Arukiyomi

Context: took me a long while to read this and some of that time was spent exploring St Andrews in east Scotland.

REVIEW
This is a deceptively long book. It looked around 300 pages but stretched to 570. Not that it was overlong but there were times when I wished it had been shorter. Still, it was an interesting glimpse into a life that is no longer which is probably a good thing.
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Context: Finished this off on this bench at our friends’ house in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

REVIEW
Like, Coetzee, Toibin writes in sparse prose that is so wonderfully crafted in this novel that he manages to load each sentence with pages of meaning. This is a poignant, thoughtful and, at times, tragic novel that takes the reader on a journey through a man’s thoughts and memories. I loved it.
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Context: at home with 1000 copies of the book that need to be sold sitting by the back door!

REVIEW
It’s not every son who has the priviledge of blogging his dad’s own book. Seeing as it’s father’s day here, I think it’s appropriate that I avail myself of this privilege right now.

It’s a book about dieting, what’s wrong with it and how to be free of it while still finding a healthy approach to eating. This is my dad’s first and, it isn’t at all bad.
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Context: Picked this up at a charity shop in Stockton high street and read it as I walked to and from car showrooms buying a second hand car.

REVIEW
This is a very quick read as it’s merely a short story of around 70 pages or so. It took a little while for me to get into it and figure out what was going on but once I did, I found a small story that grapples with big issues.
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Context: Picked this up from a certain university library and finished it while babysitting for my sister.

REVIEW
Read Midnight’s Children a long time ago and thought it was fantastic, so I was looking forward to this a lot. It didn’t disappoint. Then again, it didn’t live up to all my expectations.
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Context: Got this for my birthday and read it to the sound of demolition work over the road from our house in the UK.

REVIEW
In 2002, Rick Warren published a book called The Purpose-Driven Life and started a world-wide spree in which Purpose-Driven became one of the catchphrases of the modern evangelical church. For better or worse, being part of the modern church, you cannot help but come across this material.

One man, the aptly titled Warren Smith, doesn’t feel that Rich Warren is as genuine as he appears to be and his book tells us why.
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Context: Me and Mrs Arkiyomi read this together a chapter at a time while we toured Europe inlcuding tea on this Aegean ferry.

REVIEW
My first Zadie Smith and it seems it was hers too. For a first novel, I’m willing to relax the usual full blast of critical comment. That said, I’ll still not be letting it off lightly.
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Context: Picked this up in an apartment with a view of the Bernese Alps where we stayed in Switzerland.

REVIEW
Norman Grubb is a bit of a legend. He spent his latter years writing Christian biographies despite having live a life that was more than equally worthy of an autobiography. This was his first and it was about his father in law.
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Context: friend in Albania lent me this and I read it while we hitched from Greece to Liechtenstein via this service station in Rosenheim, Germany.

REVIEW
Reading this at the same time as White Teeth, which I shall review shortly, was strange. They both focus on issues that arise from Britain’s immigrant population, they both have interludes from WW2 in them and they both have insights into Jamaican culture.

But while White Teeth failed in so many ways I thought, Small Island was successful.
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Context: read this in two decrepit and crumbling volumes that were over 100 years old as we worked our way from Turkey to Croatia

REVIEW
Deep down in an old shopping trolley outside a second-hand bookshop near Istiklal St, Istanbul I found the second volume of The Moonstone. A further rummage turned up the other volume and, after quick haggle, I walked off with them. The first volume fell apart almost immediately after I started reading it. The second seemed in better condition until I started reading it and discovered why. Dated 1908, no one had ever read it but me. How do I know this? The pages were uncut. I had to slice them apart with a pocket knife to read it.

Was it worth it… read on.
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Context: finished this off on the ferry from Turkey to the Greek island of Samos.

The final book of four gothic novels that I’ve been reading over the last few months. For the others, see my reviews of The Castle of Otranto, Vathek and The Monk.

REVIEW
This novel was quite disappointing I found. I don’t really think that Mary Shelley is much of a writer despite her having come up with a great idea for a story. In fact, I’m pretty sure that, had she not had such a famous husband and therefore been so well-connected, this story might never have become more famous than he himself is.
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Context: Finished this off on the bus from Istanbul to Izmir.

REVIEW
Absolutely loved this from beginning to end. After reading a couple of other Gothic novels that were hard going (i.e. The Castle of Otranto and Vathek), I was really worried that this was going to be 300 pages of turgid melodrama. Far from it.
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Context: Started this in the Romanian town of Sighisoara (in background), birthplace of Vlad Tepes who some claim to be the model Stoker used for the character of Count Dracula.

REVIEW
Read this entirely in Romania but, despite the immensity of the Dracula legend there and the terrific amount of tourism it generates, Stoker apparently never visited the country. That’s not all he seemed to be ignorant of.
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