Snow - or should that be "Slow"?

Any form of art is, as we all know, subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. So, if Snow, by Orhan Pamuk is one of your all time favourite books, then please look away now. Highly lauded with multiple 4 and 5 star reviews, I was hopeful that, despite my husband's warnings, this was a book I could get my teeth into. It's opening premise is great - we journey with Ka, a poet and political exile, as he travels on the bus to Kars, a town on the Turkish border. It is snowing hard and memories of his childhood in this place bubble up. He has been assigned to write a story about a worrying "epidemic" of young religious girls who are committing suicide, supposedly as a result of being forbidden from wearing their headscarves. However, when the town is cut off due to a blizzard, Ka finds himself caught in the middle of religious and political turmoil, including a theatrical coup. In the midst of this, Ka falls in love with the beautiful Ipek, who he tries to persuade to come back to Germany with him when the roads reopen again. Obsessed with the snow and his burgeoning love, Ka starts writing poems and hits a creative goldmine over the three days that the action takes place. But Ka cannot ignore the politics and is unwittingly caught between both sides. Needless to say, this doesn't end well. When I read what I've written so far, it sounds like a good story, and the bones of it are, but unfortunately, for me, the execution of telling this tale was dreary, depressing and dull. There is so much focus on the snow that it starts to get really irritating. Ka has no backbone. Other characters feel incredibly shallow. There is a lot of sitting around expounding on the beliefs of the different sides. Repetitious, confusing and frustrating. It left me not caring about any of the characters at all. It took me ages to read because I just couldn't get into it, which made me dislike it even more! I don't think I've ever given up on a book before, but this one was pretty close. If it hadn't been for trying to get through the PopSugar challenge, I probably would have put it to one side and moved on! So glad it's over!

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 24: A book with a weather element in the title.

My STAR rating: TWO.

Length: 448 print pages.
Price I paid: free, borrowed from my husband (he did warn me!)
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

The Go-Between - Sublime!

From the famous opening line - The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there - to the very last word, The Go-Between by L P Hartley is an absolute corker of a book. The story is narrated by Leo Colston, who is around 60 years of age, but whose memories of childhood are brought into sharp focus by the diary he kept during the year 1900. We first see Leo at school where he is bullied into misery until the bullies are vanquished by, so he believes, a magic spell he casts on them. This gives him a bit of celebrity and when one of his few friends, Marcus Maudsley, invites him to stay over the summer, he is thrilled. Leo is desperate to fit in with the Maudsley's whose circle includes a Viscount who is about to propose to Marian, Marcus's older sister. When Marcus becomes ill, Leo has time on his hands and the beautiful Marian pays him such lavish attention that he would do anything to please her, and so he begins to act as a messenger between her and local farmer, Ted Burgess. Set in a more innocent time, Leo is blissfully unaware that he is aiding an illicit love affair. As events unfold, Leo finally realises what's going on, and the bitterness he feels at the betrayal to both himself and the Viscount (who he very much admires) comes to the surface with devastating results. This is a sublime book that cannot help but affect the reader. You can really feel the heat of the summer, the rawness of the betrayal and the utter sadness of the characters who are locked into what is expected of them, but desperate to somehow find a way out. This is a beautifully observed study of class, and childhood, at the turn of the 20th Century. There wasn't anything I didn't like about this book, and as an added bonus, I used the audio edition narrated by the sublime Sean Barrett.

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 20: A book by a local author.

My STAR rating: FIVE.

Length: 336 print pages.
Price I paid: £5.99.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, audio CD, ebook.

The Diary Of A Bookseller - I wish my diary was so amusing!

When Shaun Bythell, owner of the largest second hand book shop in Scotland, decided to start noting down his thoughts about books, customers, his employees and life in general, I'm not sure he envisioned it turning into a book that might appear on his own shelves. However, that's exactly what happened. This memoir is a day to day account of the trials and tribulations of running his shop in a place called Wigtown. If you've ever worked in a shop, cafe, or call centre - indeed anywhere you have to deal with people using your service - you cannot fail to empathise with the author. The many and varied anecdotes - from the banal to the exotic - are at times hilarious and at others, deeply touching. I never thought I would become fascinated by the number of online orders received, customers who visit the shop and the till receipts logged for each day ... but I did. Boy were there some slow days! The Diary Of A Bookseller, should become compulsory reading for anyone contemplating life as a bookseller. There are some sobering passages and it's clear that you have to develop lots of different strings to your bow to make ends meet ... mostly thanks to the all-consuming behemoth that is, Amazon. Buy direct from the high street where you can! Each month is prefaced by a quote from George Orwell's Bookshop Memories - an essay about his time in a second hand bookshop. It's scary how little seems to have changed! A slice of life showing the best and worst of humanity, all within the confines of a drafty, literary sanctuary, where the customer is definitely NOT always right! A really enjoyable book that is still making me smile as I write this blog as I keep remembering "Foodie Fridays", where Shaun's skip-diving employee would offer a weekly treat foraged from a supermarket bin. Delicious!

POPSUGAR Challenge 2018 prompt 39: A book that involves a bookstore or library.

My STAR rating: FOUR.

Length: 320 print pages.
Price I paid: £2.98.
Formats available: print, unabridged audio download, ebook.