Since 23 January is the Chinese New Year, I thought I read a Chinese Literature to commemorate the day.

The blurb:

The Long March Home tells the story of three generations of women. Agnes, a young Canadian goes to China as a missionary from the United Church of Canada and falls in love with a Chinese medical student. Growing anti-western sentiment forces her return to home to Nova Scotia, where she discovers she is pregnant. Meihua, their American-born daughter, travels to China in search of her father and winds up marrying a Chinese man, but the Cultural Revolution tears their lives apart. With both parents imprisoned, it falls to the family’s illiterate maid, Yao, to shield their daughter, Yezi, and her brother, from family tragedy, poverty and political discrimination, negotiating their survival during the revolution that she barely understands. Only after her mother is released, does Yezi, learn about her foreign grandmother, Agnes, who lives in Boston and has lost contact with the family since Yezi’s birth. Curious about her ancestry, Yezi joins her grandmother, Agnes, in the U.S. and learns about her life in China with the man her mother still longs to find.

Instantly similar stories I have read sprang into mind. Wild Swans by Jung Chang and Dreams of Joy by Lisa See.

Stories of Cultural Revolution abound, from YiYun Li’s The Vagrants by Yiyun Li to books I have mentioned above are just a few of the many books that spoke of the horror, trial and tribulations of the bourgeois families stripped off of their social status and subject to mindless political propagandas of the working class. I don’t think the aim of this book to tell the same stories and the same horror that have been executed brilliantly in Wild Swans but it is more suited to provide a dimension of life living under the oppression through the eyes of a young girl.

Reading the blurb at the back cover, I was a little confused. Naturally I thought the story would begin with Agnes, then Meihua, then Yezi but instead it starts straight from Meihua, with her husband working in a labour mine and they could only see each other once every few months. Meihua, an artist, is in a risk of incarceration because she is an American and do not fit into the “politically correct” mould of the peasant class.

Soon, Yezi was born and before she has a chance to spend her time with her mother, Meihua, as Meihua was whisked away to prison. The strength of the story begins from Yezi. She was mocked and shunned because of being the child of anti-revolutionary parents. She raised silk worms and cocoons, sneak into library (children was out of bound in that library for some reason) and learn English, build hide-outs and play with her best friends. She doesn’t understand why her mother has been away from her for 8 years and why her brother denounced her parents. It tells of a child finding her way to make sense of the world and find beauty of her life amidst the political madness in 70′s China.

After Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping began to open China to Western contacts, and Yezi and her parents are reunited with her Canadian grandmother, Agnes and Yezi is opened up to a brand new world where women drives and people wear colourful clothes instead of grey and navy blue drabs.

I enjoyed Yezi’s story but there is one thing I wasn’t sure of: which genre and target audience the book was trying to appeal to? I suppose it is the same as asking what audience Room by Emma Donoghue and In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar were trying to attract because both books are told from the eyes of a young child. But looking at the grave subjects in these books Room and In Country of Men mentioned, I would say these books are meant to be adult’s consumption. In this book however, I felt the horror and terror of the Red Cultural Revolutionary movement was downplayed, which is not to say it is good or bad. I don’t meant it in a derogatory way, but this book is absolutely fabulous to read as a Young Adult introduction to the life under Cultural Revolution but not to my expectation of the likes of Wild Swans which is in my mind, still the best three generations stories of women who have lived and suffered through the Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps it is not fair of me to compare this with any other novels of Cultural Revolution. Read it as it is, the novel is a good idle afternoon read.

Rating: 

I would like to thank the author for providing the review copy. Happy Chinese New Year All.

Have you been in a situation where you think some books are better read as a different genre or should be reclassified? Like reading a Young Adult thinking that it should be at par of an Adult fiction?

Hardback. Publisher: Inanna Publication 2011 ; Length: 271 pages; Setting: 1970′s Kunming, China. Source: Review copy. Finished reading on: 25th January 2012.

About the writer:

Born in China, Zoë S. Roy was an eyewitness to the red terror under Mao’s regime. Her writing has appeared in Canadian Stories, Thought Magazine and The Northern Light. Her debut short fiction collection, Butterfly Tears, was published by Inanna Publications and Education Inc. The Long March Home is her first novel.

She holds an M.Ed in Adult Education and an MA in Atlantic Canada Studies from the University of Brunswick and Saint Mary’s University. She lives and works as an adult educator in Toronto, ON.

The memoir can be read as a commentary and the motivation behind Oranges are not the only fruit.

I almost feel as if Why be happy when you could be normal? is Jeanette Winterson’s urgent need to make a closure to her past. If you are familiar with Jeanette’s novels (I called her by her first name because I feel as if I have known her), a major part is taken up by her adopted mother, Mrs Winterson, which is this larger than life, eschatologist, Pentecostal devout who lives in the wish of Apocalypse.

My mother, Mrs Winterson, didn’t love life. She didn’t believe that anything would make life better. She once told me that the universe is a cosmic dustbin – and after I had thought about this for a bit, I asked her if the lid was on or off.

‘On,’ she said, ‘Nobody escapes.’

The only escape was Armageddon – the last battled when heaven and earth will be rolled up like a scroll, and the saved get to live in eternity with Jesus. – page 22

Jeanette has this gift of being able to make light of a grave and sad situation, which makes you smile and makes your heart aches at the same time. Jeanette is labelled by Mrs Winterson as the devil’s child who ended up in the wrong crib. She was slapped and beaten, she was left hungry, locked up in the bathroom, subject to exorcism because of Mrs Winterson’s belief that she has been possessed, Jeanette was left all night on her doorstep, locked away from her own house while Mrs Winterson goes on holiday. They do not own a fridge, Jeanette is forbid to play with other children because the other children are “spiritual contaminated”. Her adopted father couldn’t protect her because he was a weak man.

The most amazing thing is to have Jeanette grew up in a household without books to become a great writer she is today. Mrs Winterson’s household is not secular therefore only 6 books Mrs Winterson were allowed at home. There were her bible and two commentaries, Morte D’Arthur by Thomas Mallory and others which are not mentioned. So Jeanette hasn’t got a clue what to read, so she reads books in alphabetical order from A to Z from the library shelf. Jane Eyre was allowed but as Mrs Winterson read aloud the book, Mrs Winterson devised her own ending with Jane Eyre marrying John the missionary.

“I suppose the saddest thing for me,” Winterson writes now, “thinking about the cover version that is Oranges, is that I wrote a story I could live with. The other one was too painful. I could not survive it.” and here in this book is her heartbreaking account of her childhood which pain and haunt her.

It is often true that children who grew up in an unhappy childhood grew up to be an unhappy adult. The heartaches didn’t stop there, at 16 Jeanette is evicted for taking up with a second girlfriend (the attempts to exorcise her sexuality after the first having been unsuccessful). “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?” is what Mrs Winterson said to Jeanette when she left her home, for good. She spent the next few years in her life living in her car, on handouts and favours, working at the market and miraculously gain a place at St Catherine’s College, in Cambridge to study English. Yet her lost sense of belonging plagues Jeanette through her adult life of failed romances, living to the extremes, a void that cannot be filled, her desire to feel belonged and her quest to find her biological mother.

The memoir is written sparsely, with each chapter recalling a chapter in Jeanette’s life, not necessarily linear in narration. It is sometimes so summarise that it reads like a precise but the effect for me was strong. The words that she wrote are succinct, precise and stab straight to my heart. It is turbulent, not always easy to read, emotionally. The terrible sorrow was unleashed between the pages, I felt those terrible sorrows were mine. Like her, my only anchor in life then was books. Books saved me from falling into the abyss of despair.

Where you are born – what you are born into , the place, the history of the place, how that history mates with your own – stamps who you are, whatever the pundits of globalisation have to say. – page 16

Home was a place of order. A place where the order of things come together – the living and the dead – the spirits of the ancestors and the present inhabitants, and the gathering up and stilling of all the to-an-fro.

Leaving home can only happen because there is a home to leave. And the leaving is never just a geographical or spatial separation; it is an emotional separation – wanted or unwanted. Steady or ambivalent.

For the refugee, for the homeless, the lack of the crucial coordinate in the placing of the self has severe consequences. At best, it must be managed, made up for in some way. At worst, a displaced person, literally, does not know which way is up, because there is no true north. No compass point. Home is much more than shelter; home is out centre of gravity. – page 58

Books, for me, are a home. Books don’t make a home – they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space. There is warmth there too – a hearth. I sit down with a book and I am warm. I know that from the chilly nights on the doorstep. – page 61

Back cover

I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.

And here is the shock – when you risk it, when you do the right thing, when you arrive at the borders of common sense and cross into unknown territory, leaving you all the familiar smells and lights, then you do not experience great joy and huge energy.

You are unhappy. Things get worse.

It is a time of mourning. Loss. Fear. We bullet ourselves through with questions. And then we feel shot and wounded.

And then all the cowards come out and say, ‘See, I told you so.’

In fact, they told you nothing.   -  Page 64

Love is vivid. I never wanted the pale version. Love is full strength. I never wanted the diluted version. I never shied away from love’s hugeness but i had no idea that love could be as reliable as the sun. The daily rising of love. – page 77

I suppose it is because of the forking paths. I keep seeing my life darting off in the different directions it could have taken, as chance and circumstance, temperament and desire, open an close, open and close gates, routes, roadways.

And yet there feels like an inevitability to who I am – just as of all the planets in all the universes, planet blue, this planet Earth, is the one that is home.

I guess that over the last few years I have come home. I have always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I have worked hard at being the hero of my own life, but every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn’t know how to belong.

Long? Yes. Belonging? No.    - Page 209

Besides her childhood, Jeanette writes about the era that she grew up with, her political and feminist views about the world. One of my most memorable scenes from the book is the one where Mrs Winterson made a bonfire out of Jeanette’s treasured book collection. Books that she saved up from her work at the market to own them. All went up in smoke. Instead of being discouraged and beaten by this, Jeanette resolved to memorise text because what is inside her will never be destroyed, she can write her own.

And standing over the smouldering pile of paper and type, still warm the next cold morning, I understood that there was something else I could do.

‘F**k it,’ I thought, ‘I can write my own.’ – page 43

Blessed is the one who turn one tragic moment into strength and became a positive turning point in one’s life.

Out of her repressive childhood and depression, this is a story of hope. Beside the impressive words that are written here, Jeanette’s life is impressive. It is a story about forgiveness, so that the characters who were demons at the start, especially Mrs Winterson and to certain extent Jeanette’s acquiescent adoptive father, ended their lives in a very sad and sorry state. In the process of uncovering that, she painstakingly unpicks the damage they wreaked on her. The peace she makes with her adoptive family is, in this sense, more important and evocative than tracking down and accepting her birth mother. I do not want to spoil it for you, but I just feel the last sentiment that Jeanette’s express about not knowing if she would accept her birth mother made the whole situation even sadder.

I find this passage on the pursuit of happiness encourage the likes of us who thinks we are not always happy, to accept that happiness is a pursuit not a permanent state:

The one good thing about being shut in a coal-hole is that it prompts reflection.

Read on its own that is an absurd sentence. But as I try and understand how life works – and why some people cope better than others with adversity – I come back to something to do with saying zest to life, which is love of life, however inadequate, and love for the self, however found. Not in the me-first way that is the opposite of life and love, but with a salmon-like determination to swim, however choppy upstream is, because this is your stream….

Which brings me back to happiness, and a quick look at the word.

Our primary meaning now is the feeling of pleasure and contentment; a buzz, a zestiness, the tummy upwards feel of good and right and relax and alive… you know….

But earlier meanings build in the hap – in Middle English, that is ‘happ’, in Old English, ‘gehapp’ – the chance or fortune, good or bad, that falls to you. Hap is your lost in life, the hand you are given to play.

How you meet your ‘hap’ will determine whether or not you can be ‘happy’.

What the Americans, in their constitution, call ‘the right to the pursuit of happiness’ (please note, not ‘the right to happiness’), is the right to swim upstream, salmon wise.

Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the same as being happy – which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances, and a bit bovine.

If the sun is shining, stand in it – yes, yes, yes, Happy times are great, but happy times pass – they have to – because time passes.

The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred.

What you are pursuing is meaning – a meaningful life. There’s the hap – the gate, the draw that is yours, and it isn’t fixed, but changing the course of the stream, or dealing new cards, whatever metaphors you want to use – that’s going to take a lot of energy. There are times when it will do so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else’s terms.

The pursuit isn’t all or nothing – it’s all AND nothing. Like all Quest Stories.

-          Page 25, chapter 2 ‘My advice to anybody is get born’

And most heartbreaking of all:

“I am interested in nature / nurture. I notice that I hate Ann (Jeanette’s biological mother) criticising Mrs Winterson. She was a monster but she was my monster.”

I think Jeanette was fortunate to have an optimistic disposition by nature, as she soon discovers with her search of her birth mother. The question of nature and nurture has shaped Jeanette’s life in many ways but in this case I am pleased that nature has triumphed.

Enough of me saying how good this book is, read this, you won’t regret it.

Rating: 

Hardback. Publisher: Jonathan Cape 2011; Length: 230 pages; Setting: North England and London, UK.  Source: Library copy. Finished reading at: 19th January 2012.

Other views:

Read a wonderful review from Asylum:

Asylum: The three elements in the book – love, literature, life in the world – are ultimately inseparable. Mrs Winterson “read the Bible as though it had just been written – and perhaps it was like that for her. I got a sense early on that the power of a text is not time-bound. The words go on doing their work.” Jeanette not only explains but shows how her childhood informed her fiction, including the lack of straightforward narrative which she attributes in part to her own life’s lack of narrative. ”That’s not method; that’s me.” She gives new life to the textual refrains from her books which ring like mantras for those who know her work well.

For books sake: Written in her characteristic caustic style, whose raw emotion punches you in the belly and then storms out of the room without looking back, it follows her quest for identity, for mother and for roots.

Without the Mrs Winterson and adoption stories, she would not have had the fight that makes her the writer she is, but it was in English literature A-Z that she found roots and foundations that she could rely on.

It is in generating words that she finds a present that she can cope with and a heritage to pass on to others. The explorations of home, of mother, of love, of time are not simply asides to make the book more interesting or to display her knowledge and erudition. They are who she is. It is through those passages that she narrates her self into existence.

The year is 1984. Aomame (named after pea), stuck in the traffic inside a taxi on a congested Tokyo expressway, listening to composer Janáček’s - Sinfonietta. She has an urgent appointment to go to and the taxi driver has suggested that she get down on the shoulder of the road and she will find a passage way down the highway and get the underground train. In the tradition of Murakami’s story, once you go through a “passage way” you come out into a different realm and sort. So this is no exception.

Aomame is on top secret mission and her work leads her to the mysterious religious cult leader’s lair. Aomame is slim, athletic and works as a fitness instructor in a health club. Aomame understands what it means to grow up in a religious family. There is only a fine line between the religious faithful and the zealot. Her family member crossed the line. Deep in her heart though, she never forgets the 10-year-old boy called Tengo who was in her class. She remembers that day when she plucked up her courage and held the boy’s hand, for a few minutes. Thus their fates are sealed. They couldn’t forget one another, for the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, Tengo leads a nondescript life teaches mathematics 3 days at cram school and has an affair with his girlfriend who is married. He was persuaded to “touch-up” a novel written by a 17-year-old girl named Erika Fuka, pen name Fuka-Eri, who writes a fantasy story about losing a goat under her guard, the little people and air chrysalis.

Except Aomame climbing out the other end of the passage and Erika Fuka’s fantasy novel, the pages flew by with intriguing everyday details of Aomame and Tengo’s lives, with their voices alternate between chapters, infused with the hurt and affection to the people that they meet in the course of their normal lives; for awhile it was pure voyeurism to pry into reading these details of people’s life that I forgot that things were supposed to get weirder… and it did. Inevitably…..

Aomame and Tengo, separately, noticed that the world has gone stranger. Aomame noticed there were two moons in the sky. The normal moon that we see and the little green one that serves as the moon’s satellite. I know that the two stories will become intertwined and sometimes all the clues are there and may have saved Murakami’s some ink and the world’s much paper if there weren’t so many repetitive facts that we have known either through Aomame’s or Tengo’s. The intention to make this novel goes on and on, is obvious. My librarian told me last week that Dickens was paid by how many words he could get into the book, so there were thick books that were written by Dickens, seems like a waffle. In some way, I felt 1Q84 waffles. I was told what the characters wore, the brand name of the clothes, the shoes, how their ears look like and how long they peed. But I did enjoy reading about their life histories and that made me empathise the villain who seems  so pathetic that I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the villain.

1Q84 is mostly a story about broken lives. About miserable childhoods spent knocking on people’s door collecting NHK (Japanese TV) subscription (Tenko’s) or proselytising (Aomame’s). Both run away from home fairly young and became talented individuals, in their own ways. It is a story about people who locked up voluntarily or involuntarily, who prefers secluded life or left the reality to live in sanatorium, high security fortress or hidden from public eyes. I prefer reading about Aomame’s than Tengo, not sure why, is it because it was told by a woman’s perspective? The story of Aomame and Tengo connection is one of the souls and it is beautiful in a way but I think I am too grown up to be able to appreciate the possibility of holding on to one such memory that sustains for the next 20 years.

“I am alone, but not lonely.” – Aomame

Am I entirely happy with the novel? Well, no. I like it but I didn’t love it. It reminds me of Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which I didn’t like because it left a lot of loose end untied (unless it is deliberate, for possible sequels) but I like it better than Wind-up Bird Chronicle because of its personalise approach to story-telling. The characters are the most developed after Norwegian Wood.

There was such a promising premise of the mention of domestic violence and I thought Murakami is going to take the Stieg Larsson way and have the characters do something noble and earth shattering about it. Unfortunately that’s not to be. Murakami even devise the plot in such a way that it kills the joy of seeing the justice being fulfilled. There are a lot more description of a more graphical in nature in the book which I will not spoil it for you but it may well be one that will make you feel disturbed from the mention of it.

As always, I love Murakami’s quotes:

Komatsu believed that mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances. – page 29

Being bullied

“Did you ever experience bullying when you were a child?”

Tengo thought back to his childhood. “I don’t think so,” he answered. “or maybe I just never noticed.”

“If you never noticed, it never happened. I mean, the whole point of bullying is to make the person notice it’s being done to him or her. You can’t have bullying without the victim noticing.”

“Finally,” his girlfriend said, “everybody feels safe belonging not to the excluded minority but to the excluding majority. You think, oh, I’m glad that’s not me. It’s basically the same in all periods in all societies. If you belong to the majority, you can avoid thinking about lots of troubling things.”

-          Page 84

Man who wield great violence

Men who wield great violence at home against their wives and children are invariably people  of weak character. They prey upon those who are weaker than themselves precisely because of their own weakness. – page 234

The crime of rewriting history

They rewrite history. Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It’a crime. Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us – is rewritten – we lose the ability to sustain our true selves. – Tengo on George Orwell’s 1984 take on the protagonist who rewrite history. page 275

Are you born out of a vacuum in your parents?

This man is no empty shell, no vacant house. He is a flesh-and-blood human being with a narrow, stubborn soul and shadowed memories, surviving in fits and starts on this patch of land by the sea. He has no choice but to coexist with the vacuum that is slowly spreading inside him. The vacuum and his memories are still at odds, but eventually, regardless of his wishes, the vacuum will completely swallow up whatever memories are left. It is just a matter of time. Could the vacuum that he is confronting now be the same vacuum from which I was born? – Tengo about his father, page 437

The ability to take both on both sides and the truth is relative:

He would propose an idea for discussion and debate it, taking both sides. He would passionately argue in support of the proposition, then argue – just as vigorously – against it. He could identify equally with either of the two positions and was completely sincerely absorbed by whatever position he happed to be supporting at the moment. Before he had realised it, these exercises had given him the talent to be sceptical about his own self, and he had come to the recognition that most of what is generally considered the truth is entirely relative. – Ushikawa page 156

On Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time”:

It’s a story about different place. By different place, I mean it’s like reading a detailed report form a small planet light years away from this world I’m living in. I can picture all the scenes described and understand them. It’s described very vividly, minutely, even. But I can’t connect the scenes in that book with where I am now. We are physically too far apart. I’ll be reading it, and I find myself having to go back and reread the passage over again.

I’m inclined to say Murakami can do no wrong in my eyes but the next minute after I said that I felt a little disappointed by the book. It is story telling at the highest order and the 1001 pages flew by as easily as reading a paperback of 350 pages which serve as an encouragement for you out there who are daunted by the size of it. There were a lot of twists and plotting, interesting characters that keep me going but it is one of those books that I came out feeling that it should have been more, like coming out of a roller coaster ride and I go: “That was a fun ride, but what was the purpose again?”

I just think there were signs of great promises, i.e. domestic violence, fate and free will, love and romance, religious fanaticism etc. All which potentially could be developed into something grandeur and breathtaking, but it didn’t. Oh sure, it is an ambitious book, but I think building those roller coaster rides are ambitious as well. For sure I will go on the roller coaster ride again for the thrill of it but it will not be a ride that becomes a sustenance of my inspiration in life. A good book needs to do that but this one didn’t do it for me. It is a book that divides opinion, even my own, depending when you ask me, I will rave about the bits I like now and tell you what infuriates me the next time you ask. Still, reading 1Q84 was a joy ride.

Rating: 

Do you think if I own the book or read it slower the experience would have been different? 

The Janáček – Sinfonietta was mentioned a lot in the book:

The book trailer in Hungarian translation:

Hardbacks. [Harvill Secker October 2011],[Book 1 and 2  623 pages, Book 364 pages],[Library Loan], Finished reading at: 14^th January 2012. Translated by Jay Rubin Book 1 and 2, Philip Gabriel Book 3. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, the translation style for both authors are very similar.

I’m reading this for Japanese Literature Challenge 5 and Murakami Challenge 2012.

Other views:

Wilfrid Wong : I would say 1Q84 is perhaps Murakami’s most polished work to date.

Ti@bookchatter : I was very sad when I turned the last page. I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to crawl inside the book and become one with it.  It was wonderful and thought-provoking on so many levels. It’s totally accessible even at its 944 pages and there is never a dull moment.

Mel @rereadinglives :  I do not endorse this book to anyone else. If Murakami produces another novel, I will for sure still give him the earned on his old books respect of reading it but I  will not be as excited to do so as I was when I started 1Q84.

Tony@Tonyreadinglist : Did I like 1Q84?  Of course I did   Although there are a few exceptions out there, I think that most people who like Murakami’s work will get a lot out of 1Q84.  It may not have lived up to the hype (which, for regular readers at least, seemed to be up there with the return of Star Wars), but it’s a welcome addition to the Murakami canon.

Dolce Bellezza: Murakami must believe in the redemptive power of a couple’s love, just as they must believe in one another.

Sam still reading: It wouldn’t be Murakami if there weren’t some weird and seemly unexplainable twists. Book 3 doesn’t disappoint in that sense, and twists make events in the previous two books seem clearer. The ending however, no matter how much you wished it to happen, is a little linear and predictable – unusual for Murakami. It does leave you with a sense of fulfilment though. Does the pedestrian ending means there are more events to unfold in a Book 4? Let’s hope so. I’d love to hear more about this world.

Tanabata@In spring it is the dawn: Tanabata’s J-lit discussion Q&A

• Cairo: My Country, My Revolution by Ahdaf Soueif
• No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer
• Home by Toni Morrison
• Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel 
• The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa
• For fan of The Passage, The Twelve by Justin Cronin
• Short story collection by Margaret Atwood

I have added the new titles according to the month it is and will be published onto my previous blog post: Anticipated books in 2012

Besides other new book titles you can find in the article, The Guardian UK has came up with an annual calendar to the literary events of 2012. Here we find out about books that will be released as a movie this year and some of our usual Book prize events such as the Orange Prize (June) and Man Booker Prize (October)

February

Susan Hill’s supernatural thriller The Woman in Black, the stage version of which has been sending shivers down the spines of audiences since 1989, is now set to do the same for cinema-goers. Stars a grown-up Daniel Radcliffe. I’m not sure I’m into horror thriller, I have consciously stay away from reading Susan Hill’s books so far…

Release of the film version of Jonathan Safran Foer‘s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, about a little boy grieving for his father who died in the 9/11 attacks. This is an interesting one that I hope to watch.

March

It’s also the UK release date of Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s film of Maupassant’s Bel Ami, with Uma Thurman, Christina Ricci and Robert Pattinson, a rare instance of a dreamboat being cast as a journalist). I love period film and I think with such exquisite casts, it is sure to be a winner.

November

Just over 50 years since it was first published, Jack Kerouac’s beat classic On the Road finally makes it to the big screen. The film will be directed by Walter Salles, with Francis Ford Coppola (who first bought the rights as far back as 1979) as executive producer. I’ll make sure I read the book this year!

December

Ang Lee’s film adaptation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the story of a boy trapped on a boat with a tiger, will surely captivate audiences; the novel is the bestselling Booker-winner of all time.

The Great Gatsby gets the Baz Luhrmann treatment for the big screen, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan starring as Jay and Daisy. A timely new take on Fitzgerald’s depression-era classic.

I have watch Leonardo in Revolutionary Road movie last weekend and I like it. I am sure he will be amazing in Great Gatsby.

My review on The Great Gatsby

I have read both books and look forward to see how it would be adapted onto the big screens.

All in all and exciting year. Even if you were to do nothing but reading books and watching movies and keeping up with literary events, it is enough to keep you going for the year!

I was born tomorrow

Today I live

Yesterday killed me

Parviz Owsia

My first review of the year is Before I go to Sleep. I decided to read this book because of its frequent mention on book blogging community. I did not read the reviews in details but the blurb sounds fascinating…. and the cover, such beautiful cover!

Stories about main character memory loss, amnesia are a common theme in many movies and books. Off my head I can ramble off: Bourne Identity, 50 first dates played by Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, and one I wanted to watch, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Inception, played by Jim Carey and Kate Winslet.

What is about memory loss that fascinates us?

Because memories define us. It provides us with an anchor, so that everyday we wakes up and know who we are, what we are supposed to do. It is our identity and it helps us makes sense of the world.

Once you lose it, everything is up in the air, it all becomes fluid, the truth is made up in a fly and if there is an instinct you believe which contradicts with what you see everyday, what would you trust? Your instinct or your sight?

Note: If you want to read the book, I suggest you avoid reading my reviews. Although it doesn’t contain spoiler, but it will take the fun out of feeling as confused as Christine when you read the novel!

Before I Go to Sleep is a story about a woman named Christine. She wakes up not remembering anything about the night before, she pick the pieces of her life and when she falls asleep again she will forgets everything little fragment she remembers during the day. Her memory only last 24 hours or less in her waking hours in a day. She was told she lost her memory because of a car crash. Everyday her patient husband Ben repeats the basic and tells her who he is, how to take care of herself while he is at work, he tells her he is a teacher with a local college.

The novel starts with the chapter “Today” then Christine recalled she kept a journal, and the mid section of the books contain all of Christine’s journal entries. At the end of the book, it comes back to “Today”. The format was unusual. It messes up with my head a little. Then again the best thing Christine did was to keep a journal. Encouraged by Dr Nash in pursuit of medical research into Christine’s condition, without Ben’s knowledge, has encouraged Christine to keep a journal. The ironic thing is she remembers where she kept it, and reads it everyday to refresh her memory about her past and seek answers to some of the confounding questions she has.

Christine suspects her husband is not telling the truth, as days goes by she discovered that she once had a child, that she did certain things and that she used to have a close friend. But she also empathise with her husband who had put up with her for 20 years when she is in such condition. Any other men would have left, but her husband didn’t. He must have loved her. Ben must have provide her with a sanitised version of her past so that she doesn’t get hurt everyday, or is he manipulating her perception of her world? Can she or can she not trust her husband? This is where the strength of this debut psychological thriller: is to have the ability to sway you from one way to the next, without being able to make up your mind.

It is a confusing book but it confuses you enough to want to find the answer. I like what the Guardian says about being able to share with the reader – a delicate appreciation of the links between fabulation (that is, the writing of stories that violate readerly expectations) and confabulation (the creation of false memories and experiences by a damaged brain). It started slow and it gives me the feeling of the book given more hype than it deserves but as layer by layer the truth is revealed and it culminates into a gasping end, I knew this one simple confusing story is written by the hand of a master.

A first novel by an NHS (UK’s National Health Services) audiologist, SJ Watson wrote the book in between shifts at London’s St Thomas’s Hospital, the book is exceptionally accomplished. Initially I thought the mention of the writer (I didn’t even know the gender and I assume it was a woman author!) worked in the NHS in a number of years must be a nurse in a mental health institution but I was surprised that the author was a guy and not only that the book has sold its movie rights to Ridley Scott.

I kept a journal since I was young but have stopped for a hiatus of a decade. The book made me think about how important it is for me to record my days again.

Like Judith@Leeswammes Blog, being the cynic that I am, I didn’t believe Christine has the time or the opportunity to write such a long journal entries everyday (even I find it hard to write one book review these days!) and to top it off read all her entries in the past. Due to some parts that suspense my belief (such as her journal was burnt at the end, how on earth are we readers able to read it still?) I will give it a 4.5 star.

However, if you can sustain your belief about the practicality of what Christine can do, this is still an enjoyable book written in an unusual format, well paced tension and culminating into a nail-biting climax. I hardly say this for a thriller, but this is one that I will be re-reading it again. It is the sort that you get to the end and the light bulb lit up and everything starts to make sense. Superb story telling. Well deserved its international attention.

Rating:

Hardback. Publisher: Doubleday April 2011; Length: 366 pages; Setting: North London, UK.  Source: Library copy. Finished reading at: 6th January 2012.

Other views:

Judith @ leeswammes Blog: The book is very well written and although the individual entries in the journal are a bit long (I wouldn’t think she’d have the time to write that much on a day), they told me all I wanted to know and nothing more. In other words, it never became boring. A fast and good read, very believable. Only the end was a little too convenient for my taste.

Savidge reads: ‘Before I Go To Sleep’ is a very clever book. It takes a relatively simple, and equally possible, scenario and flips it on its head. In fact it’s the very domestic and almost mundane ordinariness of the books setting which makes it so unnerving. The fact Watson does this, on the whole, in one house between three characters is truly impressive. It’s an original, fast paced, gripping and rather high concept novel. I am wondering just what on earth, Watson is going to follow this up with… and how? 9/10

Dolce bellezza: ”Seriously,” I told my friends at dinner last night, “you have to read this book.” A nail biting truth with a harrowing edge. One that makes me grateful for my choices, and my memory, upon turning the final page.

Did I miss your reviews? If so, let me know.

About the writer:

Steve “S. J.” Watson (born 1971) is an English writer. He debuted in 2011 with the thriller novel Before I Go to Sleep. Rights to publish the book have been sold in 37 different countries around the world and it has gone on to be an international bestseller.

Watson was born in Stourbridge, in the West Midlands. He studied Physics at the University of Birmingham and then moved to London, where he worked in various hospitals and specialized in the diagnostic and treatment of hearing-impaired children. In the evening and weekends he wrote fiction.

In 2009 Watson was accepted for the first course Writing a Novel at the Faber Academy. The result was his debut, Before I Go to Sleep. He was introduced to literary agent Clare Conville on the last night of the course and she agreed to represent him. The book was published in April 2011. In the same year it was announced that the book would be adapted for the big screen by Ridley Scott, with Rowan Joffe slated to write and direct.

Drawing from the source of the article, here are the new books published this year:

January

Pop philosopher Alain de Botton introduces Religion for Atheists, arguing that even non-believers can take much that is good from the practices of faith

Another non-fiction I look forward is Cairo: My Country, My Revolution by Ahdaf Soueif (Bloomsbury). One year on from the start of the Arab spring, Soueif interweaves recent events with episodes from her long relationship with the city of her birth.

February

Waiting for Sunrise, on the other hand, William Boyd has gone all-out for adventure, constructing a spy thriller that takes his hero from psychoanalysis in 1913 Vienna to espionage in the First World War, both leading him back into the mysteries of his own family: a novel planned to entertain.

March

Capital by John Lanchester is a book that locates itself in one south London street where the properties have risen to more than £1million in value. It describes what it is to be a Londoner now, on a broad canvas that takes in a greedy banker with a greedier wife, a young African footballer, an edgy young artist, an illegal immigrant parking warden and a family of Muslim shopkeepers. The ambition is nothing less than Dickensian.

Rachel Cusk, whose 2001 account of motherhood, A Life’s Work, remains incendiary, turns to a later stage of married life in Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation.

No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer (Bloomsbury).A state-of-the-nation novel about the new South Africa from the Nobel laureate.

April

The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey is publishing a fascinating dual narrative, set in London in 2010, and in Germany in 1854. An alcoholic female curator at a fictional London museum attempts to deal with her grief over the sudden death of her lover, a married colleague, by throwing herself into the reconstruction of a mysterious automaton commissioned back in the 19th century by an Englishman trying to divert his young son from consumption, a quest recorded in his diaries It is fascinating to see this great novelist’s take on London now (which includes, naturally, a glancing reference to the London Evening Standard).

Skagboys by Irvine Welsh has written a prequel to his 1993 debut, Trainspotting, showing how Mark Renton et al first descended into heroin addiction in the Eighties. Even more keenly awaited will be Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel’s sequel to her Tudor masterpiece, Wolf Hall, due in the autumn. It continues the story of Thomas Cromwell, focusing this time on the fall of Anne Boleyn.

But many readers will look forward just as eagerly to the new novel from Anne Tyler, The Beginner’s Goodbye, in which a recently bereaved husband finds that his wife returns from the dead – and all the humdrum problems in their marriage come back too

May

The Red House by Mark Haddon (author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the undervalued A Spot of Bother) brings together the families of an estranged brother and sister, trying to build bridges after their mother’s death over a week in a rented house in Wales. Haddon is expert in how pained ordinary lives can be.

Kate Summerscale is following up her Victorian true-crime hit The Suspicions of Mr Whicher with Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace, about a scandalous Victorian divorce, drawing on Isabella Robinson’s diaries

Home by Toni Morrison (Chatto & Windus). It’s now a quarter of a century since the publication of Morrison’s masterpiece, Beloved. Her new novel explores the bitter homecoming of a black Korean vet, who must take on the racism of 50s America and his own self-loathing in order to rescue his sister and redeem his Georgia roots.

And Hilary Mantel is publishing a sequel to Wolf Hall!! 

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate). Mantel’s grand reimagining of Thomas Cromwell and his times has grown into a trilogy. This follow-up to the mighty 2009 Booker-winner Wolf Hall takes a detour into the brutal downfall of Anne Boleyn. Mantel promises a “shorter, more concentrated” book this time, though it will be no less gruelling: “By the time Anne was dead I felt I had passed through a moral ordeal.”

In One Person by John Irving (Doubleday). In typically tragicomic style, Irving sets out to explore sexual identity – difference and desire, togetherness and solitude – through a half-century in the life of his bisexual narrator Billy and a cast of friends and lovers.

June

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver, Lionel Shriver’s work in progress, said to be an assault on the culture of obesity in the States, is much anticipated, following the movie of We Need to Talk About Kevin. However, The New Republic, about terrorism in an imaginary part of Portugal, perhaps drawing on her experience of Northern Ireland, is a 1998 novel previously rejected by her publisher.

the big novel this year looks to be Canada by Richard Ford, which is narrated by a 66-year-old literature professor, who, back in 1960, as a 15-year-old boy, took to the road after his parents’ arrest for bank robbery and escaped from Montana into Saskatchewan It may just be his best since The Sportswriter.

The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa (Faber). The Celt of the title is Roger Casement, the Irish poet-patriot who was executed in 1916 for seeking German support for a revolt against British rule. The South American connection is provided by his role as British consul, when he campaigned against the abuse of rubber workers in Peru.

Vagina by Naomi Wolf (Virago). The Beauty Myth author writes a cultural history of female sexuality and how it has been perceived.

For fan of The Passage, The Twelve by Justin Cronin (Orion). The Passage, in which humanity breeds its own destruction when vampiric “virals” are created for the military, was a monstrous success: an absorbing, gruelling 1,000-page epic – that ended on a cliffhanger. In part two, the small group of survivors fight back; but with a third volume in the pipeline, resolution is some way off yet.

July

The State of England : Lionel Asbo, Lotto Lout by Martin Amis is a satire on the scummy state of Britain. His anti-hero is a skinhead crim who wins £90million on the lottery while in prison, and spends it grossly. Other characters include a Katie Price lookalike called Threnody.

John Banville publishes Ancient Light, in which an actor, now in his sixties, recalls his affair as a teenage boy with the mother of a schoolfriend in the Ireland of the Fifties – and his own daughter’s suicide. In September, Howard Jacobson presents Zoo Time, which depicts London litterateurs in conflict with the internet, as it happens

Jeanette Winterson’s as yet untitled horror story (Hammer). The film company Hammer is moving into publishing with what Winterson describes as her “very scary novella about the Lancashire witches”, the nine women and two men who were tried for murder by witchcraft in 1612.

Toby’s Room by Pat Barker (Hamish Hamilton). Set among a group of students at the Slade School of Art in London and France before and during the first world war, Barker’s new novel explores the intersection of art and medicine, through the pioneering science of facial reconstruction.

September

Zadie Smith publishes her first fiction for seven years.  NW it is, as the postcode title suggests, set in her old patch of Brent. All she has disclosed about it so far is that it is about class, as it affects “a few people in north-west London” and that it’s a “very, very small book”.

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie (Jonathan Cape). His memoir of the fatwa. Not sure if Joseph Anton should be the title of the book, or rather “Salman Rushdie” written by Joseph Anton.. we’ll wait and see.

October

New short story collection from Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury).

I look forward to Martin Amis, Lionel Shriver, Mark Haddon and Sade Smith’s new books. I enjoyed Kate Summerscale The Suspicions of Mr Whicher in 2009 and I look forward to her new true crime non-fiction this year as well.

The bane of reading such list is that it will ruin my chances of reducing my TBR list. Also with such stellar cast of writers publishing new books this year, who needs a reading plan?!! Grit my teeth, I’m going to stick to my reading plan this year but it won’t hurt if I read one or two from this list, would it?

What about you? Is there any book(s) that caught your eyes?

I definitely want to visit Louvre Museum this spring and see for myself!

There is this little world map with the size of visitors who visit my blog. The stats appears if I hover my mouse close to the figurine.

New this year there is a report on top 5 commenters on my blog. The most talked about post is What I talk about when I talk about blogging.

Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you ….. for visiting and commenting on my blog. For this, I’m eternally grateful.

I am quite a geek so I love doing up fancy charts. Humour me if you could just read some of my book stats, otherwise go to my next section and read my disappointing and favourite books of the year.

Past years analysis:

Reading and Purchase Analysis 2010

Reading habit analysis for 2009

Number of books read this year

This shows that the number of books read per year has slowly dwindled. I did a last minute sprint in December so that I finished a commendable 80 books read this year. This stats do not include books which I skimmed read, did not finished nor graphic novels.

Books read by month follows an erratic trend of peaks and troughs and for the past 3 years, I generally read more during summer read a lot less towards the year and notably in October and February this year. This December has been exceptional for me due to the fact I wanted to do one last sprint and increase the amount of book read.

Number of pages read

As you can see, a decline of the number of books read do not necessarily mean less pages read. I may read 2 books less than last year but in terms of pages I read 1628 extra. The peak and trough of the two charts do not correspond. It is interesting isn’t it? But the debate goes on about the size of print and line spacing of the book actually distort how much effort has gone into reading the books. I’m not going there.

Male vs Female Authors

For the past 3 years, it’s has been a consistent 60-40 read on Male and Female author with the bigger chunk going to male authors. I have not deliberate on reading authors based on their genders but every year it seems to produce similar results.

As you may recall, last year my database crashed and there goes my individual rating of books read in 2010 with it. This year, with the rating compared against other attributes I’m able to gain more insights into my own reading style and surprise myself along the way!

As this table shows, as the male rating line climbs on top of the female line (pun not intended!) this is due to the higher amount of Male authors books read but female and male authors share an equal percentage of 34% and 33% on books rated 4.5 stars and above. It is evidently true that I tend to rate the work of male authors higher than their female counterparts, but when it comes to high scores, I’m gender blind.  I think as I grow older and due to my profession, I tend to use my left brain a little more than my emotional right brain, therefore the work of male authors appeal to me, as most of the non-fiction writers.

Fiction vs Non-fiction

Non-fiction read for the past 3 years has not break through the 30% line. I have no intention of increasing non-fiction read, as much as I love them. Perhaps targeting non-fiction read at 40% would be ideal for me.

Library loot vs reading from my shelf

For the past 2 years I have been bad in reading from my own shelf but this year I saw an increase of 12% in reading from my own shelf to 31%, which is a huge surprise for me. Next year I target to do 15% but with an added challenge of 15% over and above my TBR pile. Any new purchase of books will render my 15% unattainable.

The 31% from my own shelf provided the highest rating of 44% with 4.5 stars and above. What the stats reveal is my book buying habit. I’m experimental with library loans but when it comes to buying my own books I only select what I think is a ‘good’ book, which produces an overall more satisfying read.

New Authors

I’m quite experimental in my reading and every year at least 65% of books read are written by new authors. But when it comes to giving them a high-score I’m even handed for both new and read before authors, giving it a 35%-32% scores for 4.5 stars and above.

Published editions

A big portion of 75% books read this year is published from 2000’s onwards. There was no deliberate effort to read the classics this year and I’m not sure if next year is the year either.

% Translated fictions

This year saw a decrease in reading of translated work. My main source of translated books are translated from Arabic or Japanese.  There is an increase of reading Scandinavian fiction this year, thanks to uncovering some good detective stories from the Nordic and Zee’s Nordic challenge also created the impetus to read from there. 30% feels like the right ratio for my reading profile, as my main objective is still not to lose out on great many books that are published in the English language. Who knows perhaps it may come a day when I decided to read only translated fiction.

Nationalities and Locations

Very similar to last year, I have read authors from 22 different nationalities with 34 different country settings. The new peak for this year is from Scandinavian authors.

Purchase

This chart is a reality check and a reminder that I should cut down on buying books next year.

I thought I bought less than last year, but my number count is 143 books purchased this year an increase of 27 (143 minus 116) of 2010! (I’m shock!) This excludes 15 books that I received as a gift, reviewed copies and mooched, makes total 158 books acquired, with total spending of £164.20.

Books in 2011

1. Best Book of 2011: In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

2. Worst Book of 2011: 2666 by Roberto Bolano

3. Most Disappointing Book of 2011: Room by Emma Donoghue

4. Most Surprising (in a good way) Book of 2011: The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe. I didn’t expect it to be entertaining and heart warming as it did.

5. Book You Recommended the Most to People in 2011: I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti

6. Favourite New Authors Discovered in 2011: Hisham Matar, Linda Grant, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jonathan Coe, Shuichi Yoshida, Richard Yates, Jeffrey Eugenides

7. Most Hilarious Read of 2011: An Idiot Abroad by Karl Pilkington. I would not recommend his earlier books but this travel adventures set up by Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant had be laughing till my tummy aches!

8. Most Thrilling Unputdownable Read of 2011: Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich and Death in Perugia by John Follain.

9.            Favourite Cover of a Book You Read in 2011: Legend of Suicide by David Vann

11.          Most Memorable Character of 2011: Calliope Stephanides of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

12.          Most Beautifully Written Book of 2011: In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar

13.          Book That Had the Greatest Impact on You in 2011: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.  A book any upward mobile, ambitious young couple would relate to.

14.          Book You Can’t Believe You Waited Until 2011 to Read:  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Most of you would have read it when you have an outburst of pimples during your adolescence! I waited too long.

My Top 10 Fiction Read of the year:

1. In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
2. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
3. Villain by Shuichi Yoshida
4. The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. The Slap by Chistos Tsiolkas
7. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Co
8. Woman With Birthmark by Håkan Nesser
9. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
10. When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant

My Top 5 Non-Fiction Read of the year:

1. I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti
2. Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich
3. Underground by Haruki Murakami
4. An Idiot Abroad by Karl Pilkington
5. Death in Perugia by John Follain

What do I think about 2011?

I think it’s been a good year despite my initial intention of not reading too much due to the new career change at the beginning of the year which is 10 times more demanding. But it also goes to show if you really love reading, you will always find time to read a book.

2011 is the year I discovered the beauty of Nordic literature and finished a few more Murakami books. It is also a year I discover Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nigerian literature thanks to Amy@Amy Reads. The only regret I had was not being able to finish the TBR pile that I set out in the beginning of the year but I’ll carry forward them over to 2012 and hopefully finish the new list of 12 TBR next year.

For books read in 2011, see 2011-read review index

Plans for 2011?

The conclusion is: I will continue my current trend of gender read, % of translated fiction, % non-fiction books and % of new authors. I hope to increase the frequency of reading from my own shelf and I expect to read more chunksters than before, which will increase the number of books read of more than 450 pages.

If you remember Venn diagram while in school, you will know that the Venn set and subsets diagram and the size of population is the best way to depict the proportion of subject matters being analysed. So my reading plan for 2012 will look like this!

This gives me a snapshot of what I wanted to read next year. Assuming the total population of books I read will be fiction, the non-fiction circle excludes the lot. The overlaps between Crime and non-fiction will be true crime. I would like to read some crime fiction for Nordic and Japanese lit but would love to explore non-crime related fiction of these genre. Memoir is a smaller subset than my total non-fiction read which is aligned to the Non-Fiction Non-memoir that I signed up to, so on and so forth. South Asian will be heavily featured next year.

What do I think about you readers?

I think you are awesome!!!

Do write in and share with us your plans for next year.

I am eternally grateful for everyone of you who reads or follows my blog. I hope this new year will be the year all your wishes came true. Happy New Year to you and have a good one.

Throughout the year my progress in reading challenges are recorded in this page: 2011 reading challenges

Looking back I did pretty well with some of the reading challenges sign-up for 2011. I have signed up doing what’s minimal to qualify but did better than I expected. So here’s a wrap-up for all challenges participated this year.

1. The Middle East Reading Challenge

Timeline: August 1, 2010 through July 31, 2011 - qualifying level 1 book.

1. Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden? by Morgan Spurlock
   
2. I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti
3. In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
   
4. Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar
5. The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson
6. When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
7. I Think of You by Ahdaf Soueif
8. For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri
9. Sharon and My Mother-in-Law by Suad Amiry (it didn’t make it within timeline but read for Arab lit summer challenge)

1. The Vagrants by YiYun Li
2. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
   
3. Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

3. TBR Reading Challenges

I am doing this challenge because I need to read more from my own shelves this year, instead I am distracted on what’s out there in the library shelves. I’m not proud of what I have achieved and I’m going to give it another try next year.

Duration from 1 January 2011 – 31 December 2011.

The TBR challenge are hosted by Roof Beam Reader and Diane @Bibliophile by the Sea.

So here’s my list for the 12 and what I read this year (not great really, I’m sorry Diane, feels like I let you down):

1. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
2. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. East of Eden – John Steinbeck
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
7. Winter in Madrid – C.J. Sansom (read and pass on)
8. A Crime in the Neighbourhood by Suzanne Berne –  (read and passed on)
9. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres (read and pass on)
10. Love in the time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
12. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Two alternates:

1. Iliad – Homer
2. Italian Shoes – Henning Mankell

5. The Nordic Challenge 2011

1. The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder
2. The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaarder
   
3. The Leopard by Jo Nesbo
4. Woman With Birthmark by Håkan Nesser
5. Daniel by Henning Mankell
6. Until thy wrath be past by Åsa Larsson
7. The Mind’s Eye by Håkan Nesser
8. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

…………

6. The Haruki Murakami Challenge 2011

1. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
   
2. What I Talk about when I talk about Running by Haruki Murakami
   
3. Underground by Haruki Murakami
4. Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami
5. Birthday Stories selected and introduced by Haruki Murakami

Past reviews:

1. After Dark, Haruki Murakami
2. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
3. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
4. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
5. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
6. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
7. A Wild Sheep Chase, Haruki Murakami

7. 2011 Non-Fiction Challenge

Rules:

- The challenge runs from January 17th to December 31st 2011.
Levels:

1-3 books from different categories: Master of Trivial Pursuit
4-6 books from different categories: Apply For Who Wants to Be A Millionaire
7-9 books from different categories: Future Jeopardy Champion

I read 12 non-fiction books this year and qualified for a Future Jeopardy Champion:

1. The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich (Pop Culture)
2. Camus, A Romance by Elizabeth Hawes (Memoir and Biography of an Author)
3. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (second read) (Memoir and Travelogues)
4. I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti (Memoir and Politics)
5. The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson (Memoir and Religion)
6. The Making of a Royal Romance by Katie Nicholl (Biography, politics, monarchy)
7. The Decision Book – 50 models for Strategic Thinking (Management)
8. What I Talk about when I talk about Running by Haruki Murakami (Memoir and Sports)
9. For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri (Memoir)
10. Underground by Haruki Murakami (Disaster event analysis)
11. Sharon and My Mother-in-Law by Suad Amiry (Memoir and Conflict)
12. Desert Divers by Sven Lindqvist (Travel, History, memoir)
13. Bringing down the house by Ben Mezrich (Gambling, memoir)
14. Death in Perugia by John Follain (Murder investigation)
15. An Idiot Abroad by Karl Pilkington (Comedy and travelogue)
16. I was born there, I was born here by Mourid Barghouti (Prose, memoir)

June 1 – December 31, 2011

I only completed one book for Books To Movies Challenge. I would like to try again in the new year but have yet to see the any reading challenge of such nature. I think watching the movie straight after reading a book brings the tale to live and add more fun and memory retention to the reading. I’ll probably set out my own challenge for year 2012.

My reading and movie list for this challenge:

1. Bringing down the house by Ben Mezrich

10. Japanese Literature Challenge 5

June 1, 2011 until January 30, 2012

Every year I look forward to second half of the year where I read a few books set in Japan. Although the challenge is not completed until end of January, for the sake year end lets pretend that it ended.

1. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
2. Underground by Haruki Murakami
3. Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami
4. Villain by Shuichi Yoshida

Besides these 4 I read another two Japanese books which falls outside the challenge period.

• Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
• What I Talk about when I talk about Running by Haruki Murakami

11. Read a Myth Challenge

I haven’t done very well on my own challenge and so far have read only one book:

The Lion’s Honey By David Grossman

Read Along

Besides reading challenge, I have also participated in a few read-alongs and hosted one this year:

1. I read 2666 by Roberto Bolano with Judith at Judith’s post on 2666 Read-Along
2. I read Half of the Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie for Nigerian Literature Challenge hosted by the lovely Amy @ Amy Reads
3. I hosted the Double read along : Frenchman’s Creek and The End of Mr. Y
4. I read 4 out of the 6 shortlists for Orange Prize 2011

Afterthought

Participating in reading challenges is my way of providing some focus in my reading year and because I have always been driven by goal and objectives all my life, it gives me a sense of accomplishment when I achieved what I set out to do by the end of the year.

What would the focus in the new year be? Stay tuned and the results will be revealed on my next post.

“Have a Good Time”

Yesterday it was my birthday.

I hung one more year on the line.

I should be depressed.

My life’s a mess.

But I’m having a good time.

I’ve been loving and loving and loving.

I’m exhausted from loving so well

I should go to bed.

But a voice in my head says,

“Ah, what the hell.”

- Song lyrics by  Paul Simon, introduced at the beginning of this book

You may have noticed I’m doing my last sprint of reading till 31 December 2011.

It’s my birthday in 2 days and I’ll be stepping into a new decade.

To commemorate a major step-up in my age, I have decided to end my year of reading with Haruki Murakami’s anthology of Birthday stories.

The Anthology is first published in Japan nearly a decade ago when Murakami is 53 (that makes him 63 now this coming birthday in January 2012). The Anthology begins with Murakami’s introduction, continues with 12 short stories by American and Irish authors and ends with a short story written by Murakami himself.

The collection of short stories, of course, all have to do with Birthdays. The process of finding these short stories was not an easy one for Murakami, although the collection is a little American Centric, except William Trevor, it provides a good read.

Following the sequence of stories as it appears in the book, the writers featured are:

Russell Banks, Denis Johnson, William Trevor, Daniel Lyons, Lynda Sexson, David Foster Wallace, Ethan Canin, Andrea Lee, Raymond Carver, Paul Theroux, Claire Keegan, Lewis Robinson and Haruki Murakami.

Out of the many authors mentioned, I have only read book written by Paul Theroux (The Great Railway Bazaar) and the other authors I have heard of but haven’t read any of their books are (and wouldn’t oppose to reading one of their novels): Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke who won the National Book award in 2007), William Trevor, Raymond Carver and probably remember reading somewhere about David Forster Wallace early death. What about you?

These stories are not necessarily happy. Some of my favourites are:

 “The Birthday Cake” by Daniel Lyons, where a stubborn old lady refuses to give up her daily cake for a mother who needs a cake for a party that is starting in few minutes and a young girl is destined to disappoint. We were left to condemn the old lady’s act until we understands her devotion of insisting in having her daily cake.

Andrea Lee’s unconventional “The Birthday Present” to her husband is another good one. I won’t reveal what the present is but it is one that has to do with the test of fidelity and letting go, and about a woman’s discovery of her secret desire. Quietly shocking but thought provoking.

“Close to the Water’s edge” by Claire Keegan has a sad and warm fuzzy feeling of a grandson reminiscence of his grandmother’s life. A life with limited choices, his grandma was given one hour be her husband to look at the sea before she gets on the truck to go back to inland Tennessee without seeing the coasts again.

Then she climbed in and spent the rest of her life with a man who would have gone home without her. [......] He thinks of his grandmother coming to the ocean. She said if she had her life to live again, she never would have climbed back into the car. She’d stayed behind and turned into a streetwalker sooner than go home. Nine children she bore him. When her grandson asked what made her get back in, her answer was “Those were the times I lived in. That’s what I believed. I thought I didn’t have a choice.” – page 159

So how’s Murakami’s short story piece “The Birthday Girl” like? Well, it’s about a girl who remembers the day of her 20^th birthday when she had to wait on tables as usual. She delivers the owner’s dinner and was asked to wish for one wish and never to change her mind. Not that all great but with a “duh?” ending for me. I guess one will have to make up their mind on what to believe with some of these short stories.

Do I remember any of my birthdays? I remember my 13^th and 21^st birthdays where my friends were with me and we had dinners and a good chat. I remember my23rd birthday as well. I can remember where I was at the turn of millennium but can’t quite remember what I did on my birthday. Interesting how most of my birthdays have come to a blur. I suppose it’s the mind’s natural mechanism to deny the fact that I am, again, getting older. If there is anything that I take away from reading this book, I think I will start take note of how I spent my birthdays in the future and build my own birthday stories.

I suppose at some point I’ll re-read the anthology again as some short stories went over my head and I didn’t get it. It’s only 207 pages long and my birthday is going to come every year, so what the heck.

Rating: 

Anyone has the same birthday as I am? 2 January. As Murakami said:

I couldn’t help but feel a kind of soft, natural bond with the world. It was not a bond that could serve any practical purpose, nor one that had any real impact on a person’s life. It was, I suppose, that special bond that people feel with each other when they know that one of them is celebrating his or her birthday.

Looking back now, however, I have to say in all honesty that these events do not seem to have had any special effect on the way I balance happiness vs. Unhappiness or hope vs despair in my life. However many birthdays I may have counter off, however many important events I may have witnessed or experienced firsthand, I feel I have always remained the same me, I could never have been anything else.

Murakami’s birthday falls on the 12 January, the same day as Jack London.

Paperback. Publisher: Vintage 2004, originally published in Japanese in 2002; Length: 207 pages; Setting: America.  Source: Own. Finished reading at: 31^st December 2011.

Other views:

Novroz@Bokunosekai: Overall, I find Birthday Stories as a bit unusual. I like the fact that he didn’t just choose the happiest story because most people think that birthday is one of the happiest days of one’s life…but some of the stories are to boring to read.

Gathering books: I recommend this selection to those who like to be surprised in the midst of the mundane. It’s an interesting selection, one that will make you read up to the last story.

Anyway, go ahead have a good time!