The back cover summarizes the setup of the book pretty well. “15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows?”

A lot is promised but the book falls short. Early on the plot becomes way too predictable. The wild guy who lives fast with his hip friends and cool media job, finally settles down. The bookish, slightly overweight girl, sheds glasses and turns out beautiful. The “falling in love with your best friend” cliché. “Finding yourself.”

It is also not very believable. Dexter is a jerk, more and more so as time passes. Emma is, for some inexplicable reason, unable to fall in love with anyone else, even though there doesn’t seem to be any reason for her to love or like Dex. She just hangs around somewhere on the fringe of his life and waits until finally in the end they find each other. I can understand a college girl falling for the cool guy, but as a successful adult in her 30s, her still not being able to let go doesn’t make much sense.

But the book has got its good sides, too: good dialogue, funny scenes, great 1990s detail. The structure is pretty clever and generally works well, even though some chapters “cheat” and aren’t really limited to the day itself but start with a summary of the year that’s passed.

Not bad but doesn’t quite live up to expectations.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

This is a book about ethnopediatrics – child care from the point of view of an anthropologist. The question Meredith Small tries to elucidate is, To what extent is parenting based on biological imperatives and to what extent is it based on culture? She shows how differently children are cared for in different cultures, and how convinced all of these parents are that theirs is the right way and the others are crazy/wrong/weird. Parenting practices rest on parents’ assumptions about the world and on their values – they are as much a product of culture as what we eat, what we wear, or how we dance.

First, Small presents an overview of relevant aspects of human evolution – about how our upright posture and large brains lead to babies being born “unfinished”, and about the parent-child bond that is essential for babies’ survival.

Then she takes on a world tour highlighting cultural differences in parenting. The !Kung San train their babies’ motor skills so that the babies can cope with their nomadic life; the Ache carry their kids until the age of 5 to keep them safe in a dangerous forest environment; Gusii mothers don’t talk to their baby because children are viewed as low-status family members and expected to watch and learn rather than talk; Japanese mothers encourage dependence and a close bond between mother and child; American parents expect babies to cry a lot and don’t think it is necessary to respond to all crying.

Next there are more in-depth looks at three central elements of baby care: first a chapter on sleep across cultures, then a similar chapter about crying, and finally about breastfeeding – all from both an evolutionary and cross-cultural point of view.

It’s a slim book and a quick read. It could be slimmer still with some editing: at times it felt repetitive and padded with more words than it needs (perhaps in an attempt to make it feel more substantial). Disappointingly for me as a reader 60 of the 300 pages are filled with references, footnotes, an index etc. It does, however, set the book apart from all the books about babies that are really opinions served as fact, “do this because I say so”. This is, instead, “this is what other people do and here’s why”.

Throughout the book, the author remains an anthropologist, an observer standing to one side, and never quite expresses any firm opinions about what she describes. But if I were to summarize the book in just a paragraph, both what is said and what is repeatedly hinted at by leading questions, I would say this:

Babies evolved to be close to the parent, since they cannot survive on their own. They evolved to be carried rather than transported in plastic seats, to sleep with the parent rather than alone, to breastfeed frequently throughout the day and for years rather than months. Western child-rearing is to a great extent fighting against millions of years of evolution. If you work with your baby’s nature rather than against it, you will make life both easier and more pleasant for both yourself and your baby.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

Wolf Hall tells the story of the ending of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he can marry Anne Boleyn instead, and how this leads to the English Reformation. We follow these events through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, minister to Henry VIII and mastermind of England’s break with Catholicism.

Cromwell is a low-born lawyer/businessman/accountant, which would make him an unlikely hero in any case. He was, from what I’ve understood, a hated man during his lifetime, and is usually cast as somewhat of a villain in this whole affair. Here he is presented as a caring and enlightened man, taking care of widows and orphans, trying to save heretics from being burned and so on.

The story already existed, of course, and gave Mantel a lot for free, so to say: colourful personalities and tumultuous historical events. But she really brings them to life, makes it all funny, lyrical, personal; every sentence is exquisite. I took great care to read it slowly and savour every paragraph, wanting to make it last. It took me a few weeks but unfortunately I still ran out of pages in the end.

The book is extraordinarily vivid even though there are almost no visual descriptions of anything. It feels like no time has passed since this all happened: I can picture myself there among those people. The smells, the heat, the fear of disease. It must all rest on excellent research, but she uses her knowledge of those times subtly and never even gets close to didactic exposition. In fact I could have used more facts at times, and had to turn to Wikipedia for help with keeping track of all those people.

The Wolf Hall that gives the book its title is the seat of the Seymours, among those Jane Seymour, who will be Henry’s next wife. Wolf Hall is barely mentioned in this book so it is pretty obvious that a sequel is in the works. I can’t help thinking of the rhyme: “divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”, and I am anxiously looking forward to seeing events unfold.

I am very very glad I read this book and will certainly look for more of Hilary Mantel’s works.

Adlibris, Amazon UK, Amazon US.

One evening in Gran Canaria, I noticed a book lying abandoned on a deck chair, next to a pretty pink scarf. It was still there the evening after. The third evening someone had moved both items from the deck chair (probably they wanted to use it!) onto a ledge. The scarf looked nice but not my colour. The book I picked up because it had a smiling baby on the front cover. If no one had claimed it during three evenings, I figured I could adopt it.

From the back cover of Why Love Matters – How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain:

Why Love Matters explains why love is essential to brain development in the early years of life, and how early interactions between babies and their parents have lasting and serious consequences.

Sue Gerhart goes through all the various ways in which human contact and human relationships affect brain development, and how experiences during the first months and years of life can leave marks for life.

The main thesis is that a baby cannot regulate its own needs, physical or emotional. It needs the help of a caring adult. If that relationship is dysfunctional, if the adult is unable or unwilling to fulfil the baby’s needs, the baby suffers not just immediate discomfort but also longer-term effects. Brain chemistry becomes subtly imbalanced, some parts of the brain do not develop properly, inappropriate emotional habits are founded. In the long run, all kinds of mental and emotional troubles can arise, and Sue Gerhart shows how the former can lead to the latter. Babies of depressed mothers get used to a lack of positive emotions; babies of angry, resentful mothers learn to suppress their feelings. Babies who get no help with soothing negative emotions do not learn how to keep on an even keel.

While some other author on the back cover says “I would recommend it to all new parents” it really isn’t written so as to be accessible by most parents. I would guess it really wasn’t written for the general public but for politicians, social workers, those in charge of childcare facilities, psychologists etc. In particular the book is unlikely to be read by those who need its message the most: those depressed mothers, or the parents who meet their babies’ demands with anger.

A reviewer in The Guardian expresses resounding support and provides a thorough summary.

If there is one thing to take with you from this book, it’s this excerpt (p. 91):

Good timing is a critical aspect of parenting, as well as in comedy. The ability to judge when a baby or child has the capacity to manage a little more self-control, thoughtfulness or independence is not something that books on child development can provide: the timing of moves in a living relationship is an art, not a science. Parents’ sensitivity to the child’s unfolding capacities can often be hampered by an intolerance of dependency. This is partly cultural and partly the result of one’s own early experience. Dependency can evoke powerful reactions. It is often regarded with disgust and repulsion, not as a delightful but fleeting part of experience. It may even be that dependence has a magnetic pull and adults themselves fear getting seduced by it; or that it is just intolerable to give to someone else what you are furious you didn’t gt yourself. […] Often, parents are in such a hurry to make their child independent that they expose their babies to long periods of waiting for food or comfort, or long absences from the mother, in order to achieve this aim. Grandparents only too often reinforce the message that you mustn’t “spoil” the baby by giving in to him.

Unfortunately, leaving a baby to cry or to cope by himself for more than a very short period usually has the reverse effect: it undermines the baby’s confidence in the parent and in the world, leaving him more dependent not less. In the absence of the regulatory partner, a baby can do very little to regulate himself or herself other than to cry louder or to withdraw mentally. But the pain of being dependent like this and being powerless to help yourself leads to primitive psychological defences based on these two options.

[…] The dual nature of the defensive system seems to be built into our genetic programme: it’s either fight or flight. Cry loudly or withdraw. Exaggerate feelings or minimise feelings. Be hyper-aroused or suppress arousal. […] Whichever way the individual turns to find a solution (and these strategies may be used consistently or inconsistently), he or she will not have mastered the basic process of self-regulation and will remain prone to being overdemanding of others or underdemanding.

Adlibris, Amazon US, Amazon UK.

A man (a vain, selfish, cocaine-addicted porn star) is severely burned in a car crash. While in hospital, his new life in his new body seems meaningless to him, so he spends most of his time planning his suicide, once he is released. He is befriended by a woman who tells him stories – among others, the story of how he and she were lovers back in the 14th century. While he thinks she’s obviously deranged, he also enjoys her company. Romantic love ensues.

The story and the short stories inside it are perhaps not thrilling but more than enough to keep reading. The main story line doesn’t have much point to it – nothing particularly interesting happens – other than to trying to prove that a woman can change a man as long as she loves him strongly and deeply enough. The idea would sit well in a romance book but for a book with literary ambitions it is pretty silly.

The 14th century story is much more interesting, as are the short stories – at least stuff happens – even though they also suffer from an overly romantic world view. Salvation through suffering is a recurring theme – dying for your love somehow makes that love worth more.

The whole thing leaves a poor impression. The main character’s emotional development seems quite unrealistic to me, as does the description of the relationship between him and the maybe-crazy woman. They don’t do anything much together; she does her stuff, he reads books, and she helps bathe and exercise his damaged body. And finally a sappy ending.

A mediocre book – OK to read on a long flight and leave at the airport when you get there; not worth keeping in your bookshelf.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris

“Ljust och fräscht” or “light and airy” (literally “light and fresh”) is an eternally recurring theme in ’00s Swedish interior decorating. White is by far the most common colour for walls, and even floors and all furniture. Minimalism is all the rage.

Fredrik Lindström and Henrik Schyffert are two Swedish comedians and media personalities. This book is a print version of a show of theirs, about what is behind the current trend, and was accompanied by a matching comedy show. It’s about chasing perfection, about rootlessness and anxious attempts to not be bourgeois. About making your home reflect your personality, to be unique and individual – but not too unique.

I like to believe that I am immune to the trendiest trends. I am baffled and slightly repulsed by wall letters and wise quotes to paste on your walls, and “distressed” furniture that you paint and then sandpaper to make it look old and worn. I will not have white-on-white rooms, and I want carpets and curtains.

But I, too, want my home to be light and airy. A scary thought: in the seventies everyone wanted their homes colourfully cosy, with pine panelling and orange wallpaper. And now I would not let a ’70s wallpaper into my house. Will our open plan kitchen feel as dated as ’70s basement dens do today?

An interesting book that hits some nails squarely on the head.

Inte sedan funkisen slog igenom på Stockholmsutställningen 1930 har svenskarna haft så enhetlig inredningssmak. Det kan aldrig bli för ljust och fräscht. En bostad kan marknadsföras med en beskrivning som “extremt ljus”, och det är bara positivt. Det kan aldrig bli för ljust! Är det inte tillräckligt ljust så river man ut hela skiten och öppnar upp lite. Det här är så gott som alla överens om.

Translation:

Not since functionalism had its breakthrough at the Stockholm expo in 1930 have Swedes had such uniform taste in interior decorating. There is no such thing as too light and airy. A home can be marketed with a description of “extremely light” and that is only positive. There is no such thing as too light! If it isn’t light enough you just rip out the whole shebang and open it up a bit. Almost everybody agrees on this.

About IKEA, and constantly buying the most current furniture:

Men varför uppfanns det här tänkandet just i Sverige och ingen annanstans? Varför kom ingen annan på “riv ut ditt gamla och daterade hem och satsa på något nytt och fräscht minst vart tionde år-principen”? Ja, kanske för att inget annat land i hela sin samhällsstruktur gjort sig av med det gamla på samma sätt som Sverige gjort. Det svenska samhället omvandlades “blixtsnabbt” från ett fattigt torpar- och utvandrarsamhälle till ett av världens rikaste, det gick på ett par generationer. Då blev det viktigt att hela tiden visa att man tillhörde det nya Sverige, inte minst genom att ha moderna möbler. […] Till slut hade man förnyat Sverige så många vändor att det inte längre fanns någon neutral, tidlös stil att inreda i (om någon nu skulle vara intresserad av att bara ha ett praktiskt och fungerande hem utan attityd). Sverige blev det första landet i världen där man inte längre kunde välja att inreda modernt och daterat, utan var tvungen att göra det.

Translation:

But why did this way of thinking develop in Sweden and nowhere else? Why didn’t anyone else come up with the “tear out your old, dated home and invest in something new and fresh at least once every ten years” principle? Well, perhaps it was because no other country has gotten rid of everything old in the structure of its society the way Sweden has. The Swedish society was transformed at “lightning speed” from a poor society of crofters and emigrants into one of the world’s richest, it happened in a few generations. It became important to show at all times that you belonged to the new Sweden, not least by having modern furniture. […] By the end Sweden had been renewed so many times that there was no neutral, timeless style of decorating any more (if anyone would be interested in just having a practical, functional home without attitude). Sweden became the first country in the world where you could no longer just choose to decorate in a modern and dated style, but you were forced to do so.

Adlibris

Typical wallpapers, by decade, from the 1920s to the 2000s

Ghostwritten is David Mitchell’s debut novel. I’ve previously read and loved Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and Black Swan Green wasn’t bad either. I’m pretty impressed by this one, too.

As in both Cloud Atlas and TTAoJdZ, the structure of the story plays an important role. It’s a mosaic of a book: a novel, and at the same time a collection of 9 short stories (plus an epilogue). Each story stands on its own, but they are also all linked to each other by some minor event or character, and together they make up a larger story. At the very end we are confronted with major events that would never have occurred if the preceding chain of chance meetings had been broken at some point. It’s a kind of “butterfly flaps its wings in Siberia, causes hurricane in Gulf of Mexico” idea: everything is interconnected and small events can have a large effect.

And just like in those two books, this one employs wildly differing people, genres and voices for the different parts: from an old lady tending to a tea-shop on a holy mountain in China, to a courtesan-turned-art thief in St. Petersburg. That last one, the story in St. Petersburg, kept jarring me with names and behaviour that were not quite right for a Russian, and a US reviewer had a similar issue with the New York story. Perhaps Mitchell was a bit too ambitious when trying to cover everything from Irish islands to Mongolia. But luckily I am far less familiar than he is with all the other places, except London, so I had no such problems with the rest of the book.

The ending itself was a bit clichéd, and the next to last chapter (on a small island off the Irish coast) too full of pseudoscientific talk about quantum uncertainty and amateur philosophy.

It is nevertheless a very good book, though slightly weaker than Cloud Atlas, which it most closely resembles. One advantage of this mosaic setup is that I can remember the best stories for their own merits, without contamination from the shortcomings of the weaker ones.

I suppose Mitchell had this idea of small stories making up a larger one and is now trying to perfect it in subsequent books, approaching it from various angles. This is his first attempt, and he only gets better with practice.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

This book is part two in a series – I previously reviewed part one (The Gardens of the Moon).

In fact I barely need to write a review about this book. Everything I said about the first book, except my attempt at a plot summary, could be copied and pasted here and it would still be valid. Erikson is consistent in his style, to say the least. So read that linked post before you continue with this one.

Just like the previous book, this one has a whole bunch of plot threads that work around and between and across and into each other. There is an army protecting some tens of thousands of civilian refugees while they march across a hostile continent to a safe city. There is a group of people who flee from a slave camp, and end up in weird places on the way. There is another group trying to journey to the capital city to kill the empress. There are more wanderers (no one in this world seems to stay in one place!) trying to find some sort of important place for some sort of important reason, but this thread I didn’t manage to keep hold of, sorry. And then some more.

This time I found the book too much.

Too much complexity – I kept getting lost, this time. How did this bunch of people end up where they are, again? And remind me, what did these guys have to do with that thing?

Too much intensity. It’s like the book starts at fortissimo and then goes crescendo from there. When everything is at maximum volume, your ears start to hurt after a while, so what should be the real peaks pass almost unnoticed in the general noise.

Too much monotonous travelling. At times it feels like everybody is on their way somewhere, most of them across a desert landscape, and all Erikson can do is throw more complications in their way just so they don’t arrive too early and too easily. I found myself skipping pages because there was more dusty travelling along with ominous comments about upcoming troubles.

Too much death and darkness. An awful lot of people die in this book. And, as an Amazon reviewer points out, Erikson “rarely lets an opportunity to stop and fetishize a horror go past”. There’s torture and rape and murder left, right and center. It is a book about war, admittedly, but when people get slaughtered in the tens of thousands, you’ve passed some sort of limit. Was that really necessary? Well, perhaps it will turn out to be, in a later book. Right now it just felt awful. It doesn’t exactly entice me to pick up the next book in the series. However several reviewers say that book 3 is more like the first one so I think at some point I will, anyway.

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Adlibris.

A good review, if you want more.

David Mitchell writes impressively varied books. The first one I read, Cloud Atlas, was a story-within-story concoction of speculative fiction. The second one, Black Swan Green, was about a teenager in 1980s Britain. And The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a thriller set in the Dutch trading post at Nagasaki around the year 1800.

It is a carefully constructed book, and just as in Cloud Atlas, there are really several stories here, told in different registers. The stories are all “in line” and in chronological order, rather than embedded in each other, but each has a distinct focus and a characteristic tone. In a single book, Mitchell manages to combine a Shogun-style story of discovering Japan with an adventure story, with a delicate romance, with a tiny bit of military thriller thrown in as well, and some Dracula-like gothic horror, too, for good measure.

There is life at the trading post, viewed through the eyes of Jacob de Zoet, a junior clerk of the Dutch East India Company, has just arrived at Dejima, a small artificial island outside Nagasaki, which is the only place the Dutch are allowed to stay. He is tasked with untangling the records of previous years’ trading, since it appears that the company has lost a lot to corruption and private trading. Here the tiny colony is the world, and Japan proper is alien and outside.

There is life in Japan, still feudal but increasingly run by merchants and moneylenders rather than samurai warriors. We see this life through the eyes of Ogawa Uzaemon, an interpreter. Here Japan is the world, and the Dutch are weird outsiders – and the shift is complete, and the point of view as fully realized as the previous one.

Linking the two men and providing the motive power for the thriller aspect of the story, and indeed setting all the pieces in motion, is Orito Aibagawa. Daughter of a samurai, she is learning Western-style medicine and midwifery from a doctor stationed at the trading post. It will come as no surprise that both men are in love with her.

Mitchell is a masterful user of the English language. There is excellent colourful dialogue – creating a sense of 18th century colloquial Dutch, and of broken Dutch as spoken by more or less Japanese interpreters, with modern English as your only tool, is an impressive feat. There is humour as well as lyrical beauty. Every sentence is exquisitely crafted, but (with the exception of one two-page section) without feeling pretentious.

It is a rich and complex story, sub-plots all feeding into a main one, minor encounters that later turn out to be crucial to making events unfold just so. The colour of a man’s hair makes a naval battle turn one way rather than the other.

I could hardly put this book down once I’d started. It is a wonderful book, engaging, thrilling, rich and beautiful. Dazzling. Brilliant. A delight. (I am running out of suitable praise here.) Read it and enjoy.

Amazon UK, Amazon US, Adlibris.

Mieville has written some totally awesome books (Perdido Street Station, Iron Council), some decent ones (Un Lun Dun) and some not so great ones (Looking for Jake And Other Stories).

Kraken, unfortunately, belongs somewhere towards the bottom of the second group. It isn’t bad, but it’s nowhere near great, either.

A giant squid mysteriously disappears from a museum. Mysteriously, because it disappears together with its equally giant exhibition tank, larger than any door or window or other opening in the room. This disappearance somehow seems to precipitate the end of the world, according to the prophets of various cults, who are in unusual agreement with each other. Billy Harrow, the curator in charge of the squid exhibit, gets tangled up in various efforts to affect this outcome (either to prevent or to hasten it on its way).

This is not the London of the Tube, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus etc. This is a London where weird magic is normal; where the action takes place in abandoned factories, rooftops, church basements and dirty alleyways. As one reviewer at SF Site puts it, “it’s Neverwhere on a bad acid trip”.

There is a lot of energy, ambition and imagination in this book. It would be hard to top the sheer weirdness of Mieville. There are strange cults, weird magic, seriously disturbing villains, including one bad guy who is a tattoo on someone else’s back. Also, somewhat unexpectedly, this book is really funny, though it’s as dark as his other books.

But frankly, after a while, I found the book tedious. For a very long time, Billy and/or his friends are threatened/chased/attacked by various people; they then come up with an idea about who might be behind all this, locate this person, and conclude that no, that wasn’t it, s/he is just seizing an opportunity caused by someone else; loop back to the beginning again. And unfortunately the ending was a damp squib, as I’ve already come to expect of Mieville’s books.

There were too many pages to say not very much. I found myself skimming parts of it. Had it not been written by Mieville, I might have given up halfway through. And when everything and everybody is weird (including, it turns out, poor Billy Harrow himself – he’s not just a bystander caught up in the mess) then after a while I become numb to the weirdness and let it wash over me. Weirdness number 86 no longer feels particularly exciting.

I guess Kraken would be easier to enjoy if you just approached it as a demented geeky/magicky comedy and ignored the weakish storytelling. Because the dialogue is funny, the weirdness is endless, and the level of grotesque detail incredible.

Amazon UK, Amazon US, Adlibris.