Another Fifty Shades of Grey

Has anyone read this book?

Blimey. Talk about "sinister". I can't decide whether to recommend it to you or not. I couldn't put it down. It's gripping, very readable, erudite, funny in places, and just so clever. I feel I want to read it again, straightaway, to see how all the clues to the narrator's personality and actions are sown through the early stages of the book.

But it's very dark. Don't read it unless you're in a happy place. I found it really disturbing - the most disturbing book I've read since Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin. Yes, that disturbing. I read most of it early one morning when I woke at 5.30am and couldn't get back to sleep, and it spooked me out. It took me a little while to reconnect with reality and get on with daily life. Yikes. 

One reason it spooked me is that most of it is set in the university which I attended. Streets and buildings are familiar. The main character, the narrator, Engleby, was there about a decade before I was, but even so, it was close to the bone. I don't like to think that my naive, carefree, unsuspecting young days might have been peppered with creepy individuals like him, without me realising. *Shudder*

The novel explores the (perhaps) hazy area between normal and abnormal. We've all felt on the edges of social situations, out of place, lonely, rejected. Engleby describes those feelings so well, but is also incapable of normal feeling. So what is a feeling? Can you be lucidly self-aware, without being self-aware at all? 

I can see why some people wouldn't like the book. It's a bit laboured, and if you didn't connect with it, then I can imagine that you wouldn't want to plough through it. I've been browsing the reviews on Amazon, and they're mixed. The great majority are positive, but I read some of the negative ones, and I can see where they're coming from. Readers seem to be rather influenced by whether they've read other Sebastian Faulks novels, and how that affected their expectations.

The blurb on the back of my version describes it as "heart-wrenching - and funny, in the deepest shade of black". The blurb-writer has a point. There is black humour in it (which I almost always enjoy). When a friend visits Engleby -- SPOILER ALERT -- in a secure mental health facility, Engleby says 

"Stellings was dressed in what he imagines to be a non-homicidal-maniac-inciting outfit of blue jeans, stone windcheater and open-necked plaid shirt with a nasty little polo pony on the breast pocket".

I quote that partly because it's funny (I think so, anyway, but perhaps it loses something out of context), but also because it demonstrates to me the brilliance of the novel, the unsettling brilliance of it. As a reader, you don't like Engleby, you really don't. And you're right not to. But you also sympathise with him, empathise with him, and find common ground with him (those three things are different... similar, but different... am I right?) Stellings is very kind to go and visit him, but I couldn't help laughing at the "nasty little polo pony", and the acuity with which Engleby sees how ill at ease he is in the institution, knowing intuitively that Stellings' seemingly casual attire has been carefully chosen. 

As I said, I don't know whether to recommend this book or not. It's not an enjoyable book, but  you'll enjoy it. I think "Fifty Shades of Grey" would have been the perfect title for it, because it's the story of one deeply troubled and criminal individual, and the questions he raises about the uncertainties of personality, of identity, of memory, of self-perception. I do want to recommend it, though, because I need someone to discuss it with! The twisty ending, in particular.
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Giveaway result!

I used Random.org to generate three winners. Don't you love the internet, by the way? How lovely that there is a site which is all about randomness! It's so... random, somehow.

The numbers were 1, 7, and 13, which means that Circus Queen, Rosie Scribble and Lois Thorpe get copies of the book. Please email me with your addresses.

I would encourage the rest of you to buy the book. I mean, who doesn't like buying books? It's just out in paperback, and there you are, I've just given you the excuse you wanted to go and browse Amazon.

And now, because I am the most dreadful tease, I am going to let you know that there is some BIG NEWS in the life of Iota, which I will be sharing in my next post. BIG NEWS. Think MOVING ACROSS CONTINENTS news. Ha! That's piqued your curiosity, hasn't it?

Giveaway!

Yes! A giveaway! It's a book I read recently, called Cinderella Ate My Daughter, by bestselling author and journalist Peggy Orenstein.

Do you ever have those "stop the world, I'm getting off" moments? Reading the press release for this book gave me several of those. For example:

• Walmart introduced an anti-aging make-up line for 8-12 year olds
• JCPenney released a T-shirt that read "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me"
• Disney Princess products generated $4 billion in 2009 (it was a mere $300 million in 2000).

This is what the publicity for the book says:

"More and more, parents are deluged with products that teach their girls that the sexes are fundamentally different, that the most important thing for girls is to be pretty (and later "hot"), and that "girl power" is expressed by having the most stuff... The pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as the source of female empowerment, and commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages... The potential negative impact of this new girlie-girl culture is undeniable."

I loved the book. It's easy to read, funny, judgmental where it needs to be and non-judgmental when it comes to the everyday struggles of individual parents. It's sensible and is the kind of thing that gives feminism a good name. I loved the stories of where Peggy Orenstein went, in the name of research (a toddler beauty pageant, a Miley Cyrus concert, the American Girl store). I tell you, if she lived next door, I'd be round there for a cup of tea every other day. I love a good story. In fact, I think I'm going to buy the house next door and have her move in.

I did meet her a few weeks ago actually (so on the basis of that, she would probably be totally up for the moving-in-next-door idea). She came from classy California to our little flyover state to give a talk, promoted by the Girl Scouts, who, incidentally, are much more fabulous than I gave them credit for. Turns out they are all about building girls' courage, confidence and character, and have an advocacy program dealing with all these kinds of important concerns.

I know, I know. Lots of you are sitting there thinking "Iota. There are more important issues out there. Don't get your knickers in a twist." (I just have to throw in that expression, because (a) American readers love British expressions like that and (b) I miss using it in everyday speech.) But it's an issue I feel strongly about. And pretty much everything I feel about it is in Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

I have three copies to give away. Thank you Harper Collins. You can enter simply by leaving a comment, by the end of Tuesday, March 13th. I will pick three winners using a random number generator. Please don't think that if you have sons and not daughters, that this book isn't for you. It is. Your son's way of looking at women is as prone to manipulation as your daughter's way of being one. If you don't have children, it's just a darn good read.

By the way, if you're an American living in Britain and you win, you can request an inexpensive mailable item (Cheezits, Rice-a-Roni, a double-ended Sharpie - whatever it is you're jonesing after), and I'll pop it in the parcel with the book. Provided you write "knickers in a twist" in the comments. Come on. Cross that cultural divide.

I need your help on books

One of the great pleasures in having children is the way you get to revisit elements of your own childhood. This is nowhere more true than in reading. I have loved getting down from my mother's shelves the worn copies of books she read to me, to share with my own children.

When I started writing this post, there were three books that I loved reading as a child, whose titles and authors I can't remember. I thought you might be able to help, Bloggy Friends. A lot of you were avid childhood readers, I'm sure.

I say "when I started writing this post", because the three has been reduced to two. With the magic of blogging, as I was describing one of them, I remembered its identity. Ta-da! It's Thursday's Child, by Noel Streatfield. I have such strong memories of that one. I loved it. A girl runs away from an orphanage, and joins a family who lives and works on a canal barge. I remember how her job was to lead the horse along the towpath, how hard the work was, how affected by the weather, and I remember a scene which describes how she helped propel the barge through a tunnel, which had to be done by having two people lying on boards, one each side, and walking along the side walls, pushing the barge as they went. (Noel Streatfield describes that much better than I've done.) I remember that she is called Margaret Thursday because she was left at the orphanage on a Thursday, and how she fantasises that she is from a noble family, because she was left with finely embroidered linens.

So that was book number one. I highly recommend it for girls aged 8 to 12 (at a guess - it was a long time ago that I read it). Especially if you live near a canal, as I did.

Book number two is about a boy who befriends a dolphin calf called Wiki-wiki. I think it might be set in Hawai'i (do they have dolphins in Hawai'i?) One day there is what we would now call a tsunami, but in the book it's called a tidal wave, and Wiki-wiki is left stranded on the beach. The boy and his friends manage to rescue her. I loved that book. I read it several times. Can you help me track it down?

Book number three I remember very little of at all. It's about a girl who is something of a misfit, grumpy about life. She hears the most beautiful haunting music, played on a flute. The man playing the flute tells her it's by Debussy, and is called L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. The first time I heard that Debussy piece, in my early twenties, I suddenly recalled the book from my childhood, and thought "no wonder the girl was so captivated by this music - it's beautiful". I have never been able to hear that piece without thinking of the book. Do any of you know it? I would love to find it again. I haven't given you much to go on, but perhaps someone out there will recognise it.

While we're on the subject of books, I've just read one which I couldn't put down. It's called Cinderella Ate My Daughter (what a great title), by Peggy Orenstein. You should read it, whether you are in the business of bringing up daughters or sons, or just for interest. I can do no better (it's late, I'm tired) than quote from Amazon:

Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source — the source — of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.

But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?

It's really well written, witty and clever, and very easy to read. A little depressing in one way (who would choose today's highly sexualised culture as a context for raising their daughter?), but I liked the opportunity to think about the issues head-on. I highly recommend it, and I've enjoyed the author's webpage too.

Chicken soup

Chicken soup is a big thing in America. I’ve finally got to grips with the whole “chicken soup” deal. It took me a while, but - unless I’m much mistaken – this is the gist of it. When you say “chicken soup” to an American, it’s short-hand for a whole idea of comfort, solace, tenderness, warmth, care, love. All that good stuff that your mother made you feel when you were ill as a child. I suppose chicken soup must be what American mothers give to their convalescent children. I’m trying to think what the equivalent would be for the British. (There was a post on Pond Parleys about this recently.) In Jane Austen’s day, I believe it was calves’ foot jelly. Thank goodness times have changed. My mum used to give us Marmite on toast, and either hot Ribena, or Lucozade, so for me, those conjure up the chicken soup feelings. And come to think of it, that’s almost never these days. I do have a jar of Marmite at the back of the cupboard somewhere, but we don’t buy Ribena, and I’ve gone off Lucozade.

Back to chicken soup. The idea is all good, but chicken soup has got rather out of control, like the story of the girl with the magic porridge pot. Chicken soup has taken over much of the bookselling business. If you type ‘chicken soup book’ into Amazon, it will offer you 2,624 choices. Chicken soup for the soul, seems to be the thing. (Can a soul eat soup, I wonder? That’s a whole theological digression waiting to happen.) Little hardbacks to fit in your pocket, with pithy messages of wisdom and encouragement. Glossy paperbacks, with heart-warming tales of people triumphing over adversity. Gift packages of almost any combination of items, with inspiration and comfort oozing out.

Chicken soup is very specialised these days. There’s chicken soup for every situation, and every person. Let me list you a few, to give you an idea:

Chicken Soup for the Preteen Soul
Chicken Soup for the College Soul
Chicken Soup for the Empty Nester’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover’s Soul (covering all bases, that one)
Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Golfer’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul
Chicken Soup for the Shopper’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul
Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul
Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul (would make a nice pair with the Ocean Lover’s Soul)
Chicken Soup from the Soul of Hawai’i.

See what I mean? It’s out of control. Do you think there might be a title for fans of a particular music genre, titled Chicken Soup for the Soul Lover’s Soul? I expect there is, somewhere.

I came across a title recently that really threatened to tip me over the edge. As I said, I had just about fathomed what the whole chicken soup deal was, when I walked past a book stand on which this book was displayed.



Aaaargh. I had to re-read the title a few times. I did several double-takes. I just didn’t get it. This was a crossing-over of moral universes that had my head in a spin and my internal compass in a whirl.

It begs the following question: if your friend is a tea-lover, why the dickens would you give them chicken soup? Why wouldn’t you give them a nice cup of tea?

“Oh, hello, Iota. I know you’ve been having a tough time recently, and are in need of inspiration and encouragement. I know what you really need is a good cup of tea, so here’s some chicken soup.”

Aaaargh. I can’t get my brain round this at all. There are also chicken soup books for coffee-lovers, for wine-lovers, and for chocolate-lovers, incidentally. Chocolate lovers? How much are those die-hards going to appreciate chicken soup, for heaven’s sake?

Retaliation is the only appropriate response. I’m going to publish a book called A Nice Cup of Tea for the Chicken Soup Lover’s Soul.

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More book recommendations

What a fabulous idea for a sequel to Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette from Not waving but ironing (whose blog title reminds me of my own former moniker). Mrs Ruffins and her Wholemeal Muffins. I love it. I can picture her now, a cheerful, homely, English lady, who has as many imaginative uses for her muffins as Monsieur Saguette does for his baguette. She will go on holiday to France, where she will meet and fall in love with the man and his impressive French stick, and marry him. They will live happily ever after, or whatever the French equivalent is. They’ll have children: Mademoiselle Ciabatta, and her brother, le petit Roland, known as Cinnamon Rol. They’ll have two dogs called Crumpet and Scone, and a cat called Sourdough Puss.

I didn’t warn you, by the way, when I was recommending Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette, not to get the book if you are the kind of parent who balks at explaining to their child what an armed robber is, or how it can be ok, in a work of fiction, to eat bread that has been utilised to effect an escape from the city sewers, via a manhole.

But while we’re on the subject of books, people often ask me “Iota, do you know of any books for small children which have positive role models for girls?” Actually, they don’t… but they should, because it just so happens I do. Such books are few and far between, when you think about the volume of printed media about princesses who waft around waiting for their prince to come, managing only to kiss a few frogs or kow-tow to a few evil relations in the meanwhile. Here are two, which I recommend heartily, if you’re the kind of mother who likes to swim against the pink and sparkly tide every now and again.

The book Princess Grace, by Mary Hoffman is great. It's a very thoughtful treatment of the whole issue. Grace is excited when she learns her class are to be in a parade, and she can dress up as a princess. With the teacher's help, the class starts researching princesses, and what it is that a princess actually does. There's a great line where Grace decides that sitting around in a pink floaty dress sounds very boring, and that she’d rather be the kind of princess who leads a bold and adventurous life. I always want to cheer at that point. I would recommend the book for age 4 and up.

The other book on this subject that I like is Princess Pigtoria and the Pea, by Pamela Duncan Edwards. The story starts in the traditional way, but [spoiler alert] in the morning, Pigtoria is so cross with the pig prince for putting a pea under her mattress, that she goes off with the pizza delivery pig instead. It’s funny, and the text is wittily full of words beginning with the letter ‘P’. “Panting, Pigtoria plunked onto her pillows”, for example. This is a book that a 2 year old could enjoy, but 6-yo still reads and likes it.

And if you want a film with a positive female lead, there’s always Shrek. Three cheers for Fiona, I say.

Book give-away: "News to Me"

(Sorry, the click to look inside doesn't work here.)

If you would like a free copy of News to Me, please leave a comment. I will randomly select one on Saturday evening (using a computerized random selector, ooh get me). This offer is open world-wide. I’m happy to pay international postage. I’m nice like that.




Questions and Answers with Laurie Hertzel, author of News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist (and if you're interested in blog-to-book publishing, you'll be interested in her opinions).

How did you find a publisher, or were you approached?

Like everything else in my life, the book was an accident. I had been doing manuscript critiques for the University of Minnesota Press for about 10 years, so I knew one of the editors. I had a manuscript I wanted to show him—the half-completed memoir written by Ernie, an American Finn who grew up in Soviet Russia.

Ernie had died before he was able to finish his book, but his widow was trying to get the fragment published. At the last minute, I printed out my blog postings about my years as a journalist and brought them along when I met with the editor. And in the end, they turned Ernie’s book down, but took mine.

I had not really planned on writing a book at all.

At Cyber Mummy this summer (UK conference for Mummy Bloggers), I went to a seminar on "blog to book" publishing. The publisher spoke about how these days, what they're interested in (as well as the content) is the coverage the author has, ie facebook followers, twitter followers, blog followers. He spoke in terms of thousands, not hundreds. Did your publisher expect you to have these kinds of networks before taking you on as a project?

They asked me none of those questions. Now that we’re in the marketing end of things, Facebook and Twitter are proving quite useful. But they never factored into whether or not my book would get published. My blog certainly doesn’t have followers in the thousands. I get about 100-150 hits a day. Two hundred very rarely.

The publisher also talked about how these days, many writers are opting to cut the publisher out, keep the 15%, and self-promote on Amazon. Did you ever consider doing that?

Never. Never. From where I sit, in my day job as books editor for a major metropolitan newspaper, I would never recommend self-publishing. Sure, it sounds good—you get to control everything, you get to keep all the proceeds. But in reality, you will almost certainly lose money and very few people will ever see your book.

A good, reputable publisher—such as mine—does a lot of things. They edit the book. They copy-edit it. They design it, beautifully. They commission a stunning cover. And then they have an excellent marketing department that does things like plan launch parties (I’m getting two!) and book events in libraries and at book clubs and book stores.

Also, they have book distributors that get books into all the bookstores—small independents, as well as Barnes & Noble and Borders and the other biggies—and to the trade shows. You can’t get self-published books into those stores, and you certainly can’t get your book to the very important trade shows.

My publisher is investing a *lot* of time, energy and money in my book, and I do not begrudge them at all making a profit from it. I hope they do!

I have interviewed people who self-publish, and it can cost as much as $10,000 or even more to make a book. And then the author is left to market the book entirely on his or her own. Good luck with that. Most newspapers will not review self-published books—partly because there are no standards and no quality control (anyone with money can publish anything), and partly because the books are not readily available, except online.

People who have written books talk about the arduous process of getting it to publication. They often look back and say that writing it was the easy bit. Is it really as bad as people make out? Re-writing sections, checking the proofs, endless promotional activities... It sounds such a turn-off.

I would not say that the writing of it is easy. But it’s true that the writing and the marketing are very different things. My editor did not ask for much rewrite at all—he noted that my sentences were pretty short, and my paragraphs were terse, and he urged me to write more fully, which is something I wasn’t used to. In newspapers we try to truncate and cram; I had to get used to a more leisurely pace. Even now, reading it in its final version, I can see where I should have drawn things out a bit more.

Checking the proofs was nerve-racking because by then I had read the book so many times I could barely stand to look at it again, and yet it was my responsibility to make sure that corrections had been made where needed and that all the rest of it was perfect.

The promotional activities are just beginning. I’ve been urged to mention the book on my blog, start a web page, start a facebook page, and get more involved in Twitter. I’ve done all those things, and I try very hard to walk a line—I can’t be overly self-effacing, but I also don’t want to promote myself so much that I get obnoxious and seem vain. It’s tricky.

Next up, beginning now, are radio and TV appearances, and a lot of book talks and signings. I am a shy person, and this will be *very* hard for me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

As a journalist, do you feel positive about the future of newspapers? In the UK, The Times online, which used to be open to all, has now started charging a subscription of a pound. I've heard it said that news is free, but you have to pay for good comment. Is that true these days?

I wish that newspapers, all newspapers, had started charging from the very beginning—we’d be in a lot stronger situation than we are now. Yes, the news is free. But the reported, edited, written, thought-about stories and photographs about the news should not be free. Journalists don’t work for free. The stuff that people read free online every day was quite expensive to uncover and produce. I do feel positive about the future of newspapers—I have to. I believe newspapers are necessary to a democracy. I believe that people will continue to subscribe to newspapers because they need to understand what’s going on in the world, and they need a measured, objective voice to tell them.

You've been a journalist; you're a blogger; you've now published a memoir. Have a wild guess about the future of your own writing career.

Oh dear. Will I write another book? I might. I enjoyed writing this one. But right now my plan is to concentrate on giving this book a good start in the world, and then getting back to my day job and trying to get caught up!

Thank you, Laurie!

You can read Laurie Hertzel's blog at Three Dog Blog.
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Book review: "News to Me"

In my early days of blogging, every now and again there would be a little flurry of excitement, as someone would announce, out of the blue, “I’ve got a book deal!” That was a moment, for the rest of us, of smugness and hope. Smugness because we’d think “I’ve known all along that x is a good writer – I wouldn’t be following her blog otherwise”. And hope, because we’d think “Book deal? Aaah, so they do exist”.

The blogging book deals are fewer and farther between now, but here’s one that’s come to fruition. I’d like to tell you about News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist, by Laurie Hertzel, writer of Three Dog Blog.

(Sorry, you can't click to look inside, but this was the only image I could find of a reasonable size).

To quote from the blurb, “News to Me is the adventurous story of Hertzel’s journey into the bustling world of print journalism in the mid-1970’s, a time when copy was still banged out on typewriters by chain-smoking men in fedoras and everybody read the paper… Hertzel’s eighteen-year career at the Duluth News-Tribune began when journalism was a predominantly male profession. And while the newspaper trade was booming, Duluth had fallen on difficult times… Hertzel describes her climb up the ranks of the paper against the backdrop of a Midwestern city during a time of extraordinary change.”

I enjoyed this book. You can tell it’s written by a journalist. The stories are brought alive by carefully chosen details. Laurie’s writing is intelligent and disciplined, as you would expect from a newspaper reporter. Her style is easy to read; her sentences are crisp and to the point. She has a fondness for the semi-colon.

I’ve never been to Duluth, Minnesota, but we have friends there, and our first summer in the US, we considered making it our holiday destination. I did quite a bit of research, reading about the town and the area, and looking at photos. So I was interested to read about a life lived there. Her fondness for the place and its people is very evident.

The most interesting part of the book for me was Laurie’s trip to Soviet Russia in 1986. A group in Duluth were trying to establish a twin town relationship with Petrozavodsk, near the Finnish border. Their persistent letters and telexes received no clear answer, and so, although the Soviet Union had not approved a twinning for 13 years, they decided to send a delegation to present the request in person. They made plans to fly from Duluth to Moscow, via Chicago and Belgrade, then take the train to Leningrad, and finally an overnight train to Petrozavodsk. For me, the description of the trip provided a reminder of an era that’s easy to forget, when Russia was a very closed book, and a visit such as this was a brave undertaking, full of uncertainty and difficulty.

The other highlights for me were Laurie’s reflections on writing, and what journalism is all about. For example:

“I was interested in tales, and I began to think of myself more broadly – not just as a journalist but as a story-teller… I was drawn to stories about people who would not normally be in the newspaper. Some would call these feature stories, but in my mind there was a distinction between features (which I considered to be fluffy, “nice” stories) and what I was trying to do. I wanted to tell tales about real life – how real people handled change and obstacles and tragedies and successes…

...You cannot approach journalism with the idea that you have everything figured out; you have to approach stories, and people, with a very open mind, lest you run the risk of not hearing what it is they have to say.”

Now, I would NOT make a good journalist. This article is already over 600 words, and I have a Q and A session with Laurie that I want to add. I would NOT be popular in the newsroom. I think what I will have to do is stop here, and save Laurie’s words for tomorrow’s edition. Blog post, I mean.

Meanwhile, I will summarize by saying that I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it as a fast-paced insight into a fast-paced world. It's fascinating to learn about the logistics of how a newspaper used to be put together. If I have a criticism, it's that the writing reflects its journalistic origins, and the material is pared down a bit too much for my taste. Characters from the newspaper are introduced, and I was frustrated that we don’t learn more about them. Stories are told with minimal detail, when I wanted a fuller picture. I read Laurie on another blog saying that this was a criticism her editor made along the way, so I feel a little smug at this point. Always nice to have your own opinion chime in with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Of course the upside of this is that the book is quick to read, and covers a lot of ground in a short space. It's not a book you'll get bogged down in.

Please return tomorrow, to read Laurie’s Q and A session. For those of you who do so, there’ll be an opportunity to win a copy of the book.

Disclaimer: I received two copies of the book, but no other incentive to write this review. (I was sent an advance copy, and when I lost that, a frustrating few pages before the end, Laurie kindly arranged for me to receive another copy, this time a proper hardback jobbie – which is the one I’m happy to give away tomorrow, because I know that other copy will turn up somewhere, sooner or later.)

Mr and Mrs God in the Creation Kitchen

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed quite a few posts around at the moment on the subject of talking to children about big questions: death, faith, God? Is it Easter that's brought it all out?

Anyway, I thought I'd tell you about this fab book that I recently discovered. This isn't a sponsored post. I have no connection with the author or the book. I just like it. I found it, less than half price, in a bargain box of books in my local supermarket, amongst all the princess sticker books and Disney. It was rather a surprise.

The blurb says this:

Deep in the heavens, in a space without beginning or end, Mr and Mrs God are hard at work. They've got frying pans and mixing bowls, beaters and whisks, and an oven big enough to roast a star...

You get the gist.

I'll tell you what I like about the book. I love the fact that God is both Mr and Mrs. I would love my children to grow up to be comfortable with the idea of God as both male and female, on an emotional as well as intellectual level. Hurrah for The Shack, which helped us all along the way with this one. Remember the days (you won't unless your children are a little older than mine) when a baby book always referred to a baby as 'he'? Now it would seem quite bizarre if a baby book did that. I'm looking forward to the day when talk about God is similarly unfettered from its male history. It'll probably take a bit longer to establish a new norm than it did in the baby book market, but I'm hopeful. That's the first thing I like about the book.

The second thing I like is that Mr and Mrs God come across as hugely fun and imaginative, and that creation is portrayed as a big lark and adventure. Our tendency seems to be to take anything religious too seriously, so it's always a plus when there's a bit of jolly fun going on.

Then there's the relationship between Mr and Mrs God. Trinitarian theology is, I'm told, very important in Theology circles at the moment (the reason for which has passed me by), and it seems that relationship is central to this whole deal. Well, I like how Mr and Mrs God work together, even if it does involve Mrs God saying to Mr God "How could you?" when his pelican gobbles up her nice bright fish, and then not speaking to him for a thousand years.

And if you're looking for a bit of theology in the book, you'll like the ending. I've always struggled with the whole 'free will' concept. It seems to me suspiciously like people trying to let God off the hook. "Well, God IS both perfectly good and perfectly almighty, and he COULD have made a perfect world, but then we would have been like robots and not had a choice about how we relate to Him (Her)." Choice? What, like some consumerist approach to shopping in the universe? Seems to me that if I was omnipotent, as well as being all-loving, I could have thought my way round that one, easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Anyway, I'm not saying that Mr and Mrs God in the Creation Kitchen makes sense of it, but there's something about the final page that appealed to me. As they set the baking tray on the earth, and watch their baked man and woman get up out of it, the book closes:

"I wonder how they'll turn out," said Mr God.

"Who knows?" said Mrs God.

"We'll just have to wait and see."

It's not a theological treatise, is it? But somehow, there's something about it that I like. Perhaps it's because it's unresolved. I like unresolved.

So I like the characters, and the plot, and the text. I'm not so keen on the illustrations. They seem chaotic and not very well defined, which was probably to reflect the idea of the story, but for a child, I think they might be overwhelming. They're also a bit grey and lacking in colour, which again is probably a deliberate reflection of the story - where colour is used, it's not in the kitchen, but in the finished creation. But that's just my opinion. You might love them.

If you're going to be troubled by any creation story other than the Big Bang or the Bible, then this isn't the book for you. But if you want to put some fun thoughts regarding one of Life's Big Questions into your child's enquiring mind, and end up saying "well, nobody really knows exactly how it happened", then this could be the book for you. (But don't buy it if you're the mother of my godchild, as this is definitely a birthday or Christmas present coming his way.)

Here's a link if you're interested.

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Tagged!

I’ve been tagged. Now, it’s very naughty of Reluctant Memsahib to tag me, as she knows full well that I’m on blogging sabbatical. I don’t really like tags, but this one got me thinking, and once I get thinking, wittering is only a small step further on. The tag invites me to witter on about what I’ve been reading, listening to, watching and surfing in the past few days, and I couldn't resist it.

Reading: I’m in a book club, and we’re doing Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Haven’t finished it yet, and can’t decide whether I like it or not. I can see that it is funny and well-written, but you need to have chemistry with a book, as with a person, and I'm not sure it and I have exchanged glances across a crowded room yet. I have also read Just for you, Blue Kangaroo every day, and sometimes more than once a day, since Christmas. It’s just as well I like the story, as 3-yo does, obviously. A lot. A big lot. Considerably more than me, actually. Pity there isn't another one in the series called Enough is enough, Blue Kangaroo.

Listening to: Alas, I hardly listen to anything these days (no Radio 4, you see) apart from the cd of choice in the car, which at the moment is some ghastly Winnie the Pooh compilation. I only ever hear the first track, at the end of which 3-yo insists “that one again, that one again”. On the school run, I claim that it is the boys’ turn, and then we have Radio Disney which is a mind-numbing experience, but I have to take my respite where I can. 'Listening to' is not where it is happening for me in this particular chapter of life.

Watching: I have to confess to watching almost no American tv at all, and because I don’t want to sound smug and superior, 'not wrong, just different' being my philosophy and all, I’d better not go on about it, but really, it isn’t good. I’m sorry, I’m not going to pretend. The only show that Husband and I do enjoy is Family Guy, which is like a ruder and darker version of The Simpsons. Hilarious. On BBC America, I watch Matt Frei giving an hour of news at 9.00pm (it’s like having the old Nine O’Clock News back again – oh joy). I am particularly enjoying the fact that the journalist they’ve sent off to Antarctica to track the Japanese whaling fleet is called Jonah Fisher. Marvellous BBC humour. No-one has made any reference to it, but it's just there as a shared joke. When I think of what I miss from Britain, it all tends to be the lovely gentleness and understatement of the place, like that joke for example. Or leafy green lanes, the fountain-like chatter of ladies meeting in tea shops, the soft colours of bluebells and cow parsely, the fine art of conversing without saying what you mean. Intriguingly, the programmes I enjoy most on BBC America are Top Gear and Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. But that probably says more about the selection on offer than my homeward yearnings.

Last, but not least, surfing: Well, there are the blogs, of course. I love you all. Then there’s Weatherbug.com, which I like at times of the year when we have extreme weather. Just how hot/cold is it today? In the last week, we’ve had temperatures down to -13 celsius. This actually makes very little difference to life, as buildings and cars are well heated, and you only ever have to walk between them for 30 seconds. Most people wouldn’t actually bother with a coat if they were going to the supermarket. Nonetheless, I like to think that when we return to Britain, and people are complaining of the cold, I’ll be able to be reverse-smug and say “oh yes, well of course we got used to temperatures of -13 celsius when we lived in America.”.

Then there are the news pages, which keep me in touch with world news when I’ve missed Matt Frei at 9 o’clock, or deserted him for recorded Jeremy Clarkson or Gordon Ramsey (sorry, Matt, don’t take it personally). I watched a lot of BBC news online after the BA flight from Beijing crash landed at Heathrow. Plane crashes are always gruesomely fascinating, but I followed the aftermath of this one with particular interest, as I was at primary school with Peter Berkhill, the pilot. I emailed a friend, to ask if it was indeed him, and she confirmed that it was. We pondered together how the names of primary school co-pupils are forever etched on one’s memory (and I know I’ve spelt his name wrong – just don't want to turn up in too many google searches). The story is a little tarnished by the fact that I got excited when I watched the flight crew arrive at the press conference in BA’s headquarters amidst cheering ranks of BA staff, thinking to myself “yes, yes, I recognize him, that’s him, that’s Peter Berkhill, definitely him”, only to discover when they were introduced, that I’d been looking at senior first officer Tom Coward.

I'm passing the tag on to Laurie, Elsie Button, Dumdad and Ms Wiz.

The Tiger who came to tea

In the list of favourite books in my profile, there is the title The Tiger who came to tea. This is the one book on the list that has prompted people to say “me too, that’s one of my favourites”. I suspect there are many fans of this book out there. And now Tiger-lovers have been spotted in the northern heartlands, up there amongst the bears (perhaps they hope the Tiger will keep the bears away). I think it’s time we had a Tigerfest. I am hosting it right here. I am going to write a list of the things I like most about the book, and then you can use the comments section to add the things you like about it. If you haven’t read the book, then you will just have to mosey on over to Amazon and get a copy. It’s written and illustrated by Judith Kerr. There you are. That’s all you need to know. Whether you’re a regular commenter, a lurker, or a passing browser, if you’re a Tiger-lover, this fest is for you.

Let’s start with the Tiger himself. He’s so approachable and kindly. Sophie cuddles him and hangs onto his tail. Kindly and cuddly, but enigmatic. He’s a riddle. I love that mystery about him. Who would want their visiting tiger to be anything other than mysterious?

Sophie’s clothes. They’re so wonderfully dated (the book was first published in 1968). Of course it’s not just Sophie’s clothes. The book is a wonderful snapshot of domestic life at the time. Her mother’s clothes, the table with the yellow formica top, the blue star pattern on the crockery, the design of the kitchen units, buns for tea, "Daddy's beer" and "Daddy's supper", the excitement of going out to a cafe – they all speak of another age. It is the age in which a huge swathe of the mother-readers of the book were the Sophies of their time. I think that’s why Sophie’s clothes head the list for me – I’m sure I had a shift dress (we’d have called it a pinafore) and patterned tights like hers.

I love the way Sophie and her mummy are so unfazed by the tiger, so hospitable to him. Then when Sophie’s daddy comes home, he sits in a chair with an expression that one can only describe as fazed. Fazed and gormless. I think the tiger experience passed him by emotionally as well as physically. To give him credit, he does come up with the café idea, but the gormless expression doesn’t leave him. He is a man out of his depth here.

My children’s favourite bit is the ...good-bye…good-bye…good-bye… weaving out of the tiger’s trumpet, curling in the air as the smile curls on his face. I imagine the editor saying to Judith Kerr “we’ll take those words out; they’re not really adding anything, are they? And they look a bit odd”, and Judith Kerr fighting her corner and saying “you might not like them, but children will love them. Trust me”.

And to finish, back to the mystery. The book is full of mystery. First, and on a rather mundane level, I am puzzled as to why her parents take Sophie to the café wearing her nightie. Second, and this is both mystical and mysterious I think, look at the ginger cat on the pavement, whom Sophie and her parents don’t notice as they head out in the dark to the café. Is he somehow the tiger? It is a full moon, after all.

Your turn now.

Manager's Pick

I like Wal-Mart. I know this is swimming against the tide somewhat. I know I’m not meant to like Wal-Mart, but I do. There are things I don’t like about Wal-Mart, but by and large, shopping there is a pleasant experience. You have to remember not to wander round with a vacant expression on your face, because the staff are so helpful that one of them is bound to stop you and ask “Can I help you find something?”, and then you find yourself saying “Um, no thanks. I’m just wandering around with a vacant expression on my face”. This aspect of shopping used to be much easier in Britain, when you could wander round aimlessly for ages without anyone interrupting you.

One of the things I like about Wal-Mart is that, as it is so big and sells so very many things, you always see something to catch your interest. The other day, for example, I saw a book entitled Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day. This got me thinking. Clearly it should have been in the Fiction section of the book aisle, but it wasn’t. It was right by the till. And it wasn’t just one book; it was a whole stack. They must have been selling like hot cakes. Wal-Mart Manager’s top pick.

Now if I wrote a book about potty training, it would be titled Potty Training: Steel Yourself with a very visible sub-title, your life will be dominated by your child’s bodily functions for weeks if not months, you will be very aggravated, and it will involve a lot of cleaning up. I doubt that would make it into a stack by the till though. It would be an honest approach, but not a very marketable one. In fact I could write a whole honest approach series of child-care books:
Getting Your Baby to Sleep Through The Night: a hundred things to try, but no guarantees
Toddlers and Vegetables: you will never win
Immunizations: you’ll never know if you made the right decision
Making Homework Fun: resorting to creative bribery.

I’m not going to find a publisher, am I? No. The canny publisher has worked out that you only need to persuade someone to buy a copy of the book to make your money. Honesty and integrity aren’t up for discussion here. The very depressing thing is that if you look up “potty training one day” on Amazon.com, you find that there are in fact four books with titles almost identical to the one I saw. There is also one called Potty Train in Three Days, but that is a little way down the list. I mean, who would buy that one? Best of all is Toilet Training in Less Than A Day – wow, that’s a tempting one. Not just the potty, but the toilet, and in less than a day – you might even complete the process without actually needing to use the toilet at all. No wonder that’s at the top of the list.

I am beginning to realize, though, that I could be ideally placed to write some books about relocating. We did have a couple before we came, and although I found them useful as reference books for particular topics, I couldn’t read them cover to cover, as Husband did. I found it too daunting. Having read a few paragraphs on “driving in the US”, I was so nervous of having to remember which rules applied in which state, which speed limits applied on which roads, and making sure I locked my doors at night, that I wondered if I would ever be able to drive at all. I decided I would read no more and just cope when I arrived. It was a case of better the devil you don’t know... These were serious books, written after extensive research, packed full of useful facts, thoughtful opinions, and tried and tested ideas.

That’s not the book I’m going to write. I’m going for the book with the snappy title that will stack by the till. Mine is going to be titled something like Relax while you Relocate: Get to Grips with a New Culture in Five Days. I’d better just check on Amazon, though. Someone may already have done a Get to Grips with a New Culture in Half an Afternoon. That would scupper me. I think five days would be my lowest offer.