02 May 2009
Storytime: Mother’s Day
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Storytime: Mother's Day
Saturday, May 2nd 2009 at 12:00 AM
May 2009
Friday, May 1st 2009 at 12:00 AM
Book of the Month
The Legend of Colton H Bryant
by Alexandra Fuller
Imagine a book that takes you into someone’s life so completely – a life totally alien to you – that you can feel and taste their experiences and emotions, the unremittingly harsh climate in which they live, the poor lot that has been dealt to them, and their unceasing and relentless joy for living. Meet Colton H Bryant, third generation oil-man from Wyoming.
In this beautiful new book from Alexandra Fuller, we are thrown into the world of those for whom the oil rigs, harsh landscape, big sky and ceaseless wind of Wyoming are the only reality. This is the land of the cowboy and, although it feels like the Wild West of a different era, it is very much a modern reality.
Colton is the wild and irrepressible son of an oilman, Bill, destined to end up on the rigs, where work is tough, the hours are long, and safety is an oft-disregarded nicety; and oil, gas and money are the only driving factors. In much of this there are many uncomfortable parallels to be drawn with our own troubled mining industry.
While there are many beautifully funny moments in this book, it is ultimately heartbreaking – but you will come away from it grateful to have been given the chance to meet Colton H Bryant, and you will certainly never forget him. Very highly recommended.
Fantasies, Fables and Fictions
A Retelling of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
by Peter Ackroyd
Love, Sex, Infidelity, Villainy, Drunkenness, Murder…
It’s all here in The Canterbury Tales, as retold to the prolific and marvellous Peter Ackroyd. A motley group of travellers meet at a London inn on their way to Canterbury, where they agree to take part in a storytelling competition. As they make their way on the road, they drink, laugh, flirt, argue, interrupt and try to outdo each other with their tales.
Funny, moving, totally outrageous, these stories blend comedy, tragedy, adventure, romance and bawdy humour. Peter Ackroyd’s fresh and modern retelling brings new vigour and life to these stories, and presents them for a whole new audience to enjoy.
Trauma
by Patrick McGrath
More deliciously dark fiction from the brilliant Patrick McGrath.
As a psychiatrist, Charlie Weir has seen every kind of trauma New York has to offer. Yet he has never managed to overcome the tragic mistake, seven years earlier, that lost him his wife and his daughter, leaving him prone to corrosive loneliness and restless anger. Then into his life walks the alluring Nora Chiara, with her inescapable air of sadness and mystery, and Charlie falls for her quickly, hungrily. But he is increasingly haunted by ghastly half-memories from his childhood and, as he retreats further and further into the recesses of his mind, the delicate fabric of his life ruptures – with horrifying consequences.
“Few writers are capable of taking their readers to such dark places with such evident relish. Among McGrath’s greatest skills lies the ease with which he compels us to read on as his tales of madness, murder and, abuse unfold …this masterly specimen of modern gothic delivers the unsettling sting in its tail“ Financial Times
”A gripping exposé of life on the hinterland of sanity. McGrath is that rare yet essential thing, a writer who can expose our darkest fears without making us run away from them.“ New Statesman
The Informers
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
When Gabriel Santoro publishes his first book, a biography of a Jewish family friend who fled Germany for Colombia just before the Second World War, he is completely blindsided when his father writes a devastating review of the book in a national paper. Why does his father attack him so viciously? Do the pages of his book unwittingly hide some dangerous secret? As Gabriel sets out to discover what lies behind his father’s anger, he finds himself embroiled in the guilt and complicity at the heart of Colombian society, as one treacherous act returns with a vengeance, half a century on.
“Like Sebald, Vásquez is interested in survivors and in the distortions of history and memory…One of this year’s outstanding books.” Financial Times
“A fine and frightening study of how the past preys upon the present.” John Banville
“One of the most original new voices of Latin America.” Mario Vargas Llosa
The Northern Clemency
by Philip Hensher
Shortlisted for the 2008 MAN Booker Prize, it was originally released as a brick of a hardback last year. Now out in more affordable paperback, this is an outstanding novel set mostly in northern England in the 1970s. Hensher’s startlingly sensitive portrayal of the lives of two families is entertaining and enthralling. Worthy of that over-used sound bite – unputdownable – this one is for fans of the people-novel as practiced by the likes of Justin Cartwright.
A Partial Indulgence: High Art, High Stakes, Low Morals
Stephanie Theobald
“If my art does not conquer you immediately, I may allow you to keep it in your house as a non-paying guest. Your fondness will turn to lust and your desire will soon demand satisfaction. You will tell me that you long for my art, and I will ask you what your longing amounts to in pounds.”
Charles: art dealer, bon vivant, fantasist.
Cosima: artist, aristocrat, half-feral visionary.
Carmen: chambermaid-turned-muse, hustler.
Art, sex and money are their lifeblood, society their playground – but wealth and taste can only get you so far, and Fate will not be denied. A Partial Indulgence is a contemporary gothic voyage through a decadent world of high society and low morals.
Charles: art dealer, bon vivant, fantasist.
Cosima: artist, aristocrat, half-feral visionary.
Carmen: chambermaid-turned-muse, hustler.
Art, sex and money are their lifeblood, society their playground – but wealth and taste can only get you so far, and Fate will not be denied. A Partial Indulgence is a contemporary gothic voyage through a decadent world of high society and low morals.
James Joyce and Jane Austen on CD
Naxos, the wonderful producers of well-priced classical music CDs have also now produced a range of quality spoken-word CDs. Newly available in South Africa are a choice of both abridged and unabridged titles by James Joyce and Jane Austen. Choose from Dubliners (unabridged), Finnegan’s Wake (abridged), Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (either) and Ulysses (either – the unabridged is 22 cds!) read by the wonderful Jim Norton.
From Jane Austen you can choose from Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility – abridged or unabridged – or a two-volume collection. All these are read by either the sublime Juliet Stevenson or the sultry Jenny Agutter.
For those of you who still love to be read a story, these are perfect to settle down to on chilly winter evenings. If you are interested in getting any of these, please do contact us and we will be happy to place an order.
American Rust
by Philip Meyer
Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation that arises from its loss. From local bars to train yards to prison, it is the story of two young men bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia and the beauty of the land around them.
Isaac English is the smartest kid in town, left behind to care for his sick father after his mother commits suicide and his sister moves away. Now Isaac wants out too. Not even his best friend, Billy Poe, can stand in his way – broad-shouldered, big-jawed Billy, always ready for a fight, still living with his mother Grace in her trailer. Then, on the day of Isaac’s leaving, something happens that changes the two friends’ fates and tests the loyalties of their friendship and those of their lovers, families and the town itself.
Evoking John Steinbeck’s novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, American Rust takes us into the contemporary American heartland at a moment of profound unrest and uncertainty about the future. It is a dark, lucid vision – a moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence, and the power of love and friendship to redeem us.
“American Rust is written with considerable dramatic intensity and pace. It manages an emotional accuracy, a deep and detailed conviction in its depiction of character. It also captures a sense of menacing society, a wider world in the throes of decay and self-destruction.” Colm TóibÃn
Veritas – the Naked Truth
The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
by Thomas Lynch
“Every year I bury a couple hundred of my townspeople.”
So opens the singular testimony of the poet Thomas Lynch. Like all poets, he is inspired by death. Unlike others, however, it is also his role to bury the dead or to cremate them, and to tend to their families in a small Michigan town where he serves as the funeral director. In this wholly unique collection of essays, the two vocations meet as Lynch shows himself to be a competent and comforting companion to the dead and their grief-stricken families – as well as an eloquent poet poignantly turning his words to private release. This book displays an impressive range of vocal styles, from solemn and nostalgic to lyrical and sprightly, yet consistently resonates with Lynch’s soft and thoughtful voice.
Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind
by Philip Ball
In the twelfth century, Christians in Europe began to build a completely new kind of church – soaring, spacious monuments flooded with light from immense windows. These were the first gothic churches, the crowning example of which was the cathedral at Chartres: a revolution in thought embodied in stone and glass, and a bridge between the ancient and the modern worlds.
In Universe of Stone Philip Ball explains the genesis and development of the Gothic style. He argues that it signified a profound change in the social, intellectual and theological climate of Western Christendom. The church represented nothing less than a vision of heaven on earth, so this shift marked the beginning of the argument between faith and reason which continues today, and of a scientific view of the world that threatened to dispense with God altogether.
“An intelligent, enjoyable book which deserves a wide audience.” TLS
Bloomsbury Ballerina: Lydia Lopokova, Imperial Dancer and Mrs John Maynard Keynes
by Judith Mackrell
“A compelling account of the extraordinary life and times of an unforgettable woman.” Literary Review
Born in 1891 in St Petersburg, Lydia Lopokova lived a long and remarkable life. Just five feet tall and a natural comedian, her vivacious personality and the sheer force of her charm propelled her to the top of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. Through a combination of luck, determination and talent, Lydia became a star in Paris, a vaudeville favourite in America, the toast of Britain and then, most unexpectedly, she married the world-renowned economist, and former homosexual, John Maynard Keynes. Lydia’s story is an extraordinary one, linking ballet and the Bloomsbury group, war, revolution and the economic policies of the super-powers.
She was the Russian ballerina who flitted intriguingly through the lives of so many remarkable individuals, including Nijinsky, Picasso, Stravinsky and Virginia Woolf. Above all, she was an immensely captivating, eccentric and irreverent personality: a bolter, a true bohemian and, eventually, an utterly devoted wife. Judith Mackrell brings Lopokova gloriously to life, and stakes Lydia’s claim to a place as a major character – not only in the history of ballet, but in the history of the Twentieth Century too.
The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession
by Andrea Wulf
One January morning in 1734, cloth merchant Peter Collinson hurried down to the docks at London’s Custom House to collect cargo just arrived from John Bartram in the American colonies. But it was not cotton that awaited him – it was a cargo of plants and seeds.
Over the next forty years Bartram would send hundreds of American species to England, where Collinson was one of a handful of men who would foster a national obsession and change the gardens of Britain for ever: Philip Miller, author of the bestselling Gardeners Dictionary; the Swede Carl Linnaeus, whose standardised botanical (and sometimes rather racy) nomenclature popularised botany; and the botanist adventurer Joseph Banks and his colleague Daniel Solander, who both explored the strange flora of Tahiti and Australia on Captain Cook’s Endeavour.
This is the story of these men – friends, rivals and enemies – united by a passion for plants. Set against the backdrop of the emerging empire, and an uncharted world beyond, The Brother Gardeners tells the story of the birth of a national obsession which led, ultimately, to Alan Titchmarsh.
The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels
by Tristram Hunt
Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous Prussian mercantile family, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds and enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman.
Yet Engels was also the co-founder of international communism – the philosophy which came to control one third of the human race in the twentieth century. He was the co-author of The Communist Manifesto, a ruthless party tactician, and the man who sacrificed his best years so Karl Marx could write Das Kapital. His searing account of the industrial revolution, The Condition of the Working Class in England, remains one of the most haunting and brutal indictments of the human costs of capitalism. Far more than Marx’s right-hand man, Engels was a profound thinker in his own right – on warfare, feminism, urbanism, Darwinism, technology and colonialism. With fierce prescience, he predicted the social effects of today’s free-market fundamentalism and unstoppable globalisation.
This book shows us how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his exuberant personal life with this uncompromising political philosophy. Set against the backdrop of a changing Europe and Britain in the throes of the Industrial Revolution, it tells of devoted friendship, class compromise, ideological struggle and family betrayal. The author finally tackles the question of Engels’ legacy – was Engels, after Marx’s death, responsible for some of the most horrible turns of twentieth-century history, or was the idealism perverted by those who claimed to be his followers?
A fascinating portrait of an exceptional man, and an extraordinary period of change.
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives
by Leonard Mlodinov
“Delightful…Our lives may be shaped by chance, but they are enriched by awareness – just the sort of awareness that this fascinating book will give you.” Guardian
Randomness and uncertainty are all around us – so why are we so bad at understanding them?
Leonard Mlodinov reveals the psychological illusions that prevent us understanding everything from stock-picking to wine-tasting, winning the lottery to road safety, and reveals the truth about the success of sporting heroes and film stars, and even how to make sense of a blood test. A readable and eye-opening guide to understanding the random world – and helping us to deal with it.
“Often historical, occasionally hysterical, and consistently smart and funny, this book challenges everything we think we know about how the world works.” Daniel Gilbert
Viva South America! A Journey through a Restless Continent
by Oliver Balch
Simon BolÃvar once inspired a continent to rise from serfdom and throw off the shackles of Spanish rule. With lance and law book, he and his fellow liberators set the course for independence, freedom and equality.
Viva South America! sets out to discover whether the dream lives on. Is it fair to describe a land as ˜liberated’ while poverty still enslaves millions, where violence is commonplace, and where lawlessness eats away at progress? Did the liberators fail? Or are leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales resurrecting those ideals?
Armed with a reporter’s notebook and an open mind, the author hits the road in search of answers. Cutting a path along the roads of the continent, this book lifts the lid on the Liberators’ legacies, and searches in its dark corners.
With the ghost of BolÃvar as a guide, the quest takes the reader off the tourist trail into true South American culture and society. By visiting homes and prison cells, dance floors and police stations, Oliver Balch uncovers life in South America, and stories from the frontline of the struggle for liberation.
The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights and Poets of All Time
by Daniel S Burt
Who are the most influential writers of all time? This is a question guaranteed to spark arguments at dinner tables around the world, and upon which no two people at any table are going to agree. What makes a novelist, playwright or poet truly great? How can that greatness be measured or compared?
Daniel S. Burt holds a Ph.D from New York University and has been a literature teacher for over twenty years and, with this experience, he attempts to answer these questions by surveying the influence of writers across all times and cultures. Each profile examines the writer’s life and achievements as a whole, distilling the essence of his or her career and literary merit. This is a revised edition with twenty-five new entries and, no matter what your literary or cultural background, a book like this will always raise an eyebrow or two. The number one position may be obvious, but to this humble reader the number two is not, and the selection will always throw up surprises.
A fascinating collection, which combines pertinent cultural and biographical essays about some of the most wonderful writers who have ever lived, and a lovely list to fulminate over!
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World
by Paul Hawken
Across the planet groups ranging from neighbourhood associations to well-funded international organisations are confronting issues like the destruction of the environment, the abuses of free-market fundamentalism, social justice, and the loss of indigenous cultures. Though these groups share no unifying ideology or charismatic leader, and are mostly unrecognised by politicians and the media, they are bringing about a profound transformation of human society.
In this stirring book, world-renowned environmentalist Paul Hawken tells the story of what is going right in this world. Blessed Unrest is the account of how people – from students in Australia to farmers in France, from shoemakers to zoologists to poets – use imagination, conviction, and resilience to redefine our relationship to the environment and to one another, healing the wounds of the earth with passion and determination. It also features a guide to the project areas being pursued by the environmental and social justice movements – an invaluable resource and inspiration.
The Animals and Me
Alex and Me
by Irene M Pepperberg
On September 6th 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at the age of 31. His last words to his owner Irene M Pepperberg were “You be good. I love you.”
While this would normally be a quiet event, in Alex’s case it was headline news. Over the 30 years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous – two pioneers who opened a window into the vast, hidden world of animal minds. When they first met, birds were not believed to possess any potential for language, consciousness, or anything remotely like human intelligence. Yet, over the years, Alex exploded many of these preconceptions – he could count and add; he could sound out words; he understood concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none. He was capable of thought and intention. Together Alex and Irene uncovered a startling reality – we live in a world populated by thinking, conscious creatures.
They shared a deep emotional bond too – Alex felt boredom, love and jealousy, missed her when she was away, loved to dance and sometimes played jokes on her. The story of their relationship is a landmark in science and a moving story of a human-animal bond.
A Lion Called Christian: The enchanting true story of three friends and their remarkable reunion
by Anthony Bourke and John Rendall
In 2008 an extraordinary film clip started appearing on the internet, and soon became a phenomenon. It showed the emotional reunion of two young men and their pet lion Christian, after they had left him with George Adamson to be introduced into his rightful home in the wild.
This book relates the story of Anthony ˜Ace’ Bourke and John Rendall, who visited London from Australia in 1969 and bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods. For a while the three of them lived together as flatmates on the King’s Road in Chelsea, where Christian became a local celebrity. But he was growing up very fast, and even the church garden where he exercised was becoming too small for him. How could Ace and John avoid incarcerating him in a zoo for the rest of his life?
A chance meeting with Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, stars of Born Free, led to Christian being flown to Kenya and placed under the expert care of George Adamson. Ace and John did not return to see Christian for a year. Everyone warned them that he would be unlikely to remember or recognise them. It is a testimony to the power of their relationship that their reunion was so emotional and that Christian was very obviously overjoyed to see them, and goes to show again that we underestimate the power of animal minds and emotions.
Say Goodbye to the Cuckoo
by Michael McCarthy
Every year they pour into Britain in a multicoloured, singing cascade: cuckoos, swallows, martins, swifts, turtle doves, warblers, wagtails, wheaters, chats, nightingales, nightjars, thrushes, pipits and flycatchers. In one of the wonders of the natural world, these tiny creatures have made epic, scarcely believable journeys from south of the Sahara to get there.
To glimpse or hear these migrant birds is uplifting. It is not just their beauty and their song, it is their very seasonality, their promise of spring, which for centuries has triggered in us profound feelings. They have been the stuff of legend and literature – from The Song of Solomon to Ode to a Nightingale. The first cuckoo not only sparks a flurry of letters to newspapers, it is the subject of the oldest extant song in English, written 750 years ago.
But now, many of these birds, like the cuckoo, are failing to arrive. The timeless migration mechanism is running into trouble. In this heartfelt celebration of the heralds of spring, Michael McCarthy shows just what they mean to us, at the very time they may be starting to disappear.
For Tiny Green Fingers
Green Start Series
This wonderful new series introduces various aspects of the environment to the little people in your life. They are printed on 98% post-consumer recycled materials and use only soy-based inks. They have sturdy pages, and a parent’s page to give you ideas on how to take these subjects further with your child. Okay, enough of the technical side. They are a lot of fun too! They are also perfect for small hands and growing minds, which are starting to really examine the world around them. Neither preachy nor gloomy, they are interactive and engage with the child. A superb addition to the small but growing collection of excellent environmental books for children – a valuable resource for the preservation of the world for future generations.
For Fans of the Darkly Twisted
Coraline: the Graphic Novel
by Neil Gaiman
Coraline is the first teen novel from the renowned creator of Sandman, Neil Gaiman. There are different editions, but the one we want to highlight is the adaptation by P. Craig Russell, who has often collaborated with Gaiman. Coraline is a story based on the old saying “be careful what you wish for, it might just come true”. A young girl, whose parents are always busy, wishes for parents who would love her more than anything – and then, through a secret door (which fantastical tale is ever complete without a secret door?), she discovers her life as she wished. The illustrations are brilliant and tell the tale vividly. The evil mom’s button eyes will stay with you into the darkness of your own wishes.
The Fantod Pack
from the dark pen of Edward Gorey
The genius with a black ink pen that was Edward Gorey does not cease to bring us delight. His Fantod Pack was first published in a limited edition more than a decade ago, and has not been available for a while. This pack of cards offers a bleak and hilarious take on the classic tarot card deck. The cards are accompanied by a booklet to emphasise the gorey (that pun was intentional) details of your doomed life, eg. A card called The Waltzing Mouse will reveal morbid cravings, a loss of jewelry and of course shriveling. Need we say more?
Congratulations…
To Alice Munro, who has been declared winner of the third Man International Booker Prize. Worth £60,000 to the winner, the prize is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.
The winner is chosen solely at the discretion of the judging panel – there are no submissions from publishers. Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe won the 2007 prize and Albanian writer, Ismail Kadare won the inaugural prize in 2005 and went on to gain worldwide recognition for his work.
This year’s judges were Jane Smiley, Amit Chaudhuri and Andrey Kurkov, who chose from an illustrious collective comprising Peter Carey, Evan S Connell, Mahasweta Devi, EL Doctorow, James Kelman, Mario Vargas Llosa, Arnost Lustig, VS Naipaul, Joyce Carol Oates, Antonio Tabucchi, Ngugi Wa Thiong˜O, Dubravka Ugresic and Ludmila Ulitskaya.
Thankyou for taking the time to read – your indulgence is much appreciated!
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