The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

Homos and Margaret Thatcher in a book hefty enough to act as a weapon when concealed in a handbag? Don't mind if I do.

Let me break it down for you: 80s; White collar gay boy goes to Fancy University where he meets adobs straight rich boy; Moves into London house of said boy's family as lodger; Daddy of said boy is MP in gay boy's patch. Complicated.

Wow. If only all vastly complex, intimately nuanced Booker prize-winning novels could be described like that, 'eh? Maybe they should make that a criteria on the entry form or something.

So anyway. This is a very London book - jaunts on Hampstead Heath, coke in bathrooms, cycling in traffic, canoodling in Chelsea, mischief in Notting Hill, keyed gardens, riding the bus - it's all there. I guess if I was into dogging and loaded blokes this might be like reading Monkey Grip. Alas.

God, I don't know why I'm finding it so hard to express that I absolutely loved this book. From page 1, it's tits on a bull obvious that this isn't going to end well. Truly, you can see the tragic writing on the wall from a mile off. Let me be clear here: this is not a problem, it just means you are, step by step, watching a train crash. And falling in love with all the passengers even as the impact throws them out of their seats.

It's beautiful.

What I Loved Siri Hustvedt

Warning - tear-jerker. That's a warning for anyone other than Nicole reading this, unlikely, as she clearly already has. 

What's interesting to me though is that in both of these books (this one, and the one you just blogged about) the woman has to leave the relationship and the home to grow & change. What do you reckon that's about? I mean, completely different circumstances by the sounds of it, but it's like that archetypal storyline in children's fiction where the parents are somehow 'not there', either the kids go to boarding school, or it's Summer holidays, or whatever, but this lets things happen, creates the space for a-typical events to take place. 

This story interested me from the point of view of the young man, actually. Kind of a ridiculous thing to say, since I guess the whole book is about how your point of view frames everything - truth, love, art - without you being able to really do a single thing about it, even in the unlikely event you're aware of its influence. Anyway, yes - Mark. Fascinating. What to take from this? That having 3 parents will really mess with your juju? That everyone who wore fluro was a monster? I don't know, but there was a lot, I felt at the end, that was unresolved with that character. 

This was my first Hustveldt, so I guess I'm going to be looking to you, Lovelock, for where to go next, ploise.

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Treasure by Edmund de Waal

Here's a book disguised as a book about a tiny white ceramic rabbit which is actually about THE ENTIRE WORLD. Well, ish. 

Edmund de Waal is, apparently, a well famous potter. I guess however famous you are for potting (?) I'm going to be far too philistine to have ever heard of you. But, be that as it may, what I'm getting at here is that despite having put together a truly incredible, captivating book, that's not even his real job. But then, I guess a potter writing a book about a tiny white ceramic rabbit makes, I guess, more sense than a carpenter doing it.

This book charts the journey of a set of these tiny objects - Japanese netsuke - from where Edmund's distant relative bought them in Paris in the 1870s to Edmund's London home today. So what? So what?! These little guys - essentially a really old Japanese belt keepers - accompany a Russian Jewish family through Paris, Vienna, Czechoslovakia, back to Japan and then onto London, taking in some of the most vitriolic anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish sentiment, seeing the rise and fall of a fortune, witnessing incredible wealth, indecipherable suffering and cataclysmic change. They are toys, curiosities, emblems, talismans, treasures.

Also, there's a family tree in the front, and I really like that junk.

You need to be able to devote yourself to this a bit - it's non-fiction with people and places and names and events you're going to want to keep track of - but it's absolutely worth it.

You'll be sorry when I'm dead by Marieke Hardy

You will either LOVE this book, or you will FUCKING HATE IT. Some chapters, I switched between huge snorts of laughter to being semi-disgusted at her conduct, which has been pretty shady at times. I admire that Hardy has no filter (even employing quite an endearing mechanic where she writes about an episode involving someone else, be an ex-lover or a bestie, and then gets them to write their side of the story). They don’t always match up, so it’s fascinating exercise in memory and how we like to write our own histories. It’s pretty admirable but can also be way over-sharing. And this is a girl that likes to over-share. Over-sharing is her stock in trade. Often it’s backed up by hilarious anecdotes about being a borderline alcoholic with a penchant for bad boys in Melbourne bands during the Noughties. Does it seem a little premature for her to essentially be writing her memoirs to date? Just a tad. Has she achieved a lot for her young years? For sure (see her Women of Letters project) Does she come off like a petulant adolescent at times? Totally. Do I think she gives a toss? Not likely. Life

would be boring without firecrackers like her going off at random … I’m just kind of glad that I don’t have to deal with her at 2am on a Sunday night.

The Summer without men by Siri Hustvedt

Another one of my favourite writers; she of What I Loved (which was creepy and awesome and confusing) and The Sorrows of an American (unnerving and suspensful) but this sadly, was not my favourite book. I find her writing in this to be a little overwrought, or maybe over-thought, like she was trying to prove how smart and erudite sh

e is. Making a massive assumption on someone whom I’ve never met, I’d put money on her being fiercely intelligent, likes to fight with her husband after a glass of red too many and slightly high-strung. I like these women but she seems high maintenance (is this being sexist? I’m sure I could say the same of male writers – Franzen would be slightly off kilter for sure. Eggers, definitely). Can you make this judgement based on their writing? I point to cases of some other favourite female writers and say yes: I’m looking at you Joan Didion and Lily Brett. Anyway, back to the book. Man cheats on wife of many years with a young Frenchie, woman rents a house out of town and teaches a writing class for teenage girls, makes friends with the young neighbour and her family, gets visits by daughter, sees shrink, husband asks for wifey back at the end. No-one gets blown up, there is not much action, just the slow breakdowns and build-ups of human relationships. The whole thing is a little bit plodding, a little bit “let’s spend time in psychoanalysis land”, but there are rays of sunshine. Like when she as the teacher spends time with the bratty teenagers as they turn on each other (bought back many memories) and her friendship with her mum’s subversive nursing home buddy Abigail, who reminded me of my Gran. The rest is….mas o menos.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Oh Mr Eugenides, you make me swoon with your literary smarts; your witty pop-culture references; your cliché-free relationship observations and your general cleverness. Now might not be the time to tell you that I never read The Virgin Suicides I thought maybe the praise was just a tad over the top. But you’ve really got me with this one.

Leonard. Never has a character with such an unsexy name been so captivating. Immeasurably flawed, hilariously depressed, unaccountable for his dastardly actions and constantly over-worked brain, he is one of modern literature’s most brightly coloured protaganists. He made me laugh out loud and cringe inwardly with every awkward incident. His long-suffering girlfriend (and maybe too long-suffering in the end for my tastes) Madeline is writing her thesis on “The Marriage Plot” which lies at the heart of many of Austen’s novels. She is a book lover, and I love reading novels that are self reflexive like that – ones that are nodding to the books that the author has been read, shaped by, appreciated to get to the point where he/she is writing one themselves. Then crazy Mitchell rounds out this love triangle, and the ending is neither treacly nor expected. And the whole book is just exceptionally clever and sparky and kind of amazing. I would put it up there with A Visit from the Goon Squad as being in my top five of the past five years. You can listen to an excellent podcast of Eugenides in conversation with the ABC's Books and Arts program here

Before I go to sleep by S.J Watson

Is it compulsory to have just your initials instead of your full name if you’re a crime writer? All signs point to yes. The premise of this book really got me in the store: woman wakes up next to a man she doesn’t know, has to read her journal to piece together that she has amnesia from a car accident, doesn’t recognise her husband but knows something is not quite right. I don’t read them often, but I am totally partial to a good thriller. This did not quest my thrill thirst though. It builds in a nice, unsettling way but the pay-off left me feeling decidedly short-changed.

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz

The first 60 pages of this book were unstoppable. And from there, it descended into a kind of Shantaram-/The Killing-style chaotic, unplanned, rambling, self-absorbed twaddle. Obviously that didn't stop me from reading it, but by the end I did want to write the guy an invoice for the hours of my life I spent reading this and will never recover.

The question of 'must I become my father/how do I step out from the shadow of my father and then crawl out from under the weight of my sumo-sized uncle?' and 'is there any such thing as 'good'?' are all worthy of a discursive narrative, but the characters in this book are too utterly ridiculous for any fruits of this pondering to have any credibility.

In a Shantaram-tastic way, some of the stories in this book are utterly brilliant. But it's like how simply wearing all your favourite clothes at once does not necessarily an outfit make. Countless people (those who short-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, to name a few) disagree with me about this, but clearly they are wrong got something out of this that I didn't. Good for them.

Sorry dude, no dice.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid

This is one of those 'I am talking directly to you, dear reader, as we sit here communing about something unrelated' guys. I am about 101% certain there is a literary term for that, and if I knew what it was I'd use it. But I don't, and well-looky here! I think you know exactly what I'm getting at. Shocker. Wait - I'll make a term up for you - direct-ism-alisation-alist. Say that out loud 5 times!

I can't help but feel I've read this before, but as I've discussed elsewhere, that's the whole point of this blog. I digress.

Brown guy from formerly-wealthy-but-now-in-decline, post-Rajish family goes to Princeton to learn the money making business. Falls in love with loaded white girl suffering from the wealthiest of ailments - poor mental health and literary aspirations - when suddenly(!) a large building explodes in the sky. You know where this is going, don't you?

It's a book about 'other' and 'love' and 'honour' and 'shit like that'. It will not change your life, but it will stave off spirit-crushing bordem if you should find yourself in a position where that's possible and this happens to be within arm's reach.

Christie-mas: Amber Margaret, Festive DetectiveBy the Pricking of my Thumbs, Murder in Mesopotamia and At Bertram's Hotel

Not being religious in any way (as you know), I have found rituals other than felling perfectly good trees and covering them in hideous lights, kissing under undergrowth, writing vacuous ugly cards, etc. to attach to the time commonly known as Christmas. I celebrate what can more accurately be described as 'Christie-mas'.

My festive ritual, chiefly undertaken during that week-that-is-unlike-any-other-week period between Christmas and new year, is a golden time of indulgence when I become Amber Margaret, Festive Detective. I can do and have done this variously: on a beach; before a fire; under a doona; in a hammock; etc, as it basically entails me chain-reading Agatha Christie novels until I am an ageing egg-headed Belgian/nosy moth ball-smelling spinster. And? I love it. It's something I believe in wholeheartedly.

This year I devoured 3 titles, one each of Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot and one Tommy & Tuppence. 'Tommy and Tuppence? Who the hell?', I hear you ask. Reasonable question, really, since they don't get much airplay, appearing in only 4 of Christie's 66 detective novels. Unlike Marple and Poirot, however, Tommy & Tuppence age over the course of their novels. Where Poirot is consistently a retired old dude, and Miss Marple is, well, naggered from the get go, over the course of their novels Tommy & Tuppence fall in love, raise a family and then, as in By the Pricking of my Thumbs, enjoy the freedom that comes with being empty nested. It's kind of nice. Anyway, I don't really rate them as detectives and the mad old lady/daft vicar routine of this book was a bit thin, but Tommy & Tuppence and their man Albert are such a cute little unit that they kind of get away with it.

I couldn't help but feel that At Bertram's Hotel was written for tv, and that Agatha fancied filming in a kind of lush hotel location, really, but it was interesting to see Jane Marple operate in an urban setting, rather than in some far flung village/sea side location. And, as usual, she smashed it. Miss Marple for President.

Now, I've said this before, but I absolutely prefer the 'indi-Christies', featuring none of the stars of the Christie-verse, and in fact, as I said after last year's Christie-mas, Poirot is possibly my least favourite. But, when one leaves one's library going too late, sometimes one is not in a position to be selective. And Murder in Mesopotamia was actually really good. Christie trained as a nurse and an apothecary during the war and her second husband was an archaeologist and when her writing draws on these lived experiences, Christie is really at her best. Poirot was, as usual, incredibly irritating, but this was an excellent example of the lady at her craft.

But, and here we get to the scene where everyone is in the drawing room, waiting with bated breathe for the murderer to be revealed, something very unusual happened this Christie-mas. I had finished the three novels and picked up The Labours of Hercules. I hadn't appreciated this during my frenzied grab at the library, but this was a book of short stories. Shortly after I started reading, I realised there had, indeed, been a murder. I feel like the private detective who discovers her hero did it, and I didn't want to tell you. I tried to hush it up, hoping it would go away, but it's time I came clean...

Agatha Christie murdered the short story form. Brutally. With no conscience. That's right: They were shit. Epic fail. Like, possibly some of the worst short stories I've read outside the confines of a grade 9 remedial English class. I didn't finish it. I'm sorry, Agatha.

I felt a bit like I'd just opened a present from Santa and found it broken in the box. The reason I come to Agatha at this time of year is her dependability. Until now, I thought she was infallible. Safe. I believed in her. And now I find she's just human, like Santa. It's not the bike I asked for, if you know what I mean. It's an ill-fitting scratchy woollen jumper. I need to find something to wash that disappointed taste out of my mouth and hope I can repair the relationship before next Christie-mas.

Women of Letters curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire

I secretly love this book because it’s about chicks writing to each other. And I’m a chick who loves both writing and receiving letters. And I secretly hate this book because I’m not in it and it makes me feel uncool; like somehow after 25 I gave up any bohemian ideals I might have had and grew up, instead of cultivating vagabond friends and an addiction to rollies and cask red wine. Lord knows it could have happened.

Originally conceived as a series of Sunday afternoon salons bringing together women on a variety of topics, organisers and gals about town Marieke Hardy (she of former Triple J brekkie hosting) and Michaela McGuire have bought together some of their fav women on a selection of topics, from "To my first boss" to " To the song I wish I'd written".

This book is full of carefully selected very Melbourne women (in the Catherine Deveny criteria sense of the word), from Helen Razer to Angie Hart to Missy Higgens to Joan Kirner. Many are dead-set brilliant (Celia Pacquloa take a bow for your hilarious teenage ode to gatecrashing a party; Peggy Frew on knowing when the end of a relationship is nigh; Sophie Black on being the work experience kid at New Idea; Eddie Perfect’s perfect love letter to his wife; Terri Psiakis on being inspired to be a comedian); Megan Washington’s intro describing her house in North Fitzroy taking me right back to Best St circa 2004). Some are just plain shite, and even more so considering the good and intelligent company they are keeping (Helen Razor, the angry shtick is getting very old; Anna Krien that description of crabs was way too graphic; Lindsay McDougall’s failed attempt at irony; Bhakti Puvanenthiran I don’t know who you are but your story didn’t make sense and should have been cut out).

Perhaps I could loan this to you and send a letter enclosed….now THERE'S an idea.

The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

As acerbic as drinking vinegar and sometimes as sharp as squeezing lemon juice into a papercut, Yates wrote of the Age of Anxiety – the decades (hell, the lifetimes) where women were meant to accept the social norms of family life no matter how abnormal things might be behind closed doors. He manages to hint at something that’s going rotten in suburbia, by writing the most amazing female characters. How does he get inside their heads so expertly? How does he manage to make men seem both manipulative and pathetic? Reading this is like being in a slow motion car crash – we know it’s going to end badly but we can’t stop it. “Make better choices!!” we scream at the characters, but to no avail.

Just like his earlier Revolutionary Road pulled the rug out from under the construct of the perfect marriage, The Easter Parade looks at the dysfunction of two sisters and the different paths their lives take. It’s a short book that fast forwards through 40 years; showing the optimism of the sisters’ youths through to troubled middle age where careers turn out to be just jobs and getting beaten by your husband turns into the highlight of your day, because someone pays you some attention. It’s a book heavy with sadness and a sharp reminder for women to never take life granted; before you know it, you’re the crazy old lady who used to be pretty and coulda been a contender. The writing itself is sublime – every word is used for a reason and there is something very special about reading a book this well written. It’s taken me a while but I’m very glad I found you Mr Yates.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

Having been blown away by two of his non-fiction works that I’ve read this year, I went back to the start of Mr Eggers writing – the modestly but completely tongue-in-cheek named AHWOSG. It’s a confusing, angry, loving and tender soup of a book that sometimes loses itself by being a bit too clever for its own good. Eggers’ struggle with the fact that he’s writing this book at all is palpable; each chapter a self-flagellating exercise. Obviously a very smart kid from a working class family that has an extremely shit run of luck, I wonder if his parents both hadn’t of died, leaving him to look after his younger brother Toph, would he have had that cataclysmic anger and misfortune to propel this book? Had they lived to a ripe old age, would he have been happier and had a more carefree life, playing Frisbee and getting drunk and stoned with his college buddies, without this burning sense of injustice? And there might be the crux: I think Eggers knows that he has “used” the experience of his parents dying as fuel for this novel’s fire, and he hates himself for it, with some chapters pummelling himself and his motivation for writing the book in the first place.

But you know what man? It’s your experience, it’s one that not much good can come of whichever way you slice and dice it, so I think your parents would be more than proud.

*Note: I read in a profile on Eggers that his sister Beth killed herself at 33. The answer to the question ‘How much heartbreak can one person take?” is still being tested. And I hope Toph is ok.