A BookRabbit guest review by Sue Keogh

Like in Thornton’s debut novel, The Alternative Hero, the focus here is the British music scene. Tracing the fortunes of an indie band desperate to get signed and finally start making some money, the book is light-hearted, heavy on banter rather than long-winded description and given pace through large sections being presented like an interview with a rock journalist.

The band is dominated by Russell Groom, a coffee-drinking, rucksack-wearing unlikely rock’n’roll hero who is one of those people who relishes other people being inefficient so he has something to moan about. There’s an underlying affection for bass player Karen and ongoing tensions with the other members – as you would expect with any band worn out by the struggle to get ahead in the competitive indie scene.

There’s plenty of references to Glastonbury, starting-out venues like the Water Rats and the Barfly and artists on the British alternative music scene like Doves, The Libertines and Radiohead, which all sets the book in a very specific time. It will either make you think ‘oh yes!’ or, in a couple of years, ‘sorry, who?’ They talk about wanting to support JJ72 and I’ve already forgotten who they were.

The book’s great for anyone who enjoyed the music nerd element of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, or as a summer read for anyone who’s watched too much X Factor and needs to realise that it’s not that easy to make it in the music business, y’know.

Find out more about Tim Thornton in his author profile.

Review by Sue Keogh

Sue Keogh is a web editor who has produced content for AOL, Yahoo!, ITV and Magic FM, and who has written over 250 music reviews and features for the BBC. Her first book, an informative graphic novel called The Entrepreneurs: Dividing Equity, is due out this autumn.

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Got a spare three hours or so? Because I kid you not, that’s all it took for us to power our way through Heather Gudenkauf’s compelling debut novel, The Weight of Silence. A tense tale following the disappearance of two seven-year-old girls from a small town in Iowa, the storytelling is solid and pacy, and we devoured chapter after chapter without so much as a cursory glance at the time/TV/things burning on the stove.

Published by Mira Books, The Weight of Silence has already been a huge success in the States achieving New York Times bestseller status. Here in the UK it has been chosen as one of the eight books featured in The TV Book Club’s Summer Reading picks (15 August episode).

Heather was in town recently and we ducked out of the burrow momentarily to ask her all about the book, her favourite authors, which book cover was her favourite… all that good stuff.

Before you listen to the interview below, you might want to take a look at some of the reviews other BookRabbiters have been posting, and find out more about Heather in her author profile and on her official website.

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I was raised on Enid Blyton. Reading was my constant companion, and a battered Enid Blyton book became almost a permanent extension of my hand. I don’t care what the grammar police say about her, or that she was allegedly a bit of a dragon – I grew to love reading because of her books, as have millions of other children.

I read them all and was transported to the various worlds of The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, Malory Towers, St Clares, The Wishing Chair, and my favourite place to be, The Magic Faraway Tree.

I would read with a torch under the covers for hours, eventually nodding off hoping that Silky, Moonface and Saucepan Man would visit me in my sleep. Or, that the next morning Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog would be standing on our doorstep, desperately in need of a sixth member to return to Kirrin Island with them and asking if my bags were packed with enough homemade ginger cake for the trip.

So it was with some trepidation that I read about Hodder giving Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series a 21st-century makeover.

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We became Lori Lansens fans here at BookRabbit when we were sent a copy of The Girls by publishers Little, Brown (thanks Susan!) An extraordinary story that we have never forgotten. And now, Lori has done it again… with sharp humour and delicate grace, The Wife’s Tale follows Mary Gooch – morbidly obese and living in denial – as she pursues her husband across the country. The book is released in paperback on 5 August, and we interviewed Lori to find out more about this beautifully written and moving book.

Synopsis

On the eve of her wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband to come home, listening for his car along the dark, icy roads.

As the night draws on, and he fails to appear, Mary reflects on the true nature of their marriage: the secrets, the silences, and the unmentionable yet inescapable fact that for each loss and disappointment, there has been a corresponding physical gain: the woman she once was is now imprisoned in mountainous flesh.

The Wife’s Tale is the inspirational story of the journey Mary is finally forced to make across a continent, ostensibly in search of her husband, but eventually towards the self she has buried for too long.

Interview

The premise is deceptively simple – the story of an overweight woman searching for her missing husband – but there’s a lot more to it than that. Can you tell us the themes readers have picked up on the most? Have any readers’ reactions surprised you?

Mary credits her losses for her gains, describing grief as a catalyst for overeating but in the end the greatest loss – that of her husband of 25 years – becomes the catalyst for her shift in perspective. The novel is not  about ‘weight loss’ and yet the theme of loss prevails throughout the story. Mary’s mother has lost her mind to dementia. Mary loses her husband and job. Her mother-in-law is losing her husband. The woman Mary befriends has lost her husband. Jesus Garcia has lost his wife. I’ve been encouraged and surprised by the amount of email I’ve received through my website with readers commenting on Mary’s journey, their understanding of loss and gain, and their enthusiasm for Mary’s search for a new identity without her husband. The Wife’s Tale is a feminist story in many ways and readers have picked up on that. Many readers have questioned the reference to spirituality in the book. I love to hear from readers who understand Mary’s struggle is about something more than her lost husband.

On the surface one of the obvious themes is looking at the female form, and women’s obsession with weight, obesity – it’s a very current topic, is it a particular fascination of yours?

Judging from every magazine cover at the grocery store and from the plethora of books out at the shops I’d say that weight and body image is a fascination for most of us. I was not interested in telling a story about a women who loses weight and gets the guy and they all live happily ever after. Life is more complicated and the issue of weight is more complex and even political. My sense is that Mary is meant to be on the larger side – big and beautiful – but when weight threatens health and makes life miserable and restrictive that’s another story.  Mary has an addict’s relationship with food and many readers have identified with that. I live in southern California where the female form is on daily display and so I suppose it was natural that my lifelong preoccupation with the topic would come to the fore as it did when I moved here from Canada four years ago.

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Just after 4pm yesterday, the judges for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction announced the longlist.

A total of 138 books, 14 of which were called in by the judges rather than being submitted by the publishers, were considered for the world famous ‘Man Booker Dozen’ longlist of 13 books.

Andrew Motion, chair of the judges said:

Here are thirteen exceptional novels – books we have chosen for their intrinsic quality, without reference to the past work of their authors. Wide-ranging in their geography and their concern, they tell powerful stories which make the familiar strange and cover an enormous range of history and feeling. We feel confident that they will provoke and entertain.

Here are the lucky 13…

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

The old timer of the group, if he wins this year it will be a history-making hat trick.

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The competition is now closed. Thank you everyone for entering, there are clearly a lot of Debbie fans out there. Our five lucky bunnies are Lucy Reynolds, Craig Dearden, Karen Barrett, Susan Cunningham and Karen Kerner – congratulations! We will email you all just to be sure you get the message. If you’re a fan of Lori Lansens, pop back on Monday for another book giveaway.

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With more than 100 million copies of her books in print worldwide and her novels translated into 23 languages, Debbie Macomber is one of today’s leading voices in women’s fiction.

Readers clamor for her heartwarming books about small-town life, home and family and enduring friendships. Her writing has the feel good factor, and fans just keep coming back for more. One of her most popular series – the Blossom Street books – revolves around a neighbourhood on the Seattle waterfront. Her latest in this series is Hannah’s List and we have five copies to give away.

Synopsis

Dr. Michael Everett has been inconsolable in the year since his wife Hannah died of ovarian cancer. Unable to carry on living any semblance of a normal life without her, Michael filled his empty days with work. So he is shocked when a year after her death, his brother-in-law, Ritchie, gives him a letter Hannah had written before she died ready for the first anniversary of her death.

In it she reminds him of her love and makes one final and almost impossible, request: she asks Michael to marry again and become the father he was meant to be. Knowing his reaction, Hannah gives him a gentle push by suggesting three women—each of whom, she says, would make an excellent wife and companion.

Michael’s heart isn’t in it, but he decides to carry out Hannah’s final wish by contacting each of the women. As he spends time with each woman, Michael realizes that Hannah’s list may end up saving four lives, not just one.

Interview

But first find out more about Debbie, her favourite character from the book and what she reads when nobody’s looking…

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