Some great Aussie bookstores

A friend of mine posted this list on Facebook last night - and this time I remember who it was! It's by no means exhaustive, but it is a rather lovely list of bookshops around the company - all of them, except one, in capital cities. I know all three of the Sydney ones, and the Adelaide ones, so roll on some travelling, methinks!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jemimaskelley/bookshops-in-australia-to-see-before-you-die?bffb

47 random facts about children's books

This video was posted on Facebook today. It might even have been posted to me by some thoughtful person, but for the life of me, I can't remember who it might have been - apologies phantom poster, if indeed that was the case. Anyhow, it's a slightly frenetic, but most enjoyable round up of bits and pieces about a wide ranging selection of children's and young adult's books. It's well worth sitting through the just over eleven minutes:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/56847/47-charming-facts-about-childrens-books

The Golem and the Djinni - Helene Wecker

OK, some major kicking myself in the pants to get this post done. The book has been sitting looking (glaring) at me for WEEKS...seriously. Bad blogger! This is for the 'book with non- human characters' square on the Book Bingo chart. It's also a book I kept seeing around the place that I meant to get my hands on, but one way or another, hadn't... So, in an airport bookshop with a three hour flight ahead of me, I figured the time had come.

To preface my review, for those who don't know, the two creatures come from legend or myth. A golem is a figure made of clay that is brought to life by magic, and the legends come from the mystic, or Kabbalistic, end of Judaism. The most famous is the Golem of Prague - a legend about a golem created to protect the Jews of Prague in the 1500s. Typically, they have enormous strength, don't require food or sleep, and are bound to their master - usually the person who created them. A djinni (alternatively djin, or djinn - useful Scrabble word, by the way!) is found in Arabic and Muslim mythology, and is an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels. Djinni can appear in human or animal form and can possess humans.

The main narrative is set in New York in 1899, a time of enormous migration of Jews from the Pale of Settlement to the New World, to escape increasing anti-semitism and pogroms. On a ship bound for America is Otto Rotfeld. His life is in ruins, at 33, having frittered away the family business within five years of inheriting it. The solution, he thinks, is to leave and start over. He also wants a wife, but as a gangly and unattractive man, he's never had any success with women. So, after purchasing his ticket, he uses the last of his funds to commission Yehudah Schaalman - a man known to dabble in the Kabbalah - to create a female golem for him. After many misgivings, but lured by the challenge of making such a golem, Schaalman creates her. She's packed into a freight crate, together with instructions for bringing her to life - which Schaalman cautions Rotfeld not to do until he's safely landed. However, on the ship, Rotfeld becomes ill, and in his delirium makes his way into the hold, locates the crate, and activates the golem who, when he finally collapses, carries him back up to the deck to the ship's doctor. However, the doctor is unable to save Rotfeld, and the golem is left masterless, with no ticket, fussed over by the crew as the bereaved wife. She realises that with no ticket, and no other papers, she has no way of getting through immigration - so she vanishes over the side of the ship as they enter the harbour and walks - under water - to shore, emerging on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Fortunately, early on during the days she is fumbling to learn how to conduct herself, she is discovered by old Rabbi Meyer, who, while not initially believing what he sees, realises what she is. He takes her in, names her Chava (life), begins to teach her how to blend in, gets her a job at the local bakery, and becomes her mentor. However, just as she's beginning to feel reasonably confident, the rabbi dies. Now, without master or mentor, she has to find her own way.

Meanwhile, a few neighbourhoods away in the Syrian community, the local tinsmith, Boutros Arbeely is given an old, battered copper flask to mend and polish. He has barely begun the work when a great bolt throws him off his feet, across the room and onto the floor by a table. Gathering himself back up, he is amazed to find a naked man lying on the floor of his shop. Getting up, the man sees Arbeely and lunges at him, and pins him to the floor with a soldering iron - which grows hotter and hotter in his hand - demanding to know where the wizard is... Reeling, Arbeely starts to realise that the man is a djinni, although he never really believed in the myths he'd gown up hearing. The djinni realises Arbeely is just an ordinary man and releases him, demanding to know where he is. It turns out that the djinni has been trapped inside the flask for many centuries by a wizard who outwitted him back in Syria. With no way of freeing himself, due to the iron cuff on his wrist, which also keeps him trapped in human form, the djinni has no option but to accept Arbeely's offer of hospitality and, when the djinni offers to help him with his business, they become partners.

Eventually, the golem and the djinni meet - although it takes quite a bit of reading to get to that point - and a most unlikely friendship grows. Both creatures that need neither food or sleep, therefore with a lot of surplus time on their hands, both stuck in situations not of their choosing, both powerless to change their situations, they come to understand each other well, and despite very different natures, to care for one another and to feel protective of the other's vulnerabilities. It's not an easy relationship. They are very, very different. They frustrate and, at times, alarm each other. Eventually their pasts catch up with them in a most unexpected manner, and that bond is severely tested.

This is a wonderful read. It kept me going on the plane, and during down times while we were in New Zealand recently. I found myself resenting having to put it down. It moves at a good pace, the contemporary narrative interspersed with the story of the djinni's past, a device that makes sense of the collision of their separate journeys when the story reaches its ultimate crisis. As a debut novel, it's a tour de force. The historical detail in the portrayal of New York's immigrant communities in the late 19th century is meticulously researched. While I am not familiar with the tenor of a Syrian community, the flavour of the Jewish community is portrayed with great authenticity. The blend of human and mythical stories is balanced and believable.

You'll enjoy this book if you have a taste for fantasy that is well grounded in the human experience. You'll also like it if you enjoy myths and legends. I picked my copy up in one of the bookshops in the Sydney International Airport for under $20, so it's also not something you'll have to try hard to justify!

Poetry for Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day in Australia today. When I was growing up, it wasn't the big commercially oriented day of hype it's morphed into these days. My mother wasn't even remotely interested in fancy presents. I found a huge collection of handmade cards she'd saved from when we were little in  amongst her things after she died. And on the day, some flowers picked from the garden and a box of those thin Red Tulip after dinner mints were more than enough in the way of special treats for her.

Mum loved poetry. As the years go by and we reach Mother's Day each May, the month before she died, I find myself deep in her collection of poetry books that I inherited. I wrote about this back in June 2012 on her yahrzeit (the yearly anniversary of a death) - you can read that post here. Today, finding myself back in the bookcase amongst the poetry books, it was her own poetry I was hunting... She was published, just once, in an anthology she co-edited in 2000. She made me go to the launch to read her poem - she refused to do it herself, although, that's what all the others did. She was never one to look for a spotlight. Having talked with her on a number of occasions about the genesis of this poem, it was fascinating to hear all the interpretations that came at me in the discussion following my reading. They were, by the way, ALL wrong! Although, that's one of the beauties of poetry - we are free to make whatever interpretation we like for ourselves of a poem, as well as possibly seeking out what drove the poet to write it in the first place. In keeping with Mum's own reticence about it (she was a very private person), I'll offer up the poem here, but not what inspired it - and you can take from it what you will...

That Day

Time tunnelled that day
   twisted, turned -
                      this way
                      - and that.

Feeling flustered that day
   feathered, flew -
                       this way
                       - and that.

Touch trembled that day
   trespassed, triggered -
                       this way
                       - and that.

O how we hovered that day
   hollered, hungered,
          threw hats to the wind
            and caution, too -
                        this way
                        - and that.

Love lingered
   languished, left -
                        couldn't stay
                                    - that day.

Judith Finch 1934-2003

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there, and my thoughts are with those who are missing their mums.

Rashi's Daughters: Joheved - Maggie Anton

Book two in the book bingo challenge: Rashi's Daughters - Joheved, by Maggie Anton, for the first book by a favourite author category. My copy of this book is SO dog-eared! I guess that more than qualifies it as a favourite, given it got that way from frequent re-reading.

Rashi (1040-1105) - a Hebrew acronym for Rabbi Shlomo ha Yitzhaki - is one of the greatest of the Jewish sages. The first Hebrew book to be printed was his Bible commentary, and his commentaries occupy  the inside column of ever page of the Talmud, surrounded by later commentaries by his disciples and grandsons. He lived in France in the middle ages and founded a yeshiva in the city of Troyes when he came home from studying in Germany after his mother was no longer capable of running the family vineyard alone. At that time, the tradition - as is still the case in the Orthodox Jewish world - was that only boys studied Talmud - Jewish Law. However, Rashi had no sons, just three daughters, Joheved, Miriam, and Rachel. Against their mother's wishes, in response to their interest and his need to teach prior to establishing his yeshiva, he began to teach his daughters. There is also the suggestion that all three girls wore tefillin (phylacteries) when they prayed, also traditionally only worn by men.

There were precedents for these three girls to both study Talmud and wear tefillin. It is said that Michal, daughter of King Solomon, wore them. There are also previous female scholars, one of the most well known being Beruriah - who lived in the second century CE - daughter of Rabbi Chananiah ben Teradion, one of the Ten Martyrs killed by the Romans to prevent the teaching of Torah. Rashi's own commentaries also lend support to the idea that his daughters were both scholars and possibly wore tefillin. He was, at heart, a pragmatist. One of the responsibilities of Talmud scholars is to interpret both Torah and Talmud - the ongoing discussion on Torah - to make rulings on how things should and shouldn't be done in contemporary times. Rashi's time, Medieval France, was a time of prosperity for Jews, particularly Jewish merchants, who travelled far and wide, and congregated at the great fairs twice a year to trade. Relations between Jews and Christians were cordial, but cautious. Troyes, in the Champagne district, was a busy centre of trade, which saw travellers and traders of all nations, with varying customs intersecting and interacting. Rigid interpretations of the laws could have alienated relationships at best, and at worst, caused deep schisms. Rashi's commentaries indicated that he was a man who thought carefully and broadly about various aspects of any given laws and sought to come to positions that would best serve his community in the long term.

There is nowhere in Torah that states that women are forbidden to study, or to wear tefillin (a time bound mitzvah). Discussions in the Talmud move around the issue, with different commentators all offering differing views. Where they agree is that when it comes to time bound miztvot - i.e. those that must be done at certain times, like morning prayers (when tefillin are worn) - it may be difficult for women, especially once they have responsibilities for a household and children, which may prevent her from meeting the time bound requirements. Therefore, women are exempt from having to honour those mitzvot, while men are required to. That has come to be interpreted by Orthodox rabbis to mean that women don't, and shouldn't, observe these mitzvot. There is, in fact, an argument that comes up in this first volume of Anton's three part series (one book for each of Rashi's daughters) that suggests that the more educated women are in Torah and the Law, the better they will be able to observe them and pass them on to their children, so why not allow them to study the same as the boys.

Anton has fictionalised the history of Rashi, his family, students and descendents, filling in the gaps left in the commentaries, histories and documentation. Careful research has resulted in an incredibly rich book that gives a wonderful insight into the lives of Jewish women in Medieval France. Joheved is portrayed as a bright, conscientious girl, who has been taught by her grandmother, Leah, to manage the finances of the family vineyard, in addition to creating a good vintage. She is proficient at spinning - remembering that this is before spinning wheels, so girls and women habitually carried a drop spindle and spun at any odd moments throughout the day in order to create enough yarn to weave into cloth for family garments and household linens. In this time of arranged marriages, she begs her father to find a scholar for her to marry, someone who will appreciate her knowledge and not prevent her from continuing to study. Her wish is fulfilled with her marriage to Meir ben Samuel, younger son of a Jewish lord and sheep farmer, who was once a study partner of Rashi himself in Germany. They go on to have six children, including four boys, all of whom are scholars, and some of whom became revered in their own right for their scholarship.

Anton has, quite rightly, been lauded for her Talmudic scholarship, which is hugely evident in these books. If you've ever wanted to dip your toe into Talmud study, but have been scared to try, Joheved will give you a taste, as there are Talmudic discussions and arguments sprinkled liberally throughout the narrative. It's one reason I keep going back and re-reading this book and the other two - Anton's scholarship is formidable. I love a good story too, so writing these as historical fiction opens them up to a much wider readership than, perhaps, a pure history might have. It has also enabled Anton to fill in the gaps and unknowns in the history of Rashi's daughters as much has been lost through lack of documentation, as is the case for so much of women's history.

The books are available online and in selected bookstores - but don't try and find them in mainstream chains, because they won't be there! I got mine at Gold's Judaica in Bondi. They're a bit addictive. I can't read Joheved without wanting to keep going and read the other two (I'm halfway through Miriam now...). Anton has already published the first of a new trilogy Rav Hisda's Daughter - Apprentice, and the second in that series, Enchantress, is due out later this year. They're set in Babylon after the expulsion of the Jews from the Holy Land by the Romans after the destruction of the second Temple in 70CE. Again, another scholar...lovely stuff.

Peanuts rule!

I love Charles Schulz's Peanuts. They were in the Sunday papers when I was growing up. you could buy books of them. There was a movie. And, somewhere - in storage I think... - is a book for my tiny book series that's just Lucy. So, when someone posted this on Facebook the other day, I had to share it. It cracked me up!!

Might be a little while til my next Bingo post - I put my hand on the place the Mary Wesley novel should have been and it wasn't there. Some gremlin has moved it... You know that feeling when you're planning to read a particular book and you can't get your hands on it? I stood in front of the bookcases last night feeling SO frustrated. My mind was all set for that book. None of the others looked appealing. I got over it - it's not like I lack choice with four six foot bookcases full of fiction, adult and child... But the one I chose was a heftier read than the Wesley novel. So, bear with me...I'll get to the next post asap!

The Wedding Officer - Anthony Capella

This is the first cab off the rank in my self-imposed Book Bingo challenge - a book set on another continent. It's the second book by Anthony Capella, his first being The Food of Love, and you can read my post about that one here. Again, it's a food related romance set in Italy, but it's a beast of a different colour.

The Wedding Officer is set in Naples towards the end of WWII - the Allies have moved partway into Italy, but still have some way to go in beating the German armies and ending the war in Italy. In Finisco, a village on the slopes of Vesuvius, Livia Pertini, the cook in her father's osteria, meets Enzo, a young Italian soldier, during the local apricot festival. Although many of the local boys have been vying for her hand for some years, she has sidestepped their advances. Enzo, however, manages to get through her defences and she, with the blessing of her father, marries him. They move to Naples, and live with his mother and sister. Enzo is sent to the front, and Livia, unable to work, eventually goes back to her father, where it's safer. Despite her urging, Enzo's mother and sister stay in Naples.

Meanwhile, Captain James Gould, fluent in Italian, has been sent to Naples to take up the post of wedding officer. His job is to vet all potential Italian war brides for authenticity, making sure they're not just starving prostitutes looking for the easier and more secure life on British army pay. He arrives to a shambles of an office in an old palazzo, shared by American Intelligence, and a 'local' way of doing things that horrifies his straightforward British sense of how things should be done. He learns how to tell if a girl is earning money through prostitution, and vetoes several applications. He also gets caught up in chasing down black marketeers and Mafia men stealing penicillin from American and British bases. In a short period of time, he manages to alienate nearly all the people he has to deal with, including his CO. In one of his raids on the mountain villages in response to reports of a German tank being sighted, he comes face to face with the tank, being driven by Livia, who has found it and commandeered it to use as a tractor. Their exchange is short and sharp, but for James, memorable.

Back on the mountain, a local Mafia man who has long lusted after Livia begins to pursue her. Food is short, the war is dragging on, life is getting very very difficult, but she holds fast to the hope that Enzo is coming back, and is, in any case, revolted by him, and refuses his advances. In the end, her father and sister tell her she'll be safer back in Naples, so she heads back to find her mother and sister in law. Arriving, she discovers they've been killed in a raid. By then, she has also found out that Enzo has been many years dead on the Russian front. Homeless and exhausted, she goes from one place to the next trying to find work, but can't. Ending up at a black marketeer's restaurant, she is given food and the manager, who has been trying to work out how to get James back to his predecessor's ways, decides that installing Livia as the cook in the palazzo might solve the problem - the idea being that with a full, contented stomach, James will be more relaxed in his dealings with the locals.

In due course, she starts cooking at the palazzo. The shift in culture there is immediate. James recognises her as the girl from the tank, and slowly but surely, falls in love. She's prickly and elusive, but eventually responds to him. Then the beginning of their troubles starts - the Mafia man who had been pursuing her is James' contact for the next raid he's planning, so Livia's hiding place is discovered. Next, while she's on a visit to see her family, Vesuvius erupts - a long predicted huge eruption. James, thanks to warnings from a local scientist discounted by everyone else, has put plans in place, and by and large, they work out and most people are saved. However, as he's trying to get to Livia, he is diverted to the air base on the mountain, who have been out of contact, so they can be warned to get their planes off the ground before the volcanic hail damages them beyond repair, and then is unable to get back to Finisco for some time. Unknown to him, Livia's father was injured when a lava flow came through Finisco, and Livia, in order to get the necessary penicillin to save his life, is forced to go to the Mafia man, who demands sexual favours from her in return. Her father's life is saved, but Livia feels she's lost all hope of any future with James as a result, so when James does finally get there, she turns him away, following up with a letter saying she's ending it.

The Mafia man then pulls his nastiest trick when he finds that regardless of his feelings for Livia, they will never be returned, and has her sent to the Germans as a whore with a group of other women certified as infected with STDs - a plan concocted to undermine the German troops. James finds out too late to stop the boat leaving, and immediately requests a transfer to active duty so he can follow the Allied push and find her. Livia and the other women escape when their boat comes under fire, half staying put where they come ashore, while Livia and a couple of the others set out to walk back through the front lines to Naples. It's not until James reaches Rome and is able to scour the German brothel records that he discovers she's never been there and his search starts again. Eventually he hears through a contact that she's with a partisan group, and is parachuted in with a drop of weapons and they are reunited.

It's not a totally happily ever after ending, because the war setting precludes that, but there is a resolution that works. There is some of the whimsy in this book that characterised The Food of Love, and the common theme of communicating via food is very much a part of The Wedding Officer. It's perfectly possible to recreate various dishes from the detailed descriptions in the narrative, so that's an added pleasure beyond the reading. However, the darker undertones that come from the war setting and Mafia complications make this a different kind of read to the first one. It also has quite a different pace to the other book - periods of intense urgency contrasting parts that are slow and gentle, that I really wasn't in any hurry to get past. There is considerable humour to balance the darker moments, and utterly authentic Neopolitan slang, with accompanying translations!

Definitely an enjoyable book that I'd recommend to anyone with food interests, a love of Italy, or just a good, entertaining read.