Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale

Patrick Gale's book Notes from an exhibition centres around the life of renowned artist Rachel Kelly who suffers from Bipolar Disorder. Gale explores the effects that mental illness has on a family as a whole. The book is heavily characterised and the reader gradually discovers the consequences that Kelly's illness has had for each of her children and also her devoted husband Anthony.

Gale is particularly clever in the way he opens each chapter with an exhibition note about a piece of Kelly's work. You gradually build up a picture of the kind of art that she created and the images described become very vivid and real. The book does jump back and forth in time which I usually find quite irritating but it was really well done and allowed you to get a good account of Kelly's life as a whole.

It did take me a while to get into this book but I did enjoy it, I think that the author dealt with a really serious issue in a very sensitive but informative manner.

Booking Through Thursday

This is my first Booking Through Thursday , I kept seeing it on other peoples pages and thought that I would give it a go.

Do your reading habits change in the Spring? Do you read gardening books? Even if you don’t have a garden? More light fiction than during the Winter? Less? Travel books? Light paperbacks you can stick in a knapsack?
Or do you pretty much read the same kinds of things in the Spring as you do the rest of the year?



Hmmm, when I initially read this question I felt that my reading habits do not change throughout the year but looking back over what I have actually read, they clearly do. In the Autumn and Winter I do seem to prefer something a bit darker, murder mysteries etc and I seem to read more light hearted fiction as the days get lighter. I still read as much during the Spring and Summer but I do love to curl up with a good book when the weather is horrible outside, there is definitely something comforting about that.

37 out of 1001

My lovely, lovely, lovely sister over at Fairy cakes and more bought me this book which I had been wanting for absolutely ages! It arrived in the post this weekend and I finally got to sit and have a good look through it last night. It is a really lovely present, there's about 300 words about each entry and beautiful pictures througout. Obviously the best bit is that it is all about books!! I am really excited about adding lots of these to my TBR list. As many of the reviews say, not everyone will agree with the list and there were many books that I were shocked not to find. It is a good starting point however to lead you to books that you may not have read; after counting up last night I have only managed 37 out of 1001 so I had best go and update my Amazon wish list!

Busy, busy busy!

I have definitely fallen behind with my reading but there has been quite a lot going on- our dog Henry had to go for an operation and has needed lots of fuss and careful watching; this has not been aided by the fact that he ate a whole sock on his return so we are eagerly anticipating it's reappearance or another trip to the vets!

Mr medical student and I have also finally decided to actually set a date and get married next year. We have been engaged forever but we now will be taking our vows in July 2009 so I admit that I have spent many an hour since looking at pictures of wedding dresses and cakes. However we have plenty of time to plan and make copious lists so I intend to sort myself out this week and finish Notes from an Exhibition, which until I was distracted I was really enjoying so more about that later in the week!

Friday Offering

Digging by Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curts cuts of an edge

Through living roots waken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier is my favourite book so I am always a bit anxious when I read anything else by her although I loved My Cousin Rachel. However somebody bought me a lovely boxed set of Du Maurier's novels and I decided to try this one first as I am saving Rebecca for a re-read when I go on holiday.

I have to say that I was not disappointed, unfortunately I hurt my back last week so was forced into a very upright chair with a bag of frozen peas to ease the pain; I couldn't really do much but read and this book was perfect for such an occasion. Once I had started reading I could not put it down and it was finished within two days.

The main character is Lady Dona St Columb- she is beautiful and rebellious and in search of an escape from the courtly life which she has to share with her odious husband. She takes leave to Navron House; the family estate in Cornwall, leaving her husband and her other persona behind. At first Dona is content in enjoying the solitude and playing with her children. Yet everything changes when she accidentally comes across a sailing ship anchored in the hidden creek on the estate; this leads her to an encounter with the enigmatic Captain Jean Aubrey. As the two become close she involves herself in a dangerous plot to steal another ship- exactly the kind of excitement she had been yearning for.

Daphne Du Maurier does what she does best with this book and challenges the reader. On face-value this book could seem like a very typical romance with the lady of the manor falling for the mysterious, dangerous man that she knows full well she should really avoid. However, there is more to it than that; I really struggled with my opinion of Dona throughout the book. Initially I was pleased that she had escaped her annoying husband and then excited when she meets her match in Jean Aubrey but then you are led to question whether she should really have just left her children just so she could go on an adventure. So towards the last few chapters I found myself disliking her a little as I saw her to be selfish yet I still wanted her to have a happy ending. For me though this is what I love about the author; she raises so many issues with such clever subtlety that you know when you have finished that it was not just some soppy romance novel but that you will be thinking about it long after you have turned the last page.

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

I love Italy and anything to do with its history and culture and I think this is what led me to read this book. The author, Mark Mills is a graduate of Camridge University and has himself lived in Italy. His first and only other novel The Whaleboat House won the Crime Writer's Association Award for Best Novel by a debut author in 2004; another one to add to my TBR list!
The Savage Garden is set in Tuscany in 1958; the protagonist Adam Strickland, a Cambridge scholar is sent to the Villa Docci in order to use its memorial garden as the subject of his impending thesis.
As Adam unravels the secrets hidden within the garden he also discovers that the current members of the Docci family have things to hide. There are two separate stories of love, jealousy, revenge and murder separated by 400 years which lead Adam into the Docci family's tangled web.

I was totally gripped by this book, it is a great murder mystery but it also offers so much more. Mills has created Villa Docci and its gardens perfectly. The descriptions are beautifully vivid with all the undertones of darkness and mystery needed to keep the reader interested. As I said earlier on in the week I do like it when books lead you directly on to others; Mills uses Dante's The Divine Comedy as a strong theme within Adam's discoveries and I found this particulalry interesting. I have only ever read excerpts of The Divine Comedy but I do now want to take the time to read the whole book but I may just have a little break and some Daphne Du Maurier first!

Letters from Menabilly

This came in the post today, reading through dovegreyreader's blog and the recent media interest in Daphne by Justine Picardie I realised that I had not dipped into Du Maurier world for a while. This seems like something a bit different, they are the letters between Daphne Du Maurier and Oriel Malet who was a writer twenty years younger. Their friendship spanned over 3o years and the letters between the two women are said to offer an insight into Daphne Du Maurier as a person and how her life influenced her writing.

I am nearly three quarters of the way through The Savage Garden by Mark Mills and I am really enjoying it- I love it when one book leads you on to read another and this sent me searching for a copy of Dante's The Divine Comedy which I have never taken the time to read but it features as a theme in Mill's book so I am going to give it a go also.