Some light holiday reading

It's holiday time and I'm up for some light fun reading, books that 'zip along'.

But of course, this year I got some pretty heavy reading for Christmas presents, including:

• The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi – Peter Popham
• Tinkers - Paul Harding (Pulitzer Prize 2011)
• M16: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 - Keith Jeffrey

So with my brain protesting against such a heavy workload, I thought a nice crime/thriller was in order.

I downloaded the first in Sue Grafton's Alphabet series, A is Alibi, featuring PI Kinsey Millhone.

I've been wanting to get hooked on another series for a while and had often seen Grafton's books around the library and in bookstores and thought it was time I gave her a shot.

Overall, it was a good page turner and Millhone is a smart, funny, fiercly independent and likable character. The story begins when Millhone is hired to the find the 'real' killer of divorce attorney Laurence Fife. She encounters a few dead bodies on the way and with a few twist and turns in the plot, Millhone ends up solving the mystery.

I found the last part of the novel a bit of a stretch, with an unconvincing shift to the action genre that was a bit confusing. That being said, I did finish the book in a couple of sittings so Grafton is an efffective crime writer.

I'm just not sure whether I'll continue with the series, as niether the character or PI genre really grabbed me that intensely.

I guess I'll just have to find another series out there to start.

I recently discovered a great website for called Brain Pickings, which is one these cool 'curated' sites that brings together all things literary and cultural. The latest enewsletter featured the 2011's best biographies and memoirs.

Playing around on my new best friend the Flipboard app on iPad, I've noticed that instead of 'editors' or 'editing' it's all about 'curating' and 'curated' content.

So that being said, my latest career aspiration is to be a 'cool curator' on the Flipboard!

Some notable books for 2011

These are some memorable books that I didn’t get a chance to blog about in 2011:

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern


Brilliant story of duelling magicians and their protégés: Celia and Marco, who battle it out in a circus that only opens at night. It’s filled with wonderful characters and the feats of magic are always grounded in human emotions. One of the most imaginative and enjoyable reads I’ve had this year.

The interrogator : a CIA agent's true story - Glenn Carle


Fascinating and riveting insider account of Carle’s role in the interrogation of potential terrorist suspects. He details the psychology of interrogation and the often compromised operation of US agencies in often hostile countries. Carle writes with a clear sense of urgency, anger and frustration. It is a compelling account of how ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were a moral, political and legal failure.


The coming plague : newly emerging diseases in a world out of balance – Laurie Garrett

This year I really got into my science books; perhaps making up for my youthful disregard of biology and chemistry.

Garret’s book can almost be read as a cultural history of modern science and medicine’s battle with microbes. It tracks the major diseases to emerge in the twentieth century like, Lassa Fever, Marburg, Ebola and Yellow Fever.

Each chapter begins like a detective story, with the breakout of an undetermined illness (often) affecting a third world country. It then traces the doctors, scientist and epidemiologists who go into the field to try and identify the locus of infection. Being a science journalist, Garret is able to clearly and effectively explain complexities of how viruses work and how ‘smart’ they can be.

I found this a truly fascinating book and at times very scary, as it seems in the battle between our immune systems and viruses we always seem to be on the losing side.

Reading this book, really prepped me to watch Steven Soderbergh’s film Contagion. And I’ve got to say the book was far more compelling and interesting than the film.

Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

There are some books that stay with you long after you finished the last page. Madeline Miller’s lyrical novel, Song of Achilles is one of them.

I’ve long been a fan of Greek mythology and as a geeky teenager totally enchanted by stories of the gods, goddesses and heroes such as Achilles and Hercules.

The Song of Achilles is told from the perspective of Patroclus, detailing the development of his relationship with Achilles.

Set against the backdrop of the Trojan war, the unfolding of the love story between Patroclus, an exiled prince, and Achilles is wonderfully nuanced.

The writing is clean, clear and flows naturally. I loved the way Miller’s story features the Gods and creatures like centaurs as ordinary characters.

The book is also a satisfying page turner as the two lovers head of to the Trojan war and attempt to defy what the Gods have ordained as Achilles fate: to die a young but glorious death.

In the end the book is really more about Patroclus, rather than Achilles. It is through Patroclus’ actions that we understand what it is to be human and humane.

Felix J. Palma's The Map of Time

I’m always a bit wary when I see ‘international bestseller’ sticker on a book as I know it’s either going to be fantastic or terrible.

Luckily, Felix J. Palma’s The Map of Time is a fantastic read. It’s an intriguing mix of genres, an interplay between old fashion story telling and post modern ‘meta fiction’.

Set in Victorian London, the book is jam packed full of famous people with Jack the Ripper, HG Wells, Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man), Bram Stoker and Henry James all making appearances.

The book has three intertwining stories, starting with Andrew Harrington whose true love, the prostitute Marie Kelly, has become Jack the Ripper’s fifth victim. Connecting all three stories is the figure of H.G. Wells, who plays the part of a reluctant hero.

I won’t give too much more away, as the joy of reading this book is the often unexpected twist and turns in the story.

The Map of Time is a fun, absorbing and witty meditation on time travel, love and what it means to be human.

I really enjoyed the character’s debating about whether you can change the past, what happens if you met a future you and consequences of parallel universes.

This is the first of Palma's books to be translated and published in English, so I can't wait for the others.

I’m off to read the original H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.

Steal: a cultural history of shoplifting

Did you know Jane Austin’s aunt, Leigh Perrot, was a kleptomaniac? This is one of the more interesting facts to come out of Rachel Shteir's Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting.

I’m a big fan of the cultural history genre and I had high hopes for this book, as shoplifting is such a fascinating topic and this book is apparently the first full scale study of it to be published.

Having worked in retail for many years I'm also very aware of shoplifting, otherwise known as 'shrinkage', from a practical perspective!

But overall, I found Shteir’s book a very uneven read and frustratingly disjointed. I found myself wanting to really get into the book, but the narrative was just everywhere and there was little done to connect the chapters together into a coherent theme.

For example, there were really interesting facts about the ‘loss prevention’ industry and how much ‘shrinkage’ cost retailers per year. But these issues were sort of scattered throughout the book and just when you thought it would get interesting, Shteir would move onto a another topic.

Perhaps, I’m being a bit harsh but I guess the bar was set so high with Siddhartha Mukherjee’s magisterial cultural history of cancer: The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

That being, said the best parts of the book were the analysis of shoplifting as a gendered crime and the increasing punitative punishments metered out in some parts of the United States. Also the chapter on celebrity shoplifters was fascinating and it was a clever hook to start the book with one of the most infamous celebrity shoplifters, Winona Ryder.

But overall, I was really disappointed in this book.