In A New Dawn Let's Chat About the Age Of Innocence By Edith Wharton

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

As I'm writing this it's 4:53am on a Thursday morning. The alarm had been set for six. Insomnia is a cruel mistress.

Outside a new dawn is slowly beginning to emerge. It looks for the moment kike it will be a grey one and it's certainly wet. The weather forecast indeed suggests that the rain will be much, much worse as this day continues. Of course as is always the way I have a few journeys to make today.

Normally with insomnia I would have probably spent the time the time nowadays wandering the web. An internet hobo from site to site. This morning however was different. For I had according to my Kindle less than half an hour of Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton to go. So decided to finish that.

Now this book had been split into two sections, literally Book one and Book Two. This seemed somehow appropriate. For if any novel could be described as a book of two halves in my opinion of it this is it. So let's chat about Book One first.

Book One was, for the most part, a dull trudge. I was wondering when I read this exactly why it's the classic that it is. The characters for the most part are as limp as the wettest of lettuce (and that includes the leading male in this story). And as for the denouement well it was so obvious it might as well have been covered in neon and sponsored by the city of Las Vegas.

What saves Book One, just, are two central characters. Firstly Madame Olenska, the central woman here. Beautiful, different, mysterious and for Nineteenth Century New York Society a woman with issues.

The other central character is Nineteenth Century New York Society itself. Outwardly polite it nonetheless is a very powerful force seeking to control the emotions of those it rules no matter how much certain people try to resist.

And so I approach Book Two in a depressed frame of mind. The sort of mind a reader has when he/she is halfway through a book, feels as a sense of duty as a book lover to finish it but knowing full well that their mind will be turned to mush at the end.

Well....was wrong about that.

Book Two is everything Book One isn't. Characters become fully rounded (though the two main ones from Book One are as strong as ever), the plot moves in a way that you did not expect and the ending was as subtle as it was strong. It was brilliant. You have to read Book One I'm afraid to get to Book Two. But trust me it's worth it.

No question the most surprising book I've read so far this year.

Until the next time.

In Defence Of The Male Reader

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

One of the great advantages of Twitter is the way it will lead you to things that even the normal internet would not. Yesterday, quite randomly it led me to a post by the writer David Hayden with regard to men and their reading choices. It suggested that male readers would normally see writing as the canon with women hardly getting a look in.

The article is here https://lithub.com/david-hayden-men-still-too-often-see-their-writing-as-the-canon/

It referred to readers surveys which stated that male readers almost exclusively and deliberately read fictional books by other men and not women. This surprised me. I personally wonder how these surveys were phrased. Most male readers I'm aware of don't discriminate by gender at least not as consciously as Mr Hayden's article implied. That said, as I've mentioned in this blog in the past, there have been some female writers who I have avoided specifically because the cover and the blurb suggests not that it will be too female, but rather too gushingly romantic, too girly or too delicate for my male DNA.

As readers of this blog will also know I have tried to go beyond the covers recently (too varying degrees of success as I will explain later) but I don't blame myself for not looking at books that were not designed to attract me the male reader.

These covers need to be discussed individually. There were four particular types:

a) The "Mills and Boon" Cover: We are all aware of that cover that suggests whirlwind romance through a [insert historical period here]. Avoided Georgette Heyer (only read her for the first time a couple of years and Norah Lofts (I've a book of hers have not got round to reading yet).

b) The Chick Lit Cover: Bright Colours, Swirly lettering, Cartoon figures. They were literary warning lights for men to avoid. But if circumstances were different, I wouldn't have realised that (as I've explained in previous posts) Marian Keyes is a far more important writer than her covers would suggest.

c) The Chocolate Box Cover: Which interestingly I have an example in one of the two books I'm reading at the moment.

Santa Montefiore - The Beekeeper's Daughter

(The other book I'm reading incidentally is The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton)

So you're looking at that cover and would instantly see a sweeping romance style book. I won't chat about the novel until I've properly finished it. Though let's say that for the moment it's a case of Bad Santa.

4) The Delicate Cover: This tends to be a relatively thin book with a painting/photo and a blurb that suggests something arty and dull. Anita Brookner comes to mind here (though I have got a few of her books now though amongst the great unread at the moment).

There was also one other thing about Mr Hayden's piece (whose books incidentally I haven't read either - so many books - so little time ) that sprang to mind. His concentration on general literature ignored the genre where women writers have had critical and popular (including men) acclaim through the decades and that's crime.

From Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers through to Liza Cody, P D James, Sarah Paretsky, Ruth Rendell  with now Lynda La Plante and Val McDermid female writers have shown that if you write in a subject men are interested in they are happy to read you without any issues of gender. And, it should be stressed that often the people doing the detecting are women as well.

I'm not saying that men (including myself) shouldn't read more books by women authors. But I am saying that the reasons we haven't are probably less obvious than Mr Hayden's article would suggest.

Until the next time.

On A Short Trip Through A Town Called Barry And The E Book Buying Game (June Edition)

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well yesterday I visited Barry Town properly. It wasn't one of the great treks of the world. A ten minute walk from where I'm currently living. And I couldn't do a proper wander either, basically because I had my daughter with me who'd done the walk with my wife on Tuesday when I was at work (that's right the sisters beat me to it) and didn't want to go around again when there was the internet to entertain her. Still at least I did go and will do a proper lookaround when there isn't a teenager by my side.

Barry Town for the uninitiated is not to be linked with the nearby funfair/amusements that is Barry Island in terms of how you should view it. This is a town for the inhabitants and judged on first viewing it seemed to make it clear that's what it wanted to be. There was nothing that suggested seaside jollity's. To me that was a good thing.

(Barry Island is to come. Weather permitting I'm planning to go with wife/daughter on my next day off Sunday).

And if there is one place I'm definitely going to investigate further in the future.

Always judge a place by its library

Now this is not just where the central library is. It has an art gallery as well. But the key point is that the Barry Town library is in in the Town Centre. Bridgend Council please note.

In terms of shops the town centre appeared to be a line of outlets. On an admittedly cursory look it didn't appear to suffer the considerable closures suffered by Bridgend town centre. Wife/daughter did say to me that they thought that Barry Town was better than Bridgend Town and that is what it appeared to me as well. In fact I cannot think of any town centre worse that I've been to in Wales than Bridgend Town and here is just another example to compare it by.

All in all this was a good first trip. More in depth (ie teenage daughterless) wanderings to follow.

A Town Called Barry

And so to the temporary series (until we move in to a new house) ebook buying game. The rules are these. Armed with £5 and whatever loose change I try to buy as many ebooks on my Kindle (other ereaders are available) starting with the Daily Deals and from those purchases see what type of books it tries to offer me from then on. The key thing to remember is that it has to appeal and that it's as cheap as possible.

This month's monthly total (with the carry over change from last month) is £5.22.

Nothing from the Daily Deals interested me. ("Social Media Marketing Tips?" It's title alone would induce me to sleep). So I move on to the Monthly Deals. There I see Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon a book which is subtitled "a happy life with mental illness". I seem to vaguely remember a radio interview she did on this. It seems interesting. 99p. Bought.

Nothing on the books recommended from buying Mad Girl interested me. So I went to the next row. Books recommended for me based on "Literature and Fiction". The first one on the row is "Single and Single" by John Le Carre. 99p. Bought.

Again nothing recommended from buying the John Le Carre interested me. So back to those recommendations based on what I bought in Litrature and Fiction. There's a complete collection of books by the American writer Theodore Dreiser. 92p. Absolute bargain. Bought.

Looking at the list then there is another collected works of Willa Cather for just 49p. 49p!! Needless to say bought.

It leads me to another collected works. This time by Edith Wharton. Another author I've wanted to read but life never got me round to doing it. This time though chance comes my way. 91p. Bought.

The next compilation is of Nicholas Gogol. 49p again. Yes of course I bought it.

Finally the main author bought when I played this game last month was Michael Connelly. Book 3 in the Harry Bosch series The Concrete Blonde is available for 99p. As I already got books 1 and 2 this was a must. Bought.

So 35p is carried forward to next month. Not only that but I've bought some female writers which I didn't last time. So pleased with that.

Until the next time.