Book of Lost Threads (Tess Evans)

Title: Book of Lost Threads 
Author: Tess Evans
Published: 2010
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Pages: 368
Source: Own copy
Genres: Contemporary Fiction
Goodreads  |  Amazon.com





Book of Lost Threads tells the story of Moss, a young woman who runs away from Melbourne (Australia) to the small town of Opportunity on the search for someone. In Opportunity she encounters Finn, a brilliant mathematician and a recluse, Lily Pargetter, an 83 year old knitter of tea cosies for the UN who is also trying to find someone and Sandy, the town joke who is trying to find his place in his own town. The four of them strike up an unlikely friendship which leads them all to evaluate their own lives and find strength in each other.

Book of Lost Threads is Tess Evans' first novel and she is an Australian author. I was very impressed with this as a first novel and I wouldn't have known the author was new to writing if I hadn't read the author profile in the back of the book.

The characters are incredibly likeable and it is very easy to engage with them all. I was trying to think who was my favourite but I couldn't quite decide. I absolutely loved Lily and her dedication to her tea cosies for the UN which is such a great side story, and I really felt great empathy for her suffering such a great loss in her life. But Finn as the town recluse who is battling his own demons and who lived for a time in a monastery is such an intriguing character. And Moss, with her two mothers; Amy and Lindsey deals with situations in a very relateable way.

The beginning of the book pulls you in and sets a steady pace but the story does seem to flounder a little in the middle and lose its way. Thankfully things pick up again and the end ties everything in well. One of my only issues is that some of the smaller supporting characters seem to get thrown in there at the last minute with no apparent cause. Hamish, a friend (and potential love interest) of Moss' seems to just get thrown in from nowhere but doesn't really add anything to the story, along with a few other minor characters living in Opportunity that seem to have more mention in the epilogue then anywhere else in the story so you really can't buy into them at all. Other than that it was an enjoyable light read, a good one to read on holiday or at the beach.

Read It

Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans

My Christmas Wish List

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas! Yep it's that time of year again and now that December has rolled around we all know that we are secretly (or maybe not so secretly) wishing for a book or two.  So it's about time to put out my Christmas book wish list. These are my top 5 books I want for Christmas. What's on your list this Christmas?


1 - Winter of the World - Ken Follett
2 - The Circus of Ghosts - Barbara Ewing
3 - The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
4 - Charlotte Street - Danny Wallace
5 - Is It Just Me? - Miranda Hart

Maus, Vol 1 (Art Spiegelman)

Title: Maus, Vol 1: My Father Bleeds History
Author: Art Spiegelman
First Published: 1986
This Edition Published: 1991
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Pages: 160
Source: Book club
Genres: Graphic Novels, Non Fiction
Goodreads  |  Amazon.com


I have not read many graphic novels in my life. It is not a literary medium that I am overly familiar with, however they do intrigue me greatly. After the highly acclaimed conversion of some famous graphic novels into movie format, such as the likes of Watchmen and Sin City, graphic novels have certainly started hitting the radars of a number of book bloggers. A few of them such as Maus and Persepolis really help to bridge the divide for readers and I believe are a must for any book enthusiast.

Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, told by his son Art Spiegelman who is not only trying to come to terms with his father's story but his entire relationship with his father. Maus is an incredibly powerful portrayal of one families story. I think one of the biggest things to note is that this is not simply a story of Vladek's time in Poland during World War II but also a unique exploration of one man's relationship with his father. I think it is this aspect that really personalises the story and allows us to connect with it.

The Graphic Novel concept itself is also unique in that it uses animals to depict the different races throughout the novel with Jews as mice, Nazis as cats and Poles as pigs. This leads into some incredible imagery such as characters wearing masks of the other animals when they are trying to hide who they are. One particular excerpt stayed with me where Vladek and his wife Anja are walking the streets at night and he knows he has to find them a place to hide before daylight as although he could pass as Pole more easily "But Anja - her appearance - you could see more easy she was Jewish". To accompany this the imagery showed Anja depicted with a pig mask but you could see poking out from her long cloak a very definitive mouse tail.

Maus is an incredibly unique view of the impact of the Holocaust on a single family. I am really looking forward to reading part II.

Read It

Maus Vol 1 by Art Spiegelman

It's Monday, What are you reading? 19 Nov 2011

It's Monday. What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Book Journey to outline what you have been reading and what you plan to read this week.

Last week I went up to Auckland for a few days to visit my sister and made a guest appearance at my old book club and luckily for me my favorite second hand book shop in Ngatea was open on my way through. This turned out to be incredibly great timing because they were in desperate need to make some space for some new books and so they were giving away a bunch of hardback books for free because they are the slowest type to move in a second hand book shop. I grabbed a stack load thinking even the ones I don't read I would give away to those who do. And so it was that I ended up with a box full of hardback books.

Now of course I can't walk out of a bookshop with just a stack of free books so I also had a great time sifting through the bargain books looking for some great finds. I got 6 books for $4 which were
31 Songs (Nick Hornby)
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Marina Lewycka)
Two Caravans (Marina Lewycka)
Slam (Nick Hornby)
Five Quarters of the Orange (Joanne Harris)
Man and Boy (Tony Parsons)

And although not on the cheap list but so worth it I also picked up.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
Ulysses (James Joyce) - The one I have was borrowed off a friend so I'll be glad to be able to give it back, I've had it awhile!
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
Travels with Charley in Search of America (John Steinbeck)
The Language of Flowers (Vanessa Diffenbaugh)
Smoke and Mirrors (Neil Gaiman)

I also just received in the mail two books for review Sin (Zakhar Prilepin) and Christened with Crosses (Eduard Kochergin). As most of you know my taste in books is rather broad and I love exploring new things so when an opportunity to try some modern Russian literature came up I was really excited. These were sent to me by Glagoslav Publications, an independent British-Dutch press that specialises in publishing English translations of works by Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian authors.

And finally this week I made a guest appearance at my old book club. Luckily for me they are still quite happy for me to borrow books so I picked up Notes from an Exhibition (Patrick Gale), American Gods (Neil Gaiman) and that nice big hunk of a book Les Miserables (Victor Hugo). I am going to have a lot of spare time on my hands soon so I thought it was right time to try and tackle Les Mis.

Phew that's a lot of books to acquire in one week! So what am I actually reading? Well I just finished The Scarlet Cloak (Jean Plaidy), Always Looking Up (Michael J. Fox) and yes I did manage to finally get my way through Fifty Shades of Grey. This week I have picked up Book of Lost Threads (Tess Evans) as I needed a nice light read and it's exactly what I need right now. Next I'll pick up one of the translated Russian novels.

In NZ and want a free book? If you're in NZ and keen for a free copy of Bryce Courtenay's - Sylvia, Whitethorn or Jessica or Wilburn Smith's Monsoon then get in touch and I'll try and get it to you.

After Dark (Haruki Murakami)

Title: After Dark
Author: Haruki Murakami
Translator: Jay Rubin
First Published: 2004
This Edition Published: 2007
Publisher: Harvill Secker
Pages: 202
Source: Book club
Genres: Translated Literature, Japanese Literature, Contemporary
Goodreads  |  Amazon.com

This is the first book by Haurki Murakami that I have read so I am not familiar with his writing style at all, although I have heard a lot of things about his books Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore and IQ84, so I knew that I might be getting into something a bit different, and well yes I think I can definitely sum up this book as a little weird... weird and brilliant.

The premise of the book is that at midnight in Tokyo we meet Mari, a 19 year old student who is reading a book at Dennys at midnight. Into Dennys comes Takahashi who knows Mari's sister Eri. The story follows Mari and her sister Eri through aspects of their night and finishes up at 7am. Well 6:52am to be exact, you see each chapter of this book is a time which I thought was so well done.

The descriptions of Tokyo at midnight are just incredible, it really does feel like you are there, I visited Tokyo a couple of years ago and this book took me straight back to that incredible city. The language of this book is simply beautiful, this was one of my favourite excerpts.

"Even at a time like this, the street is bright enough and filled with people coming and going - people with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward."

There are some incredibly interesting characters in this book (I'm going to go into a bit of detail in this paragraph so skip if you hate knowing too much about a book before you read it, but don't worry I never give away too much plot!). Takahashi is a Trombone playing student who bumps into Mari in between band practices. Through Takahashi she is introduced to Kaoru, the retired female wrestler who is now the manager of a love hotel. Mari also meets a Chinese prostitute, along with Komugi and Korogi, maids whose names mean Wheat and Cricket. We also meet Eri, Mari's beautiful sister who has been sleeping for months, literally a sleeping beauty. Eri's sections are certainly the most unique thanks to her encounters with The Man with No Face.

Okay you're pretty safe now. The narration in Eri's sections was incredibly unique using terms such as 'we see such and such' and highlighting the fact that we are but a point of observation that cannot interact with the scene in any way. It was fascinating. I would love to know what kind of narration style it would be called. Maybe something along the lines of an external or video narration, where the point of view  changes to take in different aspects of the scene and is actively talked about as part of the narration?

Ultimately this book explores ideas of sibling relationships and alienation through the exploits of a scattering of outcasts on one night in Tokyo. It was a joy to read and I recommend it to you all.

Read It

After Dark by Haruki Murakami