bookmark of the week

To start things off for November a little reminder of last night and Halloween with this bookmark inspired by the Funny Bones book. Not all things that go bump in the night need scare you witless.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone. A good excuse to eat some sweets and look slightly more stupid than usual.

Chilling tales

At this time of year, with the clocks going back and the cold dark nights enveloping you as you head home from work it’s a good time to think of scary stories. One of this week’s bedtime reads has been the Virago Book of Ghost Stories. This collection of short stories has got some great ones to leave you wondering if it’s a wise idea to keep the light switched on.

One of the books that came free with The Times this week has been lost Hearts and Other Chilling Tales by M R James. Looking forward to dipping into that and some more of the Virago collection over the next few nights and weeks.

Looking a gift horse down the throat

It has been great this week to get some free books with The Times but I’m afraid at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth a slight complaint has to be registered.

One of the problems is that the offers, which have been running now for three weeks Monday to Friday in the paper, are never advertised in places I see them and secondly you can only get the books in select venues – large Sainsburys, WH Smiths and M&S Food. It is all too ad hoc. As a result it is very easy not only to miss a book but upset your friends by mentioning how happy you are to have got one.

Wolf Hall – post II

Right time to get back into Wolf Hall and pick up the story of Cromwell and his master Cardinal Wolsey. The Cardinal seems to be being played a bit by King Henry with the public face seeming to show scorn but privately the mission to gain some influence over the Pope continuing.

Meanwhile for Cromwell, who suffers the loss of his wife, life carries on with him being deployed aboard in a rather cack handed way to test the waters in France and further afield to find out the standing of the King and the look of the political landscape.

In a way although his relationship with the Cardinal is one that serves him well you sense that he is starting to outgrow it and as the position of Wolsey becomes slightly more uncertain Cromwell has to look to his own future ensuring he has an exit plan.

More soon…

D-Day – post II

This is one of several books that has been opened and started but not really got underway. There is no obvious excuse for that because the writing is not difficult to digest and the narrative is hardly lacking in action.

One of the problems perhaps is the names that crop up with numerous military officials weaving through the story of the D-Day landings. Luckily you can stick with the main thrust of what is happening, that was the case with reading Stalingrad, and Beevor doesn’t wait too long getting into the actual invasion.

Having reached the part where the Americans land on Omaha beach the credit has to go to Beevor for managing to weave a narrative that is both factual but in its own way as gripping as the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. We all have a rough idea of what happened but telling us, largely from the perspective of the foot soldier, is a great way of illustrating what it was like to go through the hailstorm of bullets and bravely struggle up that beach to take control of the Normandy coastline.

More soon…

bookmark of the week

This is a magnetic Wallace and Gromit bookmark. I’m a great fan on W&G and there is something quite appealing about the merchandise. It is not too tacky.

The Glass Room – post V

What I might not have mentioned in all the thoughts about this book over the course of this week is just how much sex dominates. The glass room seems to be a magnet for sexual activity with doctors, yoga teachers and soldiers all being aroused to action in that space. Sex is part of life but I’m a bit of a prude and so will limit my comments on that side of the novel other than to say some of it is important for plot development and some of it isn’t. The stuff that isn’t could have ended up on the cutting room floor.

The sense of the house surviving all that has happened around it despite being made of glass is perhaps the most important image here. Something built with high design values and a determination to be different survives all that is thrown at it. In the end it is almost comical with the communist housing committee trying to decide what to do with the building. The building survives but so does its power to change people, to liberate their minds, in that space made of glass.

Anyway without giving away any endings or anything the various loose ends caused by war and the spreading out of the main characters as a result of the war are tied up. Some of it feels slightly too neat but as a reader you are grateful for things coming to a conclusion in the way that they do.

A review will follow soon….

The Glass Room – post IV

As the family leaves the house the story of the glass room is told via those that stated behind with it initially being taken over as a base for a scientific research programme with Nazi goons measuring skulls and vital statistics looking for a way of identifying Jews. But as the war switches back and forth it moves to a point where the house has been vacated and the Red Army is coming closer.

All the time the glass room and the modern architecture manage to wow the occupants whether they be Nazi’s, war beaten communists or the locals who manage to get inside to have a look around. All the time Viktor’s family struggle to leave Europe and head to Cuba on their way to America. Viktor’s affair is discovered and the marriage is shattered by the distrust. But just like the bombed windows in the glass room it remains to all intents and purposes intact.

Back at the glass house the last few friends of Viktor have been rounded up and taken to the camps and the City and the house are now under the shadow of Stalinism and another period of history begins.

More tomorrow…

The Glass Room – post III

With Austria taken over by Hitler and the refugees starting to come through to the Czech Republic the Nazi threat is now just 50km from the Glass House.

As a Jew, Viktor seems to be more acutely aware of what is potentially coming in terms of hate and he starts to plan for an evacuation to Switzerland. But most of those around him seem to be acutely unaware of what will happen believing that humanity will prevail.

Faced with the reality of the refugees and for Viktor with his own mistress from Vienna standing telling her story in his living room the fear of what might happen starts to become a reality and the family plan to leave the glass room and head for the sanctuary of Switzerland. Before they go there is the opportunity for both husband and wife to be unfaithful in the house and for the memories of the glass room to become impregnated with regrets even before the house is vacated.

More tomorrow…