Unwrapped: the got and the not-got-lot

One out of six ain’t bad?

Like a bloke proposing to his missus on reality TV, when I posted my Christmas wish-list on a public forum, I was fairly confident of a particular outcome. Someone was going to buy me The Sense of an Ending.  My confidence stemmed from a conversation that followed an earlier conversation in which I’d modestly said I didn’t want anything special or specific for Christmas. I followed this by yelling across our (not altogether large) flat that there was one thing I should, at all costs, be got, please. I’m sure I said please...

So The Sense of an Ending, I got. The others, I did not, not got. I did however receive three additional unlisted, not wished for specifically but interesting (in the good sense) books, from three separate Santas.

When God was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman

According to the back of the book and reviewers from lots of prominent papers whose reviews are, in part, listed there (on the back), this is a ‘captivating, beguiling, mesmerising and whimsical’ book. Set in Essex, Cornwall and then later New York it’s not a memoir but it’s supposed to have that sort of feel (I read the note from the author at the end of the book and it says so). I’m sort of surmising from skim reading a few pages that bad things happen to good people and good people deal with them. Luckily there are avenging fairy Godmother style lesbian aunts and rabbits. It sounds witty and charming. Thanks Santa!

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

'What the Dickens? This wasn’t on my list!’ I snorted – displaying very little gratitude to my real benefactor. It was the exact moment I realised that The Sense of An Ending was my lot – and that all my big hopes and Christmas library dreams were dashed. And that an older man dressed in red, year-round was not the giver of gifts at all. Dash it all. But I should still very much like to read the book – the description of Miss Havisham alone should make it worthwhile. Good one Santa!

Bird Typo – Yukina Narita

Little art book, you’re so fun! Bird Typo does what it says it will on the label. It’s an alphabet-slash-art book with a bird for each letter (even X gets a proper bird – xenops anyone?). Nice work Santa!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering… my birthday is in February.

On the sixth day of my wish-list, my Christmas library

I Want My Hat Back by John Klassen

And now… for a picture book. I lean towards the notion that children’s picture books are as much (maybe more) for grown-ups as children (my fingers aren’t jammy and I turn pages with the proper amount of zeal – i.e. not too much). I’ve gone all year without buying one for myself and I’ve bought lots and lots for wee people belonging to my friends so it’s time, Santa baby, you slipped one under the tree, for me. I’ve been an awful good girl.

One of the great things about a picture book is that you can read it cover-to-cover while you’re in the bookshop. So I’ve already read I Want My Hat Back – but I’d like to read it again. And again.

In the grand tradition of fiction for kids under four (The Little Mole, Are you My Mother, Hug) an animal (here, a bear) is on a quest to find something. Not poo, not his mummy and not a hug. Can you guess what he’s looking for?

Sounds like a book you’ve read before? You haven’t. It’s a bit darker than the aforementioned… it’s a jungle out there (well a forest) and if you steal a hat you might get eaten.

Fabulous illustrations, dark and witty. Not for sensitive souls... but for kids and parents (and childless book lovers) with a streak of evil genius.

Santa baby.... hurry down the chimney tonight.

Taking us to

Six bears searching

Five surreal things

Four Christmas quackers

Three Balkan tigers

Two Barnes’ ending

And a Snicket/Handler teenage love story

On the fifth day of my wish-list, my Christmas library...

1Q84

‘1Q84 – secret Santa gift for my wife'

‘1Q who?’ 

I’d somehow missed the hype that ushered in the new Murakami novel. 
How is this possible? I love Murakami. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World most, Wind-Up Bird Chronicle next.

Even the titles are great – and (as established in yesterday’s entry) I love a pun, even when the double/triple what-have-you entendre is in Japanese. The titular Q, you see, stands for question (apparently) but also for the  ‘kyu’ sound of the word nine in Japanese. Mum, if you’re reading this – I know this, not because I remember anything from high school Japanese, sorry. It’s because I read it in a review. The good news is that while I didn’t learn much in the way of Japanese at school, I did learn to read (though, I agree my spelling could be improved).

So… what can I say – from what I’ve heard (head nod to Mr Kajagoogoo for jogging my memory) it’s, as you’d expect, surreal. Literary and pop culture references abound. It’s crazy long and involves a story within a story and some chrysalises and leprechauns (really). ACE. If there’s a secret Santa out there looking to get me a gift – I’ll have what she’s having thanks.

To recap we’re at:

Five surreal things

Four Christmas quackers

Three Balkan tigers

Two Barnes’ ending

And a Snicket/Handler teenage love story

On the fourth day of my wish-list, my Christmas library

Something non-fiction but not particularly serious to shake things up.

Moby-Duck: The True Story Of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost At Sea And Of The Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, And Fools, Including The Author, Who Went In Search Of Them

I love a pun – and this book sounds like a quacker… And really! How could 28,800 bath toys honest-to-goodness-for-rizza have been lost at sea? How? I must know! Is this incrementally over time – across the long, rich history of bath toys – or were they all lost at once? Were they all rubber ducks? What other sorts of bath toys are there?

So many questions! I must read the book (or someone who has read it must contact me immediately to tell me the answers). Spoiler alert – reading the New York Times article in the link in the title above will answer pretty much all of these questions… but guess what? Hong Kong features. Heyyyyyy! High five H-to-the-K, sometime city of mine.

So on the fourth day of my wish-list, my Christmas library that’s:

Four Christmas quackers

Three Balkan tigers

Two Barnes’ ending

And a Snicket/Handler teenage love story

On the third day of my wish-list, my Christmas library…

Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife

An admission: I love fables and allegories. And tigers. But I’m not keen on books set during or around war (Birdsong is one of my least favourite novels of all time and I couldn’t get through the first 100 pages of The Book Thief). So it’s taken me a little while to weigh these against each other and reach the conclusion that I’d like to read Téa Obreht’s debut and this year's Orange prize-winner.

Here’s what I mean.

The following, nicked from the blurb on the author’s website, really doesn’t do it for me: “In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea.” 

But then… “She turns to the stories [her grandfather] told her when she was a child. On their weekly trips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age.”

Deathless man? Jungle Book? Hells yes.

I hope to add The Tiger’s Wife to my top tiger book faves (The Tiger-Skin Rug, Life of Pi and of course The Jungle Book), but I’m reminded that it doesn’t pay to be so black and white about these things. Not all tiger books have teeth… I was kind of tepidly enthusiastic about The White Tiger and will probably never read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (although I agree neither of these are, strictly speaking, about actual tigers). And war stories? Catch 22… fantastic. Birds without Wings… epic, moving, wonderful.

Taking the list to:

Three Balkan tigers

Two Barnes’ ending

And a Snicket/Handler teenage love story

The second book on my wish list, my Christmas library... two Barnes' ending

A little obvious…  Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

This year’s Booker (Man Booker – whatever it’s called) prize-winner. Short, pithy and apparently very, very good.

In a misguided attempt to read each of this year’s shortlisted titles before the prize was announced – note to self, next year assign this sort of task a timeframe stretching to several months rather than two and a half weeks – I bought this, Jamrach’s Menagerie, The Sisters Brothers and Pigeon English online. They arrived, I unwrapped them – stroked the covers (creepy) and wept to find that I’d accidentally bought the book-on-CD version of Sense of an Ending. I immediately sent it to my parentals. I wept again, after they’d listened to it when they told me that they agree with the Booker judges – it’s very good.

I now know precisely what happens to Patrick DeWitt’s hit killer-cowboys the Sisters Brothers and Carol Birch’s tiger petting, dragon-hunting Jaffy Brown – not to mention Year Seven’s second-best runner 11-year old Ghanaian immigrant Harrison Opoku. But I have absolutely no idea what happens in Julian Barnes’ novel. I loved Arthur and George and I think its fair to say (and bear with me because it is the season of terrible Christmas cracker style jokes) I’d like to get…

Wait for it….

A sense of its ending.

BA-DOOM-CISH!

So that’s two Barnes’ ending…

And a Snicket/Handler teenage love story

On the first day of my wish-list, my Christmas library...

And I’m back! Just in time (more or less) for Christmas. Which means it’s a year (more or less) since BookSelfish began. Pa-poop! Confetti! Party horns! Paper crowns! Exclamation marks for everyone!!!!!!!

In celebration, commiseration and some other 'ation' words – which haven’t yet popped into my addled brain (addled: bad in both nogs of eggish nature and noggins of thirty-something self-styled wannabe bloggers) – I’ve made a Christmas wish-list. 

And count-down.

That’s right! I’m going to post about a  book I’d like to receive every day until Christmas. By my count, that’s eight books… if I’d thought of it sooner I’d have chosen the obvious festive number… (the best number according to both Sesame Street and Santa Claus, twelve).  If I’d thought of it sooner still, I’d have looked for books about drummers drumming and lords leaping. Maybe next year.

So… (you know the tune)

The first book on my wish list, my Christmas library:

A grown-up (well adolescent) Lemony Snicket – Daniel Handler’s Why We Broke Up

It’s been quite a year. Typing this I’ve come to the jaw-dropping epiphany that just as Alexander Skarsgard has surpassed Eddie Izzard to top my get-out-jail free list, so too has Daniel Handler pipped Mr Izzard in my personal hero stakes.

Why We Broke Up is Daniel Handler (AKA Lemony Snicket’s) new novel. It’s really young adult fiction, but we’re past all that right? Age appropriateness is for people who don’t eat cake for breakfast. And while the premise sounds a little trying (at the end of their romance, Min Green presents her ex – also an Eddie – or rather ‘Ed’ – a box of mementos explaining, AHAH!,  why they broke up… because it’s Handler/Snicket at the helm (and, ummm, now that I’ve read the NY Times review) I’m confident in my assessment that it’s going to be fresh, funny and interesting.

So Eddie (Izzard), here’s a virtual box of mementos for you from me. It’s covered in bees and comes with a slice of cake or death (sob). It’s not about the Eurozone, it’s just that I’ve moved on. Here’s why we broke up in one silly Snicket quote. 

To recap... on the first shelf of my wish-list, my Christmas library: a Snicket/Handler teenage love story.