Catching up on recent reads

Due to major life-changing disruptions, reading has been haphazard. Loaded down with Responsibilities, Legalities, Obligations, I've tended to favour reading of the Very Light-hearted variety, starting with


The Ivy Chronicles - Karen Quinn
A very enjoyable story - woman loses high powered corporate job, husband and luxury NY apartment, creates a new role for herself as private school admissions adviser in a cut-throat competitive world where rich parents will go to any length to give their children a headstart in life. Humorous, eye-opening, and a heart-warmer too.


Fat, Forty and Fired - Nigel Marsh
Another humorous memoir about an advertising agency MD who takes a year off. Very entertaining, quite insightful and sensitive. Laugh Out Loud material.


Time of my Life - Allison Winn Scotch
About second chances. The protagonist, in a picture perfect life, a baby daughter and lacklustre marriage, finds herself 7 years back in time with a former boyfriend, with the knowledge of her future and the chance to change her past. Complex choices.


The Help - Kathryn Stockett
I enjoyed this in audiobook, and was transported to a different world by the wonderful voices of the narrators, such a vividly created world, set in Jackson, in the American South, during a time of racial division and social awakening when a young white woman and a few black maids dared to risk all in a secret daring project. I would recommend the audiobook version which brings the characters and era so much to life.


Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
I love Neil Gaiman's books. So rich, strange, captivating. Fairy tales for adults. My introduction to him was Fragile Things which I fell in love with, and recently I enjoyed in audiobook "A Study in Emerald" and now "Neverwhere". Neverwhere is about Richard Mayhew, a standard young man working in the financial corporate world in London who rescues a wounded woman one day and finds his world as he knew it disappearing. He discovers a dark shadowy world, London Below, where he helps the woman named Door to find who murdered her family and embarks upon an adventure that changes him irrevocably. Neil Gaiman narrates this audiobook himself, and is brilliant! He brings it so much to life, and I was brought to tears of laughter and sadness.


Gifts of Unknown Things - Lyall Watson
Humbling to know that it's been 33 years since this book was first published, and yet it's as fascinating and relevant as ever, marrying science with mystery, quantum physics with mysticism so beautifully and poetically. The author's own experiences on a small volcanic island in Indonesia become the tapestry on which he weaves scientific inquiry with magic.


And I've temporarily given up on Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald, To Say Nothing of the Dog (great title!) by Connie Willis and Snow by Orhan Pamuk. They all share one thing in common - great promise but too heavy going and bogged down in detail for me at this stage of my life.

The lost recipe for happiness - Barbara O'Neal

Another sensual book about love and food. I must be on a theme. Very enjoyable, a love story with food, ghosts, pain, redemption. It has the dark vein of pain from the heroine's past, to add spice to an otherwise reasonably predictable love story. I loved it anyway, and the food recipes sound delicious.

A Thousand Days in Venice - Marlena de Blasi

I finally got around to reading this book which has sat on my shelf for years. I imagined it'd be some idealised romantic story and was pleasantly surprised to find that it's romantic but not in the usual sense. It's very real, with a sensual appreciation of life's abundance. The writer's gorgeousness comes through in her whimsical, creative way, the way she creates beauty out of circumstances which might otherwise be considered challenging, and engages with the people and her environment to make memorable food and special occasions.

The Marrying Game - Kate Saunders

A light hearted and funny read about four beautiful sisters who take matters into their own hands when faced with the loss of their beloved dilapidated family home, and decide to marry money.Written in an intelligent wry style and quite enjoyable, though three-quarters of the way into the book I thought it sort of took off at a tangent when the oldest sister behaves uncharacteristically, but it all comes together again satisfactorily.

Code Name God - Mani Bhaumik

Just finished this audiobook. Fascinating - dirt poor Indian boy became a scientist and invented the laser technology that made LASIK surgery possible. He found that fame and fortune could not provide him with happiness and began to go back to his roots to search for a deeper meaning. As he digs deeper he finds that the science he's so immersed in brings him back to spirituality. I found his scientific explanations very accessible.

Man Drought - Bernard Salt

Ah, all is now clear. Good strategies advocated here - steal from other age brackets if you're a woman above your mid-30s as the drought is worst between your mid 30s to early 60s! Here's the Amazon blurb "Why are there so many single women in their 30s? What's an OFFAL? In this entertaining and insightful book, social commentator Bernard Salt answers these and many other pressing questions about contemporary Australia. Drawing on current census data and his own research, he presents a quirky, enlightening tour of the world we live in."

The Twilight Saga - Stephenie Meyer

I only bought this out of curiousity at the "publishing phenomenon". Then it sat on my bedside table for awhile as I wasn't sure I wanted to read a vampire book for young women. But when I finally started it, I was hooked from the first page. Which woman, young or old, would not be enthralled by these heady elements - a superhuman super-attractive good vampire in love with you and you with him; both of you stricken with heart-stopping romantic and sexual tension; a would-be lover who's cool, collected, strong, passionate, self-disciplined, loving, responsible, old-fashionedly considerate? Plus the ever-present danger element? Perfectly delicious!

So, it was natural to get on the emotional rollercoaster ride with the other 3 books in the saga New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, devouring one after the other, trying to stretch them out as much as possible.. (though the sexual tension does get ridiculously protracted into book 3 with no let up - due to the old-fashioned values of this sexy vampire! Hint - There's resolution in Book 4 - read to find out why.) Lots of excitement throughout and exciting thrills including werewolves and other vampires, but the best thing is the down to earth, wry and funny self-deprecating style of the heroine.

The Conjuror's Bird - Martin Davies

Lyrical,historical setting - a present day search for a mysterious lost bird, with an achingly sad ill-fated love story in the distant past as its backdrop. Interesting historical details of renowned naturalist Joseph Banks on his voyage of discoveries, and an elusive woman who haunts his heart.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

I loved this book, captivated by the storyline, Swedish setting and the unusual protagonist Salander, a young antisocial girl with a brilliant untrained mind and delinquent tendencies, and her equally unusual relationship with journalist Mikael Blomvist as they solve a sinister disappearance in the past, somehow connected to the present. The pace starts rather slow but builds up to unputdownable.

The History of Love - Nicole Krauss

A reviewer described it as hauntingly beautiful. I suppose you could say that. The ending is a little cryptic which made me turn a few pages back to see if I'd missed something. Still, I enjoyed the 2 main characters, the octogenarian Leo Gursky and the young teenager Alma Singer, somehow connected by the book History of Love that Leo had written as a young man, and whose heroine Alma was named after.

Free Food for Millionaires - Min Jin Lee

Got this book from Kinokuniya while visiting Sydney - love that bookshop with its mind boggling range and imported titles I never see in the run of the mill bookshops. I found this book interesting in its exploration of race, class, money etc, about a Korean girl from a working class immigrant family. She has been well educated through scholarships and acquired expensive habits, but is ambivalent about success, career, love. She has a wealthy mentor in a highly successful Korean businesswoman but again is highly ambivalent in this relationship. I found her ambivalence, self-sabotage and stubbornness irritating, but the story was an interesting read anyway.

Mantras and Misdemeanours - Vanessa Walker

An Australian journalist leaves her job to pursue her Buddhist spiritual journey and spend a year in McLeod Ganj, the Tibetan outpost in India. She finds herself falling in love with a disrobed Tibetan monk, conscious of the cliche as so many Western women are pairing off with Tibetan ex-monks, but in the process discovering a gentle and rewarding love and observing the beauty and contradictions of life there.

The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

A tale with perverted characters and gothic tones . A few chapters in I almost gave it away, but persisted and was rewarded with a rich tale and an interesting twist. A young woman is hired to be the biographer of a famous and enigmatic author whose past is shrouded in mistruths and mystery and is slowly drawn in as the story unfolds.

Sugar Babe - Holly Hill

By an Australian woman in Sydney who, after giving up her job at her wealthy boyfriend's request and being subsequently dumped, decided to place an ad for a sugar daddy. Her adventures thereafter certainly don't give any hope for anyone looking for a sugardaddy. Interesting but not memorable.

My Stroke of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor

Bought this while visiting Pauline in the US, a fascinating book about a brain scientist who recorded her insights while undergoing a major stroke, and her discovery of the bliss she experienced when her left brain haemorrhaged and her right brain became dominant.

The Book of Secrets - Robert J Petro

An engaging story of how a young man achieves success in his life - a teaching fable more interesting than the usual.

The Wishing Year - Noelle Oxenhandler

As soon as I saw it in Borders, I had to buy it. A beautifully written, gently paced book about wishing and its outcome in one year of the author's life, how different people in her life realise their wishes, and her resistance to applying her wishing in a materialistic way - and how she slowly moves past this resistance. It was a nurturing read, each night I looked forward to moving into its gentle rhythm.

Possession - AS Byatt

Read this whilst visiting my sister Pauline in USA. Slow reading, very densely packed literary style and not quite a light holiday read, but great characterisation and a moving story. A modern love story intertwining with a historical one. I found myself relating to Roland and Maud's solitude. Maud's sensitivity to her charismatic ex who crowded her touched a chord in me. Exquisite is a good word one reviewer used.

The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger

Another of my necessary mindless light reads. It's been sitting on the shelf for many many months, so it was time. Seeing as the movie has also come & gone. Quite painful to read about the protagonist's trials with a dragon/devil of a boss in a job "a million girls would die for". Interesting peek into the fashion publishing world.

The Stranger House - Reginald Hill

Hugely satisfying. I've only read one other of his books -- Singing the Sadness, starring Joe Sixsmith. I've never read any of his famous Dalziel and Pascoe ones. This doesn't feature any of his usual characters, so has a novel-like flavour. Very mysterious, gothic, atmospheric - the past and present intertwining in complex twists and turns. To paraphrase an Amazon review "Aussie math whiz Samantha Flood has fiery red hair and a fierce determination to learn the truth about her paternal grandmother, an orphan shipped from her native England to Australia under suspicious circumstances. Sober Spaniard Miguel Madero, an ex-priest who experiences ghostly visions is researching English Catholics during the Reformation.. Samantha and Mig, an unlikely duo, are drawn to one another as each discovers secrets simmering beneath the surface of Illthwaite's deceptively serene facade."