrington accused his wife of having had an affair with a young army officer. Tangled into the case was also Helen Codrington's long time close friend Emily "Fido" Faithfull, a pioneer in the British women's movement. If you are interested in knowing more about the real-life Codrington divorce case Martha Vicinus has written an essay about the trial. The essay is included in her book Intimate Friends -Women Who Loved Women, 1778-1928. In the essay there is also a photograph of the real Emily Faithfull.

The Sealed Letter is an absolutely wonderful read! I would give it 5/5 stars were I to rate it. It is a well crafted historical novel. Donoghue has clearly done her research and the story is full of interesting details about life and customs of 1860s Britain. The story is told alternatingly from the point of view of Henry "Harry" Codrington, Helen and Fido. The characters felt very real with their imperfections. I mostly symphatised with Fido, felt exasparated and often angry with Helen, and sometimes sorry for Harry. 

Those who, like me, are interesting in the early women's movements get an interesting insight into what it was like to be a business woman in the 1860s London and about some of the trials and tribulations of the early women's rights activists at Langham Place. The rights of women, or rather the lack of them, are perfectly portrayed in the narrative from many points of view (single woman, mother, wife, daughter). And the chapters about the actual trial were not boring at all, but very interesting! :) I must say The Sealed Letter exceeded all my expectations. It kept me in its grip from the first page to the last, and the ending then! It was simply perfect! Of all the books I've read this year the ending of Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski is my favorite, but the ending of The Sealed Letter comes a close second. All in all I really loved this book! And it truly put Emma Donoghue up there among my favorite authors.

I'll count The Sealed Letter towards the GLBT Challenge. 10 down, 2 to go! :)

Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women

I first became familiar with Leila J. Rupp's work when I was gathering source material for my MA thesis. Her book Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women's Movement was one of the most important secondary sources I used, and one of the most interesting, too! I had always intended to read more of her books, but after finishing my thesis somehow I just didn't. Then I found out about her latest book Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women. As I'm participating into this year's GLBT Challenge and had not read any nonfiction that would qualify for the challenge, I thought Sapphistries would be the perfect candidate for my nonfiction GLBT read. I did start the book with the intention of reading it for the nonfiction minichallenge, but did not quite manage that. 

I must say I had very high hopes for Sapphistries. I had read Worlds of Women with great interest and hoped that Sapphistries would be a great nonfiction read. I must say that partly, even for the most part, it was. My problem was with the first few chapters of the book. Rupp's book tries to cover a huge time period from 40 000 BC to the present. The chapters covering the earlier historical periods really frustrated me. There really is hardly any sources about love between women from those earlier times and that lead into lots of speculation and little hard facts. I felt that Rupp should just have acknowledged the lack of sources and moved on instead of trying to overexplain the little info there is. 

When Rupp got into later time periods (1600->) the book became truly interesting. Also, throughout the book Rupp tries to be really global and uses source materials from different cultures f. ex. from China, Japan, India, and various African cultures in addition to Europe and the Americas. The book includes some amazing stories of amazing individuals: persons who passed as men all their lives and were found out to be anatomically female only after they died, biological women disguised as men, who fled from Europe to the New World and got married to women who sometimes seemed to have no idea that their husbands were in fact biological women, love between Chinese co-wives, sworn virgins of Albania etc. 

There is an interesting chapter about finding a name for love between women, and also a fair amout of information about romantic friendships between women. The notion of a romantic friendship has always interested me and Rupp's book provided new information about romantic friendships between women in different cultures.

Despite the, I think, rather inevitable problems with the earlier chapters of the book Sapphistries: A Global History of Love between Women was an interesting and informative read. It is also written in an engaging way and for me it was one of those nonfiction books that read almost like a novel. I do recommend it to anyone interested in women's history or GLBT history.

I conclude this post with a song quoted in Sapphistries on pp. 161-162. It is a song sung in certain Berlin clubs in the 1920s. Knowing what came later makes this heartbreaking. What if the steps towards openness and freedom found then would have continued without the terrible interruption of the Nazi regime and the war?

"We're not afraid to be queer and diff'rent
if that means hell - well hell we'll take the chance
they march in lockstep, we prefer to dance
We see a world of romance and of pleasure
all they can see is sheer banality
Lavender nights are our greatest treasure
where we can be just who we want to be

Round us all up, send us away
that's what you'd really like to do
But we're too strong proud unafraid
in fact we almost pity you
You act from fear, why sould that be
what is it that you are frightened of

the way that we dress
the way that we meet
the fact that you cannot destroy our love
We're going to win our rights
to lavender days and nights."

There will be a little pause here at A Book Blog of One's Own, as I will not be able to post anything next week. I'll be back posting after the 15th. Have a great week everyone!

Some New Books and Two Challenge Reviews

My summer vacation is nearing its end. On Monday I'll go to work after four wonderful weeks of sunshine, sports, and good reads. I've been reading both library books and my own, and now I have quite a few new acquisitions waiting for their turn, too, as I simply could not resist the end of sale prices and ended up with six new books to fit into my bursting bookshelves. :) The latest additions to my personal library are:

• Vladimir Bartol: Alamut 
  "A twentieth-century Slovenian novelist living in Trieste drew characters from eleventh-century Persia and wove an allegory of the fascism engulfing Europe at the dawn of World War II."
  I've been wanting to read this book for a long time now. In the end I decided to buy the English trade paperback, as the English translation has only 389 pages and the Finnish version 520! (We have long words :))
• Barbara Cleverly: Tug of War
  I loved the earlier Joe Sandilands mysteries, but have not read the newer ones. I hope this one, set in France in 1926 will be an enjoyable read.
• Madeleine Gagnon: My name is Bosnia
  This is another book from the Balkans, a story of a young woman in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.
• Miha Mazzini: Guarding Hanna
  Yet another Slovenian author. Mazzini "has turned the Beauty and the Beast tale on its head and created a new hybrid: modern fable and thriller." Yes, I'm trying to get to know Slovenian literature.
• Caro Peacock: Death of a Dancer
  A mystery set in Victorian London.
• Jody Shields: The Crimson Portrait
  A young woman mourns her husband, fallen on the WWI. When her home is transformed into a military hospital, she falls for an officer with mutilated face and gets an opportunity to remake her lover into the image of her late husband with the help of a visionary surgeon and a woman artist. Sounds interesting!

I have recently finished two books that I read for two different reading challenges:

Beryl Bainbridge: The Birthday Boys

In this slim novel Dame Beryl Bainbridge tells the story of  Captain Scott's fatale attempt to reach the South Pole in 1912. The story is told in five chapters by five different members of the expedition starting in Britain in June 1910 and ending in Antarctica in March 1912. I think The Birthday Boys was very cleverly written. I liked the structure of the book. I liked the fact that the name of the novel was something a bit different, nothing to do with the Antarctic expedition in fact (somebody's birthday is mentioned in every chapter, thus the name). This was my first encounter with Bainbridge's writing, but surely not the last. She wrote 18 novels, so there will be 17 to choose from when I want to explore her art further. Beryl Bainbridge died in July 2nd this year.

I read The Birthday Boys for the Reading the World Challenge as my Antarctica book. I'm hoping to finish the challenge next month with a book by a South American author, most probably The Book of Imaginary Beings by Borges.

Emma Donoghue: Landing

I had read one book, a collection of  short stories, by Emma Donoghue before this one. I did like the stories a lot, so was really looking forward to reading one of her novels. Landing sounded like a fun, lighter read and I was not dissapointed. It was the perfect book to take with me when I flew to Slovenia for a week. Landing is a love story between a 39-year-old, sophisticated Irish flight attendant Sile and a 25-year-old Canadian small town girl Jude, who works as a curator in a tiny museum. They meet on Jude's first ever plane trip and then juggle their long distance romance through e-mails, phone calls, and visits. The women have all kind of distances to cross, not only geographical, but also generational, cultural, economical... Donoghue writes engagingly and I will absolutely want to read more of her work. After Landing I already started one of her historical novels, The Sealed Letter, and have Life Mask waiting for its turn.

I read Landing for the GLBT Challenge.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's only published novel, is a book loved by many. I had tought of reading it many times along the years, but somehow just never managed to get to it. Then finally I bougth a pretty, little Penguin Classics edition of my own. Still it took me months to actually read the book. I'm very glad I finally did.

I knew the general idea of the book before reading it. The man would stay young while his portrait would age. But other than that I did not quite know what to except. I reasoned that this could not be a humorous story full of that famous wit of Oscar Wilde. Actually I was wrong. Actually the book was very different from any of my expectations! There was, maybe not humour, this was surely not that kind of a book, but wittiness and great charm, and also degradation and pure evilness. I found The Picture of Dorian Gray to be a multifaceted story that simply cries for a reread.

I will count The Story of Dorian Gray as one of the books read for the GLBT Challenge because of the author.

Rapture

Oh my, I don't know how to review poetry! I read quite a bit of poems, I have my favorite poets whose work I read again and again (Sylvia Plath is my absolutely favorite poet), I have a little brown and gold book where I collect poems I like and which I illustrate with photos I have taken myself. I am no stranger to poetry, but I have no idea how to review it! Well, as tennis legend Martina Navratilova wrote in her excellent book Shape Your Self: An inspirational Guide to Achieving Your Personal Best "if you are afraid of something, you won't achieve anything", so here goes:

Carol Ann Duffy is a highly merited Scottish poet and playwright. In 2009 she became the first female Poet Laureate in Britain. I own a copy of her prize-winning 2005 collection Rapture, which I have read before, but reread now for the GLBT Challenge. Duffy is herself a member of the GLBT community and some of her poems describe love between women. Rapture is a love story from falling in love to the grief at the end of a relationship. It is an excellent collection and some of her setences are very, very beautiful. My favorite poem in the collection is a poem called Finding the Words. And my favorite line in the collection is from a poem called You, where she writes, that falling in love is glamorous hell. I tought that was brilliantly put! ;)

You can read You here and listen to Finding the Words here.

Jeanette Winterson's interesting interview with Carol Ann Duffy can be found here.

One Long Overdue Review and a Wrap Up

Yes, yes, I know April is long gone :), and I am totally behind with my reviews, but unfortunately I had no time for posting these past few weeks (been happily busy with my dancing). I read one challenge book for the GLBT Challenge in April. So, here comes a short review:

The Others by Siba Al-Harez

I read this book for the GLBT Challenge and had very high hopes for it. It is a novel written by a young Saudi woman and set in the largely Shi'ite eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The novel tells the story of a young nameless woman at a girls' school who is seduced by one of her classmates. The glimpse into a culture and society so very different from my own was interesting, but the unhealthy, violent aspects of many of the relationships whether straight or gay in the novel alienated me from the story as did the odd figures of speech all over the text. The book was originally written in Arabic (it is described in the dust jacket as having been a bestseller in Arabic). I don't know Arabic, but I have an idea that it is a very poetic language full of great figures of speech. If that is true, then maybe the oddities were Arabic sayings translated all too literally into English. Anyway I found the text really difficult (as in heavy going) to read. Of course English is not my native tongue, so maybe that played a role, too. Actually it would be really interesting to hear what a native English speaker would say about the translation. All in all The Others was a dissapointment for me. I did not feel any sympathy towards the characters and I had to struggle to get to the last page.

This was my 5/12 read for the GLBT Challenge.

April Wrap Up:

Books read: 5

Books read in English:5

Books read in Finnish: 0

Finnish books read: 0

Fiction: 5

Nonfiction: 0

Books reviewed: 2

List of books I read in April:

-Al-Harez, Siba: The Others (see review above)
-Carroll, Lewis: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
-Heyer, Georgette: The Reluctant Widow
-Laski, Marghanita: Little Boy Lost
-Shields, Carol: Happenstance

GLBT Mini-Challenge 3: Graphic Novels

I do not read graphic novels in any way regularly, but every now and then a GN catches my eye in the library and I end up borrowing it. Most often I enjoy my graphic reads. When I realised that the March mini-challenge over at the Challenge That Dare Not Speak Its Name aka the GLBT Challenge was graphic novels I was somewhat at a loss. I knew about Alison Bechdel's graphic novels, had even read two of them, but that was it. My knowledge of GLBT graphic novels was very limited, to say the least. And even though I had loved Bechdel's books I wanted to read something else this time. Thanks to the wonderful lists available at the GLBT Challenge page I found out that Neil Gaiman had written a GN with a lesbian couple as main characters. I have not read a lot of Gaiman, but ever since I heard him speak at the Finncon here in Helsinki in 2000 I have been interested in his work. Luckily, my library had the graphic novel in question.

Death: The Time of Your Life tells about Foxglove, a successful young singer with a girlfriend Hazel, who for the outside world is her secretary. Foxglove wants to come out and finally her manager Larry agrees to it, but then he dies. This far the story seems more or less realistic, but now it moves to more mythical and magical dimensions. Larry appears to Foxglove after his death and makes her promise that even if Hazel says something that sounds grazy, Foxglove should listen to her. Well, I think I shall leave telling the plot here. ;) I'll just say that something has happened to Foxglove and Hazel's little baby boy and that Death is a gorgeous goth girl who loves everybody!

I really liked this graphic novel. The story was gripping and the illustrations were beautiful. An added bonus was a foreword by Claire Danes, one of my favorite actresses. She, by the way, stars in Stardust, a film based on Gaiman's book with the same name. Hmm, maybe I should watch that film again... :)