Tag Archives: Sandra Danby

#BookReview ‘The Language of Others’ by Clare Morrall #contemporary

10 Replies

A young girl who prefers to be alone, who lacks the social skills to have friends, who marries young and rapidly becomes a mother. The Language of Others by Clare Morrall is the intense story of Jessica Fontaine who longs for the air in her house to be hers alone, who manages a difficult marriage and worries about how she is raising her son. Clare MorrallThis is a story of a lifetime of self-discover and self-acceptance. This description may make the book sound as if nothing happens but it does and, as in any Clare Morrall, subtlety is layered on subtlety. Jessica grows up at Audlands, a country house which is decaying around the family. Her father was a successful chocolate manufacturer and the house a symbol of his success. As he grows older and the company fails, so does the house. Jessica and her sister Harriet grow up side-by-side, loving the house, the dirt and cobwebs, but not really knowing or understanding each other. Only when Jessica discovers the piano does she find freedom.
This is a novel about Asperger’s and the autism spectrum and one woman’s acceptance of her own emotional issues and how they impact and intertwine with the emotional issues of her unpredictable husband Andrew and quiet solitary child Joel. As she grows older, through music and with a supportive friend, Jessica learns the tools to make life easier. ‘Pretence gives you room to get around obstacles without touching them, the space to observe that there are other sides to people, not just the abrasive, challenging attitude that you can’t cope with. You have to view people from new angles, see where the light falls, discover which edges have been worn down and softened with time. Otherwise you get so caught up in the negatives you can’t see anything else.’
There is a lot of wisdom in this book, insights in how to behave – and not behave – within relationships, and how to be forgiving of others.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title to read my reviews of these other novels by Clare Morrall:-
AFTER THE BOMBING
NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND
THE LAST OF THE GREENWOODS
THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED
THE ROUNDABOUT MAN

Read the first paragraph of ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR here.

If you like this, try:-
THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS MCNULTY by Sebastian Barry
THE LAST RUNAWAY by Tracy Chevalier
GIRL RUNNER by Carrie Snyder

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Clare Morrall’s THE LANGUAGE OF OTHERS #bookreview via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Pc

#BookReview ‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn #historical

9 Replies

When I finished reading Freya I wanted to shout out to everyone around me to read it. Why? It is a story of friendship and love, truth and honesty, loyalty and betrayal. Anthony Quinn captures Freya immaculately – he seems to intuit so much women’s stuff so well – so much better than other male novelists recently writing from a female point of view. It is such a refreshing read, I hope it sells loads and wins loads. It deserves it. If you can, read it next. Anthony QuinnFreya is the story of Freya Wyley from VE Day to the 1960s via Oxford, Nuremberg, Italy and mostly London. Recently demobbed from the Wrens, at which she achieved a senior position as bomb plotter in a world with few men, she goes up to Oxford unsure if she is too ‘old’ at the age of 21 to return to study. There she finds that pre-war expectations of women re-apply again and with her customary cussedness she fights against it. With the glimmer of an opportunity, she sets out to get a break as a journalist by interviewing a reclusive war reporter who will be attending the Nuremberg war trials. She calls in a favour from her father, lies, manipulates and bravely goes forth, setting foot into the ruins of the bombed city where she is later told she should not have ventured. But that is Freya: undaunted. She is strong, true, speaks without thinking and gets into trouble because of it. Of course it is the few times in which she is not honest, either with herself or with her best friend Nancy – who she met on the night of VE day when they got ‘stinko’ together – that make the most fascinating reading.
It is a joy to read a female character who is not nice all the time, who feels real, and who I can identify with more than some sugar-sweet modern protagonists. This book fairly fizzes along, read in two days on holiday, I found myself irritated when my Kindle’s battery died because I ignored the ‘battery low’ warning.
Quinn’s sense of time is perfect, he moves seamlessly from wartime to the Sixties. All his characters have depth, flaws and are believable, and his balance of action, contemplation and setting is exact. He covers a wide variety of subjects of the time – morality and art, homosexuality offences, celebrity, political rigour – by simply allowing Freya to investigate and report. The technique of covering Freya’s investigation of an article, followed by the published article, acts as a semi-colon before the next segment of her life.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Click the title below to read my reviews of other books by Anthony Quinn:-
CURTAIN CALL
HALF OF THE HUMAN RACE
MOLLY & THE CAPTAIN
OUR FRIENDS IN BERLIN
THE RESCUE MAN
THE STREETS

If you like this, try:-
‘Sweet Caress’ by William Boyd
‘The Secrets We Kept’ by Lara Prescott
‘Fatal inheritance’ by Rachel Rhys

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FREYA by Anthony Quinn https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-1TV via @SandraDanby

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Happiness’

3 Replies

Happiness is a state we all aspire to but today there are heightened expectations of happiness, more children are said to be unhappy, depressed, disappointed, disaffected. This poem by the American Stephen Dunn [below] suggests a pragmatic approach to life.

Stephen Dunn

[photo: stephendunnpoet.com]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘Happiness’
A state you must dare not enter
                  With hopes of staying,
Quicksand in the marshes, and all
 

The roads leading to a castle
That doesn’t exist.

For more about Stephen Dunn and his other poetry, click here for his website. His collection Different Hours won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2001.

Stephen Dunn

 

‘Different Hours’ by Stephen Dunn [WW Norton & Company] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Oxfam’ by Carol Ann Duffy
‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney
‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ by Michael Ondaatje

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Happiness’ by Stephen Dunn http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Mf via @SandraDanby

SaveSave

My Porridge & Cream read: Jane Cable

Leave a reply

My guest today at ‘Porridge & Cream’ is novelist Jane Cable.

“If I say that my Porridge & Cream book is Long Summer Day very few people will recognise the title. If I say it’s the first volume of RF Delderfield’s Horseman Riding By trilogy most readers will know exactly the book I mean.  jane cable
In all honesty this book has been with me so long I can’t remember the first time I read it. What I do know is it was after the BBC made the TV series in 1978, which I didn’t watch, being far more interested in punk music. At a guess it was while I was studying for my A-levels or my degree. I’m pretty sure it was a library copy, but I asked my father to buy me the whole trilogy for Christmas. The reason they don’t match in the photograph [below] is because I lost Long Summer Day in a house move and my father replaced it for Christmas in 1988.

I don’t often read books twice but A Horseman Riding By comes out if ever I’m ill. The last time was Christmas a few years ago when I caught flu and was too poorly to travel to my mother’s house. It was the first festive season my husband and I had actually been in our home and we spent it curled up with our noses in our books. Jane CableThe main thing which draws me to this book (okay, these books) is the setting. The trilogy charts the life of Paul Craddock from the moment he arrives in “the valley” in South Devon in 1902 until his death in 1965. But it’s not only his life and loves, but those of his family, his tenants and his neighbours woven into a wonderful tapestry which bridges the generations as English country life changes forever.”

Jane Cable’s Bio
Jane Cable is the author of the multi-award winning romantic suspense novel, The Cheesemaker’s House. In 2015 the book won Jane the accolade of Words for the Wounded Independent Novelist of the Year and she was signed by Felicity Trew at the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency.

Jane’s latest book is The Faerie Tree, a second chance novel about Robin and Izzie who meet again twenty years after their brief affair and realise that their memories of it are completely different. But how can that be? And which one of them is right?

Jane Cable

 

About The Faerie Tree by Jane Cable
How can a memory so vivid be wrong? In the summer of 1986 Robin and Izzie hold hands under the faerie tree and wish for a future together. Within hours tragedy rips their dreams apart. In the winter of 2006, each carrying their own burden of grief, they stumble back into each other’s lives and try to create a second chance. But why are their memories of 1986 so different? And which one of them is right? With strong themes of paganism, love and grief, The Faerie Tree is a story that will resonate with fans of romance, suspense, and folklore.

Read my reviews of Jane’s two novels The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree

 

Jane Cable’s links
Follow on Twitter, through her Facebook page or at her website.

porridge_and_cream__rainyday_111_long

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Claire Dyer
Shelley Weiner
Lisa Devaney

Jane Cable

 

‘Long Summer Day’ by RF Delderfield [UK: Hodder] 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
LONG SUMMER DAY by RF Delderfield is the comfort read of @JaneCable http://wp.me/p5gEM4-23Z via @SandraDanby #books

My Porridge & Cream read: Rhoda Baxter

Leave a reply

Today I’m delighted to welcome romantic novelist Rhoda Baxter.

“My ‘Porridge and Cream’ book is actually a series: my Terry Pratchett collection. I started reading them when I was around 16. I had moved from Sri Lanka to Yorkshire and was very lonely. I was lucky enough to make a friend who suggested I try one of the Discworld books. I think he lent me The Colour of Magic. I borrowed the rest of the series from Halifax Central Library. I loved the puns and the pseudo-science jokes. When Mort came out, my Physics teacher told me that Terry was doing a book signing. My Dad took me all the way to Leeds to queue up and get my book signed. It was the first time I met a REAL author. Rhoda BaxterAt uni, I bonded with people who knew that a million to one chances happened nine out of ten times and that Klatchian coffee made you knurd. We used Pratchettisms as a verbal shorthand. I still can’t read the phrase ‘per capita’ for example, without mentally adding ‘if not, decapita could be arranged’. When Sir Terry died, I felt as though I’d lost someone I’d actually known.

Rhoda BaxterI read each book as it came out in paperback and slowly built up a collection. Several of the books have been signed by the man himself. I re-read them from time to time, picking a book off the shelf at random. Most memorably, I read them all from one end of the shelf to the other while breastfeeding my children. I had the book propped up on a cookbook stand, leaving my hands free for cuddling small baby. I could fall straight into the familiar world with minimal effort, as though the words were pouring straight into images without any processing (at 3am after weeks of sleep deprivation, they probably were!).

I read them now and I can feel echoes of all those other times. I like that. If you forced me to choose one, I’d go for The Nightwatch, which is a wonderful time slip novel. If you’ve never read any of the series before, I’d suggest that one. If you consider yourself a person who doesn’t really read fantasy, try Nation. It’s not set in the Discworld, there aren’t any silly jokes, and it’s an incredible exploration of why people find strength in religion. It’s also a story about a boy on a tropical island. It will make you cry – but in a good way.’

Rhoda Baxter’s Bio
Rhoda Baxter likes to write about people who make her laugh. In real life she studied molecular biology at Oxford, which is why her pen name takes after her favourite bacterium. She has a day job working in intellectual property and writes contemporary romantic comedies in whatever spare time she can grab between day job, kids and thinking about food.

About Please Release Me by Rhoda Baxter
Rhoda BaxterWhat if you could only watch as your bright future slipped away from you?

Sally Cummings has had it tougher than most but, if nothing else, it’s taught her to grab opportunity with both hands. And, when she stands looking into the eyes of her new husband Peter on her perfect wedding day, it seems her life is finally on the up.

That is until the car crash that puts her in a coma and throws her entire future into question.

In the following months, a small part of Sally’s consciousness begins to return, allowing her to listen in on the world around her – although she has no way to communicate.

But Sally was never going to let a little thing like a coma get in the way of her happily ever after …

Rhoda will donate 50% of her royalties from Please Release Me to Martin House Children’s Hospice, because they do such amazing work. Watch the book trailer. Read my review of Please Release Me here.

Rhoda Baxter’s links
Rhoda can be found wittering on about science, comedy and cake on her website, Twitter and Facebook.

porridge_and_cream__rainyday_111_long

 

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Rosie Dean
Sue Moorcroft
Jane Cable

Rhoda Baxter‘Nation’ by Terry Pratchett [UK: Corgi] 

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does @RhodaBaxter love the complete works of Terry Pratchett? via @SandraDanby #reading http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1QF

A poem to read in the bath… ‘Forgetfulness’

2 Replies

The two first lines of this Hart Crane poem [below] grabbed me, will grab anyone in their middle years who starts to forget the odd thing, will grab anyone who has watched by as a loved on is taken by dementia.

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

‘Forgetfulness’
Forgetfulness is like a song
That, freed from beat and measure, wanders.
Forgetfulness is like a bird whose wings are reconciled.
Outspread and motionless, –
A bird that coasts the wind unwearyingly.
 

Forgetfulness is rain at night,
Or an old house in a forest, – or a child.
Forgetfulness is white, – white as a blasted tree,
And it may stun the Sybil into prophecy,
Or bury the Gods.

I can remember much forgetfulness.

This is the first Crane poem I read, found in an anthology. He committed suicide in 1932 at the age of 32, but that hasn’t stopped him being hailed as ‘influential’. His most ambitious work is The Bridge, an epic poem described as being similar to TW Eliot’s The Waste Land.

Hart Crane

 

‘The Complete Poems of Hart Crane’ by Hart Crane [Liveright] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Cloughton Wyke I’ by John Wedgwood Clarke
‘Runaways’ by Daniela Nunnari
‘Lost Acres’ by Robert Graves

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Forgetfulness’ by Hart Crane http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Ma via @SandraDanby

SaveSave

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Cinnamon Peeler’

1 Reply

This is one of the most sensuous poems I have read, it conjures up love and desire and… cinnamon. By Michael Ondaatje [below], better known for novel and film The English Patient, it is an assault of the senses. I first read it in the anthology Staying Alive edited by Neil Astley [UK: Bloodaxe]. That’s why I love anthologies, I own all three of the Astley trilogy: Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human. All are excellent, a great way of finding new poets, great to dip in and out of.

Michael Ondaatje

[illustration: newyorker.com & Patrick Long]

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library.

‘The Cinnamon Peeler’
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.
 

Your breast and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
Without the profession of my fingers
Floating over you. The blind would
Stumble certain of whom they approached
Though you might bathe
Under rain gutters, monsoon.

To listen to The Cinnamon Peeler, read by Michael Cerveris for The Poetry Foundation, click here.

Michael Ondaatje

 

‘The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems’ by Michael Ondaatje [UK: Bloomsbury] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘The Dead’ by Billy Collins
‘Elegy of a Common Soldier’ by Dennis B Wilson
‘Poems’ by Ruth Stone

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Cinnamon Peeler’ by Michael Ondaatje http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1M4 via @SandraDanby

SaveSave

My ‘Porridge & Cream’ read: Shelley Weiner

Leave a reply

Today I am pleased to welcome novelist, Shelley Weiner who will share her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read.

“Tiring of a well-worn book is like outgrowing a friendship, or a fashion statement, or a taste for cheap confectionary – depressing but, sadly, a fact of life. We change, our tastes change, the priorities that seemed so immutable ten years ago can alter or become irrelevant And so, having scoured my bookshelves to find a ‘Porridge & Cream’ read, I had to conclude that the old faithfuls by the authors I chose (sorry Carol Shields, apologies Jane Smiley …) no longer moved me.

Shelley WeinerI might have darted back to Dickens, to Austen, to Tolstoy, for classics of that calibre are beyond fatigue. Instead I consoled myself with a movie – the excellent screen adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn – and a large tub of popcorn. And as I sat in the darkness imbibing salty kernels and Irish angst, I recalled the spare beauty of Tóibín’s prose and resolved to return to the novel.

Which I did.

And – relief upon relief – it’s as I remembered it; as simple and quiet and engrossing as when I devoured it on publication eight years ago. It’s the kind of writing I identify with and aspire towards, confirming for me the power of understatement.

Brooklyn focuses on young Eilis, who ventures from the limitations of small-town Ireland to the strangeness and dislocation of New York. It’s a story of immigration, a rite of passage tale that reminds me how the deepest and most important universal truths can resonate through discipline and restraint. Tóibín has the rare ability to disappear into the heart and mind of his character; his lack of authorial ego means that no point does the reader stop to admire his turn of phrase or philosophical astuteness. We’re with Eilis entirely – feeling for her, laughing and crying with her, identifying in the most profound way with her plight. Tóibín revisits the same small-town community in the excellent Nora Webster – a more recent and slightly darker work, satisfyingly alluded to in Brooklyn.”

About ‘A Sister’s Tale’ by Shelley Weiner [Constable]
Shelley WeinerMia is dumpy, earthy and responsible, while her sister Gabriella is flighty and spoilt – a prima donna. Middle aged, their lives in a mess, they find themselves alone together in a parched Israeli town. Is it the promised land or a last resort? As the sisters wait together in the sultry heat for something, anything, to happen, they watch each other and remember. They think back to their isolated Jewish childhood in London; the devastation of their father’s sudden death; their mother languishing hopelessly in bed. They conjure up Mia’s Irish Catholic romantic lover, father of her child; and Gabriella’s well-heeled and ‘suitable’ husband. Meanwhile, at the entrance to their flat, an unexpected visitor arrives in time for a fish supper. A Sisters’ Tale is a wicked yet poignant story about the complex and powerful bond between sisters.

Shelley Weiner’s Bio
Shelley Weiner’s novels include A Sisters’ Tale, The Last Honeymoon, The Joker, Arnost, and The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green.
Her 60-minute guides to writing fiction are published by The Guardian. She is a regular tutor for the Faber Academy and trusted mentor on the Gold Dust Mentoring Scheme. She has presented workshops for Guardian Masterclasses, Norwich Writers Centre, and the Cheltenham Literary Festival. A former Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, Shelley has also taught fiction for – among others – Birkbeck College, Anglia Ruskin University, the Open University, the British Council, and Durham University Summer School.

Shelley Weiner’s links
Website
Facebook
Twitter

porridge_and_cream__rainyday_111_long

 

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Jane Cable
JG Harlond
Jane Lambert

Shelley Weiner

 

‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín [UK: Penguin]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does author @shelleyweiner love BROOKLYN by Colm Toibin? via @SandraDanby #books http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1QZ

A poem to read in the bath… ‘The Road Not Taken’

6 Replies

You may perhaps be aware of this poem by New England poet Robert Frost, for it is often quoted and often misunderstood. But that doesn’t lessen its impact. I read this first as a student, and it has stayed with me since. In our lives we all face a choice at times, a forked path, take the left or the right? And so rightly this poem is thought fondly of at times of indecision, choice and how the uncertainty of the future. It speaks to everyone, I think, to poetry lover and poetry novice.

Robert Frost

[photo: poetryfoundation.org]

‘The Road Not Taken’
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

If you know someone who loves the woods, and nature, and being outside, then buy them an edition of Frost’s verse; it is easily-accessible and full of truths. This edition [below] is my own copy from university.

To listen to The Road Not Taken, read by David Garrison for The Poetry Foundation, click here.

Above is my beautiful Penguin copy of Frost’s Selected Poems, dating from my university days.

Robert Frost

 

‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost [UK: Penguin Classics] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Forgetfulness’ by Hart Crane
‘Poems’ by Ruth Stone
‘Happiness’ by Stephen Dunn

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1LY via @SandraDanby

SaveSave

SaveSave

My Porridge & Cream read: Lisa Devaney

1 Reply

Today I’m delighted to welcome clifi novelist Lisa Devaney who will share her ‘Porridge & Cream’ read.

“As winter pends, and the leaves are turning beautifully vibrant colours, before they die off of the trees here in London, UK, I like the idea of turning to a comfort book, that can see me through the days that turn dark early and warm me up in the cold nights. When Sandra Danby invited me to blog about my ‘Porridge & Cream’ favourite book, I had a hard time, at first, picking just one that would qualify as the way she describes it as “It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it.”

Lisa Devaney“Some on my selection list included a non-fiction title of Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us, and the collected stories of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, but ultimately, I feel I turn most often to the book, that bred the movie that I watch most often as a comfort film. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep wins my pick for being my ‘Porridge & Cream’ novel. Published first in 1968, this post-apocalyptic near future fictional account is weird and scary enough to keep me turning the pages. The book inspired Ridley Scott’s film classic Blade Runner, which I have watched again and again, as well as reading the book.

“In Dick’s future world, de-constructed by a world nuclear war, we find a robot bounty hunter who is tasked with killing off six defected models – and his hunt of them compels us to question the meaning of life for them and ourselves. Bounty hunter Rick Deckard is fascinated by live animals, as most have been made endangered or extinct in the war, and wants to own one.

“I was first recommended this book by a dear friend who is a science-fiction fan. It was in the late 1990s, and both of us were working hard in the intensity of the dot com boom in New York City’s Silicon Alley. It was all feeling very sci-fi in daily life, as many of the technologies we were working with were shaping the future of things to come – and in fact, many did just that! So I picked up Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and it felt, at that time, all too real that our futures could be filled with human-like robots, and other strange technologies that feature in the book. At the same time, I was also going around the city performing as my alter-ego cartoon self I called (((Futuregirl))) and sharing my odd SLAM-style poetry. Blade Runner fashion gave me inspiration in styling my (((Futuregirl))) costume [below].

I’d say now, especially when the winter sets in, I turn to the book, and the film, once or twice a year, when I want to step back in time and put myself back to that memory of being in the height of the dot com madness, living in an exciting and crazy city like New York and using my imagination to flash-forward a few decades and dream of what might be coming our way.”

About In Ark: A Promise of Survival by Lisa Devaney
Lisa DevaneyIn Ark is set in the year 2044, in New York City, Mya Brand is working as a digital archivist, trying to save the life stories of every human on the planet before climate change makes Earth unliveable.

Keeping laser-focused on her mission is helping her escape the emotional pain she feels from a failed first marriage. Along with support from her actress best friend and bartender buddy, she is rebuilding her life and trying to heal her hard shell. Fraught with daily hardships of survival in the face of climate change, she struggles on to get food, maintain power and protect her delicate skin from the harmful rays of the sun. With little funding for her digital archiving project, she keeps going but dreams of how much more she could do with more resources. Then, one day, she is abducted by an eco-survivalist community that calls itself Ark and promises to make her dreams come true. But is Ark the solution to climate change or the problem?

Read my review of In Ark.

Lisa Devaney’s Bio
Whether it was writing and illustrating her own comic books as a child, creating cartoon-inspired websites in the 90s, taking to the stage in New York City to perform in SLAM-poetry style as her make-believe online character (((Futuregirl))) or even spinning a publicity campaign for a business client, Lisa has been enthralled by storytelling and the mediums that can be used to tell her stories. Her imagination has now led her to writing and self-publishing books, with her debut novel In Ark: A Promise of Survival earning 5* ratings and reviews. But the story isn’t just on pages, follow the hashtag #InArk on Twitter, Instagram  and Facebook to find the transmedia layer of Lisa’s newest storytelling adventure.

Lisa Devaney’s links
Website and blog
Follow Lisa Devaney on Twitter and Facebook

porridge_and_cream__rainyday_111_long

 

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book? It’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message via the contact form here.

 

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Rosie Dean
Rachel Dove
Judith Field

Lisa Devaney

 

 

‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ by Philip K Dick [UK: Gollancz]

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does author @lisadevaney love DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP by Philip K Dick? #books via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1OS