The Uncommon Reader

* * * * * (5 stars)
Alan Bennett
Faber and Faber Limited, Great Britain,
and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, U.S., 2007
Hardback
ISBN 0374280967

Here is a reader’s feast, a book that makes me laugh out loud, in which everything happens as, of course, it would, once the Queen of England notices “a City of Westminster traveling library, a large removal-like van parked next to the bins outside one of the kitchen doors [of the Palace].” She borrows one book, then another… and declares she might have a cold, so that she can stay in bed all day and read.

Adult people with responsibilities, duties, schedules, and promises to keep do not stay in bed all day and read. Oh, but we do, when the book is good and the excuse is adequate. This is such a book.

The Uncommon Reader describes the progress of a love affair, from first meeting to life-transforming experience — a love affair with reading. The Queen comes late to this passion, which usually happens in childhood, so she can read Nancy Mitford, early on, instead of Beatrix Potter. But as she progresses, so do I, remembering what I rarely think of: learning to read, burning through the grade school library, sitting down among the opened Christmas presents and starting Little Women, taking my first mind-trips to England and Africa among the boughs of the old willow next door. Failing to hear the telephone, vacuum cleaner, frustrated mother. Pride and Prejudice at 10 (by flashlight, which wasn’t enough help), then at 15, 20, 25….

This book reveals the seductions of reading, but more: the strange effect that books have, how they send the mind off in unexpected directions, prompt untimely curiosity. To the president of France, over the soup at a state dinner, the Queen says, “I’ve been longing to ask you about the writer Jean Genet…. ”

She hardly recognizes herself, and her staff begin to find her… unreliable. But we know what to do: lend her a really great book to read. Choose it with love and thought, and give it with joy. A book like this one.

Reviewed by Feral (also reviewed by Kelli Frankenberg; see below for a different take)

The Uncommon Reader

* * * * (4 stars)
Alan Bennett
Faber and Faber Limited, Great Britain,
and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, U.S., 2007
Hardback
ISBN 0374280967

First, I have to admit that I do not read much fiction because the blend of reality confuses me. I cannot always tell fact from fiction. The Uncommon Reader is a case in point because it seems to use real people in a fictional plot. Or, is the plot fictional? I’m pretty sure the queen of England is real as are some of the other prominent figures mentioned throughout the novella.

I suppose one brings to any book one’s own projections. While another person might have found this story about the joy of reading, I saw a more subversiive story. The Uncommon Reader is about addiction. The queen’s new found discovery seems insatiable as she progresses to more and more stimulating material. Her duties become a nuisance and her staff resentful of the substance that has changed her predictable scripts. The queen’s staff is so angry, they begin to hide her stash and do away with her supplier. However, those measures do not stop the queen from obtaining her next fix because she is the queen afterall. When the staff cannot beat the queen’s addiction for her, even after an intervetion or two, they resort to the only behavior a codependent can. They enable her.

I find myself wondering if the authori’s purpose was to promote literacy and if he received permission from the queen to utilize her for his purpose. Does he hit the mark? I am inclined to read the books mentioned in the story, but I am afraid of addiction myself. My understanding is that fiction does instill compassion in its readers. Who can’t use a little, or lot, of compassion? If you are not a reader of fiction, I D.A.R.E. you to read this book.

Reviewed by Kelli Frankenberg

Not all Tarts Are Apple

* * * * * (5 stars)
Pip Granger
Penguin books, 2002
Paperback
ISBN 0 14 20.0332 8

Set in 1953 working class London, the story is told from the point of view of Rosie, a seven-year-old girl living with her Uncle Bert and Aunt Maggie above a neighbourhood café. The scene is set in the first paragraph:

It seems that I have always been surrounded by the warmth of the kitchen, the smell of food cooking and the murmur of punters voices rising and falling above the hiss and bubble of the urn.

Rosie is loved and supported by an extended family of prostitutes, crooks, con-men, pimps, thieves and shady lawyers. The adventure starts when the school bully tells Rosie that her mother is a tart. Even though she doesn't know the meaning of tart, Rosie doesn't want anybody calling her mother one; furious she attacks the girl in the playground.

The incident bursts Rosie’s warm denial about her heritage and she starts asking questions. She learns that the Perfumed Lady, who would visit every now and then, is in fact her birth mother who abandoned her at the café when she was a baby. For the first time in her life Rosie feels unsafe and starts peeing the bed nightly. Tired of washing sheets, and concerned for Rosie, Uncle Bert and Aunt Maggie call the local solicitor to set in motion a legal adoption. But things don't go as smoothly as planned, a stranger starts asking the locals questions about the Perfumed Lady, unearthing more family secrets, threatening Rosie, the family and their way of life. The community rallies to find more answers and protect their own.

This is the first of a series of books set in this community. The Widow Ginger follows Alice and her family, whereas Trouble in Paradise and No Rest For the Wicked are loose prequels, filling in back stories for other characters. Granger grew up in the London underworld, her father was a smuggler, and her ability to create believable outcast characters obviously stems from that heritage. The dialogue is realistic and humorous; some Americans might need an English/ Cockney dictionary to get more than the gist. Her most recent book, Alone - Corgi (June 26, 2007), is a memoir of her growing up in very similar circumstances to the heroine of her first novel.

Not All Tarts Are Apple was nominated for an Agatha Award in the UK for best first novel. The plot is character driven and the writing, laugh out loud funny. It's the kind of writing you want to read aloud to people on the bus or to a frustrated girlfriend who is trying to fall asleep. This book is ideal for any anglophile mystery lover and anyone ready for a well written light read.

Reviewed by Boye

True Magick, A Beginner's Guide

* * * * (4 stars)
AmberK
Llewellyn Publications, 1994
Paperback
ISBN 0-87542-003-6

It's 15 years old, it's not very big, it's been reviewed or recommended countless times. It's likely to be on any magic-practicing Pagan's “must-have” booklist. Lately, my copy's been calling out to me.

Rereading it takes me back 15 years, to a time when I took classes from AmberK. What struck me then was her encyclopedic knowledge of Wicca. In those days, I didn't know enough to understand how much of Wicca was based in ceremonial magic, but I knew I wasn't much interested in aspergers, athames, and bollines.

My bias: I know more now, and I'm even less interested in ceremonial magic and ritual (are they indistinguishable?), no matter which Pagan tradition I find them in. They have little to do with my spiritual practice or spiritual worldview. I do believe in “magic” (several kinds), but too often the practice of “Magick” doesn't live up to its potential for being a useful tool for personal or planetary transformation.

In AmberK's last chapter, “Your Magickal Education Continues,” she talks of Nature as teacher, and recounts several of her magickal experiences of Self and Mother Earth. She recounts the wisdom a tree-teacher shared – the use of its branch-shadows for divination:

“Keep your heart open, and your mind quiet, and I will lead you to the right choice for you.”

It's in this chapter that my experience most resonates with hers. And yet, when I look back to my early days as a Pagan (and back then, “Pagan” wasn't my primary identification), I acknowledge that AmberK's book was an important introduction to a worldview that informed me of many things, some of which I eventually rejected.

Useful material for anyone:

• Evaluating Teachers (from ch. 2): traits to look for (positive and negative)
• How Magick Works (ch. 4): the Laws of Magick boiled down to four components, along with a discussion of the three-part model of the self (High Self, Middle Self, Younger Self)
• Preparing Yourself for Magick (ch. 5): she begins at the beginning – the mundane must not be neglected in pursuit of the metaphysical (though she falls into an unfortunate new-age pitfall when, in her exhortation to magickal practitioners to take responsibility for themselves, she states that “everything in your life … is there because you chose it”)
• The Pyramid of Magick (from ch. 7): this 6-dimensional model of personal power could be used by anyone interested in spiritual practice (the base of the pyramid: knowledge; its 4-sides: creative imagination, will of steel, living faith, ability to keep silent; it's inner space/structure: love)
• Ethics and Hazards (ch. 12): the ethics section is minimal, but the author does a good job, in a few pages, of discussing one of the most overlooked, undertaught realities of undertaking a conscious magic(k)al practice: there are risks involved across the realms, magical and mundane. It is these seven pages, in fact, that decide my 4-star rating.

Reviewed by Sage