Gooru latest - reviews and views from thisisvalencia.com

SEPTEMBER - SUN, SEA - AND WORKING IN THE HEAT OF AUGUST

My life is a a series of plans gone awry!

La Goora and I had planned that this August we would take it easy and enjoy the city, the beach and the surrounding countryside. Armed with a bag of books and magazines and a picnic, we would set out on little forays to discover new areas and just plain take it easy.

Instead, we have worked in the intense heat, we have had an endless round of visitors (just passing through and we'd love to see you...) and have probably made it to the beach a total of six or seven times over the month. I am not really complaining, it has been very nice seeing friends and we have also managed to get out to some of the fiestas in the villages to watch fireworks, mascletàs and celebrations. (No, we didn't go to La Tomatina - once in a lifetime is quite enough for me, thank you!)

Working in August in Valencia is the real problem, you know the sort of thing, you run out of ink for a printer and your usual supplier has shut down for the month, so you end up having to buy it from a large store for twice what you usually pay. You need to get some information but the entire office you call is closed and the phone is answered by a voice telling you to leave a message, or, when they are open it's a skeleton staff and the only person who can answer your question is out of the office until god-knows-when. And it doesn't stop there! The city is fuller than ever this year with tourists, yet half the restaurants are closed for up to six weeks. We have lived here long enough to be used to it, but somehow it still catches us out. I was going to say that the lack of traffic in the city at this time of year makes up for it - but the road and tunnel works around the city seems to have funnelled all the traffic, so it seems a bad as ever.

I really am not whingeing, I love it all, particularly the 'pensat i fet' (think and do). It's wonderful to live in a place where a huge concert can be put on in the main square of the city with little or no warning. Last night was a perfect example - a free concert of world folk music with musicians and dancers from six parts of the world - stage, seating for over a thousand and posters went up just one day before the event.

Did I do any reading? Actually yes, a surprising amount.

I read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggars. This has been recommended to me so often that I decided to give it a try. I tried hard, I really did. But in the end it defeated me. The quirkiness, which at the beginning of the book makes you think that the title is accurate, began to irritate me by the middle and by the time a was three quarters through it I had had enough.

I realised this month why pulp novels are called pulp novels. I decided to re-read a Walter Tevis novel, The Steps of The Sun. It was a brand new copy under the inprint Ballantyne Science Fiction (Can one man save a planet? Can one planet save a man?) I had bought on a trip to New York in 1985. It has been in my shelves ever since. The first shock was that the pages were a raw sienna colour and the pristine cover literally fell away in small pieces as I tried to read it. The binding held together but the cheap pulp pages cracked with the cover. I got to read it all the way through, and though it has dated it is still a great read.

A friend of mine is moving from Valencia down to the south of Spain and was having a clear out of his books, naturally he called me as he knows I can't bear to see books thrown away. Amongst a great selection (thank you DW!) was a moth-eaten copy of John Harvey's Ash & Bone. So I took it to the beach. Ash & Bone was a great read, a retired detective inspector is called back from retirement in Cornwall to help investigate a murder of a police woman.

Finally to Jason Webster's Latest, ¡Guerra! - I am a quarter of the way though, so will review it properly next month, but so far am really enjoying it and it is now out in Paperback. Jason lives here in Valencia, this is his third book and is about the Spanish Civil War and its continuing impact on Modern Spain. He has a good website and blog http://web.mac.com/jason.webster/iWeb/JasonWebster/home.html.

That's it from me, back to work now...

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AUGUST - BOOKS FOR THE BEACH

It's that time of the year again. Sun, sand and beach, and a pile of books to take to La Playa that won't tax the brain whilst you 'tomar el Sol'. You will be proud of me this month as I have consumed a veritable mountain of books. Books that span genres from travel writing to pulp fiction. Where shall I start? Aahh, yes, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. This is an ODD book. I really liked it and I really hated it too. It is really several shorter novels, carved up and re-assembled with (sometimes very) tenuous links. It starts with a story about a naïve clerk on a voyage to Polynesia in the 19th century and just as you are getting into the narrative, it ends halfway through a sentence. I thought I had a dodgy copy but soon all is revealed, sort of. There are five stories bisected around a central story about a post apocalyptic island (the least favourite part of the book for me, as it is written in a pidgin English, which drove me to distraction!) It is a good read in the main, particularly strong is the story of the musician in the 1930's who goes to help a blind, syphilitic composer.

Jaguars Ripped my Flesh by Tim Cahill. Talk about not being able to judge a book by its cover! The copy I read is a Penguin Original from around 15 years ago showing a Vampire style face with claw marks down one cheek and blood running from the wounds. This is a travel book. Penguin Originals didn't last very long and it's not really surprising with art direction this bad. JRMF is a great book, a collection of travel writing from this gifted ex-Rolling Stone writer. Prior to the publication of the magazines that originally published these articles, adventure travel writing was confined to pulp magazines where the hero was forever fighting off dangerous animals with the aid of busty nymphomaniac travel companions, hence the title. What is sad about this book is that Cahill talks of species that are becoming or are in danger of becoming extinct through greed, poaching or plain mismanagement - and here we are, twenty, thirty years on and the situation is worse than ever... I will say it again, this is a great book, Cahill writes excellent prose that is rip-roariously funny and extremely moving, there is never a dull moment. I shall be looking for more by this man.

Talking of funny new shapes for books - the über-cool design agency Tank have come up with a novel (sic) idea for the, um , novel - a series of books artfully designed to look like cigarette packets - they are being launched to coincide with Britain going smoke-free on July 1st, so instead of gasping for a fag you can be gasping for a good read.... there's short fiction by Hemingway, Kipling, Kafka and Tolstoy, and novellas from Conrad (Heart of Darkness) and RL Stevenson (Dr Jeykyll and Mr Hyde), and just where you'd expect to read the warning that smoking shortens your life or gives you wrinkles, is the blurb about the book...

Now, some quick recommendations for the beach. Beg, borrow or steal anything by Lawrence Block - I keep harping on about this man, but he is a genius, a pulp fiction writer who writes like a dream - take a look at his website www.lawrenceblock.com for a taster. Next up is Breakfast in Brighton, Adventures on the Edge of England by Nigel Richardson - Mr Richardson is fairly obsessed by Graham Green's novel Brighton Rock and sets off to Brighton to find out more. He picks up a postcard of a painting with the same name as the title of the book and goes on a hunt for both. It is a surprisingly good read by someone who clearly loves Brighton.

If you don't like reading books on the beach but own an iPod, then try downloading a novel or two - there are some excellent novels available on the web for download, a lot are free and some are actually quite good - if you don't want a novel what about a radio show - there are hundreds on my favourite website in the world, bbc.co.uk - radio four has fantastic classic radio shows - Just a Minute, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Loose Ends and brilliant plays. If live music is your thang! then head on over to kcrw.com for Morning Becomes Eclectic - the archived hour-long shows are incredible. Dig around the site for other great themed shows and if you can't find enough there go to npr.org for more music and spoken word.

Enjoy La Playa - use plenty of suncream and don't burn.

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JUNE - NEW BOOKSHELVES - AND REDISCOVERING CHERISHED LPS

Following last month's piece for this magazine, a good friend of mine coincidentally phoned me to say that he was having a clear-out of bits and pieces that he has accumulated from skips and the street over the past couple of years. Amongst the junk was a very pretty set of bookshelves, Having visited our place several times since we moved here, he knew of the problems with the every increasing junk growing on top of the boxes of books in our hall and the safety hazard it was beginning to pose. 'You'll have to get a couple of long bolts and do a bit of wood cutting - but it will get at least some of the boxes out of the way' he said.

They are great, I got them built without any assistance save that of La Goora helping me to lift them upright and move them into place once I had constructed them. They are old, probably from the late teens of the last century, but amazingly were flat-pack, Just a couple of bolts (well, five actually) and a few struts to cut to fit in the slot that allow for adjustable shelf size, and they are very strong and sturdy. They are a bit marked, so my next job is to do a paint job on them. But that, as they say, can wait.

Once up, I filled them and managed to lose 14 boxes of books into the Tardis-like deep shelves, admittedly there are books behind books, but they look great, and more to the point I can now get to my beloved tomes. The friend who gave them to me is now deeply jealous of them and is obviously secretly wishing he had used them himself!

I still need to build more, as there are another ten boxes at least of books and the same again of LPs. The boxes of LPs haven't been opened since we arrived on these shores some 8 years ago, so I suppose they can wait a little longer.

So, What have I been reading this month? First of all, let me tell you that Stef Penney's Tenderness of Wolves, which I was in the middle of last month did not disappoint, a great read from beginning to end.

We had our little break in Perpignan, La Goora and me, the plan was to go and chill with some old friends and sit by their heated pool and read - the weather forecast was grim as we drove up the AP7 through Spain and around Barcelona (what is it with all those tolls? Why have a motorway which forces you to stop every three minutes to deposit more money to continue on your journey?), but we arrived to bright sunshine and warm temperatures and were able to do what we had planned. I sat down with some books I planned to read, but then noticed a pile of The New Yorker magazines. M & R, the friends we were staying with are American and her father has given her a subscription to this wonderful weekly. The books were packed away and I spent all day in the company of some of the USA's finest writers and cartoonists. M's father Samuel Hynes, occasionally writes for TNY and had recently written a wonderful story of how he met Ezra Pound whilst researching a book. I read that too, it's a remarkable story and I was hoping to give you a link to it on their excellent site but they don't have a full online archive yet. If you search their site under Ezra Pound you can read a short synopsis. What I find absolutely amazing is that they have for sale on their site The Complete New Yorker - every page of every issue from 1925 to 2006 on an 80GB hard drive for only $199. It has to be the bargain of the century - I know, you couldn't possibly read it all but imagine being able to search through those years of stories and articles and, of course, the cartoons!

Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?: And 114 Other Questions was by the bed in our room at M&R's, which is a follow up to the enormously popular Does anything eat Wasps? They are great books for the loo, full of silly but interesting questions - I particularly liked the section on Bird Droppings....

I have managed to read a couple of real books this month as well. Colm Tóbin's masterwork on Henry James, a fictionalized account of his life called The Master - it is a fascinating read and gives a highly readable insight into this distinctly odd man's life. The other book was Bob Shaw's Other Days, Other Eyes, a science fiction novel I bought in 1972 (A Pan paperback priced at 35p!) though it has dated a bit, it's still a great yarn concerning the invention of 'Slow Glass', slabs of glass that slow the passage of light, so that people are able to buy 'farmed' slabs to put in their city homes showing beautiful views from the recent past. The book is expanded from several short stories which were far more successful, but, if you can get hold of a copy and enjoy Scifi, is a good read.

I'm over-running here but a quick word about DVDs - Mobile - ITV three part drama about the corrupt world of Mobile phones - told through three different viewpoints - gripping stuff. An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's powerpoint presentation is scary stuff on Global Warming.

I really have to go now...see you next time

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MAY - VISITORS, AMERICA'S CUP AND MY CORRIDOR

I am finally , this month, going to build my bookshelves. He doesn't know it yet but my mate Patrick is going to help me so as to avoid having a repeat of the 'Gaudi bends' of the last lot I built. There was a certain 'je ne sais quoi' about them, but this time I (and, to be fair, La Goora ) would really like them to be perfectly straight. I am not a handy man, but can design things furniture-y. Hence getting an expert in to put the precut pieces I have worked out together. Once they are finally up (and they have to be soon as we have lots of people coming to stay) I can get all my lovely books out of the boxes that are still piled along the corridor and in the spare bedroom and are becoming a/ a safety hazard, b/ a dumping ground for more stuff (it's amazing how much stuff can be piled on boxes), and c/ an eyesore. They are going to be great, and very attractive.

Life in the Gooru household has, yet again, been hectic this past month, people staying, America's Cup (trying to watch a race or two, hoping for wind), watching all manner of stuff going on in the square below me and trying to get not one, but three websites going. So I am sorry to admit yet again that there have not been as many books read on yours and my behalf as should have been, but I highly recommend two to you. The first I am actually two thirds through and is a book I would not normally have contemplated reading but a good friend insisted I try it - The tenderness of Wolves, a remarkable first book by Stef Penney, it all takes place in a remote settlement in Canada in 1867. It is a literary thriller, a man is brutally murdered, and a woman's seventeen year old son has disappeared, she has to find him to clear his name, taking with her a guide who she begins to fall for. It is compelling reading and the description of the desolation of the far north reminds me of Annie Prioux. So far, it's a great book. If the end disappoints, I will let you know next month.

There was great excitement in this household this month when we heard that the new Doctor Who series started on the beeb this month.

Were we all disappointed with the first two episodes? A resounding yes, is the answer. We all miss Billy Piper, who was great as Rose, but the storylines so far are so weak, great shame. We all hope it improves.

What we do love, on the other hand, is Grey's Anatomy which we are completely hooked on, series one and two are now available to buy on DVD, and are just brilliant. It's a slow burner but is highly addictive- be sure to put a few hours by if you start to watch - you'll be watching more than one episode at a time.

The State Within is out on DVD too - if you haven't seen this excellent BBC political conspiracy thriller, set in Washington and revolving around the consequences of a mid-air explosion of a passenger jet over the city - gripping stuff. You need to really watch this as the plot twists are sometimes a little confusing, but it's a great series.

Before I get to the second book I have to urge everyone to get to see the incredible exhibition Luz en el Sur (Light in the South) that is part of Encuentro Entre Dos Mares, Bienal Sao Paulo- Valencia, at the Centre del Carmen. It is full of fantastic artwork, photos, sounds, video. One of the best exhibitions I have ever seen in the city, crammed with so many ideas it could easily have been more than one exhibition. I have yet to catch the other exhibitions, they are all over the city and also in Sagunto, but will make tome to catch the rest over the next six weeks.

On the subject of art, Observatori 2007 is on soon, this year's theme is Feelings, and one of my all time favourite performers is on John Cale.

I promised you another book, and it's Ian Rankin's The Naming of the Dead. Regular readers of this column will know already that I rate Rankin quite highly, so always look forward to a new Rebus novel. This one is set, as usual, in Edinburgh. This time it's during the GB summit and a prominent MP has seemingly committed suicide, and there is a serial killer on the loose. Not as good as previous outings though it's nice to see his sidekick Siobhan Clark move into focus more.

That's it from me this month, La Goora and I are having a few days R&R in France this month so will be taking a stack of books.....

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APRIL - NOISE, FALLAS AND MORE NOISE

Have you ever tried reading a good book when all you can hear is yet another brass band playing yet another version of Valencia? I did! I told you over the past couple of months that I am living in the centre of the city now, thinking that because I am not in a street with a Falla in it, that I would have an easy time of Fallas. Not so, I have seen every brass band, fallera, fallero and little fallerito in the city. And heard them. Spain is said to be one of the noisiest countries in the world. Last week proved it for me.

I am not complaining though, relentless though it was, I really marvelled once again (this is my eighth Fallas!) at the whole thing. The pride, the happiness, the music, the bands and the bangs, oh, the bangs! I did buy earplugs for when I did go to bed, but actually couldn't sleep with them in as all I could hear was my heart beating!

In the end I read something that couldn't possibly tax the brain, Ludlum's, The Matarese Countdown (sequel to The Matarese Circle, said to be his best book). What a load of bunkum! But all good fun, I complained in these pages some months ago about the dialogue in The Da Vinci Code, this was at least as bad, maybe worse! I cannot understand why American publisher's editors don't hand the manuscript of a book with English characters to an English editor to sort out the appalling gaffs in the way they speak. But it crackles along at breakneck speed and is entertaining rubbish! A friend came round and was astounded to see it lying around half-read, it took quite a lot of convincing of my reason for reading it!

I have almost finished reading a superb first novel by James Meek, The People's Act of Love. Beautifully written and set in Siberia in 1919, it is at turns, tender, funny and absolutely horrifying. The description of The Hussars in battle, when more than half the squadron are cut down by gunfire around one of the central characters is deeply moving and upsetting. Anyone who has read this column for a while will know I love novels about Russia. This author, like Donald James and Martin Cruz Smith (both favourite writers who have written authoritatively on the country) has captured the essence of Russian life. Hunt this one out.

It's hard not to compare an author's previous work, particularly if you loved that previous work. The Little Friend by Donna Tart is a good book, exquisitely written, but is nothing compared to The Secret History, her first novel, I keep picking it up and putting it down again in the hope that it all gets better in the end. There is just too much of everything and it's all a little tedious. I'll let you know if I ever finish it.

We have been watching, when we could hear over the music from the massed bands of Valencia outside, a great comedy series from the beeb, Man Stroke Woman (first series is on DVD and a friend recorded series two for me). I love it! The three man-three woman cast are great, the sketches are short and to the point and very funny, La Goora and I laugh very loudly to this. Les Goorettes are hooked too and constantly sing Home and Away, which is a great sketch, you can catch lots of bits, including this sketch and 'How women get away with Farting' on Youtube.

We are also watching two great crime series from the beeb and ITV courtesy of another friend's excellent recorder, Waking the Dead, with Trevor Eve, and Lynda La Plante's Trial and Retribution. Both very high quality productions, gory and well acted, they are compulsive viewing. Each episode consist of two hour-long parts and however hard we try or however late we start watching, we end up staying with each story to the end.

As I write this I am aware that this weekend is going to be another sleepless one - we apparently have, as part of the Nit En Vela, Fusion electronic Music and Dance outside from 8.00pm through the night, I might just have to go down and join them.

Until next month

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MARCH - MAGAZINESAND DVDS

Fallas is creeping up on us. By the time you read this, the daily Mascletàs, one of my favourite features of the festival, will be happening daily in the Ayuntamiento. I love the pounding in the chest that all that noise gives you! La Goora and I took friends last year to watch one. They were ambivalent to say the least about traipsing down to the Ayuntamiento with all those crowds - but, having seen one, they were ready at the front door for the rest of the stay to see the next ones. One of them remarked that the experience was almost sexual! Not sure about that myself but it is certainly a powerful emotion! A short, sharp shock.

That is how my reading has been this past month, we have been working so hard and such long hours that I have been reduced to snatching quick reads, mainly magazines and newspapers and, because we still haven't decide where or what design the new bookshelves should be, all my lovely books are still piled in boxes in the spare room. So any book I have read has been from a very old collection of paperbacks, Penguins mainly, as I have collected the orange titles for years.

Let's talk about magazines first - I have mentioned The Word before, I'm sure, but it really is an excellent read. It focuses mainly on music but is also about film and books and features some excellent writers and interviews. It also comes with a great cover-mounted cd each month featuring new releases hand picked by the writers on the magazine. Every month I end up forking out for at least one new album by someone featured on it! So it works.

A friend introduced me to Songlines, if you are into world music, you'll like this one, it's both good to look at and a very good read. It also comes with a very novel cover-mounted cd of music picked by a different guest each month - the January/February issue playlist was from Chris Stewart of Driving Over Lemons fame, and very good it was too! Next issue's playlist will be from Brian Eno, which I really look forward to.

I have ordered a copy of the latest The Chap, a journal for the Modern Gentleman, I found it on the web whilst searching for a quote by aficionado Robert Elms (great writer on Spain and Bullfighting) for an article I was writing on bullfighting. The Chap's website had an archive of some of the writing, and it really was very good - one of my favourites was A Year in Catford - A Provençal couple relocate to South-East London for a year of fried chicken, bus shelters and pub fights.

I'll let you know more when I get my copy.

As for books, as I said, I've been reading old ones. Laurie Lee's Rose for Winter, which is still as good as I remember it being and Walter Tevis' The Man who Fell to Earth - this one was a revelation after all these years. It is a slim volume, but is so well written from the opening line. Tevis only wrote seven novels, all with alcoholism and loneliness as the central theme (three were made into great films, The Hustler, The Color of Money and the man...) and though this is still considered one of the best Science Fiction novels of all time in many circles, Tevis never considered himself as an SF writer. He once said in an interview that the book was a thinly disguised autobiography. Get hold of a copy, it's infinitely better than the David Bowie film.

As for film and dvd stuff. We have seen some good ones and some real turkeys. At the cinema, Dreamgirls and In Pursuit of Happyness were such a disappointment, both overlong and in the end boring to say the least! We loved Helen Mirren's The Queen, and O'Toole's Venus. Talking of Peter O'Toole, we watched a DVD last month The Final Curtain with him as an aging TV quiz show presenter. A dark comedy with a great cast and surprisingly good. I had never heard of it before, I got it through amazon.co.uk at a special price deal when I bought another DVD. So sometimes these offers are worth taking up!

That's it from me this month.

Enjoy Fallas!

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