The Sea by John Banville

"Happiness was different in childhood. It was so much then a matter simply of accumulation, of taking things - new experiences, new emotions - and applying them like so many polished tiles to what would someday be the marvellously finished pavilion of the self. And incredulity, that too was a large part of being happy, I mean that euphoric inability fully to believe one's simple luck. There I was, suddenly, with a girl in my arms, figuratively, at least, doing the things that grown-ups did, holding her hand, and kissing her in the dark, and, when the picture had ended, standing aside, clearing my throat in grave politeness, to allow her to pass ahead of me under the heavy curtain and through the doorway out into the rain-washed sunlight of the summer evening. I was myself and at the same time someone else, someone completely other, completely new. As I walked behind her amid the trudging crowd in the direction of the Strand Café I touched my fingertips to my lips, the lips that had kissed hers, half expecting to find them changed in some infinitely subtle but momentous way. I expected everything to be changed, like the day itself, that had been sombre and wet and hung with big-bellied clouds when we were going into the picture-house in what had still been afternoon and now at evening was all tawny sunlight and raked shadows, the scrub grass dripping with jewels and a red sail-boat out on the bay turning its prow and setting off towards the horizon's already dusk-blue distances.

The café. In the café. In the café we."

Listening to: 'Everything is Alright' by Four Tet
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Orange prize for fiction reading challenge - progress

After several weeks of steady reading, I'm on book four of my reading challenge and so far all's going well. Thankfully it's been a pretty painless experience and while certain books have definitely been better than others, I've not yet had to force myself to wade through a complete shocker. So here are some very brief thoughts so far:

Molly Fox's Birthday - 4/5
I really loved this book. It read as an incredibly thoughtful, heartwarming account of friendship that has spanned the decades. It's true at times the characters felt somewhat older than their years - their somewhat prudish nature caused me to assume in places that they were in their 60s of 70s rather than their 40s - but in all I breezed through with thorough enjoyment.

Scotsboro - 3.5/5
Again I loved this book. A penetrating, emotive account of 9 young black men from Alabama who are accused of raping 2 white girls in the 1930s. The trial scenes at times were irksome and tedious, but the writer effectively conveyed the sheer frustration that comes when an inherently racist society refuses to pursue justice.

Home - 2.5/5
While in all I enjoyed this novel, which explores the return of two siblings who return to their childhood home to care for their dying father, I did find myself becoming increasingly irritated by the character of Jack. The misdemeanours of his youth which are alluded to never fully come to light, and I found him to be so apologetic and self-pitying that I just wanted to slap him. Some disappointing characters in a book which otherwise had stacks of potential.
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Six books in six weeks...

So, the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 shortlist has been announced, and the challenge is set. Six books to devour before the writer's event on 2 June. Of the 20 books on the longlist, I had pinpointed 11 that I particularly liked the look of, based on the plot summary. The shortlisted result is a good mix: 3 that I was keen to read, and 3 that I was ambivalent towards:

1) Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden - 221 pages

2) Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman - 363 pages

3) Home by Marilynne Robinson - 352 pages

4) Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie - 384 pages

5) The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt - 368 pages

6) The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey - 336 pages

Six books in six weeks. Wish me luck!

A new reading challenge

It has long been on my radar to take part in a reading challenge. I recently read on the Penguin Blog how the writer Jeff Vandermeer had decided to partake in a '60 in 60' challenge, reading all 60 Penguin Great Ideas books in 60 days. It was always going to be a mammouth endeavour, and sure enough by day/book #36 the demands of everyday life got in the way and the challenge remains incomplete.

Having recently read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007, something suddenly occurred to me. While I could never realistically commit myself to 60 books in 60 days, what I have always wanted to do is read the books shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction before attending the Shortlisted Writers' Event. Browsing on the internet last night, I realised that the shortlist would be announced tomorrow. So what have I got to lose? Five books will be shortlisted, which I will have until Tuesday 2 June to complete. Perfect!

So I booked my ticket to the Writers' Event, and I've signed up to The Orange Prize Project (although I'm only doing 2009).

The current long list is as follows (I've starred the ones I particularly like the sound of):

• The Household Guide to Dying, by Debra Adelaide
• Girl in a Blue Dress, by Gaynor Arnold
• Their Finest Hour and a Half, by Lissa Evans*
• Blonde Roots, by Bernardine Evaristo*
• Scottsboro, by Ellen Feldman*
• Strange Music, by Laura Fish*
• Love Marriage, by V.V. Ganeshananthan*
• Intuition, by Allegra Goodman
• The Wilderness, by Samantha Harvey*
• The Invention of Everything Else, by Samantha Hunt
• The Lost Dog, by Michelle de Kretser
• Molly Fox’s Birthday, by Deirdre Madden
• A Mercy, by Toni Morrison*
• The Russian Dreambook of Colour and Flight, by Gina Ochsner
• Home, by Marilynne Robinson
• Evening is the Whole Day, by Preeta Samarasan*
• Burnt Shadows, by Kamila Shamsie*
• American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld*
• The Flying Troutmans, by Miriam Toews
• The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, by Ann Weisgarber*

Books read so far in 2009...

Disappointingly I've not read many books so far in 2009. So I'm drawing a line underneath the first quarter of the year and starting afresh. Here's what I've completed so far...

January
Great Meadow by Dirk Bogarde (review)
Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis (review)
Beloved by Toni Morrison
House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski (review)
A Working Girl Can't Win by Deborah Garrison (review)

February
White Oleander by Janet Fitch (review)
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (review)
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

March
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
The God of Small Things by Arunndhati Roy

Check it out!

Come and see the new YMCA blog!

www.ymcaengland.blogspot.com

Days like these

Everything feels like it is up in the air right now, and melancholy has become an unshakable companion. My life, for now, consists of the following: