Book #21: Brazil - The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Round the World Wednesday! Is it still Wednesday anywhere in the world? No? Oh well. Today is Honorary Wednesday.

The Summer Prince is another of those books that evokes a place so viscerally that you think I want to go there, even if the 'there' is a few hundred years in the future, a parallel world or some undefined historical time. So, I'd like to go to Brazil now. I want to see Palmares Três, the jewel on the bay, the pyramid city of lights. Though possibly not with the bloodshed that goes with it.

The book is set in Brazil at least four hundred years in the future, where everything is life and death, love and hate, moving forward and holding back. The main character, June, is a young artist in a city ruled by grande women, where anyone below the age of thirty is not taken seriously. Every five years, the populace elects a king, and after a year of his rule, he chooses the next queen and is sacrificed. The system is quite logical, really - someone who is about to die is less likely to be swayed by politics.

It's an election year, but not just any election year. This year the king will be a waka, under thirty, and his sacrifice will serve only to continue the reign of the incumbent queen. He will have no true power to choose another queen, but for a year he will be the most priveleged of the youth of Palmares Três.

June votes for Enki, and is ecstatic when he wins. She's already half in love with him, but Enki falls in love with her best friend Gil and she's not quite sure where she stands. She throws herself into making Art, recognising that Enki is as much an artist as she with the way he moves and influences the crowds. They become collaborators on sensational projects, and Art is at its best when it creates a sensation. Or a revolution.

Enki is hurtling headlong towards death, but he is the most vital character in all senses of the word. He helps June understand what's important, and the reader along with her.

Palmares Três is most desperately, incredibly alive, with its dancing wakas and ritual sacrifice. I love the way Johnson communicates that, with the blocos and the graffiti and the secret ninja art projects. I also love the way she weaves Portuguese into the text, making it clear that English is a foreign language to her characters.


Any books you know and love that are set in Brazil?

Book #20: Czech Republic - Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

And I'm back with Round the World Wednesday! (It's still Wednesday for me. Really.)

The book for today is Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. While some of the book is set Elsewhere, the main character Karou lives and attends school in Prague, so it counts as the Czech Republic.

I love Karou as a character. When first you meet her, she's up against an incredibly annoying ex-boyfriend who descends on her in a most inconvenient situation. She has access to wishes - very small ones - and while you don't yet know exactly what the ex has done, you feel she is completely justified in using her wishes to get back at the ex. Yes, she knows it's wrong. Yes, we know it's wrong. But when she's told off for it later, you're completely on her side. And you wish you had wishes like that too.

Taylor does a great job of unfolding pieces of the puzzle and building up the picture until everything fits and makes sense. Things don't always happen in chronological order, and the clues are highly controlled - you'll read something and then realise when the next clue comes along that the first clue was actually something quite different to what you thought.

I loved hearing about Prague as if from a local's point of view - the favourite cafe, the alleyways, the actors dressed as ghosts to scare the tourists, the school with gruesome war stories. You really feel the atmosphere and vibrancy of the city.

I want to go to Prague. As I was reading the book, I was in the midst of deciding where to go for New Year. Prague was extremely attractive. The book mentions snow and fairy-tale buildings. I like snow (there has not yet been a snow-fall here, and the last time I actually had to walk in snow I was fourteen) and fairy-tale buildings. I can deal with cold, surely. It's been down to freezing level here, almost.

Going to Prague would mean buying a few more winter clothes, because I don't think my coat of Electric Blue would be up to it. Not even my Kathmandu jacket would protect me. In the end, for a variety of reasons I've decided to go somewhere slightly warmer, a very nice place with nice weather and nice beaches and nice buildings and nice people, where I will have a very nice time.

Enough about my holiday plans (mwa ha ha). Do you know and love any books set in the Czech Republic?

Book #19: Germany - Auslander by Paul Dowswell

It’s around the world day again! For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I am collecting books set in eighty different countries (hence the blog title around the world in 80 books), and I’m finally starting again. Today is Germany.

I didn’t really want to do a war book for Germany, seeing as that’s at least half of the English-language books you see that are set in Germany, but Auslander was too good to ignore. If you know any YA books set in Germany that aren’t about WWII, please add them in the comments! Feel free to add those that are about WWII too :D

Auslander is about Peter, a Polish boy with German heritage who is caught up in the annexing/invasion of Poland. He’s recently orphaned and living in an orphanage when doctors come around looking for good Aryan specimens to adopt into German families. Peter happens to be an excellent Aryan specimen, and is adopted by a professor of eugenic research in Berlin.

Dowswell has done an amazing amount of research for this book, and deftly weaves it into the narrative. I was struck by the difference between a memoir/diary, history books and straight fiction – in a memoir or diary, you have the perspective of someone who was really there, but everything is dependent on what they thought was relevant at the time, or the things that jump out of their memory. In a history book, you get a (hopefully) straight account of the facts on a wider scale, and maybe examinations of artefacts from the period. In fiction, an author can explore a time period and present exactly what they want to the reader, in a way that makes the most impact.

I’ve read memoirs and diaries and history books about WWII, and been to museums, but Auslander has a whole different view. Because it's fiction, Dowswell can be honest with his characters without pointing the finger at anyone, so Peter does not immediately take the Nazis-are-bad position, and you sort through ideas and choices with him. The real artefacts, such as the Nazi dolls’ house and the Hitler Christmas carol, seem much more real when they’re in the houses and mouths of characters rather than in museums. One of my favourite bits in the novel (don’t read the end of this paragraph if you don’t want to be spoiled) is when the youngest daughter in Peter’s new family asks why they don’t tell that story about the baby and the star any more on Christmas. The father answers with a quote about how things that were good for the old generation are not good for the new, and wonders who said it. The eldest daughter acidly replies that it’s from the Bible.

It would be interesting to know what people who lived through the same kind of experiences think of the book. I really enjoyed it (though beware, some of it is horrifying, as the subject matter must be), but I’m a sheltered 21^st century Kiwi. It’s amazing, and quite scary, to know that normal people did incredibly terrible things, and incredibly good things too.

Any young adult books set in Germany that you know and love?

Book #18: South Africa - Spud by John Van de Ruit

Sooo... I have had a long break. And this will be the last round-the-world book for a while, because soon I will actually be going round the world. It’s also the first book representing Africa, so now when you click Africa on my awesome map, you will actually get an article (go on, click!).

I’m not sure whether this counts as a YA book because the protagonist is thirteen-fourteen, but there’s a reasonable amount of YA material in it. Spud is the story of John Milton, a boy with a scholarship to an elite boys boarding school in South Africa. The book is told through diary entries (and he must have his diary glued to his person at all times, because the entries are pretty frequent) and treats of John/Spud’s first year at boarding school in 1990.

I am really, really glad I didn’t go to a boys boarding school. I’m sure most of them aren’t like this one, but probably some of them are, or at least were back in the dark days of last century. Some of it sounds fun, like illegal late night swims and dormitory camaraderie, but 6.40am classes and traditions like torture on your birthday would be hell.

It makes for great reading, though.

Spud’s woman trouble is impressive, with no less than three girls after him (despite, or perhaps because of, his beautiful soprano singing voice). His father and grandmother (named Wombat – unexplained...) are teetering on the edge of insanity, and his mother enjoys filling her handbag with club sandwiches at school gatherings. His cubicle mate is semi-bald for a large proportion of the book, and one of the boys in the dormitory enjoys catching and eating his own bats. Spud’s never quite sure where he is on the student hierarchy. South Africa is undergoing a huge political change with the release of Nelson Mandela, and Spud would do anything to be a freedom fighter.

I snickered through a lot of this book – the writing describes absurdities clearly and with a certain matter-of-factness, and you can’t help but be both amused and appalled. I’m glad I’m not Spud.

As a point of interest, the boy on the front cover looks a bit like my brother (hi ecl!!!!).

Any books set in South Africa you know and love?

Book #17: China – The Year of the Shanghai Shark by Mo Zhi Hong

You hear a lot about structure and plot and the perfect way to do them, but a lot of the time books don’t conform to the rules. The Year of the Shanghai Shark is one of these – every chapter shows you an important person in the narrator’s life, and you come to know the character  indirectly through his friends. The narrative skips forward and back in time, and threads are dropped and caught up again throughout. You see things in snippets, building the story like a mosaic. And it works.

Hai Long lives with his uncle in Dalian, a port city in North East China. The book covers his life until about 2003 (I think), focusing mostly on the years leading up to SARS and Yao Ming’s NBA basketball debut (both important events in Hai Long’s life). I’ve never been to China, but the book makes you feel as if you have. You see daily life at micro scale, and follow the trials and triumphs of the characters.

If you like to have everything laid out in front of you to follow, then this probably isn’t the book for you. The novel is a bit like a puzzle, and I kind of want to go find Mo Zhi Hong and interrogate him about what exactly was happening in certain places.  Questions are left unanswered, but you gain a real insight into Hai Long’s life and the lives of the people around him. The diversity of China (and of people in general) is revealed in the careful layering of stories. Most of the time, you finish a book feeling you’ve met the main character and a few sub-characters. When you finish The Year of the Shanghai Shark, you’ll have met fifteen.

I really liked this book. And I think I’ve used too many metaphors in this review.

Give me some other books set in China! :-)

Book #16: Greenland – They Came on Viking Ships by Jackie French

I hope everyone you know is safe and well, and that everyone affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is okay. I know, not really very realistic, but I hope it anyway.

I like historical fiction. I should read more of it. This book is based on 13^th century sagas about Norse voyages to Greenland and North America, and is called Slave Girl in some places. Jackie French, although not from Greenland, is a great author and friend to wombats, and you should check out her other books ('In the Blood' trilogy is good).

Hekja lives in a small village on a Scottish island around the turn of the eleventh century AD. Her life, which is already difficult, becomes much harder when Vikings destroy her village, killing nearly everyone and taking Hekja and her dog Snarf captive. Her mistress is Freydis Eriksson, sister to Leif Eriksson, and Hekja can’t figure out how to think of these people - they killed her friends and mother and yet have humanity at close range. She wants only to return home with Snarf, but it’s pretty hard to do that when you’re taken hundreds of miles across the sea to a new land, Greenland.

There is not much green in Greenland. Trees do not grow tall enough to make buildings, and small icebergs float in the fjords even in summer. The people rely on traders for building materials and other goods, and must huddle out the dark winter in their longhouses. But everywhere is beautiful in its own way, as Hekja notes, and she begins to accept her life, even if she dreams of more.

Norsemen had settled Iceland some time before, and Freydis’ father discovered Greenland while banished. Freydis’ brother discovered North America, and Freydis wants to have a voyage of her own, and be seen as a leader in her own right. Hekja is taken further from her home, to the new Vinland (somewhere on the US east coast).

This is a great immersion in the life of ten centuries ago. It makes you glad for electric heaters and microwaves, but also wistful for times of adventure, when the world was wide and surprising. I suppose it can still be surprising, but in a different way. We know everything, or we think we do.

Any books about Greenland you recommend?

Book #15: Peru – Go and Come Back by Joan Abelove

First, love and support and hope to anyone who’s going through hard times at the moment – the Christchurch Earthquake, unrest in North Africa/Middle East and anything else that might be happening large or small-scale. Hearts are with you.

And sorry I haven't posted until now...

My round-the-world book this week is set in Poincushmana, an Icabo village in the Peruvian Amazon. The author is an anthropologist, and while names of people and places are different, the characters and events are drawn from the author’s own experience.

The novel covers a year in the life of Alicia, a teenage girl in Poincushmana. Most of the village is mistrusting of the two ‘old lady’ anthropologists, or at least amused by their attempts to understand Icabo life and fit in. In this year, Alicia adopts a baby, becomes friends with the anthropologists, and tries to get them to appreciate what they’re doing wrong.

It’s hard, though – when you live in a culture, some things are so glaringly obvious to you that you don’t think to mention them. A lot of learning is done through trial and error, and there can be resentment when neither party understands what the other is doing and why.

Go and Come Back makes you shift your thinking and reflect on what you take for granted. It’s told in first person by Alicia, and strikes a difficult balance between assuming audience inside knowledge (as if she’s telling it to someone who knows the culture) and making sure the reader understands everything. I really enjoyed Alicia’s observations on life, and the ‘old ladies’’ slow acceptance into the community.

I think it's really good to read something like this if you’re thinking of inventing a complete fantasy world. You realise that normal everyday things you thought were universal can be very different in a different culture. Most of the fantasy worlds you read about are based quite definitely on western traditions (at least, in English-language fantasies), and it would be cool to see something that’s entirely new.

Or maybe that would screw with peoples’ head too much.

Or is that a good thing? :D

Any books you know and like set in Peru?

Book #14: Pakistan - Broken Moon by Kim Antieau

Hi everybody :) hope your February is getting off to a good start! I have been, ahem, reading lots. Check out my awesome books-I’ve-read-this-year widget. I think I should be spending more time writing rather than reading. It’s hard when you’ve got into the habit of telling yourself that reading is research :D Anyway, here’s the rundown on this week’s around the world book.

Nadira is a maid whose six-year-old brother is stolen to ride camels in the desert. A few years before, she was attacked by men who wanted revenge on her elder brother, and now she is soiled goods, unlikely ever to marry. In a way, this is freeing for her, because she has the courage to go to out into the world, without worrying too much about the future consequences of her actions. Her reputation is already ruined – she can go to any length to save her little brother.

I really liked this story. It has a dreamy quality to it, and is told through letters from a sister to the brother she is trying to save. The tale of Shahrazad and the Thousand and One Nights is woven through Nadira’s own story, and she uses tricks inspired by Shahrazad to survive and rescue her brother. Nadira is a great character – strong, determined to do all she can to put things right, and full of love for her brother.

What struck me most was that a lot of the story could have taken place any time in the last thousand years. Until computers were mentioned, I wasn’t sure it was set in contemporary times. Nadira’s life is so separate from her moneyed employers. There is such a strong dividing line between rich and poor, and it’s sobering to think about how true this is for many in the world today. The glitz and glamour of the camel races with their television cameras and apartments on wheels contrast sharply with the slave-labour of the training camps and the everyday life of Karachi’s poor.

I think this also gives the story a fairy-tale like quality. Nadira takes charge of her own destiny with Shahrazad as her inspiration, and while she does not go from rags to riches, she improves the lives of herself and her family. And maybe in the end she can find love, despite her past.

Any books set in Pakistan that you want to share? (and yes, okay, only some of this book is set in Pakistan, but the rest is set in an unnamed country, so it counts as Pakistan).

Book #13: England – Blade series by Tim Bowler

Yes, I finally figured out which book(s) to use for England, mostly because I found one I hadn’t read in the library and consumed it voraciously and decided it ticked all the boxes: Awesome story that I love, great rendering of setting, and being set in the right place.

Blade is a series of 8 books about a street kid named for his skill with a blade. The books are very short and addictive (I’ve always read 2 at a time), with a large dose of mystery. I’ve just finished book 5 and I’m still not sure who Blade is and who the bad guys are, although it’s starting to become clear. If you know any reluctant readers, these are probably good books for them. And for anyone else who likes an adrenaline-filled adventure and a hero with a lot of secrets.

Blade is a loner and lives in a city somewhere in England. The city is a character in itself, gritty and surprising, and Blade knows it inside-out. He’s incredibly street-smart and cold out of necessity, but as the books progress he finds himself beginning to care about things. This is a disadvantage in his eyes, but it makes his character that much more interesting and pulls you in.

The books are first person but speak directly to the reader, who Blade calls Big Eyes. Blade’s use of language reminds me of A Clockwork Orange (though it’s far, far easier to read), and you pick up Blade’s own personal dialect. Grammar sticklers might be exasperated, but the books are amazing examples of voice and vitality and probably worth reading just for that. Blade delights in showing you the city and pointing out the different people just as if you were there beside him, and even tells you off for not keeping up.

If you want something different and refreshing that won’t take you long, try these. The first is Playing Dead.

What books set in England do you like?