Book review – ‘Zine and film review – The Punk Singer

Well, this doesn’t happen very often, but today I have a book review and a FILM review for you. I don’t know what it is about cinema, but I just don’t go to see many films, or watch them at home. I’m pretty sure it’s not the attention span, as I can spend hours editing away or transcribing. It might well be that I’m not good with violence and have a very retentive, pretty well eidetic memory, so anything horrible I see is glued to my brain for ever more.  I do have a few favourites – “Bhaji on the Beach”,  um …. But the fact is, I’m not a big cinema-goer or film-watcher. So when I see something that takes me back to my youth, makes me think, makes me sad and happy, where I don’t look at my watch once during the showing and I sit there at the end, willing it not to have finished, I think that deserves a review!

And the great thing is, I saw the excellent film, “The Punk Singer”, about Riot Grrrl, feminist and early zine exponent Kathleen Hanna at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham on 8th June (at its only showing in Birmingham), and then won “‘Zine”, Pagan Kennedy’s 1995 book about her zine, in the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme. I don’t THINK I’m going to start backcombing my hair and wearing shorts, woolly tights and DMs again, but you never know … Anyway, here’s a perfect pair of reviews.

Film: “The Punk Singer”

This film is a biography of Kathleen Hanna, singer in Bikini Kill, Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin, founding mother of the Riot Grrrl music genre and of the zine movement. It was funded partly through benefit concerts and partly through a Kickstarter campaign that I wish I’d known about. Featuring archive footage and old and new interviews with most of the important people to do with the bands and scene (such as Kim Gordon, Joan Jett and members of Sleater-Kinney, it looks home-made and is quirky and charming (the most charming bit was when they showed someone actually cutting and pasting, literally, to create a zine, with a caption explaining what a zine was), but has a lot to say about life, music, feminism, music, marriage, friendship …

What I found captivating about the film as a whole was the sheer number of WOMEN you see in it. While Hanna’s husband and a couple of band confederates get a few minutes, the protagonists, commenters, music specialists and zine experts are predominantly women. Some of these women wear makeup, some don’t. We see people looking run down, as if they’ve just woken up, sweating on stage in pants and vest. Women shouting and swearing and talking about child abuse and domestic abuse and how women get treated in the crowd at concerts. Women are supportive of each other, are celebrating each other, are not set in conflict. Men are seen, where they are seen, as supporting players, nurturing the band or Hanna herself (she went public about her long battle with Lyme Disease in this film, and there are scenes with her doctor and husband which cast them in a supportive and empathetic role).

So, as well as taking me back to my earlier incarnation as a fan of the Riot Grrl movement at a time when I was reading a fair bit of American music writing and fiction and dressing how I wanted and being a strong feminist, it reminded me that, while my much-younger self might not have completely approved of my blue jeans-wearing, MARRIED current self, I am still a feminist, I still care about girls having good, positive, feisty and rule-breaking role models (*runs out and buys copies of the DVD for all of the young women she knows*), and it’s brilliant to see films like this being made and distributed.

I wish this had been on for more dates in Birmingham. I’m not sure how I heard about it, but it was shown at 3pm on a summer Sunday and the cinema was not full. I got quite a lot of interest when I posted on Facebook about it, and a quick Tweet out led me to this website where you can buy a DVD of the film (in the UK and Ireland), plus a rather nice Tshirt and BADGES (buttons). Oh, if only I still had that Air Force Surplus canvas bag. Maybe it’s time to pop down the Army Surplus in Selly Oak (where I bought the original) for a replacement …

Pagan Kennedy – “‘Zine”

(20 June 2014 – LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme)

Reissued by the Santa Fe Writers Project, this is Kennedy’s book from 1995 (did I read it then? The reading journal archives, alas, began in 1997) with no extras, just reprinted with a new cover. It has several full issues of Pagan’s zine, “Pagan’s Head” reproduced in all their typewritten, cut-and-pasted glory, plus narrative about how and why she started and continued it, and life events as the axis of her life shifted from writing and room-mates and hair and thinking about getting a car to more serious matters when her father fell ill and she had to face fairly serious health matters herself.

The free-form format of the zine and the accepting world she inhabits mean that the zine can mutate and change direction as she goes, and this book still reads as fresh and is a useful contemporary documentary of the zine scene. One First World / Ageing Reader problem – because the presumably A4 zine was reproduced in a smaller-format book, some of it was pretty hard to read, requiring strong lighting and the occasional peering over or under my glasses. Readers over 40 – to whom this will necessarily appeal – be warned!

Book reviews – The Marvellous Mongolian and Strange Boy

Well, we’re back in the swing of things with book reviews, almost caught up with what I’ve actually been reading recently, and I’ve even managed to create one of my pairs of books here, as both of these are aimed at the children’s / young adult market. I won “The Marvellous Mongolian” in a raffle organised by Jane Badger Books – I’m not usually one for winning things, but there was the draw and there was my book in the post. It does have a slightly sad theme, but Jane warned me, so all was well! The other one came for Christmas, and completes a slight Paul Magrs binge I’ve been having lately (I think; maybe there’s one more lurking on the back TBR shelf …). They are also another pair to add to my Reading a Century project, covering 1974 and 2002 respectively, so that’s coming along nicely!

James Aldridge – “The Marvellous Mongolian”

(13 November 2013 – won in a raffle from Jane Badger Books)

A lovely children’s book told in letters between a Mongolian boy living with a horse-herding family and rather reluctantly going to school in the local town and a Welsh girl, Kitty, whose grandfather runs a nature reserve. They come into contact when a magnificent specimen of the original Mongolian Wild Horse is shipped over to Wales to live in the nature reserve. Kitty’s pet pony, Peep, is earmarked to be the first member of the herd, and Kitty and Peep go through a process of separation that is beautifully observed as Tachi the stallion claims the tame pony for his own.

Tachi and Peep are not then happy where they are, and the seemingly safe and protected reserve seems to have more permeable boundaries than was first thought. Could the two horses really be trying to make their way across Europe to get home to Mongolia? If so, this will be an epic journey – and one that will end in tragedy for one of the characters (this is signposted and necessary to the plot, so it’s not too much of a jolt and is sad but not devastating).

Really well done in the letter format, which I haven’t seen in a pony book before, with lots of information about wild horses, but presented naturally, and a sympathetic and attractive hero and heroine. Some of the events echo all stallion stories, with shades of the Black Stallion and Thunderhead from the Mary O’Hara books, but this really doesn’t matter, and it’s a good read. Even though it’s in letters and the children’s lives are old-fashioned, it’s not dated and is still a good one. Thanks, Jane!

Paul Magrs – “Strange Boy”

(25 December 2013 – Christmas present from Gill)

Although this covers some of the same ground as “Diary of a Dr Who Addict” (a lad growing up in Newton Aycliffe in the North East, in a fractured family with a policeman dad, and his dawning awareness of his sexuality and trips to the precinct to buy books and comics), this doesn’t centre on the TV show (although it does of course mention it) and is a bit more explicit (not troublingly so, and in the context of an examination of sexuality and (perceived) masculinity).

It’s a warm and touching book, with the portrayal of David’s relationship with his younger brother and of the various matriarchs in his extended family particularly well done (I love his grandmas and slightly scary mothers-of-friends and the strong older women that crop up throughout his early work are obviously the ancestresses of Brenda and Effie). The strong identification with region and the touch of magic recall his earlier novels, and it’s a good read which would certainly help any reader struggling with the issues around masculinity/sexuality portrayed here, or those seeking to understand.

But it’s not just an ‘Issues’ novel: it’s a good read in its own right. I loved the voice in this first venture into YA fiction of Magrs’, and I loved the glossary at the end, which maintained that voice perfectly.

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So, two more off the Reading a Century project, and next up we have a very exciting combination of a book review and a film review! The latter doesn’t happen very often, so I hope you’re looking forward to that!

Oh, and one small acquisition – I saw the announcement of this book’s paperback version in ‘The Guardian’ but decided to treat myself to the hardback, as it was only a couple of pounds more. And I bought it from “Bank of Matthew”, my seemingly inexhaustible fund of Christmas and Birthday money from Matthew and his family, so it was effectively FREE. It’s a biography of Snorri Sturluson, writer of Egil’s Saga and the Edda which records the Norse myths, as well as other books and histories, and it’s  a lovely physical object, with untrimmed page edges and a very shiny cover.

Book reviews – Queen of Dreams and What’s my Motivation – and some acquisitions

Hello, regular readers and new blog friends! Today I’m rounding off my holiday reading with the book I read on the plane and train from Iceland to Birmingham and finished in the early evening when we’d got back home, and then we’re back working our way through my TBR with a book that I’ve thought I’ve wanted to read for YEARS. I also report on an innocent walk past the town square in my neighbourhood which, upon my friend uttering the words, “I wonder if there’s a book stall”, turned into a minor book-buying fest. I can also report that the TBR hasn’t suffered too badly from this, and I’ve also added to my Century of Books reading project list, so it’s all good!

Chitra Divakaruni – “Queen of Dreams”

(Acquired via BookCrossing 05 June 2014 – from Icelandic BookCrosser Bjorg)

I’d arranged to meet Bjorg while we were in Iceland, and we’d offered each other the choice of our availables (as my availables were a bit low, I ended up giving her “Mr Lynch’s Holiday”, which I enjoyed on the journey out and she read almost immediately). I’d read others by this author and was intrigued by this one. I did collect a few other books from Bjorg and Birna which I had to leave behind owing to packing issues (too many DVDs and a dictionary) but I read this one on the plane and then on the train journey from Manchester Airport back to Birmingham.

Rakhi is a second generation Indian-American running a cafe with a friend who’s in the same situation but trying hard to shake off her ethnic roots and dealing with her divorce while trying to maintain her painting practice and caring for her daughter. When a big chain cafe opens over the road, matters for the cafe and its owners take a turn for the worse, and Rakhi’s parents try to help in their different ways.

Devastated by her mother’s inexplicable death, Rakhi starts to read her journals, with the help of her father, to whom she has never been close until now, and discovers more about her life – and this is where the magical realism kicks in – doing ‘dream work’ for people, which involves both providing consultations and dreaming other people’s dreams and tracking them down to tell them about it. Rakhi used to long to do this work herself, but now, as her daughter starts to experience terrifying nightmares, she begins to think twice.

Set against this inward exploration is a very overt and outward theme: when the 9/11 attacks take place, suddenly it’s not that safe to be of any kind of South Asian heritage, and fighting back, as Belle’s new Sikh boyfriend finds to his cost, is not the answer. Tensions heighten, and the characters are forced to examine what it actually means to be ‘American’.

Well written, with a magical and mysterious element which adds depth and emotional intensity as well as a range of voices to the novel.

Michael Simkins – “What’s my Motivation?”

(25 December 2013)

I’d had this one on my wish list for literally years; I think I saw a friend reading it ages ago and thought it looked fun. As with some things that are wished for for a long time (but not Iceland!) it was disappointing. But I’m glad I finally got hold of it and read it!

It’s the autobiography of a semi-successful actor, taking in drama school, the early years and then jumping around a bit, mainly treating his (semi-successful) relationships. It’s supposed to be self-deprecating and Bill Brysonish and while it does use some phrases like Bryson’s, it was more on the silly end of things, and didn’t have much to say for itself when it all came down to it – the detail about acting classes and auditioning was the most interesting part of the book. It also runs out of steam rather when he begins to have some decent work, as there’s not so much of amusement to say then, as things settle down (much like a difficult second album, I suppose).

I was put off by an early nasty anecdote about a pet which was really not necessary to include, and was then on the watch for unpleasantnesses. There are some fairly grimy descriptions, but then a jobbing rep actor’s life can be a bit grubby, so that’s fair enough. But it’s not really one to read while you’re eating, for example. It didn’t ever really engage me, and it was odd that it simultaneously mocks actors’ self-absorption and egocentricity and plays heavily on Simkins’ being at RADA with Timothy Spall, although oddly doesn’t mention another actor in the RADA sections with whom he later claims he studied.

Patchy, in sum: I read it, but it wasn’t brilliant.

New acquisitions! First off, a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book – “Zine” by Pagan Kennedy. This is a reissue of a book published about ten years ago, all about how Kennedy started and ran her own zine. It fortuitously fits in really well with a brilliant film I saw last Sunday called “The Punk Singer”, a biopic of Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna (more info here: see it if you can, and I really hope they do a DVD version as I want to share this with a few people!). It has lots of pages from her zine and the book, reissued by the San Francisco Writers’ Collective has a good indie feel to it, too. Of course I’ll be reading this SOON as you are supposed to read LTER books and review them within a month of receipt.

And those books from the town square? There was a Green Fair on, with lots of stalls on solar panels and recycling, but the book stall that’s run on Farmers’ Market days (normally inside the church so invisible therefore not tempting to me) was out in the sun, and so we had a browse.  Ian Sinclair’s “Edge of the Orison” is a work of psychogeography about travelling in the footsteps of Essex poet John Clare. I really enjoyed his “London Orbital” (bought in 2002 and due for a re-read) so am looking forward to this. I’d not seen James Lees-Milne’s “Harold Nicolson” biography before: this is Volume 1, taking us up to 1929, and there is a second volume available. It fits in to my collection on the various Nicolsons (he was father of Nigel and grandfather of Adam) and looks like a good read. I also collect Eric Newby’s travel books but didn’t yet have “The Big Red Train Ride” so was pleased to spot that (he’s one of my favourite travel writers), and I saw a few Virago original greens that I already had, but had never heard of Ivy Litvinov’s “She Knew She Was Right”, which is short stories set in Russia and England.

Even better, when I added these to my TBR, I found that three of them (all except the Sinclair) added new items to my Century of Reading list – and nothing could have been further from my mind when I was browsing the boxes of books. So I can report that I now have 41 books in my collection and on the list, 16 of which I’ve read and reviewed (well, the review is to come for one of them) and the remainder of which are on my TBR. I haven’t had to desperately look for any or hunt too much through my own collection to fill in the gaps so far. So it’s going well.

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That’s it for now. Two more reviews to come for the week, and I’m going to be doing some Icelandic saga reading and possibly starting one of the bigger books on the TBR picture at the top of this post. What are you reading this summer?

 

 

Book reviews – At Home, Icelandic Folk and Fairy Tales and Oxford Exit

I know I usually do two reviews at a time, rather than three, but I’m feeling like I will never get all these books reviewed on here if I don’t do some combining. So here we have three books read solely on holiday in Iceland. Three quite different books, which were chosen for their Englishness or their Icelandic nature, and in two cases, their portability. So, here we go with all of the rest of the holiday reading actually done on the holiday (one flight-home book to come!)

Bill Bryson – “At Home”

(Acquired via BookCrossing 23 November 2013, at a meetup)

A somewhat hefty tome, which I thought would be entertaining on the journey (it was, but too big for the in-cabin baggage) and finished by the time I met the Icelandic BookCrossers (it wasn’t, sorry). This is an exhaustive tour of, well, basically, stuff, told through the conceit of a journey around Bryson’s house in Norfolk. This works better in some rooms than others (OK, the attic one was a bit of a mish-mash, but it didn’t have anything about storage, etc.) but generally gave a potted history of the type of room, and type of activity that went on in the room, with side excursions into all sorts of things.

it’s haphazard but entertaining, full of little details which will stick with you, half-remembered. It debunks myths and confirms or denies generally accepted beliefs, and does tend towards the icky tale of disease and pests, leading to some sections that I did skim over, I have to admit. But it was generally well done and amusing, but not silly (he can get a bit silly, I find). A good travelling read if you can fit it in your baggage.

Jon Arnason, May and Hallberg Hallmundsson – “Icelandic Folk and Fairy Tales”

(21 Jan 2014, from Sian, registered on BookCrossing)

While I do like to collect books on Iceland, and this looked enticing from the day I received it on my birthday, it was found in a local charity shop and registered on BookCrossing, so it had to keep on travelling! I also knew by then that I would be going to Iceland some time this year, so I had it saved up (ha – saved up, who am I kidding? I’m on last summer’s acquisitions still!) to read and then release in Iceland. I ended up leaving it in our guesthouse, which was a good place for it, as the owners are Icelandic, but people come through from all sorts of different places.

This has a variety of tales, short, long, scary, funny, myths, tales from the saga-times, humans, elves, trolls and ghosts. They’re collected into a loose order, some involving a particular person, others types of tales, with a good introduction explaining the background and the choices that the editors made. There are also atmospheric pictures scattered through the text. A good read in the fragments of time you often have on a trip, where a few paragraphs or a page works well slotted in amongst the day’s activities, and it was super to read it actually in Iceland!

Veronica Stallwood – “Oxford Exit”

(25 December 2013 – LibraryThing Virago Group Not so Secret Santa gift from Verity)

I took this away with me because it was short and about England and libraries – I had already checked with Verity that she didn’t mind me registering it on BookCrossing and giving it away when I’d finished it. I’m not normally a big mystery fan – which means that I NEVER guess whodunit – but I do like an interesting and different read, and the fact that this one centres around a writer and is set in the libraries of Oxford University meant that it was right up my street.

Novelist Kate Ivory is approached to investigate the theft of books from various Oxford libraries, and she starts to delve into the mysteries of cataloguing and downloading records (oh so familiar from my library days). But it quickly becomes apparent that book theft is the least of her concerns, when people start telling her about a young library assistant who was murdered recently.

Taking in multiple locations in Oxford and America, our heroine is an interesting woman who goes running and has a fairly independent (or solitary) life, although she comes into contact with her comedy neighbours and a hunky policeman in the course of her investigation. There’s also some convincing detail about why she doesn’t want to get involved in more action and has lost her head for heights which obviously refers back to a previous book, but this does happily stand alone in its series.

Further interest is added in the form of creative writing assignments created by someone who is obviously linked to the case in some way, and may be unhinged or just a fantasist. There’s a convincing air of menace and worry that builds as the book goes on, and it’s a good read with a broad range of characters and a good dose of humour. I would definitely consider reading others in this series.

I read this book in Reykjavik, and read most of it on our last afternoon, sitting on a bench by the town lake with Matthew, both absorbed in our books and enjoying thewarm and sunny weather.

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Coming up next – what I read on the plane home and my first read back home, and we keep chipping away at the TBR!

 

 

Book reviews – Mr Lynch’s Holiday and Brenda and Effie Forever!

Hello! Sorry for the gap there – I’m finally writing up my holiday reading, after posting the last of my Icelandic reads while in Iceland (I don’t like telling people when I’m away – I have been to Iceland and there will be a blog post and pictures soon … ). So today we’ve got two books I read early on during our holiday. I was a bit dim with my holiday reading – knowing we were going to meet up with a couple of Reykjavik BookCrossers, I thought I’d take the opportunity to read a few books that were already registered on BookCrossing, then pass them on. However, I hadn’t considered that we were meeting Bjorg and Birna fairly early on in the trip, and I’d only read the first of these two by the time we met them. Oops! But I passed that one on, collected one from them to read on the way home (actually I took three then for some reason the bags, even though they were minus some toiletries and a pile of books, were not having any of it, and I had to leave two of those), and left a nice pile of books in the guest house kitchen. In other dimness news, I took my tablet along, having carefully downloaded all of my Kindle books onto its Kindle app, then managed not to read on it at all. But it came in handy when Matthew’s book wouldn’t fit in the packing, either, but was handily on my Kindle, so he could read it on the way home.

Anyway, on to two books by people I’ve actually met, which is quite a nice pairing …

Catherine O’Flynn – “Mr Lynch’s Holiday”

(01 June 2014 from Gill via BookCrossing)

Dermot, newly widowed, decides to visit his son, Eamon, in his crumbling apartment in a Spanish resort that has fallen foul of the economic downturn and remains an outpost of expat civilisation, full of feral cats (nothing bad happens to the cats) and centred around a swimming pool with no water. Is the place depressing Eamon, or was he depressed already? And what’s happened to his girlfriend?

Practical Dermot sets to work trying to sort things out, in the neglected flat, in Eamon’s disconnected life, and then in the community at large. He encounters the ex-pat community in a different way from Eamon, missing out on the cues about the on-going rivalries and oddnesses, but developing his own routines and friendships, including with the outcasts in that outcast group.

It’s a lovely warm and moving novel, set partly in Birmingham, examining masculinity and the world of work, political correctness and friendship, marriage and family, while remaining a light read and one eminently suitable for a holiday read.

Paul Magrs – “Brenda and Effie Forever!”

(05 January 2014 from Gill via BookCrossing)

The last of the Brenda and Effie books – there are six altogether. I did do BookRays for the other books in the series, but they have gone all chaotic, so I decided to read this and then release it in Iceland, to see what the Icelanders (or people from our hostel) make of it – it is possible to read it as a standalone, although more fun if you’ve read the others.

This one roams from Paris to the land of Faery, via Haworth, as antique shop owner and powerful witch Effie remembers a missing portion of her past, and we encounter the ghostly Bronte sisters, who are not all that they seem. There’s a scary set of folk in town, Brenda’s having troubles of her own, the vampires are rustling around, and Panda (who is in others of Paul’s books) makes an appearance – a very good new character for these books who’s a bad-tempered sentient soft toy of uncertain habits. We have all the old characters, too, and Robert’s friend Gila, the lizard boy, is central to the plot; in addition to this, we find out how the books came to be written (in the Brenda and Effie world).

There are twists and turns, flesh-eating mini mermaids and dodgy magicians, old characters and new, the plot works well and almost everything is explained in the end … a good read and a good end to the series.

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Coming next – four more reviews of books read on the holiday and on the way home, plus a write-up of the Iceland trip at some stage. And then I’m galloping through my TBR, having added only one book to it and read it immediately, and having discarded Bill Gates’ “Business at the Speed of Light” when I realised that reading a book about digital business that was published in 2000 would not be that fun (too new to be archaic or interesting when viewed through the lens of history, too old to be relevant).

 

Book reviews – The Diary of a Dr Who Addict and Give me Ten Seconds

Two books that don’t really go together, but they’re the last ones I read in May or started in May and finished in June, and weren’t on the subject of Iceland. So, unlikely pair they might be, but everything can’t be arranged neatly!

Paul Magrs – “The Diary of a Dr Who Addict”

(08 Dec 2013 – BookCrossing Birmingham Secret Santa present)

In this delightful novel written for Young Adults but perfectly readable by the rest of us, we follow some time in the life of David, growing up in the North-Eastern England town of Newton Aycliffe in the 1980s – as did the author – and getting used to a new family structure with a new, American stepdad and his mum, the fabulous Jacqui, an ally for a time in this new and unsettling period of David’s life, especially as she has a room full of sci fi and gets properly interested in David’s obsession, Dr Who.

It’s the time when Peter Davidson started on the show, which adds a lovely nostalgic touch, and it really captures the excitement of sitting down to watch the new series as a young almost-teen. David finds, however, that his best friend, Robert, is not as keen as he used to be, and in fact is starting to look down on it, as well as starting to criticise David for being both too mainstream (compared to him and his somewhat marvellous sister – the women characters in this book, as with all of Magrs’ novels, are super) and too ‘puffy’.

Will David have the courage to take his own path? Is it easier being friends with girls? (Not particularly, it turns out.) What will happen to the family as Jacqui gets frailer and starts to sleepwalk? Some lovely set pieces, plenty of that Magrs standby, precincts (precinct is to Magrs what the tabard is to Victoria Wood, the classic word – do any authors you love have a standard word that will summon them up in a couple of syllables?), an engaging central character and an ending that hints at new beginnings. Lovely.

John Sergeant – “Give me Ten Seconds”

(28 December 2013 – BookCrossing meetup)

The instruction in the title turns out to be a request for a warning when he’s about to run out of time, which is interesting. A slightly older book, this autobiography covers his early life and BBC years, up until the time when he moved to ITN (so we don’t get any of the Strictly stuff). It’s engagingly written, settling a few scores and taking us behind the scenes for an insight into political characters as well as the machinations of the BBC.

The background to political events such as the Falklands war and power struggles in the Conservative and Labour parties was interesting, and I was amused to note that the BBC was accused of giving undue coverage to the rise of the SDP / Liberal Democrats in the 80s, given that the same is being said with regard to UKIP nowadays. The book is dated, which is a shame, but still a good read.

Book Reviews – Iceland Defrosted and Independent People

Two more books on Iceland done and dusted, and I have done well with my reading pile and enjoyed my little project, even if it did seep into June! These two are pretty different, one rooted in life within a corner of Iceland lived by people who barely raise their eyes from the soil, and one by an English Icelandophile who travels regularly between the two countries and spends time exploring every area of the island(s) of Iceland. One is set around 1900-1920, the other is set a century later. But they both have interesting things to say, and I enjoyed reading them both very much.

Edward Hancox – “Iceland Defrosted”

(17 March 2014)

Culled from blog posts and magazine articles, this is a lively and engaging read by an English Icelandophile who visits regularly, has Icelandic friends, attends various festivals and musical performances, and travels regularly between the two countries. This means that you get more of an insider’s view of the island and its inhabitants than I really got from “Names for the Sea”, even though the author of that book actually lived in Reykjavik for a year. Maybe it’s because Hancox seems more enthusiastic about the place – and this certainly calmed some of the nerves I had about travelling there.

He’s very keen on the music scene and interviews a fair number of Icelandic musicians, and also takes a trip around most of the tourist areas and other sites of interest, sometimes a bit grumpily but always entertainingly, reporting honestly on his experiences, good and bad, but taking them as they come and being generally cheerful. His enthusiasm for the country shines through and makes this a pleasant and amusing – but informative – read.

Halldor Laxness – “Independent People”

The tale of farming folk in Southern Iceland, I got a bit worried about this one when a few people I know reported to be more than a little grim. It is the story of one man and his reluctance to appease the ghosts which apparently haunt the land he saves for half his life to buy – and the somewhat doomy results of that refusal. There are ghosts, unpleasant things that happen to sheep, struggles with the cold and damp, descriptions of the arrival of cooperatives in the area … but this makes it sound much darker than it actually is. And the insularity and not looking up from the land is there, but then there’s a very interesting discussion of their attitude to the First World War and the countries of Europe which spread its reach much further, as well as the odd character who has been to The West (America).

I think I was probably helped by my immersion in at university and subsequent re-reading of the Icelandic sagas, as the language, tone and events of the book closely resemble these works, presumably intentionally. In fact Bjartur, the main character, is prone to quoting old verse and the sagas himself on occasion. So the connection with the land, terse passages explaining great swathes of action, and, indeed, the rather black humour, were rather familiar to me and didn’t get in the way of my reading experience.

To say I enjoyed this would be an odd thing – it’s a pretty harsh story, with fate individual and collective playing a major role, some fairly nasty goings-on (nothing I couldn’t cope with though) and some grim times, but it’s marvellously written and so atmospheric, and I will certainly be looking out for more works by this amazing writer.

State of the TBR June 2014

So, here is the TBR shelf and it’s not actually looking that bad, is it! I’ve got quite a lot read, although I have removed some, too (sorry again, EJ Howard!) – and the reviews are stacking up waiting to be posted on here, as I’ve had a very busy couple of working weeks and got all behind with my reviewing (but not my reading!).

I did pretty well with my Month of Reading Icelandic Books, reducing that pile to this and still planning to dip into the lovely fat book of sagas. And yes, I will be going to Iceland some time on the summer, but I don’t like to announce when I’m away on here or social media and I’m sure you’ll all respect that.

I’m currently reading the still marvellous “Independent People” by Madness – it’s great but I can see why some people might find it a bit roomy. It’s very reminiscent of the sagas and quite darkly funny in places. And for light relief, because you don’t want to be reading about possible ghosts and poorly sheep at tea time, I have John Sergeant’s autobiography, which I believe ends before his Strictly Come Dancing performances …

Coming up, this is the front shelf of my TBR, some real contrasts and lots of treats as I inch towards my full shelf of Christmas acquisitions …

I read Simon Stuckinabook’s answers post and wondered if I could do something similar (I’m such a copycat but I always acknowledge my sources!). So is anyone interested in asking me any readingy type questions to answer in a future post? Failing interest in that topic, what are you reading this summer?