Not Enough Bookshelves: March 2011

This Weeks Topic – What books were you obsessed with as a Kid?

This is such a timely question for me!

On my first trip to check out how Waterstone’s Children and Teens department compares to Barnes and Nobels what book should I find prominently displayed?


Back Home by Michelle Magorian. My very favourite book from when I was young. I admit I let out a little shriek and grabbed it.

I am so happy this book is still being read, and loved, and promoted because it is just wonderful.

The main character Rusty is sent to the US during WW2. The story begins when she returns home and finds she doesn’t fit in. I vividly remember loving that Rusty used all these strange words, like trunk for boot.

It was also the first book (that I remember reading) that dealt with the themes of home and family and identify. Themes which still fascinate me and which I love both reading and writing about.

Have any of you read Back Home?

I also adored her other WW2 book, Goodnight Mr Tom, which was made into a film starring John Thaw in 1998. If you can find it on DVD get it, is it wonderful. Even thinking about the last scene makes me tear up.

2) On the upside, I am now living in one of the most gorgeous villages in England. Rolling hills, lovely pubs, village greens, ponds, and the most wonderful church. Which has a very beautiful and atmospheric graveyard – it’s enough to make me want to write a ghost story.

3) Talking of stories – I have just started a new one. For two reasons a) it’s been nagging at me since Christmas and b) the computer, containing the dreaded, soul destroying WIP, is in the Unaccompanied Air Freight. Which DHL have helpfully misplaced, it may be at Heathrow, in a warehoue. It may be in Atlanta – who knows – not DHL anyway.

4) Also in the UAF are some ARC’s I need to review (and really want to read!), so I really hope DHL finds it quickly. Until then I have been reading The Education of Hailey Kendrick by Eileen Cook – it’s very funny.

5) It has come to my attention that not only have I barely read any UK YA, but I follow no UK bloggers. Can you help me out? Recommendations of Brilliant British Book Bloggers and Brilliant British books would be highly appreciated.

6) Um. . .yes . . .I don’t actually have a six. This was meant to be a Friday Five post but, I mean, I lost a whole hour this weekend.

Well it’s nice to be back. I missed blogging and I missed comments (hint, hint!). Please do leave those  Brit recommendations – thanks.

Friends, living in our neighbourhood, The National Zoo,  Hank’s Oyster bar, Central, The National History Museum, driving over the Key bridge, Barnes and Noble, Two Amy’s pizza, The Cherry Blossom Festival, driving past the White House, the National Christmas Tree, the Botanical gardens train display, road trips, Diane Rehm, Kojo Nnamdi, This American Life, George Town Cupcakes, pumpkin spices lattes, Wholefoods, jumble cookies, the colours of the trees in Autumn, going to the beach, snow, skiing, the AU campus, Politics and Prose, our local park, driving past the hospital and knowing that’s where my son was born, red birds,  summer, Shenandoah National park, the Cheaspeake, crabcakes, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, my local library, Ihop, the way the moon looks, accents.


I’m sure there are a million more things big and little that I will miss. I feel so lucky that I got to live in this amazing city.

I don’t know when our internet will be up and running in the new house, but I will be back. Until then hope you all have a good book to read.

Alexa 


xx

Nomes, because she wrote such a lovely review, calling these books ones curl up with on a Sunday. My library because the fabulous liberians always do such lovely displays.

These two things came together when I was dashing into the library to pick up some books (browsing is no longer an option with the toddler in tow) What My Mother Doesn’t Know was on display and I thought, yes I just fancy curling up with that. So I added it to the pile.

I opened it up that afternoon after putting my son down for his nap and suddenly it was time to get him up again. What My Mother Doesn’t Know is a book that effortlessly sucks you in. I wanted to read slowly to enjoy the words, but I also wanted to read very fast to know what happened.

When I finished later that evening I immediately downloaded What My Girlfriend Doesn’t Know on to my Kindle. When I finished that I went online and bought both books.

Why?

Because these are books I want to keep by my bedside and dip into.

So that probably tells you everything you need to know about how much I love these two books.

But

Here’s some more. Just in case.

Every single page contains a gem – the kind of sentence or phrase you want to roll around in your mouth because it sounds so lovely, or write down because it so perfectly encapsulates a feeling.

Sonya Sones makes you feel so much, and care so deeply, with so few words – it’s magical.

Like me you may have been scarred by having to study William Blake for a whole year (I mean seriously there were no other poets?) and therefore think verse novels are not for you. You would be so wrong, take a chance, trust me!

Nomes was right – these are perfect sunday afternoons. Think roaring fire, hot chocolate, hours gone in a flash afternoons.

Such lovely characters.

They’re funny.

And sad – you know I love that mix.

They made me remember being a teenager so well, all the little things and the big things. Like this –

These books are Just. Magical.

Sonya Sones has a very lovely web site here and a new adult book out on April 5th The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus: A Novel about Marriage, Motherhood and Mayhem

And I hope the rest of you will buy or borrow this fabulous book.

Here’s the first line to draw you in.

And if you need to read some more about it then Melina Marcehtta has a guest post on Teen Reads today

Happy Weekend

1) The Piper’s Son revisits the characters we all fell in love with in Saving Francesca. Did you always know you’d revisit these characters or did it surprise you, and can we expect to hear from anyone else in the gang, Jimmy for example (fingers crossed here for a yes)?

First, the easier question to answer (perhaps painful to you). There is no Jimmy novel but then again when Francesca came out in 2003 I would have sworn there was no Tom novel. So who knows in the future. For me the absence of some of the characters such as Jimmy, Siobhan as well as Joe Mackee and Tom Finch spoke louder than their presence so I kept them away.
I didn’t imagine I’d revisit the Francesca gang, but at the time I thought there could have been a Will story or one revolving around Tara Finke. Most times I begin writing a novel when a character comes calling and strangely, Tom came calling in 2008, 5 years after Saving Francesca. He’s been my biggest surprise.

2) The Piper’s Son is unusual because it is told from the split perspective of Tom and his Aunt Gerogie. Can you tell us why you decided to tell half the story from Georgie’s point of view, rather than say Tara’s or a contemporary of Tom’s?

Before I wrote Finnikin of the Rock I wanted to write a novel about a woman named Georgie Finch who had to travel to France to collect the body of her brother who died there tragically. That’s as far as I went. Finnikin came along and Georgie was just a memory of a character who didn’t work. One night I was watching a documentary about a group of Vietnam Vets returning to Vietnam to retrieve the first of five bodies left behind during the war. It was as if Tom Mackee sat beside me on the sofa that night and said, ‘That’s my family’s story and Georgie Finch is my Aunt.’ I don’t have writing moments like that but I love that I remember the very moment Tom came back into my head.

Georgie is of my generation and in every one of my novels the adults have had their story told through the point of view of the teenager telling the story (think Hannah in Jellicoe and Frankie’s parents in Saving Francesca). This time I wanted the adults to have a voice. Georgie and Tom are on the same journey. They’re stuffing up relationships, their grieving and they’re both trying to hold the family together. I also think they’re both really funny characters. I loved their scenes together and I love the fact that younger readers have enjoyed Georgie’s story as much as Tom’s. I think her relationship with Sam is as poignant as Tom’s relationship with Tara.

3) Music plays a huge part in Tom’s life and in The Piper’s Son. Do you have theme songs for your books?


I have one playlist that ends up in the novel and another that I listen to in order to understand the character. This friend of mine who is in his 20s downloaded me a list of songs he thought Tom and his friends would listen to. I think that once you work out a character’s music taste, you work out something about them and what makes them different to each other.

4) What was your journey to publication like?


Very long. I was quite young when Looking For Alibrandi came out. I started writing it when I was 20 and it was released when I was 27. I was rejected about five or six times. Being published is not for the faint hearted or the lazy. You can find yourself re-writing a scene about twenty times. I remember the prologue of Finnikin nearly broke me whereas the Prologues of Jellicoe and The Piper’s Son stayed the same from the moment I first wrote them, give and take a word or two.

5) I heard you were working on a sequel to Finnikin of the Rock. Can you tell us anything about that and when we might be able to get our hands on it?

The sequel(s) are called Froi of the Exiles and Quintana of Charyn. Froi is probably coming out in Australia in October and Quintana in April next year. The first novel has one of those awful cliff-hanger endings, but if I didn’t do that, I think I would have compromised the story. Three years after the events in Finnikin of the Rock, Froi is sent to the enemy kingdom of Charyn to kill the King but of course nothing works out as planned and he begins his great journey finding out who he is. Froi’s been an amazing character to write because the only road for him is redemption after what he tried to do in FOTR and Quintana is probably the most insane character I’ve ever written, but a real treat to have in my head. I’ve made sure that the world of Lumatere ties in with what’s taking place in Charyn. At one stage I wanted to call it A tale of two Kingdoms because the story really belongs to both.

A huge thank you to Melina for taking the time to answer. I can’t wait for the sequels to Finnikin of the Rock they sound amazing.  I’m also really hoping that Jimmy decides to sit down next to Melina sometime in the not to distant future or maybe Luca Spinelli 🙂

I am in deep, deep love with this book. It has a place on the beloved books shelf of my bookcase. It’s a re-read every year kind of book. It’s a book that lingers.

But, in case you need a little more convincing on why this is the must read book of 2011. Here’s a handy list, because who doesn’t love a list?

1) It feels real. I swear it’s like I could get on a plane to Australia, find my way to Stani’s, and there everyone would be. That’s how you know you’re reading  an outstanding book.

2) It has characters you root for, relate to, adore, and occasionally want to bash over the head with a frying pan. That’s how you know it’s real love 😉

3) You get to revisit the characters from Saving Francesca (what do you mean you haven’t read it, get thee to a book store right now!)

4) It makes you laugh, and who doesn’t like to laugh?

5) It makes you cry. Crying can be good – it’s like rain and rainbows, right?

6) It breaks your heart.

7) But then it mends it.

8) Tom 🙂 (and Francesca, Will, Tara, Georgie and Sam and Lucia)

9) It contains one of my favourite romantic lines of all time (of course it could just be me. Read it, see what you think).

10) It celebrates friends and family, in all their imperfect perfectness.

You can read my original review of The Piper’s Son here and to enter my giveaway to win The Piper’s Son go here.

To celebrate I’m having a The Piper’s Son Week here on the blog. Kicking off with a contest!

I’m giving away TWO copies of The Piper’s Son, which was one of my favourite books of 2010.

• To enter – leave a comment on this post and a way for me to contact you.
• I’ll randomly select two people on Friday 4th March and then pre-order it for you.
• You get TWO extra entries for Tweeting with a link to this post
• You get FIVE extra entries for posting about it on your blog.
• Thanks to The Book Depository it is open internationally 🙂 

That’s it!

Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you why you MUST read this book!