Review:- Kate PENNINGTON – “Tread Softly”

Year Published: - 2003
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - 9780340873434
Pages: - 247pp
Genre: - Historical
Location:- Plymouth and London; 1585
How I came across it: - Pensby Library booksale
Rating: - *****
One sentence summary:- An average historical novel about the a girl who makes the cloak with which Walter Raleigh saves his Queen’s shoes from the mud.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
The one sentence summary has done so though there are conspiracy and murder thrown in for good measure!

General comments:-
Not my scene – a bit shallow and lacking in historical detail though it makes plenty of use of the characters of the time.

AUTHOR Notes:-
Kate Pennington is a pseudonym for Jenny Oldfield. She was born and brought up in Harrogate, Yorkshire, and even as a child she wrote stories and made tiny books, complete with illustrations. At school her favourite subjects were English, although she preferred creative writing to comprehension, and Art. Jenny went on to study English at Birmingham University, where she did research on the Bronte novels and on children's literature. Jenny still lives in Yorkshire and says that she loves the countryside and enjoys walking, gardening, playing tennis, riding and travelling with her two daughters, Kate and Eve.

Review:- David GUTERSON – “Our lady of the Forest”

Year Published: - 2003
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - 0 7475 6045 5
Pages: - 325pp
Genre: - General fiction
Location:- North Fork, Washington
How I came across it: - Pensby Library booksale
Rating: - ***** ****
One sentence summary:- The story of a young girl’s visions (or delusions?) and the impact it has on a number of the residents of the area where it takes place.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
The story of a teenage girl who sees a vision of the Virgin Mary. Ann Holmes seems an unlikely candidate for a revelation. A sixteen-year-old runaway, she is an itinerant mushroom picker who lives in a tent. One November afternoon, in the foggy woods of North Fork, Washington, the Virgin comes to her, clear as day. Is this delusion, a product of her occasional drug use, or a true calling to God? Gradually word spreads, and thousands converge upon the already troubled town having an instant impact on the local residents.

General comments:- 

Guterson has a great way with words but very unconventional as the quotations below demonstrate.  Tthis is writing by a skilled craftsman.

A fair amount of soul-searching is inevitable among the various witnesses to Ann’s visions. In turn there is opportunity for a bit of soul-searching among the book’s readership. This is one of those books that makes you think outside the box.

Quotations:
“Well who’s the patron saint of lunatics?”
“Strange you should ask because I happen to know. Christina the Astonishing, she was called. Her feast day is my birthday, July twenty fourth. She’s also the patron of therapists.”

There are no words, God is ineffable, the name of God cannot be spelled, to look for God with the tools of man is like trying to capture the sun’s light in our hands, perhaps, he thought, I should have been a Jew, that quaint Jewish simile makes perfect sense...

Did God make sense, though, in the end? The God who turned Lot’s wife into a salt pillar merely for looking back at the brimstone falling as prophesied across the plain, the God who spoke with Abraham as though they were negotiating the price of a used car to determine the number of righteous men it would take to save the two cities? God wanted fifty but Abraham worked him down to ten by employing deference, humility and flattery, I who am but dust and ashes, let not the Lord be angry and so on, the same God who later toyed with Abraham by asking him to bind his son, arrange the boy on a sacrificial pyre, then slit his throat with a knife. Just kidding, said God at the last moment. Just checking to see how loyal you are. God the insecure Mafia don. God the malevolent psychotherapist.

AUTHOR Notes:-
David Guterson was born in Seattle in 1956. Guterson received his M.A. from the University of Washington, where he studied under the writer Charles Johnson. It was there that he developed his ideas about the moral function of literature: "Fiction writers shouldn't dictate to people what their morality should be," he said in a recent interview. "Yet not enough writers are presenting moral questions for reflection, which I think is a very important obligation."

After moving to Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound, Guterson taught English at the local high school and began writing journalism for Sports Illustrated and Harper's magazine, where he is now a contributing editor. His books include a collection of short stories, The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind (coming from Vintage in Spring 1996), Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense, and Snow Falling on Cedars, which won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award.

Review:- Rob EASTAWAY – “How many socks make a pair?”

Year Published: - 2008

Where the book was from:- Gift from Mark

ISBN: - 978-1-906217-59-4

Pages: - 174pp

Genre: - Popular Mathematics

Location:- -

How I came across it: - Gift from Mark

Rating: - ***** **

One sentence summary:- A refreshing look at mathematics and some of the many different ways it impacts upon our life.

General comments:-
Described as showing the world of mathematics to be ‘surprising, amusing and even beautiful’. I can accept the first two but ‘beautiful’ ??? The book certainly gives some fascinating insights to someone like me who has little knowledge and understanding of the subject. Maths remains ‘not my cup of tea’ but it was an interesting read.

AUTHOR Notes:- Rob Eastaway is one of the UK’s leading pupularisers of maths and has written a number of books and articles. He even appears on radio and live on stage at locations ranging from the Royal Institution to Pentonville Prison.

Review:- Alanna KNIGHT – “The Coffin lane Murders”

Year Published: - 1998
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - 0 7540 3723 1
Pages: - 235pp (Large print)
Genre: - Victorian Crime
Location:- Edinburgh
How I came across it: - Pensby library booksale
Rating: - ***** **
One sentence summary:- The eleventh in a series of books about Edinburgh’s Inspector Faro

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
Another Case for Inspector Jeremy Faro, Edinburgh's Victorian Detective The frantic arrival of PC Dean at Inspector Faro's door one winter morning brings news of the first killing in Coffin Lane. Accompanied by his step-son Vince and Vince's partner at the surgery, Dr Conan Pursley, Faro rushes to a horrific scene. For a trail of blood through the snow leads to the body of a young woman, a knife wound in her chest. Molly Blaith had been on her way to post a letter for her employer Miss Errington. Or had she? For such a journey should not have taken her down Coffin Lane. Did she have an assignation?

General comments:- 
Fairly typical cosy crime with an unusual setting - Edinburgh in Victorian times.   The 'villian' was a bit predictable but one perhaps shouldn't judge a whole series on the basis of one novel. 
Inspector Faro novels
1. Enter Second Murderer (1988)
2. Blood Line (1989)
3. Deadly Beloved (1989)
4. Killing Cousins (1990)
5. A Quiet Death (1991)
6. To Kill a Queen (1992)
7. The Evil That Men Do (1993)
8. The Missing Duchess (1994)
9. The Bull Slayers (1995)
10. Murder by Appointment (1996)
11. The Coffin Lane Murders (1998)
12. The Final Enemy (2002)
13. Unholy Trinity (2004)
14. Faro and the Royals (2005)
15. Murder in Paradise (2008)

Quotations:

AUTHOR Notes:- Alanna Knight was born in Scotland in 1923 and also writes under the name Margaret Hope.

Review:- Marina LEWYCKA – “A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian”

Year Published: - 2005
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - 978-0-141-02052-5
Pages: - 325pp
Genre: - General fiction, Humour, Ukraine
Location:- UK
How I came across it: - much reviewed
Rating: - ***** ****
One sentence summary:- A hugely enjoyable account of the reaction of two warring systems when they are brought together by a common enemy – their father’s new girlfriend.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:-
“For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other - and they have their reasons. But now they find they'd better learn how to get along, because since their mother's death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. If Nadazhda and Vera don't stop her, no one will. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat - Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs when it comes to ruthlessness. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, the one that explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different. In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.”
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/marina-lewycka/short-history-of-tractors-in-ukrainian.htm

General comments:-
Awards:-
Orange Prize for Fiction (nominee)
Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing
The Booker Prize (nominee)
Waterstone's Newcomer of the Year

The author’s own background suggests there is an element of the autobiography in this “riotous oil-painting of senility, lust and greed..’ (Economist)

Quotations:
Between seven and ten million people died across Ukraine during the man-made famine of 1932-3.


“...if all women were to wear paint on their faces, just think, there could be no more natural selection. The inevitable result would be the uglification of the species.”


He shifts his voice into an easy narrative gear. He is in control now, driving his tractor across the crumbling furrows of the past.


I remember when Christmas dinner was a big fat bird with salt-crisped skin and oily h
juices oozing out of it, fragrant with garlic and marjoram and kasha stuffed in its plump tummy and roasted shallots and chestnuts round the side, and home-made wine that made us all tipsy, and a white cloth and flowers on the table, even in winter, and silly presents, and laughter and kisses. This woman who has taken the place of my mother has stolen Christmas and replaced it with boil-in-the-bag food and plastic flowers.


“Nadia, why do you always go scrabbling around in the past?” Her voice is tense, brittle. “The past is filthy. It’s like a sewer. You shouldn’t play there. Leave it alone. Forget it.”

`

AUTHOR Notes:- Marina LEWYCKA was born of Ukrainian parents in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany, at the end of World War II and grew up in England. She teaches at Sheffield Hallam University and is married with a grown-up daughter.