The Sunday Salon – The Ninky Nonk in my living room (plus Night Watch Review)

Happy Easter everyone! This year is a rare Easter for us in that we’re actually at home, since my dad moved to North Wales about 4 years ago we’d spent every Easter up there, but as Easter doesn’t actually fall in the school holidays this year we’re delaying our trip by a few weeks.

As we have two autumn born children we usually celebrate Easter by buying them a ‘garden present’ as it’s pretty pointless buying them a garden toy for their autumn birthdays or at Christmas. This year was a pop up Ninky Nonk (I’m pretty sure that Ninky Nonk is a global phenomenon now but still only parents of the under 5 are likely to know what I mean, so for those that don’t, the Ninky Nonk is a fictional train on the children’s TV programme, In the Night Garden, made by the same people who made Teletubbies and I’ve heard described by it’s makers as a gentle interactive nursery book).

Our Ninky Nonk is a series of pop up tents that join together like the train, the kids love it. Boy Lacer who is really in the age group In the Night Garden is aimed at loves ITNG but so does his big sister Girl Lacer. Shame the weather was no where near nice enough to play with it outside today (it was snowing, although unfortunately not settling), so the Ninky Nonk was set up in our living room, taking literally all the floor space.

As well at the Ninky Nonk the kids off course got some Easter eggs; Girl Lacer got a small Smarties egg, a gold foiled chocolate bunny and a soft rabbit from us and Boy Lacer got a goats milk chocolate Easter egg and hen (he’s cow’s milk protein intolerant), that required some sourcing! In the end I got the goats milk chocolate online from Kidmenot, me and Girl Lacer have also tried it (in our position as chocolate connoisseurs) as I had also ordered some minibars of chocolate which turned out even more mini than I had thought. Boy Lacer likes it, although I think he prefers the little packets of dairy free chocolate buttons you can get from Sainsburys, Girl Lacer likes it (she likes any chocolate though) and I think it tastes ok to. As well as chocolate and presents from us, there were also presents from the mother-in-law, chocolate eggs for me and Mr. Lacer and little goodie bags for the kids, with the mother-in-law thankfully making sure Boy Lacer’s was dairy free (more dairy free chocolate buttons from Sainsburys). I also got an egg from Mr. Lacer and I have now consequently eaten too much chocolate (how come I can be more controlled about rationing the kids chocolate than my own?) and feel rather dodgy.

So it’s a good thing I haven’t got much to do today other than eating chocolate (groan, never again) and reading. I finished reading The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

I gave my initial impressions last week and they haven’t much changed; I had thought the prose a little clunky and it remained so, although that was probably largely due to it’s translation. But now for a proper review:

The Night Watch is the first of a trilogy by the Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko; it tells the story of the battle between Light and Dark on the streets of Moscow, where Others, people with magical powers prowl the streets undetected by normal humans. Told from the perspective of a Night Watch agent, Anton, an Other aligned to the Light, the book takes the shape of three stories, although all three are linked with each other, climaxing in a final battle (as all these sort of books seem to do).

Written with great imagination, the creation of a parallel world hidden from the rest of Moscow’s citizens has been very well done. Describing the effects of magic on the everyday world, I particularly liked one of the earliest scenes where Anton is on the metro and he’s looking at the vortexes above some of the passengers head, formed when another human curses another (i.e. “You’re a stupid idiot” etc. etc.) they cause anything ranging from depression to a migraine, obviously ficitious but I had fun imagining some of the vortexes I would have caused recently lol. The creation of the two Watches; the Night Watch created by Others from the Light and the Day Watch created by Others from the Dark was also well done. The two Watches are at truce with each other, fearing what an all out war would do to the human world. The three stories tell how the members of Night Watch are manipulated.

Overall though this book wasn’t really for me and I won’t be rushing to read the next two books (although I might one day). Reading the book I had a sneaking suspicion I was reading the book 10 years to late, I think I would have loved it when I was in my early 20s, being Russian would also have helped as there are lots of references to Russian pop songs I haven’t heard of. But now there’s just a bit too much introverted soul searching for me, in some scenes when the main character was spending page after page pondering the various machinations between Light and Dark I was incredibly tempted to skip to the next bit of action! Not my book of the year, by far but an ok read.

So it’s only midday (this weekend has been a long weekend, in more ways than one) and I think I may actually have time to start another book, although I feel like something light and fluffy (unusual for me) although I have just the thing on my TBR  mountain (a well meaning but unfortunate Christmas present). So  I think I’ll lurk around the Salon for a bit longer and may be back with my first impressions of ‘light and fluffy’, just keep me away from the chocolate!

The Sunday Salon – The Welsh Girl

I reckoned during last week’s Sunday Salon where I had started The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies that I’d finish it within a matter of days, as it was a nice, easy to read story, but of course life gets in the way of books, so apart from a few snatched moments reading at a cafe and outside a ballet lesson, I didn’t really get a chance to finish it until today.

So now I can give my final impressions, The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies is ‘nice’ (although the subject matter itself is not nice), set in principal in a Welsh village during the Second World, it tells the story of how the village responds to the arrival of prisoners of wars. Told from the viewpoints of Esther, a village girl, Karsten, a German prisoner of war and Rotherham an officer of German origin working for the allies, as with a lot of stories with differing viewpoints it can be a little piecemeal, I wasn’t totally sure what the point of the character of Rotherham was and he doesn’t feature for much of the story, I can only think that as someone who grew up in Germany but was working for the Allies he was meant to act as a bridge between the two sides of the story. The character of Esther, well I’ve heard alot of discussion recently whether male writers can write women and to be honest normally I don’t notice any difference, but Ho Davies’ portrayal of Esther did seem a little odd and at times I had trouble feeling sympathy for her. My favourite character though was Karsten, I thought he was really well done and I found it easy to be in the shoes of a German prisoner of war.

So in my verdict of The Welsh Girl as ‘nice’ where does it stand in my own personal Richard and Judy Bookclub rankings? To be honest I don’t think it was the best book of the lot, so here’s the final (as The Welsh Girl is the last of this year’s Richard and Judy list) list.

1. A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory – every page grips you, scares you and tears at your heart.
2. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon – a very close second, it is deeply and beautifully researched invoking the sites, sounds and smells of the Crimean War.
3. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones – a lovely little story of bravery and island life, let down in my opinion by it’s final 20 pages.
4. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann – the description of the journey across Siberia is epic
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – a very vivid description of life at a terrible period of time in Afghanistan’s history.
6. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies – a nice readable story
7. Blood River by Tim Butcher – non-fiction so difficult to judge
8. Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale – just not my sought of book, far too ‘cosy’.
9. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris – argh this is hard, I liked this book but Notes from an exhibition was more flawlessly written in my opinion.
10. The Visible World by Mark Slouka – I’m sorry, but for me this book dragged.

So in summary what did I think of this year’s Richard and Judy Bookclub list? Most of the books were really good and it was hard to judge between them, I only really did not like The Visible World and even that had some really beautiful scenes in, it was just the bits in between I had problems with. I can thoroughly recommend A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol and Mister Pip plus A Thousand Splendid Suns and Blood River provide thought provoking insights into troubled parts of the world only seen briefly on news stations. Who do I think will win the British Book Awards Best Read of the Year? I’d like it to be A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol or Mister Pip but I have a feeling it’ll be A Thousand Splendid Suns.

So now, ten weeks, ten books (actually I’ve read a few more than that), no more Richard and Judy to read, so it’s back to the Unread Book Mountain, which is a rather a nice feeling. I’m currently also mid-way through Stephen King’s On Writing, I’d heard so many good things about it over the last few months I had to read it. I still haven’t finished The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and I’m not sure I will. I think what’s luring me the most is Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch, now that looks good. Plus of course thanks to the Richard and Judy list I’ve got some new books to add to my ‘to be purchased list’ notably R.J. Ellory and Katherine McMahon.