Guest Post: Jennifer Donnelly, Poisoned.

Quickfire Reviews: Christmas Edition

Throwback Thursday: Josephine's Book Edition

Angela Carter’s books have been around forever, but I hadn’t heard of her at all until a few years ago, when my Mum bought me her Book of Fairytales for Christmas. 

I’m still not sure what prompted that book choice, whether it’s the fact that it’s stunningly pretty, or whether she liked it herself or whether she just saw it and thought of me. Probably a combination of the three. I have always loved a pretty book and a fairytale. Anyway, I got it that Christmas and I loved it (if you’re not familiar with that book then you should fix that problem) and I went out and bought myself some more of Carter’s work, specifically The Bloody Chamber, Wise Children and Nights at the Circus. They’re all the Vintage copies, so it must’ve been at that Red Spine loving time. I have about ten of those I think, Grimms' Fairy Tales being one of them.

I hadn’t thought much about her for a while but I was down visiting pals last weekend and my friend Mark had left the Penguin Deluxe edition of The Bloody Chamber in his kitchen. I was drawn in by the pretty and thought ‘oh, I know this book,’ found myself flicking straight to The Courtship of Mr Lyon and thought, ‘yep, actually, I do, I love this book.’

& I know I have a copy already, but these Penguin Deluxe copies, they’re like witchcraft, you touch them and you have to have them and I got straight on the internets and ordered me a copy. Honestly, there’s really not much you can say to me about how unnecessary it is because look at me, I have the Harry Potter series twice and the number of copies of Alice I have goes into double figures. & this book is pretty, the cover is lush and the pages are all uneven and wonderful and it’s just beautiful.

Then Jen made this video and did some Twitter asking about favourite fairytales and thus, this particular Throwback Thursday had its theme.

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.

It’s an awesome book and with the current trend for twisted fairy stories, I can't help wonder if Angela Carter – who would have been 75 this year - was one of the first to re-imagine fairytales like this? Jen will tell me, Jen knows – right Jen?

Most of the stories in this collection are familiar, some only if you squint, but all of them are dark and edgy like a good fairytale should be.

We’ve got stories based on Beauty and the Beast and Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, and the terrifically gruesome The Snow Child which I guess you can maybe say was inspired by Snow White although, it is in no way the same story: I told you, sometimes you have to squint, and Jesus God you’ll never see this story Disney-fied. Skin as white as snow is pretty much where the similarities end I think.

Carter takes what you thought you knew about stories you grew up with and turns them on their head. Here be no damsels in distress, no princesses needing saving because Carter is Queen of the kickass female protagonist. Is this ‘feminist literature’ then? You know what, yeah, it probably is. All of Carter’s women are strong and liberated and somehow the dark and gothic settings make that all the more apparent – she tackles sexuality and sex, stereotypes, coming of age, identity and balance of power and she does it so freaking well. Probably they’ll blow your mind a little bit.

My personal faves? The Courtship of Mr. Lyon because I always love me a good Beauty and the Beast story (I think maybe the other version in the book The Tiger’s Bride got more acclaim though, certainly it’s darker and the ending has a definite twist), The Company of Wolves where Red Riding Hood is totally in control of how her story goes (she knew she was nobody’s meat) and Wolf-Alice - a girl raised by wolves, rescued by nuns and eventually sent to live with a werewolf, and a story that’s all about independence and self-discovery I think, perhaps more than any of the others. The whole collection is worth a read though and with fairytale re-tellings being A Thing right now, you could do a lot worse than The Bloody Chamber.

Review: The Gracekeepers

The first Callanish knew of the Circus Excalibur was the striped silk of their sails against the grey sky

When I fall in booklove, which I do a lot, it tends to be in one of two ways. There’s the head over heels, intense can not must not stop reading kind of love, the kind of love that makes me greedy, unable to read the words fast enough, wanting to devour and hungry for moremoremore. The kind of booklove that has me staying up way too late (one more chapter, yeah, whatever) and that leaves me feeling exhausted and bereft.

And then there’s the second kind, the kind that makes my chest tight, that makes me want to string it out as long as possible, each and every word feeling precious and important and not to be rushed. The kind of booklove that’s like eating a really good meal, where you cut it into the tiniest bites to make it last longer and let every mouthful dissolve slowly on your tongue. You don’t want it to ever be over, and yet somehows when it is you just feel right.

It’s the second kind of love that I have for Kirsty Logan’s debut novel The Gracekeepers, which I finished last night. It took me almost two weeks because I was forcing myself to take it slowly. This is a beautiful book and it deserves to be savoured. I’m so thrilled actually to be writing this review because I had the highest of hopes. I feel like I’ve been waiting for it forever, and I knew from the day I heard about it that it was going to be My Kind Of Book. And it’s so beautiful. I was lucky enough to receive a proof copy, which, is stunning, (seriously, so much pretty in one small paperback) and I have a shiny copy of the glorious hardback too which is different but equally wonderful and I just wanted to love it, so badly. AND I DID. I really really did. There is no sense of let down, nothing is anti-climatic, it’s just an absolute gem of a story and I CANNOT STOP WITH THE GUSHING. 

So, you want a blurb, right? Because what’s the use of a review of a book you know nothing about.

From Goodreads:

As a Gracekeeper, Callanish administers shoreside burials, sending the dead to their final resting place deep in the depths of the ocean. Alone on her island, she has exiled herself to a life of tending watery graves as penance for a long-ago mistake that still haunts her. Meanwhile, North works as a circus performer with the Excalibur, a floating troupe of acrobats, clowns, dancers, and trainers who sail from one archipelago to the next, entertaining in exchange for sustenance.

In a world divided between those inhabiting the mainland ("landlockers") and those who float on the sea ("damplings"), loneliness has become a way of life for North and Callanish, until a sudden storm offshore brings change to both their lives--offering them a new understanding of the world they live in and the consequences of the past, while restoring hope in an unexpected future.

Inspired in part by Scottish myths and fairytales, The Gracekeepers tells a modern story of an irreparably changed world: one that harbors the same isolation and sadness, but also joys and marvels of our own age.

Everything about this book is glorious. Glorious.

Kirsty Logan is an excellent excellent writer and this whole book is just, well its magical realism at its very best I guess. It’s out of this world but still so authentic and every single one of the characters is so very thoughtfully drawn and fully fleshed out that you can’t help but want more of each of them. Even the ones you don’t particularly like. (Even Avalon.)

I want more of this world, I want the what happened before and the what happens next, for everybody, not just for Callanish and North, but for every single character. And yet at the same time, the book as it stands feels complete and enough and right. Which makes no sense but hey, when do I ever.

There are so many things to love about this book. I love the way it talks about inequality and isolation and loneliness, how it explores gender and sexuality and the way it looks at relationships and love and loss. I love how North feels safer in the arms of a not-quite-tame bear than anywhere else and how Callanish refuses to fish even though she’s close to starving. I love Melia, and Whitby. I love how it gave me that feeling I get when I read books like The Handmaid’s Tale - you know, where it all seems surreal and crazy but also only the tiniest step away, simultaneously imaginable and not at all. I love the circus, I love that the circus is a thing that still exists in this world, that despite everything there is still that. & what it the circus means and the stories it tells and its link to the past both through its performances and its very existence, I just love it all.

The Gracekeepers is part fairytale, part dystopia and at all times utterly engrossing. It’s just, it’s really really gorgeous.

Things That I Have Seen and Liked

So, this is a post I am going to title ‘things that I have seen and liked’ (and who knows, I might make it a semi-regular feature, because I could do with some of those) and in it I’m going to talk to you about, well, about things that I have seen and liked. It’s pretty self-explanatory really: over-complicating things is not something I am fond of. 

Basically ,this is totally just an excuse for me to get stupid excited about books and albums and TV shows and pretty shoes and other such things that have caught my eye. It’s a small glimpse I guess into what makes me tick.IT'S ALL ABOUT THINGS I LIKE.

So, where else would I start than with books?

I treated myself last week to Sarah Pinborough’s Poison.

I read Sarah’s The Death House earlier in the year and I loved it and you know when that happens, when you find a new author and just want to devour every word they’ve ever written, shopping lists and all? Yep, that happened here, so I checked out Sarah’s book list and then did some kind of crazy flappy dance because GUESS WHAT: REIMAGINED FAIRYTALES. I LOVE a fairytale, I especially love a twist on a fairytale and that’s exactly what this book – Poison – is. It’s Snow White’s story, but it’s told from a different angle and it sounds like all kinds of excellent and it’s also really freaking pretty. Hurrah.

I’m dreaming of Book 2 in Cathrynne Valente’s Fairyland series. I’ll come back at some point and talk about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making soon but til then you need to know only that Jen made me read it, and not since Harry Potter, or His Dark Materials have I fallen like this for a series of books. So, I need the second one. Stat. (I amuse myself when I get to use phrases like that. Ha) I tried to buy it in Watersones at the Trafford Centre last night but alas, they only had books 3 and 4. Instead I bought these pretties for my 2015 book challenge. 

I’m not going to buy another book now til April, which is a shame for Fairyland but very good for my bank balance.

However, and this may come as a total shock, but, I don’t only read books. sometimes I watch things on Netflix, oftentimes on my iPad in bed because I love my bed, I love it a lot. Right now I’m watching The Vampire Diaries because we lost track of it a while back due to a Sky+ fail and it’s all there being shiny and pretty on Netflix and I have like, a series and a half of Damon Salvatore to catch up on so WOOP WOOP for that. Oh, Ian Somerhalder you are an attractive being.

I’m also crazy excited because Netflix has just added Once Upon a Time to it’s catalogue (see above re my love for fairytales) which Channel 5 cancelled and I feared I would never see again until this weekend when I opened the app for said Salvatore fix and THERE IT WAS!! All the episodes I missed plus the latest season updated weekend. I did a happy dance, from the comfort of my bed. More of a head bob than a dance really, but the feeling was there. Once is so good and it has the added bonus of Robert Carlyle. I have had a crush on Robert Carlyle for 20 years omg.

 

On the commute to work I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift’s 1989, which holy excellent album batman. I kind of love Taylor unashamedly. I do. Gimme all the catchy pop songs on my drive please.

So yep, I’m listening to that and also to The Overtones and also to an old Bon Jovi album I found whilst tidying up. If you’re new here then here’s a thing about me: I have pretty much loved Jon Bon Jovi my whole entire life. All of it. Forever. I have always loved him and I will always love him because THAT ASS. And also because of other reasons that do not involve my objectification of his being such as I’ll…I’ll come back to you.

And, just to tie this post up nicely, other random things that I have seen and liked:

I am in desperate need of these two t-shirts, this one, which tell me about it, stud. Why would I not need that in my life?

and also this one because The BFG is right up there with Matilda and Danny as my fave Roald Dahl book of all time. 

I feel I would be much happier, generally, if these were nicely folded in my t-shirt drawer. I really want a t-shirt with ONJ’s face on it ok? I just really do.

Also, cowboy boots. I spend so much of my life lusting after pretty cowboy boots. There’s a pair of tan ankle ones that I am totally going to get a pair of for the spring, but what I really want is some of of the amazing Corral or Durango ones (that I should have bought when I saw them in NYC 7 years ago dammit. Regrets, I have them.) I’m clearly not getting any because wow the price tag on those babies but still, SO MUCH PRETTY.

I want (need, want, who knows the difference) a new bag. I also know exactly what it looks like. The closes I have seen to the bag that lives in my head was in Debenham’s last night. It was £115.

River Island has this though, which is cute:

And lastly, I'm on a storage box hunt because people (me) need storage and I’ve seen all these ‘shabby chic’ trunks that are just so old and beautiful and perfect so I’m all about those right now too. How many books I wonder, could one get in a trunk..and I wonder if my Dad still has one in the cubby hole at their house? Oooh, there’s a thought…..

So, talk to me: what are you reading/watching/listening to right now? What pretty things are you spending your pennies on? What things have you seen and liked?