Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay (and giveaway)

Red Dust Road is about the author Jackie Kay’s search for her birth parents. We read about her childhood and the discoveries she makes along the way such as when she realises for the first time that she and her brother have a different skin colour to their parents. She also tells us the reasons behind wanting to know more about her birth parents right through to when she meets them in person. It’s a journey that takes her to various parts of Scotland, England and Nigeria and is a fast, touching and funny read.

I’ve always been a little fascinated with adoptions; Part of my job involves looking at people’s birth certificates and quite often an adoption certificate passes my way. I always have a look at it (as I’m supposed to do) and wonder a little about the story behind it. So when I spied Red Dust Road I was glad of the opportunity to read one such story. What I found was that sometimes people just have their own reasons for giving their child up for adoption, there doesn’t have to be a great romantic or dramatic story behind it.

The book is not sad or sentimental but is told with great humour (some points had me and my husband laughing out loud) openness and honesty. This isn’t going as compelling or as tragic as other memoirs out there as Jackie was adopted by some wonderful people and had a great childhood, that’s why I liked it. The memoir is able to focus more on the nature/nurture split, 60's/70s Scotland and questions like ‘what if your birth parent doesn’t want contact, is it ok to contact your siblings anyway?’

The book doesn't follow a linear narrative. It moves back and forth which sometimes didn’t quite work for me but overall I enjoyed the descriptions of the places, the people she encountered, the snippets of her childhood and the way the book very much comes across as a tribute to her adoptive parents. Recommended.

I am seven years old. My mum, my brother and I have just watched a cowboy and Indian film. It suddenly occurs to me that the Indians are the same colour as me and my mum is not the same colour as me. I say to my mum, Mummy why aren’t you the same colour as me? My mum says, Because you are adopted. I say, What does adopted mean? My brother scoffs; Don’t you know what adoption means. He’s eating a giant-size bowl of cornflakes. He eats cornflakes for nearly every meal.

Verdict 4/5

Posted by Jess

I have a hardback of this book which has only been read once so if anyone would like it then please leave a comment and I’ll pick someone at random in a week and announce the winner here. I will post anywhere.

Good to be back

Well we are back at last with a brand new computer. We can’t complain really because our old computer was purchased on e-bay about five years ago, it had very little memory and was very slow, it was bound to give out eventually. After nosing about already on other blogs it seems that we weren’t the only ones to take it slow these past couple of months as quite a few blogging breaks are going on. Some of you however have been really busy going by my googlereader and others have completely changed their blog by either moving or changing your look. Business will be back to normal here ASAP and thanks to our followers for sticking around, I expected A LOT more to leave LOL.

We'll Be Back

Ladies and Gentlemen

We apologise for a lack of reviews on this site lately, about three weeks ago our beloved computer finally gave up the ghost meaning we had no practical way of updating this blog. Due to financial issues we haven't replaced it yet but a new one is on the cards for late October when we hope to fully resume our reviewing activities.

Thanks for your patience

Chris & Jess

The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear A Novel by Walter Moers

This story is like a crazy cross between The Hobbit and The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. One of the most epic , wacky books I have ever had the pleasure to read. As the title suggests the book chronicles the adventures of a blue coloured bear named (very imaginatively) Bluebear who lives on the ancient continent of Zamonia. He begins the first of his lives floating on the ocean in an empty nutshell which is being sucked into a whirlpool before he is rescued at the last moment by some minipirates...and it just gets stranger from then on!

At over 700 pages long it is not for the faint hearted reader, having said that there are plenty of black and white drawings throughout the book to help keep the reader focused and interested.

The story itself is something of a rollarcoaster whizing about all over the place at breakneck speed. This ensures the reader doesn’t get bored and keeps the story flowing nicely. The story itself is very entertaining full of excellently rendered characters and some brilliant monsters and villains. The main character is very likeable which makes it easy for the reader to will him onwards.

The book isn’t perfect and there was a definate lul in the action about halfway through. The low points in the book for me included the time Bluebear spends in the desert and the congladiator battles in the city of Atlantis (where gladiators compete with each other to thrill the audience with the most intricate and entertaining lies) both of which dragged on and bored me quite a bit but this was unusual as the rest of the book is very action-packed.

There is a good amount of subtle humour contained in the pages; this is certainly not a book that takes itself too seriously. It is jam packed with Deus Ex Machina leaving you confidence Bluebear will always escape from a fix no matter how unlikely.
At the end there were some questions left unanswered but this wasn’t too much of an issue as the story is so bizarre if the author tired to tie up every loose end he’d need an additional hundred pages.

Overall a great adventure/fantasy/science fiction story read suitable for young adults and adults alike.

Rating 4/5

By Chris

God's Own Country by Ross Raisin

The protagonist in God’s Own Country, Sam Marsdyke, is what I would describe as a ‘wrong ‘un’. Sam lives with his parents on a Yorkshire farm where he is quite the expert in most aspects of farm life, a life which he seems to genuinely enjoy. It very quickly becomes apparent however that his relations with other human beings give major cause for concern as they all seem doomed and often leave Sam ostracised.

At times the reader may feel for Sam despite him being so unlikeable, you might understand his frustration at his awful neighbours and the Londoners buying up rural houses in the community as second homes. His observations about these matters along with his narrations about farming life in general are interesting, engaging, at times gritty and often quite funny. But then Sam exposes himself and ruins it all by doing things you really would rather he didn’t.

Gods Own Country is a very polished novel and overall it’s a very entertaining read with a wonderful sense of place. The narration and the overall atmosphere loses some of its appeal when the action moves from the farm to nearby Whitby towards the end of the novel but this is more of a quibble than anything. A lot of comparisons have been made to The Wasp Factory and others of that ilk and I would say that this was a fair comparison and it was what certainly came to my mind when reading it.

The novel says far more for the promise of its author though as Raisin has not hit his mark here, you end up with the overall impression he is capable of so much more. Given that this is his first novel that might be an unfair thing for me to say, but I am sure when Raisin eventually does get there we will all be in for something special.

Just for the hell of it here is a picture of the very same Yorkshire Moors somewhere near Whitby we took last year.



Posted by Jess

Saving the Best Until Last

Jessica and I were having a discussion the other day about dead authors. I was telling Jessica how I am, with the utmost care and attention, pacing myself with regards to reading books written by deceased writers such as John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway. I am painfully aware that once I turn the last page I will never read a newly written Steinbeck or Hemingway book again. This is both desperately sad but also inevitable, we all die eventually.

Although we can’t claim we thought it up we discussed the idea of choosing one book from a dead author we love and saving it until we reach old age before reading it. That way we can savour that writer’s work and have something to look forward to. There are, of course, setbacks to this plan. For example there is the risk of unexpected, untimely death meaning the saved book goes forever unread (disaster!) I suppose you’d have to weigh the pros and cons and maybe be willing to take a risk.

Ultimately Jessica decided against the idea, she thinks it’s a better idea to re-read old books you read when you were younger. I will definately be doing this but I still like the idea of saving one. Eventually I decided to save ‘Travels with Charley’ by John Steinbeck. I have a lovely folio edition of it so hopefully I will be able to resist temptation!


What book would you save?


Chris