Book four: The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory



From the bestselling author of "The Other Boleyn Girl" comes a wonderfully atmospheric evocation of the court of Henry VIII, and the one woman who destroyed two of his queens. The year is 1539 and the court of Henry VIII is increasingly fearful at the moods of the ageing sick king. With only a baby in the cradle for an heir, Henry has to take another wife and the dangerous prize of the crown of England is won by Anne of Cleves. She has her own good reasons for agreeing to marry a man old enough to be her father, in a country where to her both language and habits are foreign. Although fascinated by the glamour of her new surroundings, she senses a trap closing around her. Catherine is confident that she can follow in the steps of her cousin Anne Boleyn to dazzle her way to the throne but her kinswoman Jane Boleyn, haunted by the past, knows that Anne's path led to Tower Green and to an adulterer's death. The story of these three young women, trying to make their own way through the most volatile court in Europe at a time of religious upheaval and political uncertainty is Philippa Gregory's most intense novel yet.

I have been devouring this series. I swear I have learnt so much about the Tudor era from these books than I ever have from all the history books on my shelf, it's chockablock full of fascinating stuff. Once I start reading I can't stop, but they're very light reading (and quite sexy).

The novel covers a few important days in the life of the protagonist Holden Caulfield, a tall, lanky, highly-critical and depressed sixteen-year-old who decides one night to run away from Pencey Prep boarding school, just before Christmas vacation. Because he is so critical of others, and points out their faults only to exhibit them himself later, Holden is widely considered to be an unreliable narrator, and the details and events of his story are apt to be distorted by his point of view. Nonetheless, it is his story to tell.

Wow! This is one of those books that I have put off reading for years and years. My friends all had to read it in English Literature (I read Heroes and An Inspector Calls), and everyone knows that you automatically hate any book you have to read in class, so they didn't sound very enthusiastic about it.
The shortness of the book was nice so I managed to read it in a day, and I found I could relate to Holden (which is quite worrying seeing as he's a complete idiot/insane). Deceptively simple, and as one Amazon reviewer said "Anybody who doesnt like this book is too stupid to realise what it is about" =D
Actually on the last day of secondary school one of the teachers read out a except from this book, and I remembered it almost word for word 3 years later when I went to pick up the book. I don't think anyone else was listening but for some reason it got me thinking, I should probably thank him. It was this part;

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.  And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That's all I do all day.  I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 22, spoken by the character Holden Caulfield

Book one: Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui



Publicly banned in China for its sensual nature and irreverent style, this novel is the semi-autobiographical story of Coco, a cafe waitress, who is full of enthusiasm and impatience for life. She meets a young man, Tian Tian, for whom she feels tenderness and love, but he is reclusive, impotent and an increasing user of drugs. Despite parental objections, Coco moves in with him, leaves her job and throws herself into writing.

Shortly afterwards she meets Mark, a married Westerner. The two are uncontrollably attracted and begin a highly charged, physical affair. Torn between her two lovers, and tormented by her deceit, her unfinished novel and the conflicting feelings involved in love and betrayal, Coco begins to find out who she really is. 

I thought it was a good book. Coco is pretty vile, the language was beautiful but sometimes it was really overdone (my head hurt with all the philosophical crap) and it was a bit too modern for me to fall in love with it. Having said that I liked it a lot, but it's more of a lazy summer day read.