Cutty Sark Appeal

I want as many people as possible to contribute - if only a little. I know the amount shown here seems enormous, but the Cutty Sark is a true monument of Britain's Maritime History,
so please send even a small amount to help restore this magnificent vessel.

Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

I'm reading two books by this author for two different book groups - fortunately a few weeks apart. This is in many ways your typical 'coming of age' story, but perhaps because it is set in Nigeria this alone makes this a better than average book. Ms Adiche has a good style and you certainly want to read more and find out about how the story ends. The teenage girl who is the centre of the story is bright but extremely repressed by her patriarch father who rules the family oppressively. He is a Catholic, rich and certain of his beliefs. He is terrified that his children will become tainted by ungodliness - which includes his own father. So many of his friends and associates retain an element of the mysterious traditions of Africa. The father is generous with his wealth but not with his affection - so many of those around him depend upon him financially and yet with his own family he behaves like a dictator of the Stalinist variety.
Nigeria is going through difficult times politically and ironically the father is on the side of democracy and liberality, putting his own life in danger.
The girl only really discovers her true self when she visits her father's sister a widowed University lecturer, and meets a charismatic Nigerian priest who finally opens up the shell in which she has trapped herself.
My rating: 8/10

Noughts and Crosses - Malorie Blackman

It was interesting to read a good aimed at 'young adults', and if this is the sort of stuff that older teenagers are reading it is probably OK for me! It certainly isn't patronising. The book proposes an interesting political twist, describing a police state where the under class are white and those of other races are in control. The only achievers are black, mixed race, or Asian. Schools are largely prohibited to white children, and there is a terrorist liberation movement waging a campaign of violence to gain advancement. This isn't great literature and some of the plot is trite, the language isn't challenging, but maybe that is important - it means all reading abilities can have access. The central story line of love across the divide isn't developed predictably, but I have to say the author doesn't really represent the motivations of most young men terribly realistically. Overall though it deserves a rating of 7/10

Still water - John Harvey

My first book by this author. Every now and again I like something light and not too challenging, and this is a fairly average to good detective story. I was slightly confused by some of the leading characters - this is several volumes into the Resnick series. Of course most are fairly stereotypical for modern police based novels - a gay/black officer, the moody senior thoughtful inspector, the old-fashioned politically incorrect senior detective, etc. But on balance an entertaining and easy read and I'll probably be reading more of the Resnick novels. Rating: 8/10

Mapp and Lucia - Radio 4

Ned Sherrin has written a new adaptation of the classic E F Benson novel 'Mapp and Lucia' and this is currently being aired on Radio 4. Although Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales might have produced the most memorable portrayals of these characters on television, and audio books, this is a superb production. I love the books of E F Benson - they are full of gossip, titanic struggles for supremacy between determined women with the men always also-rans and shadows in comparison. Miss Mapp has always seen herself as the leader of Tilling society but she meets her match with the arrival of Lucia and her close companion the effete Georgie. Mapp is snobbish, offensive, rude, over bearing (but Benson often evokes sympathy for her) while Lucia is shallow, determined and a natural organiser and leader - always looking for an opportunity to assert her natural role (to her at least), but again Benson always just ensures that she her little deceits come close to discovery in order to reing her in. I just love it.