Just a quick one for now as I am in the midst of a week long sinus infection and can do very little apart from dragging myself to work and complaining into my tissues.

I have polished off Eric Clapton: The Autobiography and it made for an interesting read. Credit to him for actually writing it, given the trend for these celeb bio’s to be dictated to some journalist over a cup of coffee. He covered everything I could have wanted to know about him- his early days, addiction, relationships, death of his son, recovery- and peppered with a lot of things he has learned through years of therapy and rehab. It is surprising he remembers as much as he does, given his notorious addiction to drugs and alcohol. It was also great to read his side of the story in regards to his marriage to Pattie Boyd, given that I had read her bio recently. It fit in with her account of the both of them caught in the whirlwind of addiction and rock and roll, having to piece themselves together on the other side.

A worthwhile read and nicely written. And for those of us who are organised, I would happily recommend buying this as a Christmas gift for any music enthusiast.

Don’t underestimate the power of a Jodi Picoult novel. Oh, they suck you in, you read as many as you can, and just when you think you’re exhausted and can’t face any more drama and tense courtroom happenings, another novel is released and you’re back on the Picoult train.

After reading a novel or two on a casual basis, I had what I call my Picoult Binge of 2007. I was living in London, had no access to TV or enough money to buy frivolous entertainment (yet I still managed to spend a hard earned £8 seeing Ratatouille…) (a midday children filled session, as if the whole thing wasn’t bad enough) and I had to turn to good old fashioned reading on those miserable grey days. Luckily, Picoult has quite a few novels under her belt, each as addictive as the other, and so began The Binge.

It started off so innocently, pondering crimes in the Amish community and themes of love, revenge and how the smallest thing can affect so many people- and it ended up with me crying myself to sleep in my room in Reykjavik swearing that I would no longer be sucked into ‘those bloddy Picoult court cases where someone has been killed and nothing is fair.’

So a few months went by and I ignored her catalogue, read some trashy chick lit, and everything brightened up considerably.

And then my friend gave me her new novel, Change of Heart, (after I had ignored it so well!) and insisted I would enjoy it and it was just as good as the others, if not better. I held out for at least a day and then gave in. The thing about the Picoult novel is that you know it deals with issues- crime, murder, love, rape, revenge- but she has a way of placing each case in the middle of the greyest area where there is no right or wrong, and it sucks you right in.

Change of Heart was really interesting, much better than the blurb on the back. The blurb made me feel like it would be this hugely depressing novel about death and revenge, when it is actually more of an intriguing study on religion and miracles. So, some misleading marketing on their behalf..? Despite that, it debuted on the New York Times bestseller list at number one.

I read it in four days, found it quite uplifting and now I’m really annoyed that I have to wait for her next novel.

Please get hooked! Have a binge! And then come and have withdrawals with me until the next novel comes out. I can’t get through this alone!

I don’t know how popular this book is in Australia. I found it when I was living in London a few months ago. I suppose you can say it’s a bit of a cult book in that for years it had a somewhat underground following. It didn’t do very well at first and almost faded away, but for some reason it picked up again in the last year or two. The author is feeling pretty pleased about that, obviously.

Ferney by James Long is hard to explain without making it sound a bit twee. And it isn’t. Basically, it’s a love story involving time travel. Don’t give up on me here. There’s more meat and depth to this than you think. I read a review where it was described as ’similar to The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, but completely different.’

I suppose I agree with that. It’s similar in that the concept of time travel is treated in a more mature way than stepping through some magical portal or two way mirror or casting spells- however it is so different from The Time Traveler’s Wife that you may as well ignore the reference. Er, sorry about that.

Ferney is a great story. It’s set in England and Long has done a lot of research to make it as accurate as possible. It made me re-think concepts I have about measuring history and how certain events affected people. It’s a touching love story, handled well and deserves to be brought back to popularity.

(Incidentally, I believe they’re making The Time Traveler’s Wife into a film which is a bit of a huge concept to handle… Should we hold out hope?  I don’t know how they’re going to nail this one, it will either be a good attempt or fall on it’s face… I’m willing to give it a chance though.)

The other day I polished off The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I am still recovering. The rate at which the book sucks you in and spits you out is incredible. I won’t try and do this book justice- I wonder if anyone can. Suffice it to say that I completely understand all the hype I was hearing beforehand, and I completely understand all The Road Aftershock Experiences everyone is having. A simple Google has gathered these comments from around the Net-

‘It’s not often a book moves me to tears.’

‘It made me want to curl up in foetal position after I read it.’

‘Scared the crap out of me and I couldn’t sleep.’

I didn’t find it as scary as people say. I did find it touching however, and I couldn’t string words together for an hour or so afterwards and dinner was eaten mutely (my personal The Road Aftershock Experience story for you). Then again, there are people who found it too bleak to get into, and didn’t enjoy McCarthy’s writing style.

I loved it. I’d give it an A+.  It might be one of the best books I’ve read.  I’d try and find an amazing excerpt but I don’t think I can look at the book for another six months or so, I’m too drained. However if the rumours are true, the movie should be released this summer. I’m going to start buying tissues and toughening up right now.

This has been a book worth waiting for.

One of the first true rock and roll wives has held onto her story until now, and finally gives us a glimpse into the magic and mayhem of surviving the 60’s, rock & roll and extraordinary marriages.

Being a Beatle nerd, I knew the basics before reading Wonderful Today by Pattie Boyd. I knew she was a model who met and married George Harrison (he of Beatle fame), and consequentially fell for and married his friend Eric Clapton. Somehow she survived the Beatlemania, Clapton’s addiction problems and came out the other end. Much has been made of this story, however not a lot has been told from her point of view. Wonderful Today focuses on that. Boyd is given a chance to voice her experiences and manages to keep the dirt and tabloid style gossip out of her recollections. It would be easy to do an expose on behind the scenes details, and dramatise her divorces and nervous breakdown, but all is kept on a sensible and classy level- much respect for that.

This book is a great collection of memories and experiences. It makes for great reading through the highs and lows, and finishes on a heartwarming note.

A friend asked me ‘What was the most interesting book you have read in the past year?’

The past year was a big one in regards to books. I had been living in London, engaging in European travels, recording various notes to myself eg, ‘Iceland in early spring- take more than one jumper, what were you thinking?’, and racing through two books a week. How much of my budget went into the buying of books and the mailing of books home to Sydney does not bare thinking about. I break into a sweat trying to figure out a ballpark figure.

However, one book stuck in my mind for months after reading it, and I still find myself thinking about it. Escape by Carolyn Jessop is a true story about life in the polygamous sect of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS), and her lucky escape.

I have always been interested in stories behind such sects and cults. I suppose it is the psychology and effects of brainwashing vulnerable people that fascinates me (from a distance, mind you). I was aware that the FLDS existed but I didn’t know many details beside the fact that they were ‘one of those weird polygamous communities somewhere in America’. I didn’t think they were as extreme as I found out.

So imagine this: You are raised in a community where men are viewed as Gods, that the duty of a woman is to serve her husband (and thus serve God), that to obtain the highest level in heaven a man must have as many wives as possible who give him as many children as possible- and in the background a constant fear of the evil, outside world. Members of this community strive towards this ideal of a large family working towards God and salvation but the reality is strikingly different. This is a community filled with fear, abuse, underage marriage, lack of education and daily survival in conditions of extreme poverty.

Carolyn Jessop found herself at 18, married to one of the most powerful men in the cult and her story is an amazing and honest account of her life in this hidden community. It is hard to believe that this can happen in modern day America. I can’t do the impact of this book justice in a simple review. If you need a book that gets you thinking, that lets you look into a different world, let it be this one.

A very creepy thing has just happened. There is a copy of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne on my bookshelf. In itself not such a random occurence. It’s exactly the spot I would expect a book to be. However I threw this book out years ago after a painful Year 11 English exam (”I never want to see this book again!” etc). Now I don’t want to get all paranormal on you guys but I have been watching Lisa Williams ‘Life Beyond the Dead’ on Foxtel and I am slowly becoming aware of the scary shit going on when my back is turned. (A few nights ago I thought I was about to have an encounter by the spirit of my angry hissing grandfather but it was just the possums fighting on the roof and weeing on each other so that was a relief of sorts…)

But this book. I know the The Scarlet Letter provokes extremes: you either hate it or you love it. Simple as that. I also know the people who love it say to be patient, and give it another go as it’s better the second time around. I don’t know how anyone came up with ’second time around’ for this one, I barely handled the first. I am partly to blame as I remember having read The Acid House by Irvine Welsh just before The Scarlet Letter was given to us at school. I know, talk about from one extreme to another.

The Scarlet Letter was the only book studied in school that I didn’t adore.  Shelley’s Frankenstein satisfied my need to over-symbolise everything.  Lord of the Flies sat in my imagination for months (and still does).  But The Scarlet Letter just didn’t cut it.  Was sixteen too young to appreciate certain subtleties?

All I know is this book has reappeared on my shelf and all this Second Time Around peer pressure is making me think I should give it another chance. Perhaps it will read more easily without the stress of exams and over analysing every paragraph. Maybe there was underlying tension, hidden symbolism and themes beyond my wildest imagination. At the very least I’m secretly hoping it’ll be less dry and I can get through the other side with my ‘I read The Scarlet Letter and enjoyed it’ literary badge of honour.

Clearly Lisa Williams heard me (she loves those literary badges) and got someone/thing to make the book appear and now I think I’ll give it another go because I might be missing out. It might not have been as bad as Year 11 English classes wanted me to think. And I suspect if I don’t give it another go, I might get hissed and weed on, so I’LL DO IT.

Over the next few weeks (yes, I’m pacing myself) I’ll read it and let you know how I’m getting on. We’ll see if it indeed is better The Second Time Round.

I love Jane Austen. I remember reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was in seventh grade, sleeping over at a friend’s house and staying up late by myself with a flashlight to finish the novel, quietly gleeful when Elizabeth finally accepted Mr Darcy’s proposal.

I have since read and re-read Pride and Prejudice, and have gradually devoured all of Austen’s other novels with almost as much pleasure.

You would think an avid fan of Austen’s writing, herself a member of a book club, would find a book entitled The Jane Austen Book Club enthralling. Instead, I am sorry to say, I just didn’t like it.

By all means, if you are a hardcore Austen fan and hunger for anything even mildly related to Austen or her books, give it a go. The writing is not bad. It is simply contrived. What is it with this tide of books using motifs from the classics to infuse what would be plain and mundane stories with something that might pass for a touch of high-brow? I must admit, though, that I really enjoyed Bridget Jones’s Diary. Because the writing itself is amusing and Fielding doesn’t take herself or her characters too seriously, I found the parallels in the framework of Bridget Jones to Pride and Prejudice to be entertaining rather than distracting or just plain irritating, as they become in The Jane Austen Book Club. Similarly, I confess to having greatly enjoyed Sophie Gee’s The Scandal of the Season (not Austen but Alexander Pope is emulated here) – again because it was a little tongue in cheek, a little original in and of itself before borrowing substantially from the English Canon. In order for a writer to be permitted to improvise from the springboard of the Canon I think it is essential that they first earn the right through innovation, creativity, great writing or – at the very least - a sense of humour wittily expressed through the written word.

Many people have given Fowler’s most recent novel stunning reviews. The Washington Post, for example, ends its stellar review of the book with this line:

“That it is wonderful will soon be widely recognized, indeed, a truth universally acknowledged.”

Again, with the borrowing. It is like the repeated cheapening of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana by their use in pop/techno/dance songs or advertising jingles. The opening line of Pride and Prejudice was once dear to me but now, after so much re-hashing and over-use in the popular media it is beginning to grate. Similarly, when one of the characters in The Jane Austen Book Club persists in referring to Austen as ‘Jane’, it is grating – even if this is intended, even if it is critical to the development of that character, it grates like fingernails on a blackboard.

The Jane Austen Book Club follows the lives of five women and one man over a period during which they meet regularly to discuss Jane Austen’s work. At each book club meeting a different Austen novel becomes the focus of discussion. Each book club member is dealing, in his or her life, with significant issues – separation from a spouse, falling in love, homosexual love, the lure of an adulterous liaison – all of these themes are explored through the characters. And each character, each relationship, is meant to reflect – some with more subtlety than others – a Jane Austen character or plot.

The novel is set in California.

Am I the only reader who feels that an attempt to set a re-hashed version of all of Jane Austen’s novels in modern-day California might be a bit of a stretch? We don’t have the literary equivalent of Baz Luhrmann’s directorial genius to turn a classic into a modern cult icon (as he did with the 1996 film version of Romeo and Juliet). Nor does Fowler have, as Luhrmann did, the excuse of altering aspects of the original text with the liberty permitted by the use of a different medium. Shakespeare never had the medium of film at his fingertips.

Fowler’s novel is accompanied, at the end, by various appendices – synopses of all of Jane Austen’s novels (so you don’t actually have to read them), an admittedly riveting collection of comments by Jane Austen’s family, friends, colleagues on her novels and her life, and the now ubiquitous set of Questions for Discussion. Like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer creates a coffee table book about coffee tables that actually becomes a coffee table, here is a novel about a book club created especially for book clubs, cheat-tools included. Worse still, the questions are apparently posed by the book’s characters themselves. Questions by the characters about the characters, in which they seek to draw parallels between their lives and the lives and characters in Jane Austen’s novels.

I understand the concept. And yes, the novel is diverting – I was absorbed and read it very quickly – but it is certainly contrived. And the notion of the book, what it is meant to do, the discussions Fowler envisions her readers having across America (and the world?) is, to me, a kind of Austen equivalent to the science fiction convention, science fiction being a genre which does also feature in this book (in the Pride and Prejudice themed relationship, no less – along with Rhodesian Redbacks and an age gap – a Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher age gap, not the traditional Elizabeth Bennet/Mr Darcy age gap).

Fowler says towards the beginning of the book that each of her characters has his or her own ‘private Austen’ – an image or an understanding of Austen (the person, not the books) of his or her own making. This continued emphasis by Fowler and her characters on the author rather than the literature is another annoyance. But I suppose that Fowler is partly right – I too have a private Austen. And she is just that – private.

By all means, if you are an Austen fan who is not troubled by the increasing popularization of her novels amongst people who have seen the BBC series and the Keira Knightley movie but have not read the books, read this novel and enjoy. For those of you who prefer to remember Austen as you read her, stay away.

Some of the most powerful books I have read over the past years surf the uneasy line between fiction and fact. These are books whose fame results precisely from their ambiguous trajectory. Books around which controversy has spun a web of intrigue so thick that the authors involved have been lucky to emerge relatively unscathed, personal and professional lives irrevocably changed but nonetheless intact.

Not long ago a strange thing happened in my workplace. Out of nowhere a pile of dog-eared paperbacks appeared in our ‘break-out’ space, lining the windowsills of our law firm in a decidedly non-legal manner. Correctly surmising that these were on their way out, headed for the tip unless someone rescued them, I pounced immediately, picking from the rabble at least one treasure – a well-thumbed copy of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces.

I had heard of this book. Notably, in an earlier life, a freer life, a life in which I had the time and inclination to watch daytime TV, I had watched an Oprah episode during which James Frey appeared to promote his memoir. I have since learnt that the Oprah episode I watched was the first of two featuring Frey. The second would be very different from the first.

On the episode I watched, Oprah – and her audience – purported to be blown away by the raw authenticity of Frey’s writing. A Million Little Pieces is the story of a 23-year-old man whose out-of-control drug and alcohol addictions have destroyed his life and his body, potentially irrevocably. He enters a rehab centre in the knowledge that a relapse will mean almost certain death. His journey towards redemption is fraught with gut-wrenching pain, the development of intense personal relationships, and an unflinching honesty which draws the readers in, totally absorbed. And part of the book’s drawcard is the fact that the protagonist is Frey himself.

I couldn’t put the book down. Apparently, neither could Oprah.

Frey won great accolades for his book. The editors at Amazon.com picked it as their favourite book of 2003. The New York Times gave it a rave review. Readers all over America and the globe spoke in awe of this most truthful account of drug addiction and rehabilitation. Frey’s genuine confrontation with pain lent awareness to an issue affecting thousands, millions of people the world over.

In late 2005 / early 2006 investigators discovered that significant elements of Frey’s memoir were untrue. Controversy erupted like wildfire. Readers felt duped. Frey’s literary manager dropped him. Oprah invited him back on her show in order to ask him a series of accusatorial questions. During the show she told him – point blank – that she felt betrayed. In front of a live-TV audience and hundreds of thousands of at-home viewers, Frey was forced to list the inaccuracies in his book, and to justify every departure from the truth.

Readers subsequently launched a lawsuit against Frey’s publishing house, seeking a refund because the book was not what it had claimed to be. They were outraged.

I knew all of this when I started reading A Million Little Pieces, and I picked up the book as a result of the controversy, not in spite of it. What blew me away while I was reading it was Frey’s ability to write in a manner so honest that the story appeared to be unerringly true. Had I not known of the controversy, I would have been utterly convinced the book was indeed a memoir. Surely, I thought to myself, the power of writing so convincing is itself an extraordinary gift to the literary community? The book is fast-paced, gripping, exciting – the alteration of various facts makes no difference to the authenticity of Frey’s writing. I was 100% hooked. There can be no question that Frey is a great writer.

A couple of years ago I read another book, equally honest, equally controversial. Nikki Gemmel’s The Bride Stripped Bare is erotic fiction at its best. A bored housewife turns to adulterous liaisons with various strangers - including a beautiful virgin - in an effort to re-invigorate her monotonous (but outwardly satisfactory) suburban life.

The novel was published anonymously. Only after publication did the British press unearth Nikki Gemmel as the author. The frankness of her treatise on women’s sexuality became, with her identification, all at once a controversy of the strangest kind – readers across the world were convinced, once she was found out, that Gemmel’s book was not, after all, a novel, but a memoir. Surely, critics reasoned, there would be no need for anonymity unless Gemmel had something real to hide. And she was, after all, married, a housewife, a mother. Just like her protagonist.

The authenticity sought by Frey’s readers, Gemmel’s readers projected onto her writing, even though her book was classified as fiction. Such perversity. Are we so much more willing to believe the worst of our writers, our entertainers?

In explaining her wish to write anonymously, Gemmel has said that it is very difficult for women to write honestly about sexuality, even in our post-feminist world. She says she views anonymity as liberation, particularly for women writers, and cites Virginia Woolf as saying about women that “anonymity runs in their blood – the desire to be veiled still possesses them.” Gemmel has also said that honesty is the most shocking thing of all – a truth she has experienced first-hand since her own unveiling as author of The Bride.

If honesty is so shocking, why was it more shocking for readers to discover that James Frey was not entirely honest? Why is it so astonishing to find that writers – whose role, one could argue, is precisely to spark controversy, discussion, debate in society – have subverted traditional notions of genre, blurring the line between fact and fiction, in order to provoke? Isn’t that precisely what we should be asking of them?

After my mother recommended it particularly highly, I read Run by Ann Patchett earlier this year and loved it. I adore Ian McEwan’s writing, and after Run I became sure I had found a female counterpart for McEwan to add to my list of favourite writers.

Then I was given Bel Canto, and my suspicions were confirmed.

It is a book like no other. I was asked to describe it while reading in bed the other night.

‘Well… it’s about a famous opera singer who comes to sing at the vice-president’s house in a poor third-world country on an occasion which marks the birthday of a prominent Japanese businessman… but during the concert the house is stormed by a terrorist group - revolutionaries, really - who capture everyone present in an attempt to overthrow the government.’

‘Wow!’ My partner said, immediately intrigued. ‘I should read it! It sounds so exciting!’

The thing is… the description I gave is a little misleading. It is exciting – certainly at the beginning. But anyone who picks it up in the belief that they will be getting a thrilling adventure story, all colourful revolution and political drama, will be disappointed.

This is so much more than a thriller.

Ann Patchett, like Ian McEwan, is a master at dreaming up situations in which the ordinary and the extraordinary collide. Like the legendary Christmas Eve during World War One in which German and British soldiers momentarily put down arms, crawled out of the trenches and played a game of soccer with one another, the occupied vice-president’s house in Bel Canto becomes a space where human relationships, through the intensity of circumstances, develop faster and stronger than they do in the real world.

The vice-president of a Latin American country learns humility, and to love an impoverished young boy who once held a gun to his head. A famous American opera singer falls in love with a man whose language she cannot speak. A French diplomat, through separation from his wife and anxiety over the potential imminent death of one or both of them, remembers how much he truly loves her, even after so many years. A voice more beautiful than any of us will ever hear is born, grows and disappears before its time, like a firefly in darkness.

The love, the fear, the joy that is felt during the occupation – each of these emotions is heightened by the strangeness of the situation. Imagine life stopped – for once the treadmill ceases turning. You are still. There is a foreign beauty to be had in such stillness. After many days inside, when the hostages are allowed into the garden of the vice-president’s mansion, the feel of the grass beneath their feet, the sight and smell of the flowers, the warmth of the sun on their hair – these things are glorious beyond their wildest dreams. Yet we pass them by each day without noticing.

Ann Patchett creates a mythical world where we least expect it – in an ordinary house, in an ordinary garden. The magic emerges through the interactions between people who would never otherwise meet – revolutionary and politician, poverty-struck adolescents and highly educated translators and businessmen, Swiss aid workers and opera singers. Patchett weaves the tales of these people together with intricate blossoms of simple words.

The result is literary beauty that you will never forget. Read it.