Purchased because I am joining
The Booker 2005 Longlist Challenge which could involve up to 17 consecutive bookrings. What was I thinking..eek. I figure it will be a great opportunity to read some quality, recent books while only purchasing one. (See fleebo's bookshelf for details.)

This is part of a glowing review from The Guardian:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,1473353,00.html

"Hilary Mantel has done something extraordinary. She has taken that ethereal halfway house between heaven and hell, between the living and the dead, and nailed it on the page. She has taken those moments between sleep and waking, when we hardly know who we are, or why, and turned them into a novel that makes the unbelievable believable. She persuades, she convinces, she offers an alternative universe, she uses the extraordinary descriptive skills that are her trademark — Mantel does "seedy" as no one else, except possibly Graham Greene in his early novels, The Confidential Agent and Brighton Rock. She produces characters — some dead, some partly dead, some barely alive but pretending — that are as strong and vivid on the page as if they were living or dying next door — if only you cared to go there. Most don't, next door being a rather nasty and disturbing place. She's witty, ironic, intelligent and, I suspect, haunted. This is a book out of the unconscious, where the best novels come from."


If anyone else would like to join this bookring, please PM me. I will put you after the Booker Longlist participants.

Bookring order:

Alectoness (NZ)
puppymummy
Viola7
xoddam
Fleebo
woosang
star-light
leeny37
Saki

I have finished this and posted on to Alectoness (12/9/05). Will write my review of it soon.

Arrived in my post box this morning - thanks, goodthinkingmax. I'm just finishing of Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" at the moment, and then I'll get started on this one.

A book that never really gripped me.

It was an interesting premise for a novel - a story about the ordinary day-to-day life of a psychic and her sidekick. And I enjoyed the bits which dealt with Alison's performances, the different facets of the industry and her relationship with Colette.

The parts about Alison's childhood were interesting and powerful in places, but the present tense storyline just never seemed to take off.

Have another Booker book heading my way soon, so I'll post this one off to puppymummy before the weekend.

Just got a PM from puppymummy who's currently swamped with bookrings. She's asked that I wait and send this one to her at the same time as I send the next one ("This Thing of Darkness").

Update (10 October): Sent with "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" instead, as it may take me a while to finish "This Thing of Darkness".

Still swamped, but I'm reading as fast as I can! Hopefully this isn't here for too long, I'll start PMing for addresses right away!

This one was one of the better Booker longlist ones I have read so far in that it kept my interest, I wanted to keep reading and I didn't want at any stage to throw it across the room. I was disappointed in the ending though, it didn't really resolve for me and there were a few things I would have liked explored more.
Not always a pleasant read in terms of subject matter, but overall an interesting and unusual tale.
Will be posted to Viola7 tomorrow.

This arrived while I was away at the coast for a week! Thank you Good Thinking Max. This was the one that I really wanted to do so it was a nice Christmas present!

I've started reading this already because I've looked forward to it for so long. Hilary Mantel's writing is always unusual and this one is certainly no exception! It's a strange story about Allison, a blowsy and devious medium, and her assistant, Colette. Although the story is interesting and well-written as usual, the characters are rather unlikeable so far. I have no love for the name Allison for reasons of my own, but it seems too sensible a name for a medium! This detracts from the narrative a bit for me.

The characters are unlikeable because Allison is a bit of a con-woman although ghosts really do contact her, and Colette is an opportunist.

I don't think readers are supposed to like Allison because she wears Je Reviens and unlikeable characters in another of Hilary Mantel's books also wore this perfume! I like it and she did a good job of turning me off it so I didn't wear it again for ages!

I tried to read this twice but couldn't get into it. Usually I like Hilary Mantel but this time I just wasn't interested in this story about a medium and her assistant. Neither of them was likeable and the story was somewhat boring. Will pass this on today hopefully.

Collected from the PO on Saturday morning. Thanks all ... adding it at the bottom of my long list of rings, as usual PM me if you wish to encourage me to hurry up :-)

"Say what you like about MacArthur but he was an artist wiv a knife. I seen him carve a woman like a turkey."

This is a bitter, scathing indictment of the casual brutalities people in the margins of society inflict on one another. It's dressed up in the weirdest clothing of speaking to, and for, the spirits of the dead, which comes across like some sort of comic relief, and almost makes the cruelty bearable, like slapstick. Mantel has a kind of a thesis that all the 'sensitives', people who hear and see the dead, are people who have been psychologically damaged; and conversely, there is a definite sense of blaming the worst of the cruelties of this world on the agency of the already-dead, who of course don't care one way or the other if we live or die.

There are subtleties here it hurts my head to think about; it's like a religion of mysteries and secrets without a defining catechism. The lead character Alison doesn't "do ethnics", because reincarnation and foreign religions are too complicated. Likewise, I prefer not to bother with the complexities of the spirit world at all. The story is appealingly believable -- in the sense that the very worst atrocities of the novel are in fact everyday occurrences -- and yet the premise of 'airside' spirits toying with the living like cats with mice is, to my mind, ridiculously far-fetched. Never attribute to malice what can be put down to incompetence -- and never resort to malicious supernatural explanations for what are all too plainly the crimes of everyday human beings, more selfish, damaged and callous than 'evil'.

This is going to Fleebo next, I expect to hand it over on Wednesday.

Received from xoddam. Thanks very much.

Loved it! Read it in a day. And at the same time... Eeew.
What an interesting concept - a spirit guide whom the medium knew while the guide was still alive. I can't work out how this was allowed to happen, of course... it sounded kind of like there was some formal testing or proving to do before a ghost becomes a guide - but then considering who Morris works for at the end, anything horrible was possible.
I know only a few of the kind of people for whom talking to the dead and reiki appeals to, but Colette is exactly the opposite of them! Her weird combo of hard bitch businesswoman and mostly-believer was one of the hardest parts of the book to swallow - yes, including the supernatural.
Anyway, it was an awesome read. Thanks so much.

This book seemed to just plot along for 450 pages. It didn't seem to really get to a point, but there was a lot of filler. David asked why I actually finished the book, if I wasn't enjoying it. Well I had invested 4 days so far....and 200 pages so there had to be a reason it was written. OK there were parts that I did enjoy, but most of the book was just boring. Ok the day to day life of a medium (sensitive), and her nasty shallow assisstant yes....then? Hmm
Collette rarely had a good word for Alison, even though Alison supports her and provides a home for her. I really didn't like Collette at all. Alison was a damaged person with an annoying, base spirit guide, and those sirits are attracted to her for that reason.

I don't think this book was ever in the running for the Booker. It just doesn't cut it (But neither did the winner)

Oh well thanks for the opportunity!

Arrived yesterday. Thanks woosang for posting. I read the blurb on the back and it sounds kind of creepy.

This just wasn't my type of book. It looked promising at the start and I enjoyed reading about Alison's show. However after that the book declined. What I disliked most was the way the various spirits nattered on and on, making it rather tedious reading for me. Also nothing consequential seemed to happen. I got to the end and thought 'So...?'

I will be making arrangements to pass this on to leeny37 in the near future.

Hand-delivered to me by star-light at tonight's Melbourne meet-up! Thanks! :) This book has received conflicting reviews and I'm interested to see what my own opinion would be. I signed up for this bookring because I very much enjoy the TV show, Medium, so I wanted to try out a novel that featured a medium. I will see how I go! Please be patient with me, I move house in a few weeks' time, so I may be a tad slow, but I promise I will try to get it to the next participant as soon as I can.

I just wanted to post a quick update that this book is still here safe and sound with me! Apologies for the delay, I have been extremely slow in catching up but I will try to get this book out by next month. Thanks for your continued patience!

Oh boy, I finally finished this book, apologies for taking so ridiculously long! I have to agree with star-light and some others, I didn't really enjoy reading this. The blurb sounded so promising and I thought it would be one that I would really enjoy. However, it didn't happen and I felt like I was forcing myself to finish the book. Normally, I would drop a book without hesitation if I didn't like the story, but because I had hung on to this book for so long, it felt like it would be such a letdown if I didn't at least finish it! Overall, I am fairly disappointed in this. Maybe I missed the whole point of the novel, but I felt like the story never got anywhere with so many unresolved issues even after 451 pages.

Thanks for the opportunity to read this though, I'll send it on asap once I get a mailing address off Saki.

RELEASE NOTES:

Saki requested to be skipped, so I'm sending the book back to goodthinkingmax. Apologies for the delay, I had been in Queensland and only returned today! This is heading out via a prepaid Express Post satchel, tracking #: SV4371861.

It's home from its travels and may be on a journey to France soon to fulfil a wish. Thanks everyone.

Edited 13/2:

No longer off to France, just to the local Sydney meetup! Turns out the BCer in France already has the book.

RELEASE NOTES:

Look what I picked up at meetup tonight!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Posting to LadyIndigo as part of the 'Southern Cross Book Exchange'.

Comments to come.

Opening Southern Cross Exchange books on my birthday - coffee and books - what more does one want in life!?!

thankyou jubby for this wishlist book - it has had mixed responses from readers so it will certainly be an interesting read

thanks
:)