rebness

I've read a lot more books than this of late but these are all I can think of right now!

Holes by Louis Sachar
Sublime. I loved the writing, the dark humour and that it has a real feel-good factor, even when recounting tragedy. All the characters are well-drawn, but Zero is my favourite. I'm getting into YA fiction again because of that dastardly annemariewrites and this is the best I've read in a while. Great stuff.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
I find culture-clash humour a bit hit and miss, but I rather enjoyed this novel. My mother, who never reads fiction, read it after me and loved it. It's a story set in a Ukrainian community in England. Nazheda's father agrees to marry a Ukrainian, Valentina, in order to get her a British visa. It's very funny in parts and I learned more about tractors then I'll ever want to know. It also piqued my interest in Ukraine and opened my eyes to the horror of what Stalin did to these people. There is some physical/mental abuse of a pensioner that I found difficult to read but all in all, it's a good book.

Madame du Barry: The Wages of Beauty by Joan Haslip
I don't know if I have too high a standard for history books but I found this to be incredibly sloppy and presumptuous in places. There were many problems with it. Firstly, the biographer has the most infuriating habit of presuming: 'Her hands must have shaken when she received the letter' or 'She locked herself in her room away from everyone and wept bitterly, remembering the time when...' How do you know this, huh? You certainly don't give any sources for this.

Another failing is that the book is so incredibly biased. All her enemies are merely jealous (Marie-Antoinette was not jealous so much as scandalised by her behaviour), she was the most beautiful at court, she was fabulous, she could do no wrong.

Antonia Fraser managed to rehabilitate Marie-Antoinette without glossing over her flaws or making presumptions. I don't know why this biographer feels the need to do it when du Barry's death makes her rather sympathetic already.

Finally, I think it incredibly lazy to end a book on one of the executed in the Revolution with the execution itself. No analysis of the aftermath, no epilogue. Hmph.

I am just so disappointed with historical writing of late. The last three I have read - this one, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and The English Civil War have had the most fundemental schoolchild error: extreme bias in the writing. How do these books get published?

Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernieres
I adore Louis de Bernieres. This is the second in his magic realism series set in an mythical country that bears more than a passing resemblance to Colombia. He lived in Colombia for a while, and you can see it in his writing, through his use of realistic slang and appreciation of the culture and its people and that he doesn't shirk from describing squalor as well as the love and strength of character that can be found there nevertheless.

This is one of his darkest tales, wherein a philosopher takes on a local drugs baron. It's very, very dark in places, with a rape and murder described in the most horrendously detached way.

The curse of the drugs barons and the way in which they are ravaging Colombia is no laughing matter, but de Bernieres makes very pertinent points about the reality of what people are up against, despite the initial humour. I admire him that he doesn't just write endlessly dour stories, but tackles real atrocities - the drugs trade, the Turkish/Greek massacre, the German massacre of the Ionian islanders during World War II - with a warm yet uncompromising manner. I always love his female characters and the characters in this book were no exception.