Ten Days in a Mad House by Nellie Bly

Upsetting.

For Ten Days in a Mad House Nellie Bly faked insanity.
She got into a mental asylum on Blackwell's Island New York.
In 89 pages she reported how she and her fellow patients were treated by doctors and nurses.

It's one of the most upsetting things I have read. Ever. It's 1887 ... and there is no humanity for ill people. If they are ill after all.
I guess/hope/pray that things have changed all over the world. Though ill people, especially mentally ill people, are still very dependent on doctors and nurses. Who would believe them if they reported being treated like s**t? They are crazy ...

There isn't really much more to say about the book. Read it if you have a few hours to read, and a few more to think.

(What's up with her name ... Google suggested Nellie instead of Nelly. She's called Nelly on the book though.)

You can read parts of it here.

Before I go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

Sleepless.

When Christine wakes up in the morning she thinks she is mid 20 years old. When she opens her eyes she doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know who the man next to her is. Looking in the mirror she doesn't who it is she is seeing.
Christine lost the ability retain any memory ... everything is lost as soon as she falls asleep. She's mid 50 (I think) and the man next to her is Ben, her husband.
Before I go to Sleep follows Christine's efforts to get better. Her efforts to form a live. After meeting a doctor, she starts writing a journal, which takes most part of the book - so the reader learns bits and pieces of her past and her live with her. We get to know her Doctor and her husband better than she does. We get to know who's worth trusting and believing.

Progressing through the book, it's not only Christine's memory changing, it's the way she writes too. I found it a bit hard to get into in the beginning ... basically just because every journal entry would start the same way. After a while she starts leaving out the beginnings of the day, so reading goes a bit smoother.

It, hardly any surprise there, makes you appreciate your memory. Everything is based on having a memory of the day before today, the year before or even ten years before. This is what makes your personality. Planning the future is based your memory. You learn from experience, you grow with them. Your character and personality relies on memories. It's not that Christine doesn't have a personality though ... by reading her journal, which really contains her deepest thoughts we get to know her.
And when you think about your childhood, your teens and college years - think about if the memories you have are really representing the experiences you had? False memories? Confabulations? How do you know?
It also makes you think about the people around you. Who do you think you can trust fully and why do you think you can?

The thing that strikes me most about the book is how realistic it is. Cases similar to that really do exist. Clive Wearing has a memory span of half minute if he is lucky. (This makes him the sweetest husband on the planet though; check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDNDRDJy-vo). He doesn't even know what exactly he is eating. Thinks he's never seen a doctor. Has no thoughts. But remembers his wife. I love Clive. Such an awesome case.

Right ... if you're interested in memory and living without it I guess this book is a good read. And it's a lot better than the covers makes you think. I really wish they'd have put a bit more effort in the design of the cover.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

Interesting.

The life of July (such pretty name) is rather harsh. She is born a slave in Jamaica, and taken away from her mom to entertain the fat white mistress from England with 9 years. However the story takes place in the 1830's the chaos and end of slavery years in Jamaica.
Through July (and her son Thomas) Levy describes how chaotic and weird life was for everyone at that time. How everything changes within minutes, how white people panic (how could they possibly survive?) once a revolution starts.

I don't really know anything (take the really away, I don't know a thing) about slavery, but Levy gives a pretty authentic description of things...and checking the rest of the interwebs it's pretty accurately researched.

So it's well written (sometimes rather hard to read, though that's intended I think), interesting book. And we could all do with a little extra knowledge, right?!

One Day by David Nicholls

Long...ish.

The story follows Dexter and Emma. They get together after their graduation 15th July 1988, with heads full ideas and plans for their future. The reader now gets to read what they do 15th July for the next 20 years. There is a lot of love, a lot of friendship, job success and massive failures on both sides. But somehow they manage to keep in touch, closer and further apart every now and then.

It's pretty cool because you don't just learn about the two of them but general feeling of the 90's, how lifestyle and life itself changed. They grow up (more or less) with all the common problems and joys. However there is a point within the middle ish end, where I wished it was a short story ... or at least would follow them for only 10 years, because there is not a lot left to say after a while. Though even the mini boredom, it picks up with a neat unexpected end (where again you wish it'd be over...there is no need for the last chapter, really there isn't).

Nice for summer I guess.

Oh there is going to movie with Miss Hathaway and lovely Mr Sturgess (the trailer gives a lot of story away though).

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Undecided.

Such highly popular and critically acclaimed novel ... and although I've read it months ago I can't decide if I liked it or not.

The story is relatively simple: Pi loses his family in an accident while travelling on a container ship to Canada. He survives together with a tiger, a hyena and a zebra. On a boat.

Once you got into the story (which took me 3 attempts and a lot of will power) the story makes sense for somewhat reason. And even though they are on a boat in the middle of the ocean it doesn't get boring.

Apparently it's the end that gets everyone (people have cried and laughed and fallen in love with the novel because of the end) but I just don't get it. I mean I do understand the story and the meaning and what he tries to tell ... but I don't get the hype around it. When I finished it I didn't really like it.
BUT
I couldn't stop thinking about it. For days afterwards I thought about the boy on the sea with his tiger. About his weird encounters with different fish and sharks and all that.

It's definitely worth the time for a read and worth all thoughts you may have about ... but I'm not sure if I thought it was that amazing.

Fatherland by Robert Harris

Incredible.

Fatherland is a crime novel taking place in the mid 1960's Berlin. Hitler is still alive and won the war.

The plot follows police detective Xavier March, and his investigation of the death of a high-ranking Nazi.  Soon March realizes that he is in the middle of a political scandal in which senior party leaders kill a certain group of people. He's supposed to be taken off the case.

However, March meets an American journalist, Charlie Maguire, who knows the case from a different angle. 

After both travel to Zurich together to check out the bank account of one of the victims, they uncover the missing details behind the murders.

Now though the plot may sound kind of interesting (which it really is!), it's the whole set up of the novel that gets the reader. Harris creates a Germany, a Berlin and a completely new history without going nuts on the amount of creative possibilities, but with a lot of research and sense. It's even more awesome if know Berlin and which areas of the town he's actually talking about.


The novel really does create an impression of Nazi Germany if Hitler had won the war. It also shows how European countries and in fact the rest of the world deal with it (or not). It shows how people live and fear, and you're never 100% sure if they follow their leader because they want him or because they have to. It also creates a new level to the question of knowing. 


And because the whole novel is so amazing, the end is almost too good to be true.

Love in the Time of Cholera by G. G. Marquez

My World Book Night give away.

Listen to this while you're reading ... but only if you like Shakira.

The story follows Florentino Arizo around for most of his life. Fermina is the woman he loves since he is very young. She decided against him and married a Doctor. So Florentino fills his live with other women (loads of them). He never forgets Fermina, never stops loving her. When her husband dies in a rather comical accident Florentino sees a chance for his dream love to become true. 

The awesome thing about the story, other than being unbelievably sad and romantic, is that it manages to follow him for more than 50 years. It shows his live and how it and the world around changes. The impact he makes on women, the impact he makes on their husbands, his work and his pain. Even though 50 years sound really long for a novel ... it never gets boring. There is just so much happening in his life (and of course you also want to know if they manage to get together in the end) so it's a relatively easy, but also really interesting read.

Let me know if you want a copy ... I have about 45 of them lying around. The copies are of course for the world book night. But living in Aberdeen there will be no major event ... so it won't be the easiest thing to get the books to people.

(Btw. if you have seen the movie and thought it was super dramatic and screamy and girly, don't be scared. I love the movie because of all the above factors, but the book is a lot better.)