Princelet Street

Having a slightly boring day today I decided to find out more about Princelet Street and discovered a website dedicated to the building where David Rodinsky lived.
More stuff here!

Royal Festival Hall Of Shame

Dave and Gaëlle, the chattiest members of Books Ta Mère.

Royal Festival Hall Of Fame

Jack discusses his literary ambitions with his new aunt, Rocio; while Hannah imagines what it'd be like to fill Books Ta Mère with more of
her children...

La Chambre De Rod

For Adam

Love Justin

Rodinsky Baby

Here's a nice photo of our xmas choice - Go Get!

The DAY after...

Well, it's the day after the night before - Adam will be recovering from his amazing victory.
Click here for a video of his triumphal speech (you'll need to save the file from the link - MAC: hold Control and click on link, then select SAVE LINKED FILE AS - ignore the APPEND message. PC: Right-click and SAVE LINKED FILE AS - needs Quicktime).

Gaelle's recommendations

1- Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body
Armand Marie Leroi
464 pages
Winner of the Guardian First Book Award 2004, Mutants is disturbing, fascinating and enlightening; in short, a remarkable book.
"This book is a well-written account of mutants and mutation, in which the author draws not only on his considerable scientific knowledge, but also illustrates his points very interestingly using vignettes from the history of the study of mutants. He deals with conjoined twins, the Elephant Man, pituitary abnormalities, the castrati etc... in a very readable but precise and concise manner."
Should satisfy my curiosity for "Freaks"...

2- Hitchcock  
Francois Truffaut
367 pages
The classic study of the great director and his films, comprising a series of dialogues between Hitchcock and Truffaut, is fully updated with material on Hitchcock's last years and his final four films as well as his more "classic" ones. A compelling read.
Fascinating for Hitchcock fans as well as anyone with an interest in films.
He is the Master after all...

Adam's Recommendations

Well it's non-fiction next month and these are my two recommendations:

1. We Wish to Inform you that Tomorrow we will be Killed with our Families - Philip Gourevitch.

This was the winner of the Guardian First Book award in the late 90s and is a journalistic account of the Rwandan Genocide. The genocide is one of the most shocking atrocities in recent history but compared to other genocides such as the Holocaust little is known about it. Gourevitch examines and explains the genocide through harrowing individual stories - both perpetrators and survivors and in fact the film Hotel Rwanda was based on one of the chapters in this book. I'll admit this is not going to be a cheerful read but it is also seems shameful that so many of us know so little about such a shocking event.

2. Rodinsky's Room - Rachel Lichenstein and Iain Sinclair

A fascinating book. David Rodinsky, caretaker of an old synagogue in Princelet Street near Brick Lane disappeared in the 1960s. Although the synagogue fell into dilapidation his room was left undisturbed for 20 years until Rachel Lichenstein, a Jewish artist happened upon it. The room was full of writings, annotated books, maps, gramophone records and clothes. Lichenstein, whose grandparents had fled from Poland in the 1930s started to try and piece together the shadowy figure that was David Rodinsky, a journey that takes her from the east end of London, to Poland and to Israel. She discovers that his world was that of Eastern Jewry, cabbalistic speculation, an obsession with language as code and terrible loss. This is a book about both the experience of Eastern European Jewry in the east end of London and Lichenstein's own search for her roots and Jewish identity. Weaved into this, in alternative chapters, the London based author Iain Sinclair meditates both on Lichenstein's quest to discover the "lost" David Rodinsky but also Rodinsky's Whitechapel and its immigrant past and present.

Adam R

New meeting!

It seems that we've agreed the new Books ta Mère meeting will take place on Friday the 28th of this month. So Ladies and Gentlemen, if you could think of a venue that is baby-friendly but also serves wine I think our dream (ok maybe just mine) can come true... Over.

Graham Greene With Envy

This is just for Adam really, cos I think this is as close as he'll get to the Greenester in Books Ta Mère.
Ho ho!

Themes for future Ta Meres

Let me know what you think - a few ideas for themes: -

General non-fiction
Biography / Autobiography
Crime / thriller
Russian literature
S American literature
Graphic Novels
Chick Lit
Pulp fiction / popular best-seller
Past Booker winners
Releases from this year
Graham Greene novels!!
Author themes (e.g. Graham Greene)
Poetry collections

Adam

Brucie Bonus

I was on the train a few weeks ago and I happened upon a man reading a Bruce Forsyth biography! I mean really of all the biographies in all of the world. Why is he always classed a "great entertainer" - what is entertaining about a seedy old man with a big chin? Well at a recent wedding I went to there was a groundswell of favourable opinion to one of the grand old men of British tv! I give up.

Adam

Gina on Dorothy

Complete Stories was finally delivered to our door last week and I started it by reading the Introduction, written by Regina Barecca. She is described as a professor of Feminist theory as well as English but also someone who's written serious articles about the top HBO TV series The Sopranos. I'm intrigued.

Is Netball Cultural?

A genuine question raised by Hannah, should we discuss Netball on this blog and is Netball cultural?
Rocio argued that "Celine might have likened his life to a very lonely game of netball. Ok, so its a bit of a tenuous post-modern (cultural) link to make, but recalling the few pages of Death on Credit that I managed to read, its not totally out of place".

I now declare this debate open...

A Rotter Book Club?

Just browsing the BBC's website and came across a book club for the Open University. Thought you might all appreciate seeing what others read/think of/say about books. Perhaps of interest is that back in February they read that curate's egg of ours The Rotters' Club and seemed to love/hate it as much as us lot.
(Justin)

The Only Pic From The Ta Mere Pique Nique!

Obviously, we're in the middle of a huge and stimulating debate on Death On Credit...
(Justin)

Dotty's back!

So... we now know which book we're supposed to be reading...
We're also wondering about the date for our next meeting, is anytime after the 3rd of October OK for everyone?
Shall we go for Tuesday the 4th?

Something you may find interesting, in 1994, Alan Rudolph (famous for movies like The Secret Life of Dentists (2002) and Made in Heaven (1987) with Kelly McGillis -- quality obviously) directed a film based on Dorothy Parker's life called: Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle. It features pretty much all the indie kids of the early 1990s, from Jennifer Jason Leigh to James LeGros via Nick Cassavetes and Lili Taylor. Sounded interesting at the time... but is it still worth an evening in front of the telly?
(Gaelle)

Credit to (Death on) Credit

Bit of news from Chez Jacques: Death on Credit is going down well. Hannah is reading it pretty avidly whilst feeding the boy.

Stop press!
She now says that she liked it immediately but isn't so sure now. Could the "l'effect de la Celine" be making itself known once again? More soon...
(Alex)

Dorothy Parker

This week's (month's?) selection is a collection of short stories by Dorothy Parker, the 1920s American Socialite, someone that people on Wikipedia describe as "an American writer and poet best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles".
Isobel, who submitted this book still hasn't told us exactly which title we are supposed to be reading. I'm guessing this one but she still needs to confirm it.
Anyway, it promises to be an interesting read, no less than Patricia Highsmith's This Sweet Sickness or Beryl Bainbridge's Young Adolf, two other titles than made it to the final.
Our theme this time was Female Writers.
(Gaelle)

Celine, oh Celine!

Our latest baby was Death on Credit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Loathed by some, it still managed to titillate others. The oddest thing about it should be his size though, why is the English translation three times the size of the original (French) one?









Cover illustration by Tardi -- what else can you ask for?

Well... you can ask for this, a review of the time by a guy I know nothing about:
"Ce livre furieux, qui gronde, cataracte, frappe comme un bélier, on n'a jamais fini d'en faire le tour, de le mesurer. C'est une œuvre satanique, s'il est vrai que l'enfer n'est que la privation de l'espoir. C'est un grand 'Non!' vociféré à toutes les questions que pose la vie.
Céline, vous pourrez bien désormais dire et faire tout ce que vous voudrez. Vous avez donné une voix au désespoir humain."
Which roughly translates: "This furious book that growls, cracks and hits like a ram, one never manages to figure it all out. It's a satanical piece, if it is true that hell only means the deprivation of hope. It's a loud 'No!' shouted in the face of all questions raised by life. Céline, you can from now on say and do whatever you want. You gave a voice to human despair."
Pierre Scize, Ceux qui n'aiment pas Céline, Le merle blanc, 19 septembre 1936.
(Gaelle)

Slaughterhouse 5

Another book submitted by Justin... Slaughterhouse 5 was a delight to discuss, not to everyone's liking...

One has to agree that Kurt Vonnegut comes across as a likeable man though, impression confirmed by his website. Who's gonna buy a t-shirt?

The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov's book is considered one of the best and most highly regarded novels to come out of Russia during the Soviet era. Some liked it very much, others didn't.
The book was submitted by Rocio.

The Atrocity Exhibition

Our second book, submitted by Antonio was much more challenging...

Something I felt needed to be added here (for no particular reason) was a link to JG Ballard's review of CSI.
See what you think...

The Rotters' Club

This was our first selection. Then we took the time to write a proper review...
"In general, Books Ta Mère thought the book promised much… but delivered little. It lacked depth and ideas, and was full of half-finished narratives and underdeveloped characters – a number of Benjamin’s friends, such as “best friend” Phillip, drifted in and out of the narrative to such an extent that it was hard to remember anything about them when they cropped up again.
Some enjoyed Coe’s use of letters, billboard notices etc to advance the narrative. Others found these devices distracting and amateurish. The devices were, however, used to unravel some of the more interesting elements of the story – such as the episode featuring two Scandinavian boys shaped by a family holocaust tragedy -– but others argued they simply exposed the emotional voids in the rest of the book.
And did Coe bite off too much by trying to deal with what seemed like all of the major issues of ’70s Britain?
Some members of the group did enjoy the nostalgic look at an era they lived through. And it should not be forgotten that the book was eminently readable. It just would have been nice if Coe had tied all the narrative’s loose ends together. Could he have had a sequel in mind… oh look there it is now on the bookshelves!" -- Adam