Orange 2012: On the floor (Aifric Campbell)

I picked up On the floor with a little trepidation; whilst I was keen to read a book about a woman my age who worked at an investment bank in London, a world of which I know very little (although I have just finished reading a fascinating memoir which I half wrote a blog post about called City-Girl by Suzana S about a girl who worked her way up from internship to full trader, which gave me enough background to really pique my interest in this book), my Kindle-Sampling-Colleague had told me that she didn't really understand the industry terminology that she'd encountered in the sample chapter and that if she's to go any further she'll need me to explain it to her. Hmm...

The author, Aifric Campbell, spent 13 years working on the trading floor of Morgan Stanley (an eminent investment bank for non UK readers), and became their first female managing director, and this is her third novel. So one might anticipate this novel to open ones eyes to this world, and to some extent she does.

Set in 1991, Geri has worked as a trader for 5 years and achieved considerable success. She is now 28 and does business primarily with a hedge fund manager in Hong Kong. However, the success is wearing thin, and she is at the point of breakdown. She is unable to sleep, she drinks too much, she has been abandoned by her boyfriend, and she becomes involved in a hostile takeover that puts her career on the line. The book is about her personal struggle to work out what she is able to control and what is outside it.

The book is very fastpaced, in the way that I would imagine life in the city to be and certainly portrays the city as somewhere where it is difficult for women to be - which makes it an apt choice I think for the Orange Longlist. One bit that stands out in that respect is where Geri is in the bar with another banking friend and together they draw up a list of advice for "Wannabe Bankers" which includes the following:

"1. Don't even blink when someone says "cunt". Better still, say it yourself.
2. There is NEVER a good reason to cry in the office
3.Always remember that two women standing together on the trading floor can only be gossiping; therefore treat all female colleagues with total contempt.
4. Learn how to drink copiously. Learn the point at which you are likely to keel over or shag someone you shouldn't"

...and so on.

I think overall the problem for me with this novel was that it was written by someone with so much experience of the trading world which made it difficult for the outsider to get a grip on. I wonder if it'd been written by someone who had only researched into life as a trader, it might have been written a little bit more sympathetically with the ignorant reader in mind?

Orange 2011: Tiger's wife (Obreht)

Thanks to my lovely colleague, who kindly gave me a copy of The tiger's wife as a belated birthday present, I am happy to announce that I have read my way through the entire Orange 2011 longlist. I've made big inroads in previous years, but this is a first for me.

The book centres around Nathalia, a young doctor, who has travelled to the Balkans to vaccinate war orphans. Her travels are interrupted when her grandfather dies, under what seem to be mysterious circumstances and the book follows her journey exploring her grandfather's life and death. This sounds straightforward, but the book is anything but. Superstitution and folklore abound in this tale, such as The Forty Days of the Soul, which is the encouraging of the soul to return on the morning after death with a sign to show forgiveness to those left behind. Nathalia recalls her grandfather's stories which feature colourful characters: The Tiger's wife (an old deaf-mute lady) and The deathless man (a man who amazingly cheats death, appearing first at his funeral where he asks to be let out of his coffin) - in a hope that these will shed light on his life.

Even though this wasn't one of my favourites from the list, I can easily see why it has made the shortlist. The multi-layered story, the original ideas, and the beautiful writing work together to form an excellent book. It's the sort of book that makes you think, and thus plays on your mind both whilst reading it (I mean in between when you are actually reading it) and after it, as you try to piece it all together. I can't even get my head around how you write a book that is so complex.

So that's very much it for Orange 2011. I make no predictions as to the eventual winner, although will be fascinated to see the outcome. I've really enjoyed acquainting myself with some fantastic new female writing, and may even resurrect my Orange Wednesdays series, where I read titles from the Orange longlist backlists which proved hugely enjoyable for me and popular with my blog readers last year.

Orange 2011: Whatever you love (Doughty)

I've just realised that I wrote this Orange longlister post last week and never posted it - so somewhat belatedly, here it is.



I felt a bit shocked by my ability to almost enjoy Whatever you love, since it opens with the death of a nine-year-old . Perhaps enjoy is not quite the right word, I was intrigued by the story, but particularly by a parallel story running through the novel. For when single Mum Laura, loses her daughter Betty in a hit-and-run, it provides her with the impetus to think back over her relationship with Betty's father, her former husband David. And I did enjoy these passages, the story of how they got together and their evident passion for each other. I just felt guilty for liking what seemed to be an old fashioned love story, in the middle of the description of a sad event. Of course, this happier, and subsequently less happy story (because of course we know that it hasn't worked out as Laura is now a single mother) is interspersed with the grief and dreadfulness of having had a child killed and the slow coming to terms of it.

It was certainly another Orange dealing with difficult subject material. But still immensely readable. And so well handled. I have not come across Louise Doughty's work before; this is her sixth novel, and I am certainly going to seek her out at the library. I was also intrigued to discover that she has written a reference book for aspiring novelists called Novel in a year. I'd be interested to read about the techniques for novel writing that she imparts in it, because it did strike me that Whatever you love was incredibly tightly constructed, which may have been a large factor in making it so readable.

Many thanks to David from Faber and Faber who sent me a copy of this book to read.

Orange 2011: Lyrics Alley

I wrote on Monday about my feelings about reading almost all of the longlist, and a little bit of me was sad that I hadn't managed to read all of it before the shortlist announcement. Of course, one of the two books that I hadn't managed to get hold of - The tiger's wife - had been shortlisted, but thanks to a very kind belated birthday present today I now have it in my possession. I felt quite proud of reading so many Oranges in a short time, so when I spotted Lyrics Alley at the library on Tuesday lunchtime, I picked it up with great excitement. It may not have made it to the longlist, but Leila Aboulela is an author who I have come across simply because her two earlier titles were longlisted in previous years. What I have loved about her earlier work is the way that she writes about cultures so unfamiliar to me, yet in a way that does not alienate me. Lyrics Alley is the same.

Set in 1950s Sudan, Lyrics Alley tells the story of the Abuzied family, an extended grouping who whilst obviously very close are often at odds with each other. It's a complicated family, and the cast of characters have names which are generally unrecognisable to my Western eye, which could make for difficult reading (I'm not sure why I struggle so much with non-Western names), but Aboulela draws them so colourfully that each individual really stood out for me rather than just merging into a blur. I particularly found myself warming to the women in the story, Fatma who has moved away with her husband and who feels slightly disconnected from family events; Soraya who becomes betrothed to Nur (her cousin), and particularly the two wives of one of the men Waheeba and Nabilah who represent very different attitudes. For this is what the book is partly about - the disparity between 1950s Sudan and the neighbouring Egypt where some of them spend their time, and Nabilah moves until she is brought back to Sudan where she suffers somewhat of a culture clash. She frowns on her fellow wife's desire to have her children circumcised for example...

I was very glad to pick this up to read as I really enjoyed it; it is the essence of Orange reading for me to read books which are about cultures/things which I would not normally read about or books which I would not normally choose.

Orange 2011: Thoughts and Wrap Up

Having read a substantial number of titles from this year's Orange longlist (and my posts can be found here), I thought I'd write a summing up post before the announcement of the shortlist tomorrow. No predictions, just thoughts, both on the books, and also on the experience as I have read far more titles from the longlist in a short time than ever before, mainly thanks to the generosity of publicists at a number of publishing houses: Faber and Faber, Corsair, Constable, Random House (incorporating Chatto and Windus, Jonathan Cape and Vintage), Canongate and Penguin. With the four titles that I had read before the announcement of the Orange list (which sadly I have not had time to write about as I had hoped), I am only two titles short of reading the whole longlist (these are Lyrics Alley and Tiger's Wife, which both had very long waiting lists at the library - and what's the likelihood that both of those turn up onto the shortlist?). I shall look out for them in due course so that I can complete the 20 books.

At first, when I read the list and some of the synopses I was concerned that it seemed to be dominated by rather heavy subject matter. Yes, difficult topics were covered - polygamy (The secret lives of Baba Segi's Lives...), incest (Repeat it today with tears), abduction (Room), hermaphroditism (Annabel), prostitution (The road to wanting), affairs (The London train), but sometimes these topics were treated more lightly than in other cases.

And what I enjoyed so much about the experience was the immense variety among the novels - different countries (Orange 2011 has certainly involved a lot of globetrotting), different time periods (although less historical novels this year than previously I think), debut novelists (Peile, Doshi, Henderson, Hunt, Obreht, Orringer, Russell and Winter) to accomplished writers with several novels under their belt (Doughty, Egan, Hadley, Birch). Some books were straight novels, others used interesting styles of writing (I'm thinking particularly of The Visit from the Goon Squad, but also The seas), and others drew together seemingly disparate stories (The birth of love, The London train).

Which ones did I enjoy most? Possibly the first three that I read (and I do wonder if my palate became slightly jaded), The secret lives of Baba Segi's wives, Annabel, and especially The pleasure-seekers. And also, The road to wanting, which despite its depressing subject material was somehow quite wonderful.

Would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on their Orange reading - I really hope that you've enjoyed journeying through a large portion of the list with me (and that there have been enough Baking and Bernard posts for those who haven't!). May I also point you towards three blogs which I read regularly which have also involved considerable longlistreading: Simon Savidge, Buried in Print and Farm Lane Books.

Orange 2011: The invisible bridge (Orringer)

Owing to a big wildcard over the weekend, I didn't get a chance to read The invisible bridge from cover-to-cover as I planned, although I have started it. So, because I'm posting some thoughts tonight on my Orange longlist reading, I thought I'd at least put down a few thoughts now on this title. I have to say that I left it until last because it daunted me. It is quite a chunky book (nearly 600 pages) and has very small type, and from what I gathered from the synopsis, it involved quite heavy historical subject material (life as a Jew in late 1930s Europe). I wish I had not let these thoughts influence me and that I had had time to start it in time to finish it before the shortlist announcement as I have to say that I am absolutely gripped by the story so far. Yes, it is dense and there is a lot of detail, and the small type is irking me somewhat (but conversely, I really like the feel of the paper that my paperback edition is printed on!), but I don't know where it is going and I am interested very much in the characters.

In brief, then, the book tells the story of Andras, a Hungarian who has come to Paris in 1937 to study architecture, leaving behind his brother Tobias, who hopes to join him and study medicine. He brings with him a letter, which he has promised to deliver to a lady named Clara, a Parisian widow. He does this, and falls for Clara, and becomes drawn into her life. That is about as far as I have got for now but the synopsis say:

"From a remote Hungarian village to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in forced labour camps and beyond, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a marriage tested by disaster and of a family, threatened with annihilation, bound by love and history."

I am looking forward to continuing with this one, and am grateful for Lija at Penguin who kindly sent me a copy to read.

Orange 2011: The birth of love (Joanna Kavenna)

I hadn't read anything about The birth of love before I opened it, merely coming to it because it was on the Orange longlist, although the cover alerted me to the fact that its author, Joanna Kavenna, had won the now sadly obsolete Orange prize for New Writers.

The novel turned out to be four tales, which started off as very distinct and separate stories.
The first, written in letters, told the story of Herr S, a man incarcerated in an asylum in Vienna in the nineteenth century due to his belief that he has discovered why so many women were dying in childbirth, and consequently wracked with images of blood.
In the second, we are in 2009 and we meet Brigid, whose second child is overdue. Her mother is determined that she should be induced, but as she arrives to try to persuade Brigid, her labour pains commence.
Michael, in the third story, is an author, who has just had his book published; he wants to share it with his mother and brother, but is reluctant, and discovers that same day that his mother has been moved into a care home suffering with dementia.
The final strand is set in 2135, and features a woman imprisoned and denied the right to be a mother.

I wasn't sure how Kavenna would manage to bring these together; at first it just felt like I was reading short stories. It was very cleverly achieved, but I don't think it is my favourite novelistic technique as I prefer a story where I can get rather more drawn in - I was curious to see how it worked out but perhaps cared a little less about the characters than if I'd had more time devoted to their stories. It is an interesting approach to the issue of motherhood and birth, and I am now keen to seek out Inglorious with which Kavenna won the Orange new writers prize.

Many thanks to David at Faber for sending me this to read

Orange 2011: Swamplandia! (Karen Russell)

I was immediately attracted to this candidate on the Orange longlist by the exclamation mark at the end of the title. I definitely overuse exclamation marks, but I love to see them in slightly unexpected situations. Book titles are one, the other is obviously town names - isn't Westward Ho! just brilliant?! I'm particularly pleased with how many of the Orange titles that I have read this year have been so very un-mainstream - this riveting coming of age almost fairy tale with crocodiles among the cast is certainly that (I did have to get over my childhood fear of crocodiles but it was worth it).

We meet the Bigtree family who live on, and own, the remote theme park, Swamplandia in South Florida. One of the main attractions is the park's alligators, and their mother is a famed alligator wrestler. Ava, the youngest daughter aspires to be like her mother. But when we meet them, things are starting to unravel. Hilola, the mother, has just died of cancer, losing one of the park's big draws, and leaving the family somewhat devastated. Visitor numbers are dropping. And their father, The chief, decides to leave in order to drum up business and acquire a new alligator. The three children are left behind. Kiwi, the son, also leaves the island, and believes that he can earn enough money to save the park by working at a rival attraction, The world of darkness, a park themed on hell. Ossie, the elder girl, falls in love with a ghost, and elopes, leaving Ava to try and retrieve her from the underworld.

It was colourful and fascinating, and just "different" and I will be especially interested to see whether or not it makes it to the shortlist - I would think that it deserves to for being so very different.

Many thanks to Fiona who sent me this title on behalf of Chatto and Windus.

Orange 2011: The seas (Samantha Hunt)

Loving as I do the seaside, and having just returned from Cornwall, I was excited by the arrival of another Orange longlisted title, The seas, by Samantha Hunt. And it didn't disappoint.

The 19 year old narrator is convinced that she is a mermaid, and believes that her father who drowned 11 years earlier is still alive somewhere in the sea. Throughout the novel she is repeatedly drawn to water, and fish, constantly called by the ocean in a small, depressed town that has very little else to offer apart from chambermaiding work and shifts in a sardine canning factory. She is in love with a sailor, Jude, a man nearly twice her age who has returned from Iraq and is embittered by his experiences.

There are other intriguing characters in this tale too - the narrator's grandfather is a typesetter, working on an enormous dictionary that will be greater than the Oxford English Dictionary should it ever be completed. Her mother is still waiting for her husband to return.

I liked that fact that this was somehow lighter in tone and pace and prose than some of the longlisted titles which made it eminently readable. Like A visit from the Goon Squad, there were some gimicks with the construction of the text - nearly blank pages, weird and wonderful typesetting, but this all fitted in entirely with a slightly off-centre and quirky tale tale. But at the same time it was a little akin to a stream of consciousness and difficult to tell quite where it was all going, so although I liked it, it somehow didn't quite hang together in the end for me. I'd still recommend it warmly though as something very different to read.

This is actually Hunt's debut novel, although her second was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2009 - it fits the criteria because it was first published in the UK in July last year.

Many thanks to Sam, on behalf of Corsair, who sent me this title to read.

Orange 2011: The great house (Krauss)

I was intrigued by, yet unsure whether or not I would enjoy reading The great house by Nicole Krauss. Intrigued, because I read this postby Dovegreyreader which really piqued my interest with its thoughts about desks, but unsure because I seemed to be one of a very small minority who had not been grabbed by her earlier book The history of love. And also unsure, because comments on my post about another Orange longlisted title, The memory of love, wich I had struggled through due to its literary, extremely descriptive style had suggested that this might be similar.

In the end, I liked this book. I liked the way that a single piece of furniture, a desk, connects seemingly four disparate people and their stories. And the way that this focus provides a vehicle for looking at people's personal lives. Nadia, a novelist living in New York, who comes to acquire the desk from a poet named Daniel. Aaron and his Dov in Israel suffering from communication problems. Arnold, in England, examining the life of his wife Lotte, who is also a novelist. Izzy and her brother Yoav and their father George who collects furniture.

The prose is lyrical at times and it drew me in rather than turning me off as the Memory of love did, but I didn't love it or enjoy it as much as some of the other Oranges that I've read this year. My favourite parts were the bits set in Oxford, because I knew the places being described.

Many thanks to Penguin for sending me this copy to read, in the best tradition of sharing, I'm passing it onto a colleague and then to my Mum, both of whom are excited to have a chance to read it.

Orange 2011: The road to wanting (Law-Yone)

Another Orange longlister, and yet another country - this time we are in Burma and Thailand with Wendy Law-Yone's The road to Wanting.

The book opens in Wanting on the Chinese/Burmese border with an intriguing incident. A girl is trying to commit suicide, by hanging herself in a hotel. But as she is just about to commit the deed, she is interrupted, hearing that a Mr Jiang has committed suicide himself. Originally from Burma, the girl Na Ga has been abandoned by her American lover who has returned to the United States; he has sent her back to Burma with the care of Mr Jiang as her guide to her "home". But what is her home? The story becomes more complex; it transpires that Na Ga was uprooted at an early age from her home in Burma - sold, and moved between homes, eventually ending up as a companion to another child. After that, the political situation deteriorated and she was tricked into prostitution in Thailand. The prostitutes are deported to Burma after a police raid, and the rich American lover was her escape from that. But he doesn't exactly treat her with respect, and his abandonment means that she is merely back in the situation that she sought to escape.

The mysterious start combined with the gradual revealing of facts about Na Ga's past along with the telling of her story in the present made this a compelling read as I tried to piece together what had happened and willing her to get to a better situation in life. It's another tale that incorporates difficult and unpleasant issues, and they are not sentimentalised in anyway at all, so at times it is a gruelling read, but I did not find that that detracted from what I felt to be an excellent novel.

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think this is the best Orange 2011 Longlisted title that I've read so far this year (and I've now read 11 of them). It makes me keen to seek out the other two novels by Wendy Law-Yone to see how they compare. (Has anyone read either of her other books, or even this one?)

Many thanks to Fiona from Vintage at Random House for sending me this to read.

Orange 2011: A visit from the goon squad (Egan)

My seventh Orange read from the longlist (which takes me to halfway through, since I had read three titles before it was announced) is set in America: A visit from the goon squad by Jennifer Egan. It was another contrasting read: I really feel that the Orange list this year is full of diversity, it may seem to deal with a lot of troublesome subjects but the ten books that I have read so far are all very varied. This means that while I have liked some of the titles immensely, and enjoyed some more than others, I have struggled through some of them, this one included (although, I am suffering from a cold which may have impaired my concentration).

It opened with an episode of theft, by one of the main characters, Sasha, which I found a bit disturbing and did nothing to make me sympathetic towards her (she steals a purse from a bag in some women's toilets, and it is then revealed that she has a history of doing this. As I read the book, I always had the episode in my mind whenever I read about her. The book is also about Bennie, a record executive, whom Sasha works for. And it weaves a tale that, despite not getting on well with the book myself, I could see was quite masterful - many characters, over several decades and all though this could have easily become disparate it all linked together successfully. The different chapters use different voices - first, second, third person, interviews, streams of consciousness, even a powerpoint presentation - all pretty original. I'm just afraid that it didn't draw me in - whether it was because of the mishmash of format or whether it was because I didn't like the characters enough.

I am not sure that I have seen any reviews of this yet on the blogs that I have in my google-reader (apologies if I've missed one) - have any of my readers read it yet, and if so what did you like/dislike about it? I'd really be interested to know your thoughts.

Thanks to Sam from Corsair/Constable publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this one.

Orange 2011: Jamrach's menagerie (Carol Birch)

I have greatly enjoyed a couple of Carol Birch's novels in the last few years, which I came across because they were published by Virago, a favourite publishing house. So I was excited to see her on the Orange longlist, although she has now moved to Canongate, and I was extremely lucky to be able to acquire a copy courtesy of Jennifer there. And, before I go on to say anything about the writing, I want to say that this is the most aesthetically book-as-object appealing Orange longlisted title that has come through my hands this year. It shouldn't make a difference but it does. This title is a paperback, with lovely thick matt covers, with folded in flaps which make it much more substantial.

Onto the content! Set in Victorian London this rather gripping novel follows the life of Jaffy, who we meet as a child following an encounter in the streets with a tiger, from Mr Jamrach's menagerie. He starts to work for Mr Jamrach and takes on a commission to find for the menagerie a sea-dragon which is thought to live in the Indian Ocean. This turns the book into a seafaring adventure as things do not proceed straightforwardly.

What I liked best about this book is the eye for detail which really makes you feel like you are also witnessing the scenes of Victorian London and out on the open sea. I particularly liked the insight into 19th century working class life which was executed particularly successfully and reminded me of Birch's descriptions of 20th century working class life in Turn again home (which remains my favourite of her books).

"Blood and brine ran down the pavement into the gutters and was sucked into the mush under the barrows that got trodden all day long up and down, up and down, into your house, up the stairs, into your room. My toes slid through it in a familiar way, but it was better than shitty Thames mud any day.
Flypapers hung over every door and every barrow. Each one was black and rough with a million flies, but it made no difference. A million more danced happily about in the air and walked on the tripe which the butcher's assistant had sliced so thinly and carefully that morning and placed in the window".

Gruesome isn't it?
I'm not sure why this works for me here, when I found the level of detail off-putting in The memory of love, but it just does. Not my favourite story of the Oranges that I've read so far, perhaps because I tend to prefer female centred books, but oh so well written and an old fashionedly good story.

Orange 2011: The memory of love (Forna)

I'm afraid that The memory of love, my fifth Orange read since the longlist was announce, is the first that has made me stall a bit. I've eventually made my way through it, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first four which I could not put down. That's not to say it isn't an excellent novel and extremely well written- it's got 8 reviews on Amazon, all of which are 5*, and excellent critical acclaim on the back cover - it just wasn't the sort of book that I usually enjoy. Being more specific, if you like wordy, literary novels, along the lines of Kiran Desai, then I am sure you will get on far better than me - I don't, and it felt like hard work to finish it.

It's another globe-trotting Orange, set in Sierra Leone following the Civil War, and at the end of the twentieth century, and centres around the characters of Kai, a young surgeon, Elias, a former university lecturer who is in hospital, and Adrian, a psychiatrist from Britain.

I think I struggled most with the dense, descriptive prose which just seemed to slow the pace down for me. For example, this paragraph, which is beautifully written, is an example of how I felt that the detail got in the way of the events - rather than stopping for a snack of chocolate cookies...

"In the kitchen he finds a packet of chocolate chip cookies. The cookies are soft and dusty. The chocolate has melted, seepred into the stratum and hardened. They eat the cookies in place of supper, washing the taste away with whisky".

Please don't be put off by my inability to cope with too much description!

Thanks to Alice from Bloomsbury for sending me this one.

Orange 2011: The london train (Hadley)

My fourth Orange read of the longlist season is the first non-debut novel that I've read from the list. And it's by an author whose work I've encountered before: Tessa Hadley is also the author of The master bedroom which I read a couple of years ago. That, like this novel, The London train, was a beautifully observed book.

The London train has quite a complicated plot, and rather than provide a synopsis here on this post, I am simply going to provide you with the text from the inside of the dustwrapper:

The London Train is a novel in two parts, separate but wound together around a single moment, examining in vivid detail two lives stretched between two cities. Paul lives in the Welsh countryside with his wife Elise, and their two young children. The day after his mother dies he learns that his eldest daughter Pia, who was living with his ex-wife in London, has moved out from home and gone missing. He sets out in search of Pia, and when he eventually finds her, living with her lover in a chaotic flat in a tower block in King's Cross, he thinks at first he wants to rescue her. But the search for his daughter begins a period of unrest and indecision for Paul: he is drawn closer to the hub of London, to the excitements of a life lived in jeopardy, to Pia’s fragile new family. Paul’s a pessimist; when a heat wave scorches the capital week after week he fears that they are all ‘sleep-walking to the edge of a great pit, like spoiled trusting children’.

In the opposite direction, Cora is moving back to Cardiff, to the house she has inherited from her parents. She is escaping her marriage, and the constrictions and disappointments of her life in London. At work in the local library, she is interrupted by a telephone call from her sister-in-law and best friend, to say that her husband has disappeared.

Connecting both stories is the London train, and a chance meeting that will have immediate and far-reaching consequences for both Paul and for Cora."

Essentially this is a book of two parts - Paul's story in the first half of the book, and at least the first half of Cora's in the second half of the book are so distinct and separate that rather than completely enjoying reading the book, I spent a lot of time wondering how they would join together; it did feel a little bit like I was just waiting for the arrival of Cora (since this had been given away in the blurb on the inside of the jacket). I did however love the details of the lives of Paul and Cora who were extremely believable characters, not necessarily likeable, but fascinating in their inadequacies as human beings involved in relationships. There was plenty happening in this book, so I would definitely recommend it to those of you who like plot, and it was great when the two stories did finally come together.


Many thanks to Jonathan Cape for sending me this book.

Orange 2011: The pleasure-seekers (Tishana Doshi)

From Nigeria, to Canada, and now to India and Wales, this year's Orange Prize longlist has certainly had me globe-trotting. And a third book which I found extremely enjoyable: The pleasure-seekers, by Tishana Doshi. Like the other two, it is also a debut novel (there are 7 first novels in total on the Orange longlist)

It is the late 1960s. Babo Patel has left his family and betrothed in Madras to seek his fortune in London. After an initial culture-shock, getting over the fact that he no longer has to live closely in his family's pockets, and starting to drink, and eat meat, both forbidden by his Jain background, he settles down, and almost immediately falls in love, with Sian, a beautiful Welsh girl who has gone to London in search of excitement. The minimal family that Babo has in London gain wind of this and inform his parents back at home, who summon him back under false pretences. Whilst this could have been the end of the story before it has even begun, Babo is adament that he will marry Sian, and his parents, sensing his seriousness bargain with him - they can marry, but only after a separation of six months, and only if Sian comes to India to live for the first two years of their marriage.

The story at first centres around Babo and Sian as they settle down into their marriage, making a visit to Wales for Christmas, and having their children. But the years pass, and their children grow up and they then become the focus of the book. Mayuri and Bean, the two daughters find their ways in the world. It was very much a book of two halves - I was absolutely riveted by the tale of Babo and Sian, but that of Mayuri and Bean and their respective love lifes (and lack of) just didn't seem to awake my attention so much. I still enjoyed the book overall, it was just that the first part was so very very good, that the rest of it didn't quite compare.

Like the last two books I've read from the Orange longlist, I found this immensely readable. The characters and settings were vibrant and colourful and I was intrigued to see where the story was going. The Indian characters in particular stood out. I loved the way that it dealt with the merging of two very different cultures. Again, it might not appeal to somebody who likes a lot of plot in their books, but being less that way inclined, and more interested in books about people I really enjoyed it. And again, I had not heard of it previously, and am not sure that I would have picked it up without its Orange endorsement.

Many thanks to Alice at Bloomsbury for sending it to me.

Orange 2011: Annabel (Kathleen Winter)

My second Orange of 2011 is another debut novel and another novel dealing with an issue alien to me - Annabel by Kathleen Winter is the story of a hermaphrodite. The principle character, Annabel/Wayne is born of indeterminate sex, having a vagina, a tiny penis and one testicle. Is he/she a boy or a girl? The mother can't decide, but eventually his father decides that he is a boy and medical procedures are performed to cement this decision. Throughout his childhood, his mother cannot quite come to accept this, and frequently thinks of Wayne as her daughter. Whether it is this, or whether Wayne actually is a girl, causes issues as he grows up - he desires a beautiful swimsuit rather than involvement in the boyish pursuits that his father tries to inflict on him.

I didn't think that the subject matter would really appeal to me, but it was something that I didn't know anything about really, and I found Winter's treatment of it persuasive, and it gave a fascinating insight into the nature of identity - it wasn't just a look at Annabel/Wayne's feelings but at those of his parents. And I was interested to know how the story would play out. I also found the stark setting of Labrador, Canada captured my attention, and reminded me a little of some of Margaret Atwood's Canadian writing. I've seen some comparisons made with Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, but I haven't read that so I can't offer an opinion on that! Beautiful writing too I thought.

I did find that the book went a little bit off the boil in the last third; its success in the first half was largely due to the exploration of hermaphroditism, and the knowledge that eventually Wayne would discover what had happened to him. Winter tried to introduce more of a plot to bring the book to a close, but I didn't think that that quite worked as well as the first half.

Again, it's a little too early in my longlist reading for me to discern whether or not I think it will make it onto the shortlist, but I am once more glad that the novel I have just finished made it onto the longlist as I found it worth reading and would probably not have come across it otherwise. I also passed my copy this morning onto a colleague who was MOST dubious about it, saying that the subject matter DID NOT appeal at all...however, when she turned up at lunchtime to relieve me she said that she could not put it down and also used the word "beautiful".

This title is published by Jonathon Cape, and I am very grateful to Fiona from Random House sending me a copy to read.

Orange 2011: The secret lives of Baba Segi's wives (Lola Shoneyin)

I am the lucky recipient of a number of the Orange longlist titles from some kind publishers, and when they've all trickled in, I shall treat you to a picture of them. But, as soon as the longlist was announced, I was suddenly excited to read some contemporary women's fiction, and knew that I would fall on whichever one landed on my doorstep first. That title was The secret lives of Baba Segi's wives by Lola Shoneyin and I'm happy to report that it got my Orange 2011 reading off to an excellent start.

This captivating domestic tale, set in Nigeria, is the story of Baba Segni and his four wives. We meet them shortly after the fourth wife has joined the family; Bolanle is somewhat different to the other three wives, being a university graduate. But, she isn't exempt from the need to provide her husband with children. The other wives have managed it, so why can't she? Is it because she had an abortion after being raped as a teenager?

Bolanle is a likeable character, rather more so than the other three wives or Baba Segni - perhaps it was because I identified with her as a university graduate, and felt for her plight in supposedly letting her husband down. The book is narrated by different wives in turn, as well as Baba Segni and his driver, which was a little confusing at times and it didn't make the other wives stand out as clearly in my mind, but it worked well as a story-telling device.

What I liked about this book, apart from the fact that I didn't work out how the story would resolve itself until very near to the end, was the insight it gave into the dynamics of a polygamous marriage - the relationships between the wives is understandably tense at times but there are also occasional moments of mutual support, such as when Bolanle is able to use her superior life-knowledge to assist another wife who is suffering greatly from constipation. It is at times comic, so even if my western perspective on polygamy and women's freedom made me recoil in horror from the concept of polygamy, I found myself laughing out loud at some of the episodes in the book. The blend of humour with the story was just right.

I haven't read enough of the other books to say whether I think it is shortlist/prizewinner material or not, but I will stick my neck out to say that it is such an enjoyable read that it is worth seeking out even if it doesn't make it into the final cut.

Many thanks to Anne-Marie from Serpent's Tail for providing me with my copy.