Paperback Reader » John Green

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

Paperback Reader — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:30:48 +0000

Happy New Year! I hope you have all been having an enjoyable and indulgent festive period; may you have been bestowed with books and grey ones for those of you still awaiting your Persephone Secret Santa gift.

Santa Claus did not -sadly- bring me reinstated internet access so I am still limited at home for the time-being, which is frustrating me. Posts at Paperback Reader will continue to be somewhat sporadic although I have scheduled another and will post from my iPhone where I can; I am hoping for a painless resolution but it looks like it will be the end of January before I am back online.

However, I could not see 2010 end without posting my favourite reads of the year. Due to an extended reading slump from May onwards (which impacted my blogging) I managed to read 40 books less than I did last year and did not break the 100 books mark, which disappoints me. These things cannot be helped though and I read some wonderful books throughout the year. For 2011 I am following no set plans but will continue to read on a whim and hopefully manage to read more than three or four books a month as I have done recently (the amount of books read is not a competition, by any means, but I really can’t help but believe the adage: so many books, so little time).

The books I did read though were of outstanding quality and I revisited some favourite authors (and reread some beloved books) along with discovering some new ones that I will explore further next year and beyond.

My top ten books were (titles link to my reviews):

The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon

Love by Toni Morrison

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark

Les Liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos

Blindness by José Saramago (not yet reviewed)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Still Point by Amy Sackville (not yet reviewed)

Paper Towns by John Green

The City and the City by China Miéville (not yet reviewed)

Honorable mention must be made to: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham; Room by Emma Donoghue; To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf; Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde and A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood.

There you have it: some cracking good fiction.

Recent Acquisitions

Paperback Reader — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:00:50 +0000

Strictly speaking this installment of Recent Acquisitions are not that recent but from early last month. I forgot to post them whilst I was away (despite adding one of them to my summer reading pile) but wanted to share them with you before the latest -and Booker longlist heavy- acquisitions.

Kirsty of Oxford University Press generously sent me a couple more Oxford World Classics. Candide and Other Stories was one I wanted to read after Amanda of The Zen Leaf told me how surprisingly funny she was finding it (her subsequent review); Voltaire has always intimidated me but I did not realise that Candide was a satire. Nana by Émile Zola is a novel by another French great that I have been wanting to read since reading this review by Mae of Mad Bibliophile earlier this year.

Looking for Alaska by John Green is the book I have already shared in my summer reads post; after loving Paper Towns I bought both Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines and excited about reading them (both were loved by Nymeth).

Rosamund of Penguin Books kindly sent me a couple of their newest Viking titles. I very rarely read memoirs and never any of this kind but After You: Letters of Love, and Loss, to a Husband and a Father by Natascha McElhone caught my eye; the actress continued to write letters to her husband (working in L.A. whilst he was in London, she regularly wrote to him) after his sudden death whilst she was seven months pregnant with their third child. I’m a fan of McElhone for her role in the TV show Californication and I remember the news of her husband’s death; she has published her letters and diary extracts from a time of unrelenting grief.

Also from Penguin came The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, which sounds like a beautiful love story; a magazine review of the book brought it to my attention. I have to admit to find the sheer size and weight of it daunting.

Have you read any of these books or looking forward to hearing more about any in particular?

Claire’s Corner

Paperback Reader — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:55:21 +0000

So, I’ve been blogging rather sporadically of late; all I can offer as a reason is that I’ve been busy and London was in the sweaty grips of a heatwave (the operative word being “was”). Pedicures and Pimm’s have been more appealing than posting, to be honest, but I do miss conversing about all things bookish. Anyway, I’ve been remiss in replying to comments and reciprocating but I shall try to catch up. First of all, though, I am off home to Glasgow for an extended visit. I’ll be mainly spending quality time with my boyfriend, family and friends but I do plan on some essential reading time (hopefully in the garden with a little bit of sun … a girl can dream, right?) Above are the books that I’ll be taking home with me this weekend.

Couples by John Updike is my choice for the next meeting of the Riverside Readers. It’s a book I’ve had and been wanting to read since last summer and there’s something about a New England settingthat seems summery to me; I can easily see myself reading this with a cocktail in hand waiting for the BBQ to heat up. I suspect that it’s also going to complementary the choice I made for my other book group, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious.

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood is a book I have been wanting to read for around thirteen years (seriously, I remember wanting to borrow it from my school library and the librarian refusing; apparently the book wasn’t “appropriate” for me even though my English teachers were giving me copies of Sons of Lovers and Lolita to read at the time. Hmph). Anyway, I should really have read it by now and have been requiring more Atwood in my life recently so the long overdue opportunity presents itself.

The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle is another one I’ve been meaning to read for some time, especially after I enjoyed Drop City so much. Kim of Reading Matters reminded me of my desire to read it and describing it as a meaty summer read with lots to chew over sealed the deal!

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson was a gift from my sister-in-law who always chooses and recommends the best books to me. Living in Canada she has introduced me to several Canadian authors (Ann-Marie MacDonald, Camilla Gibb) that may have passed me by otherwise and Mary Lawson will be another. I’ve had this on my TBR since last year saving it for the perfect reading opportunity.

Looking for Alaska by John Green is a very recent acquisition and one I couldn’t resist adding to my holiday pile; after enjoying Paper Towns so much I relished the idea of immediately acquainting myself with more of Green’s work.

Mariana by Monica Dickens made it into my final selection because what summer is complete without a Persephone book, preferably of the lighter persuasion? It was between this and Miss Buncle’s Book but the cover alone of my Classic edition evokes summer to me.

A library book or two will also make it into my case but these are the books that I am itching to read whilst I relax at home. Although there a couple of lighter, absorbing reads, the bulk are books I’ll be able to sink my teeth into. Recently I’ve been reading quickly (and somewhat obsessively but more about that in another post) and I am craving longer books that I can lose myself in and some of the books I have selected should provide exactly that.

I have a major backlog of reviews so some are scheduled for when I am away and I will endeavour to be on top of things once I return at the end of July.

In the meantime, have you read any of these and what holiday reading do you have planned, if any?

Paper Towns by John Green

Paperback Reader — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:21:52 +0000

John Green’s writing has been described as being privy to “a secret you can’t wait to divulge” and “like a John Hughes film… quirky and funny [mixed with] Sofia Coppola” (both in relation to his first novel, Looking for Alaska); Nymeth -recommendation reliant- is of the belief that “John Green can do no wrong”; my ready-made blurb is that Paper Towns is like Dawson’s Creek minus the incongruous dialogue and the narcissistic, whiny Dawson.

The reason I have opted for a television comparison (much like the film directors point of reference) is that Paper Towns will translate to screen extremely well (it already has a film option); the prose is very cinematic and also vividly realistic. I could envisage myself being there overhearing the pithy exchanges and observing the sugar-fueled road trip. Too infrequently can novelists create a world that you can readily step into as voyeur but John Green is one who can; I experienced events along with Q, as a willing participant caught up in his coming-of-age story.

Quentin Jacobsen (known as “Q” to his friends) has always loved the enigmatic Margo Roth Spiegelman, his next door neighbour and -once-upon-a-time- playmate. One night Margo appears at Q’s window (ahem, are you flash-backing to Joey Potter climbing in Dawson Leery’s window?) and enlists his help in an all-night revenge attack, promising him the best night of his life in return. What ensues is a life-changing night of adventure and ingenuity, Margo style; beyond that night is a mystery that Q embroils himself in -with the help of his friends- when Margo disappears.

Margo always loved mysteries. And in everything that came afterward, I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one.

For those of you who shy away from the young adult genre, please set aside your preconceptions; Paper Towns is witty, intelligent, illuminating and emotionally captivating. John Green writes truths in all their brutality. Perhaps I have the emotional maturity of a highschool senior but I emotionally connected with this novel and what its characters -at times harshly- learned. I actually had an epiphany with this novel, thanks to Green; we cannot make people into who we want them to be and we cannot expect people to behave the same way we would, which is hardly life-shattering but it took Paper Towns to bring it home to me. At times philosophical, the novel captures the difficulty of growing up; Q and his best friends, Ben and Radar, are on the cusp of adulthood, graduating from highschool and embarking on their futures. Q, Ben and Radar are misfits and Green evokes school in all its harshness and petty injustices; the threesome are exceptionally funny, entertaining to be around, exceedingly loyal, and I would happily extend an offer of friendship to them beyond the confines of the novel. Green creates real characters and the third part of Paper Towns is a hilarious bond-building road trip that I would have gone on in a heartbeat.

Not only does he create real people but makes us realise that we can’t create people into images of who we want them to be, Green also shows us that we dehumanise people that don’t like; whether they are the objects of our love, our esteem or our dislike, we make fictions of people and turn them into characters in our own life stories. The novel’s title refers to towns that only exists on paper: “fictitious towns which are added to a map either for fun or for copyright reasons” (Wikipedia definition); people can lose their sense of self in other people’s imagined version of them and become as fictitious and as unreal as paper towns on a map.

The strength of Paper Towns is difficult to do justice to but suffice to say that I highly recommend it. Incredibly funny and also bittersweet, Paper Towns took me on a journey that I would oft repeat; I’ve been to central Florida with Green and next will be going with him to Alaska.

A favourite passage which showcases Green’s prose-style:

Stranding before this building, I learn something about fear. I learn that it is not the idle fantasies of someone who maybe wants something important to happen to him, even if the important thing is horrible. It is not the disgust of seeing a dead stranger, and not the breathlessness of hearing a shotgun pumped outside of Becca Arrington’s house. This cannot be addressed by breathing exercises. This fear bears no analogy to any fear I knew before. This is the basest of all possible emotions, the feeling that was with us before we existed, before this building existed, before the earth existed. This is the fear that made fish crawl onto dry land and evolve lungs, the fear that teaches us to run, the fear that makes us bury our dead.

Recent Acquisitions

Paperback Reader — Sat, 15 May 2010 10:30:40 +0000

This latest installment of recent acquisitions actually filtered in book by book a few weeks ago but I haven’t had a chance to post about them until now. These all happen to be review copies sent my publishers but I do have some purchases to share soon.

Alice from Bloomsbury sent me a copy of Paper Towns by John Green, which was only published in the UK this week (it was published in the US in 2008). Nymeth has raved about it and when she raves about a book, I pay attention; I read this at the beginning of this week and will share my thoughts soon.

Katherine from Harper Press sent me The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale. This book has been nominated for this year’s Orange Award for New Writers and sounds completely riveting; I am planning to immerse myself in this soon.

Polly from Sceptre sent me Sunnyside by Glen David Gold; I haven’t read Carter Beats the Devil but look forward to reading a fictional account of Charlie Chaplin.

Sophie from Virago sent me the latest re-issued Elizabeth Taylor novel, The Soul of Kindness. To date, I actually haven’t read any Taylor but this may be the one I start with as the synopsis really appeals.

Gemma from Faber sent me both Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot (I’ve been coveting this book for so long!) and A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. The Moore has been shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction; I’ve fallen behind in my prize reading for this but would like to read this before I attend the shortlist readings earlier next month (if anyone would like to go to this then please let me know as I have a spare ticket).

Have you read any of these?

I have family visiting this weekend and a family event so I’ll probably be a.w.o.l.