Bitter? Not me.

Flower, once upon a time when I was aworking the register at the bookstore a little boy came up to the register and put a copy of Frog and Toad Are Friends on the counter. As far as I could tell he was by himself. He looked like he was about 7. He pushed the book across the counter to me and then carefully and with much gravitas set down a small cardboard game piece like the one pictured above. It had a picture of a very cute ham on it. He looked at the ham and looked at me--which I didn't take personally--and slowly guided the card across the counter to me. I took the card, put it in the register, put the book in a bag and gave it to him. Then he walked out of the store. We never saw each other again.

I don't think that a week has gone by that I haven't thought about that exchange. I'm planning on one day telling  my former boss/bookstore owner, D about that experience. In my head it goes like this. D is lying battered and beaten just like Masala after the chariot race in Ben Hur.  I come in strong and victorious like Ben Hur ready to forgive him his past transgressions. D/Masala says "There's still enough of a man here for you to hate, Juda". I say (and here is where the movie and I part ways) "Oh really? Well then let me tell you about the time I exchanged a $3.95 book for a worthless piece of paper with a picture of a ham on it". Being a Jew in a hot climate, Ben Hur would have had a card with a picture of unleavened bread or maybe a fig on it not a ham so you can see how this is different from the movie. "And I even kept the picture. You got nothing!!!" Then D/Masala lets out a got-me-in-the-gut groan, the classic death rattle and dies. It's just something I play in my head on long drives or every 12th waking moment.

Happy

Mr. Toppit

Flower my media savy friend do I have a book for you!

Wow! I have such a crush on this book. I heart Mr. Toppit and I want everyone else to as well.


Picture if you will my friend the lives of A.A. Milne and J.K. Rowling and the immense success of their immortal creations all mixed together with just a touch of Hamlet. You get a funny and dark casserole of cleverness, Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton. I remember reading that after having his childhood mined by his Father, the grown up Christopher Robin Milne said that, "My Father got where he was by climbing on my infant shoulders." That quote popped into my head more than once while reading this novel. It is humorous, distressing and sums up the heart of the Hayman family story.

Mr Toppit is the mysterious, menacing creation of Arthur Hayman. Hayman is the author of a series of children's books, The Hayseed Chronicles. The Chronicles were fated to stay tucked away in obscurity and jumble sales until Arthur is killed in a traffic accident. After meeting a cement truck his final few minutes are spent with passing American tourist Laurie Chow. Chow is the embodiment of American access. She is obese, constantly "on" and overly connected. Laurie is the catalyst with her own agenda that brings the beyond-your-wildest-expectations monetary prosperity to the Hayman family via her pushing the books. The Hayseed Chronicles become a global, money spewing, obsessive fan creating juggernaut. Meanwhile Arthur's widow and children struggle with the fame and rewards: Mrs Hayman's alcoholism, son Luke's loathing of his thinly disguised self as the book's hero and daughter Rebecca's anguish at her exclusion from the books. Then there are also the agents, the movie moguls, the media specialists, the product tie marketers, the fans, the fans and the fans.

~~sigh~~ I'm getting all misty eyed remembering how much I flipped over this novel. I ate it up. In Mr. Toppit Charles Elton has completely captured the frenzy that can accompany unbridled success. There is a wealth of story in Mr. Toppit to satisfy and enthrall. This novel is a comic heartbreaker. Read it and relish it.

Happy

Saraswati Park And Ride Along

Hello Flower.


One of the many ways that my I-Am-A-Lucky-Girl status is verified is by the boxes of books that friend S sends me from London. S writes for the cultural section of a large U.K. daily and therefore gets many, many free books sent his way. He is a generous, postage paying, book pushing pal and I am the grateful recipient of his largesse. A side dish perk of S's gifts is that many times I get books that either are not yet published over here and/or never going to be published here.

One of the recent books I received from S is Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph. This novel was released in July by HarperCollins U.K. Right out of the box I was attracted to Saraswati Park. I liked the cover and the description of the book from the publisher had me ready to read.

Saraswati is about a middle class family in Bombay. Husband Mohan is a professional letter writer. This is not a growth field. He gets some work putting pen to paper for divided lovers and families and the occasional check but he spends more and more of his time pursuing his real passion. He buy old novels from the secondhand stalls and scrawls away in the margins. His dream is step out of the margins and be a novelist. Mohan's wife, Lakshmi, is in crisis. She is in mourning for the death of her only brother and maybe for her marriage as well. The couple takes in their nephew Ashish. Ashish is troubled by his sexuality, unhappy romances and having to repeat his final year of college.

This is a kitchen sink kind of novel. The dramas and the humorous moments are small, intimate and happening to ordinary people. Most of the Indian novels I have read have been big multi-generational affairs with a cast of thousands ranging all over India's history. What a welcome change Saraswati Park is to my usual Indian diet. Joseph carefully introduces us to everyday quiet. The lives she examines are not eccentric, not flashy, not starting a dynasty or representing the history or future of a nation. These people are trying to find their way and with Anjali Jospeh's skills their journey is an exulting experience.

Is Sarawati Park going to be published in the U.S.? I haven't seen any indication of that, but maybe that will change. Here's hoping this fine book will be available here soon. It surely helps that the Telegraph selcted Joseph as one of their 20 best writers under 40 on the basis of this her first novel. Impressive, right?

Happy.

Hark! The New Matthew Shardlake Mystery, Heartstone Is Here!

Flower!

Okay. You loved Wolf Hall. You are longing for Hilary Mantel to finish her next book about Thomas Cromwell. When will that be? I do not know my friend but not as soon as you want it to be finished for sure. Need something to tide you over? Something smart to keep your thanks to our girl Hilary appetite for 1500's English politics in check? Well then I am coming to your rescue. There is a superb mystery series available to satisfy your Henry the VIII and Co. needs, the Matthew Shardlake mysteries by C.J. Sansom.


England in the 1530's is a tough place. The next new plague is just around the corner, Henry the VIII is constantly trolling for a new wives and The Reformation is creating a new Christianity and new criminals every day. In the first Shardlake novel, Dissolution, one of these criminals has seemingly committed several murders in a monastery. The deaths themselves are bad enough but given the times they might lead to the immediate closing of the monastery itself. Henry has been confiscating property owned by the Catholic Church for his own enrichment and to award to loyal courtiers. Sent by Henry's henchman, Thomas Cromwell, lawyer Matthew Shardlake finds himself hunting for a murderer and his own ideals.

The Shardlake mysteries are outstanding. The blending of historical fact with well written fiction and compelling, page turning mystery is a formidable accomplishment. Each one of the books takes you further into the social and political turmoil of the period. Shardlake is a detective in the classic mode. He is intelligent, street smart, compassionate, morally upright and has a sidekick but every detective has a foible or quirk that sets them apart from general society in some way. With Shardlake it's that he is a hunchback. Remember this is 500 years ago so he is a freak, someone who should not have survived infancy, someone who as an adult with such a noticeable deformity would have been shunned. Luck, determination and brains have brought him into a position of respect and power but his appearance will guarantee his isolation and makes him a target for any ambitious citizen.

Sansom's latest book is Heartstone. It is now 1545. Henry has invaded France and he is now on wife #6, Catherine Parr. It is at Parr's request that Shardlake turns from his usual work to investigate the suicide of the son of a former lady-in-waiting. This case will take Shardlake through the legal system surrounding wards of the court. That was an institution that was a primary source of income for the royal family. There is never just one story in a Shardlake mystery and Heartstone is no exception. Most authors would divvy up the amount of juicy characters, finely woven plot and impeccable research you find in Heartstone into three separate books.

There are five novels in this series: Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation and now Heartstone. The first four titles are available (from your local independent bookstore of course) in paperback. Heartstone is due out in hardcover September 28th. All five mysteries are memorably entertaining and comprise one of the best history classes you could ever take.

Happy to be Henry-ized once again

It's About To Be Fabulous Out There!

Sorry Flower!


I know that for you Autumn is the harbinger of more bad news, Winter. For me Autumn is a favorite. Probably my real and true favorite season. I do like a nip in the air and in a glass so we're good there and that color change...magical. All the leaves are dying but truly going out in a blaze of glory. As gorgeous as Spring can be and as beautiful as Winter sometimes is in a Dr. Zhivago kind of way I find Fall breath taking.

According to my local radio station although Fall starts today we are really only having one hour of it today. Tomorrow is the first full day of the season. You have a tiny bit of a reprieve my friend. Here we have had chilly weather for a week and I have seen leaves changing for a couple weeks so in my head it's already been Fall.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

The Hamilton Case

Flower my lovely friend,

Sometimes my normally optimistic self knows for sure that a book that I worship has gone out of print. I read The Hamilton Case by Michele de Kretser when it was first released in 2004 and it has remained a favorite ever since. It's a book that I save to give to people who appreciate a truly marvelous, psychologically intricate novel. There are tons of books to gift or recommend but this is one of the special ones for me. It's very important to me that whomever I give it to is going to love it as much as I did. My guess is that I use it to gauge how much I may have in common with someone. That's a lot of pressure to put on one little book. I haven't had anyone to pass it on to in a while but when that recently changed I was worried that after six years the book would no longer be available. Happily that is not the case. I can rest easy once again and continue to test the potential for near and dear in people.


The Hamilton case is a murder in Sri Lanka in 1902 when it was still known as Ceylon. Born into a wealthy Celonese family and educated at Oxford, Sam Obeyskere is a home grown product of the British Empire. He returns home to practice law and finds that he is too British to be native and too native to be British. When he is asked to comment on a sensational local murder his arrogant belief in his own importance and his rash response that an Englishman is responsible for the killing will dog him the rest of his life. His future though still considerable will now be ruled by should have beens and whispers.

The life surrounding Sam: his family, his own shocking behavior, the British, the jungle, tea plantations, the social pettiness of the haves and the crippling poverty of the have nots are all conveyed with remarkable skill in this novel. Reminiscent in turn of the colonial life of The Jewel In The Crown (The Raj Quartet Vol 1) and the delusions of The Remains of the Day, The Hamilton Case is a masterful evocation of entangled lives and unfulfilled dreams.

Happy

Skippy Dies

Hello Flower.

It's not a good day for Daniel "Skippy" Juster. He's got a rival in love in the school psychotic, he's sensitive, doesn't have too many friends, he's stuck in Dublin in an all-boys Catholic prep school obsessed with branding itself and this afternoon he's going to choke to death on a doughnut. Now onto page 2. The next 655 pages* have Ruprecht Van Doren, the chubby genius and Skippy's best friend and roommate solving what Ruprecht thinks is Skippy's murder while maintaing his determination to open a portal into a parallel universe using ten-dimensional string theory.


Do not groan and/or turn away! It is another crime solving kid and this novel is all about 14 year old boys but it is not a YA novel I swear. If it means anything to you Skippy was on this years Man Booker longlist.

Skippy Dies is a radiant look at life as a 14 boy year old surrounded by 14 year old boys (I have 5 brothers so I feel entitled to insert a gigantic, released from the soul "ICK" right here.) and while that isn't pretty Paul Murray's mighty talent makes it so very funny, painful, tender and smart. This is a novel that will make you laugh but just below that is a powerful picture of children's ever changing relationships with themselves, each other and the adults that populate their world. From Skippy's death scene through the end of the book every moment you share with Skippy, Ruprecht and Co. is delightfully satisfying.

Delightful teenage boys? Trust me that is no oxymoron.

If you cannot bring yourself to let loose on Skippy Dies and despite my adoring the novel I can understand why a book about adolescent boys might not being alluring, then read Murray's matchless novel An Evening of Long Good-byes instead. It is wonderful. You'll laugh, you'll cry--- from laughing more--- and you'll wish it doesn't end. Charles Hythloday's sad realization that he must work when all he wants is to be a retired country gentlemen is a comic joy. Really. This is being told to you by someone with a high threshold of humor when it comes to books.

Happy

P.S. I am curious about why the publisher of Faber and Faber decided to published Skippy simultaneously as a hardcover and a boxed, 3 volume set of paperbacks. I wonder which is selling better?

*Not to worry about the length of the book if the page count concerns you. The hardcover is a smaller trim size than the standard adult hardcover and the margins are big. If books followed the rules of dog years then this hardcover would really only be about 350 pages.