'A wonderful novel,vivid,revealing' - Carol Shields

Newly added. Starts its "into the wild" journey in Kleofas Cafe.

I picked this up on Friday from the bookcrossing bookshelf in Kleofas Café and Deli. I was pretty pleased to find it as I know someone who is interested in receiving it. So I am including it an Not-So-Secret-Father-Christmas-Surprise, 2012, parcel to an ‘extra & unofficial’ partner of mine in this bookcrossing gift-giving event.

Great to get to Kleofas Café as I wanted to pick up lots of lovely items for Christmas gifts as well as do some bookcrossing and yahoo my Christmas shopping at Kleofas was most successful! I have three fruit cordials, wild strawberry, blue berry and Aronia. Apparently Aronia melanocarpa is the fruit of the black chokeberry and much prized these days as it is extraordinarily high in antioxidants. The wild strawberry I tried before and it is wonderful both in water (two teaspoons) and neat over ice-cream. If fact, I imagine any of these fruit syrups would be sensational poured sparingly over ice-cream. Sparingly, as the taste neat is deliciously strong!

Seasonally inspired I have a couple of packets of gingerbread spices, for folk I hope will be motivated to create a gingerbread house. Internet research tells me the spice mix is of wheat flour & cinnamon & sugar (could be one of many forms) + ginger & cloves + coriander & nutmeg + cardamom & black pepper & ziele angialskie, which is herb something, at a guess maybe angelica?

Mum’s getting some plums in chocolate and still on a plum theme I’m confident she’ll also be the happy receiver of some organic plums in vinegar. Great apparently with meat, and so these should sit terrifically well on the dining table over Christmas with the many options of meats we are likely to have.

An astoundingly complex and cloying feel of quite another time is ably achieved here by Martin I didn’t have enough time to read this thoroughly but my skimming through it brought me up short. It seems a remarkable achievement, harrowing yet compellingly readable.

I’ve sent this to an ‘extra & unofficial’ partner in the Not-So-Secret-Father-Christmas-Surprise 2012.

Posting tracking details, check www.postoffice.co.uk
To: Flutterbies9 / NSSFCS 2012

Posted at: Post Office, 20 Elm Row, Edinburgh Lothian EH7 4AA
Date & Time: 18/12/2012 17:27
Session ID: 2-154954
Dest: UK (EU)
Quantity: 1
Weight: 0.907 KG

For the official goings on with the various Not-So-Secret events [Father Christmas + Valentine + Halloween/Autumn Surprise + September Back to School & Stationary Surprise + Easter Bunny] run throughout the year for UK BookCrossers go to:

uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/BookCrossingUK

Many thanks for this one, unfortunately not journalled until I returned home from the festive break and picked it up.

This is an interesting book which leaves as much unanswered as it answers! I found this one quite compelling and noted with surprise that I had finished the book before I realised it. The clean, clinical writing style with an exquisite use of language suits my taste although the subject is less so.

The atmosphere of the book is suffused in the slave owning era of the South states of America. Manon is the 'owner's' unwilling and unhappy wife and Sarah the mulatto slave given to Manon as a wedding present and her husband’s reluctant, subservient bedfollow. Manon is angry and self absorbed and Sarah is trapped.

It is not until you are engrossed in absorbing the full story line that you realise that Manon herself has a casual cruelty and moral blindness borne of the attitudes of the age she lives in. Yet her attitude also reeks of unthinking racism, although she feels she is enlightened compared to others around her, and a very selfish attitude of 'me, me, miserable me' throughout. She was not the most likeable main character.

There are inconsistencies here too; how could someone so intelligent not work out what was happening around her on the estate? why the 'slaves' were wanting to revolt from their owners? and how could the expense of her revenge on Sarah justify the practicalities of 'owning' / living with someone who had gone to such lengths to remove herself from your vicinity?

Much more gritty than ‘The Help’ but still gentrified for the politically correct masses of the 21st century.

I'll make this available for now until I decide what else to do with it.

RABCK - Hope you enjoy this Award winning book.

thanks for sending it, will go on my TBR :-)

The story about Missus Manon who hates her life as a wife of a sugarplanter and the head of household. She tought life would give her a lot of things but not a husband who pregnants the housemaid, bulls everyone around... On a horrible day, Manon is running for her life as some intruders make their apparences.

A good read, not so long story but lovely for in between.

Will go to the winner of the book and gift you didn't expect = pippis :-) enjoy!!!

Oh wow, what a surprise - a book that appears to be exactly to my liking! I have to admit that I've never heard of the author, but The Orange Prize surely promises something good... Thank you ever so much for the whole surprise package, it's really appreciated!

It felt like I was dropped into another era for a few days, just to observe everyone for a fleeting moment. My observations didn't make a difference, I was just given the possibility to witness the events and have sympathy on everyone involved in the history. It was impossible to really enjoy a story where everyone is profoundly unhappy and no one will ever become happy, no matter what they did. All I could do, was to enjoy the language and the rhythm of the narrative and not to expect to feel uplifted or encouraged by its message.

Book's looking for a reader at Camel & Artichoke bookshelf!

I really liked it. I felt that there must have been many stories similar to this during the time of slavery. No wonder the book won an Orange Prize - this eagerness to tell a difficult story is not hard to find in modern authors, but I thought that the point of view is original. I had already thought before that it must have been really really awkward for owners and their families to know that their children were slaves. After all, they were their children, and even if at that time they didn't have the concept of genetics, they knew because of physical similarities what had happened. This novel really shows the awkwardness of the situation.

For once, I read the critiques at the beginning, because the cover of the book and the summary read a bit cheesy romantic to me - I was totally intrigued, and I must admit, they didn't lie. None of the characters are likable, how could they be so? The situation rots everybody to the core. Manon, her husband, Sarah, the wild child, the sweet baby girl, the aunt, even that seemingly perfect relationship of Manon's parents.

Released today.