The Last Testament by Sam Bourne

The Last Testament by Sam Bourne (2007)

Read: August 2012

We had a good trawl of the charity shops in New Malden and Wimbledon one weekend as we realised that we had  returned to the UK without anything much to read for the whole summer!  We had actually brought back a range of books from Cairo, but these were to store in our ”keeping” collection though. This book was found after much browsing of what was on offer and honed in on because of the setting of the story (between Israel and Palestine) and the subject (old artefacts) and the credits (the bloke with the crazy hair and beard at the British Museum was credited because of his help with the cuneiform in the book).

There was not as much on the topic of the artefact itself in the book as I had expected, as for much of the book the tablet is being looked for, rather than being looked at.  It was interesting to see its journey from discovery through looting of the Museum of Baghdad, to illegal selling, transporting and finally translation. 

The real journey that was being followed though was that of Maggie as she tried to trace this object that had caused so much interest.  She, and the reader, had to follow a series of clues, some more obvious than others, that took them from present day to the past, from one country to another and one world to another (I’m still not sure whether the foray in to Second Life was an inspired, or infuriating device)

I was not so interested in Maggie’s love life and personal conflict / attempted redemption in returning to her role of negotiator, but the backdrop of political sensitivity and attempts to bridge the divide between the two countries was good.

I might not rush to pick up another of his books, but this one definitely filled a gap in the summer with something that was engaging and had a little bit of intrigued and mystery in.

Sandstealers by Ben Brown

Sandstealers by Ben Brown (2009)

Read: July - August 2012

This book looked like my cup of tea when we found it in a charity shop in SW London.  I’d enjoyed reading biographies of various journalists in the past (John Snow, Kate Adie and the likes) and this seemed to combine journalism with conflict in areas of the world that we are interested in (the Balkans and the Middle East).

As it was a novel, rather than a biog I knew I’d have to put up with some kind of love story / personal dilemma taking place amongst the characters, but I was able to get over this (even though every character seemed to have their own personal trauma / conflict – much like what people claim with international teaching; that everyone has a backstory).  I found that the book moved with difficulty at first between the present day and the history, but after a while it settled in to a rhythm and pace that I found easy to read.

I did enjoy the settings; the Balkans and then the Middle East, and intense relationships between the journalists, as well as their approaches to their work were well conveyed.  One of the reasons behind buying this book was that the author biog showed that Ben Brown’s alter ego was a conflict correspondent himself.

The twist towards the end of the book was a little disappointing in that everything came back to relationships, rather than the setting itself, but I guess that working in such an intense environment means that relationships are actually important – even though you try not to make them so.

The Village by Nikita Lalwani

The Village by Nikita Lalwani (2012)

Read: July 2012

 

This is one of the few books that I have gone out of my way to buy within the first few months of it being published.  This is because the author is the sister of a good friend from university.  The Village is her second book; the first being Gifted which I also read soon after it was published and enjoyed.

The ‘blurb’ for the book described the story as being about a film crew in India and the ethical decisions they have to make.  This sounded really up my street as it would be more than your simple' ‘film crew abroad’ story. And it was.

It was more than a simple narrative about documentary makers, but there was more about the group dynamics and the relationships between characters within the crew than I expected there to be.  I thought that there was potential to focus more on the protagonists decisions and thought processes around the process of documentary making, than on whether or not she fancied the presenter.  For me, this meant that I enjoyed the first and third sections of the book more than the middle section.  It was the closing section that I found the most interesting in terms of the moral dilemmas that it explored.

What was also interesting with this book, and like Gifted before it, was the dual nationality aspect of the protagonist; someone existing in two cultures but feeling like they don’t quite fit in either.  In a way it reminded me of Alaa Al Aswany, in that Lalwani’s first novel was about an British-Indian family set in Cardiff, but this was about a British-Indian woman returning to India. Both books featured the complex expectations that are unknowingly placed on your shoulders when in such situations.

Overall I did enjoy the book and have recommended it to some friends. I was hoping to recommend it to a media studies teacher, but I haven’t done so yet as I’m not sure the ethical aspects of film-making featured as highly in the book as they could have done compared to the relationships aspect of the story.

I Walked The Line by Vivian Cash

I Walked the Line: My Life with Johnny by Vivian Cash (2008)

Read: July 2012

I picked this up ages ago as we’d really enjoyed the Johnny Cash film biog with Joachin Phoenix.  This book thought focused on Johnny Cash’s life with his first wife, but I thought would still be a good read.

When setting down to read it the blurb focused heavily on the fact that she was ‘setting the story straight’ and ‘telling her side’ which had ‘never been told before’.  I couldn’t really work out what preconceptions or stories I’d heard before about Johnny’s first wife and his early career that needed setting straight, but I’m sure she had a good reason to feel hard done by and the need to write the book.

It turned out that over 75% of the book is actually transcripts of three years worth of letters that Johnny had written to Vivian when he was posted in Germany.  He went there just a few months after they met and they were married just a month after her returned from his posting.  To be honest I didn’t read every word of all the letters, but I did skim through them and read some in more detail.  The effect of included them all was seeing a relationship develop (although only being able to see one side of the relationship was weird) and seeing how tough life is when you are posted away from your loved ones.

What the narrative in the book then did show, was how Vivian had to be the stay-at-home mum or their one, then two, then three, then four girls, while Johnny went on tour.  It seems that as the family grew in size Johnny had to be away more often and this naturally led to the strain on the relationship. What led Johnny to drugs I don’t know, but the relationship suffered further from the drugs and then from June Carter.

This is probably the area that is in dispute and that Vivian feels the need to justify, but it is clear that it was not a good situation to be in; four girls, two women, Johnny and the drugs.

I’ve passed this book on to MummyB and warned her that it is interesting, but the bulk of the book is the letters and can be skimmed through to get the rough idea, rather than ploughing through which won’t lead to much more of a deeper understanding.

The Hunger Games (trilogy) by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games (2011) by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire (2011) by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay (2011) by Suzanne Collins

Read: June 2012

I rattled through these and really quite enjoyed them so was greatful to have been loaned them by a friend.  At first I had though they were going to be trashy a la Twilight, but there was a lot more to them and I am glad that I didn't dismiss them.  I really want to see the movie now to compare it to the books and I'd like Scott to read the books too, as I think he might like them being a bit sci fi.

To the Baltic with Bob by Griff Rhys Jones

To the Baltic with Bob by Griff Rhys Jones (2005)
Read: May 2012

Scotty read this book quite a while before me, and we bought it in a charity shop spending-spree quite a while before that too. Scotty was not too impressed with it, but persevered through. I think I enjoyed it more than he did, but it wasn't the rip-roaring adventure that the cover promised.

I was prepared for the wit and self-deprecating humour of Griff having followed his adventures in the Three Men In A Boat specials on TV. This definitely featured in the pages, along with his knowingly poor nautical knowledge being made up for by enthusiasm and determination (read as sometimes pig-headiness). So I was prepared for the book and liked this aspect of it - it reminded me of what I enjoyed about the Three Men in a Boats.

As with the Three Men in the Boats, there were very different personalities on the boat and there were differences of opinion (apart from in the case of Griff, who always had a high opinion of himself). I am sure that Griff intended most of the humour to be self-deprecating, but it often turned out to also appear condescending to his crew mates on board. The weird dynamic between the crew becomes clear about half-way through the book when it transpired that Griff was going to have to start paying Bob & co. to join him. It was never clear where the relationships really stood - friendships or professional?

For a travel book though there wasn't enough about the interesting places they visited - most of the action stayed on the boat. What I might have liked would have been a photo of the boat to help me as a non-nautical type get an idea of what Griff was writing about. But maybe that would have taken the emphasis off his descriptions.

Save Way Book Corner

Save Way is the small corner-shop-cum-supermarket where we do nearly all our shopping. It's very 'local' which means it doesn't have five different flavours of Betty Crocker icing like the more expat stores (well it doesn't have any Betty Crocker icing come to think of it) but it does have what we need day to day; bread, eggs, veg and water.

Sometimes we do go to other places to get our veg, but we keep coming back to Save Way for the main items because although it doesn't have the range (you can be sure to get potatoes, tomatoes, onions and courgettes or carrots there all the time, most of the time you can get peppers too, but anything else tends to be short-run), the veg is much better quality than anywhere else.

In the front corner of Save Way when we first moved in they used to have a newspaper and magazine rack, but that gradually faded out of use about two years ago (possibly because the kiosk on the other side of the Grand Mall started selling papers).  Since then the area has been used as a storage area piled high with boxes of crisps or crates of soft drinks. Last week though I noticed that they were starting to clear part of it up.

What has sprung up is a small book store! It's all new books and imported titles (apart from a small AUC Press section) but it looks very good.  As the guy was arranging the books I took a look around and they had an 'Egypt' section which I browsed. Since finishing the Matt Rees series that I loved, I have been on the look out for something else to read that might be similar. On Amazon I managed to find an author with a similar character/setting, Barbar Nadel's series set in Istanbul.

Then by chance I noticed that in the stands was one of her books, quite reasonably priced I thought at 65LE. It was a random book from the mid-series and so I asked the guy if he might be able to get the first in the series. I've asked at bookstores for them to order me books, but not had much luck, so I wasn't holding out too much hope - I knew I could always pick it up from Amazon in the UK in the summer if I wanted to.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I went in to Save Way to pick up some things for lunch today and he came up to me to say he had the book! Well, he didn't actually say he had the book. He actually held another of her books and said to me '10 minutes' and then he dashed off. Ten minutes later (I'd already paid for my shopping so was just browsing his books again) he did indeed come back with the book I'd asked for. Brilliant!