To be read - Sea of Poppies, Burnt Shadows

  


     

    

   

     At the last count, thirteen books have arrived here since January began, and there were lots more already on the pending shelf, so that's a good reason to give some of them a brief introduction pro tem while they wait for me to get to them.
    Chosen from the pile today almost at random but also for their beautiful, toning jackets (well, a great deal of effort does go into cover design and, as we've said before, it's not always successful), are two novels, Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies and Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie.

     Sea of Poppies is already well known having been on the Booker shortlist last year. A historical adventure set against the backdrop of the Opium Wars, and the first of a trilogy, this is a story with a vast sweep. As I recall, it was one of the better-loved of the Booker contenders, so I hope I'm in for a treat with it.

Burnt Shadows, coming out soon, is another book with a huge scope reaching from the terrible events which took place in Nagasaki in August 1945, to Delhi, Pakistan, New York and Afghanistan in 2001. "Absorbing", "powerful", "audacious in its ambition", say the reviewers, who are full of praise for this "beautiful book".                                                                                             

     Just a thought on place and subject matter prompted by these books: do you tend to be a 'stay-at-home' in reading terms, preferring books with a familiar setting and more of a domestic bias, or is that on the whole far too mundane for you so that you crave the exotic, the foreign, the big adventure rather than the drawingroom drama? Which type - covers apart for the moment - exerts the greater pull?

                     

Comments

[Harriet]

Interesting question! I'm definitely a stay-at-home by inclination.

[Juxtabook]

I was going to say I am more of drawing-room-drama kind of girl but thinking about it I suppose what I most like is the small scale adventure. Someone slightly out of their comfort zone or caught up in something outside the domestic. I am trying to describe books like Schindler's Ark or Fingersmith I suppose. Schindler's Ark for example is oddly domestic in detail, and often focused on families or family relationships, but obviously not a drawing room drama. If I were to say I liked war fiction it would be books like 'Schindler's Ark' or 'The Widow and her Hero' not Andy McNab. It is a very good question Karen.

[Claire]

As in life, I prefer my literature set in the UK and, quite often, domestic in nature but with the occasional foray abroad.

[Dark Puss]

Domestic per se is not really a draw for me, and location is whatever it is and it in itself does not matter. I'm quite keen (at the moment) on what you might call "urban" settings for novels, but I suspect that reflects certain writers that I am enjoying rather than vice versa.

Very few novels that I have enjoyed have ever been set in what I might call a familiar environment, only Small World by David Lodge springs immediately to mind, though I haven't (well not exactly) yet encountered Angelica Pabst or Fulvia Morgana in "real" life.

[Simon S]

I like both to stay at home and to travel, seeom to have been in New York a lot of late with my reading! I have Sa of Poppies its just so big though!

[Elaine]

Third comment in a row! yes I hve Sea of Poppies too and what a wonderful cover. Quite beautiful and elegant

[dovegreyreader]

Cornflower you read my mind and have saved me walking to the shelf! I was reading BS in bed this morning and the thought crossed my mind that the cover equalled Sea of Poppies in colour and sheer gorgeousness and I must place the two next to each other and see if my mind's eye was right.