The Best Books of 2012 - part 2

5. "The City and The City" by China Mieville
A tremendous piece of fiction about an assumedly Eastern European city which has been split into two cities and where citizens must pretend never to notice the other half of their city. Defies genres and enchants readers. 

4. "The Best of Everything" by Rona Jaffe

A classic tale of 1950s office girls striving for more in life - careers, marriages, fame. A mandatory read for lovers of Mad Men. 

3. "Mystics, Mavericks and Merrymakers" by Stephanie Wellen Levine
The most gripping non-fiction book I have ever read. I literally could not put it down. Levine tells the stories of Hasidic Lubavitcher teenage girls living in Crown Heights, New York, where everyday demands a delicate balancing act of normal teenage pursuits (shopping, gossiping, thinking about boys) and strict observance of orthodox Jewish traditions and rules (kosher food, kosher music and gender segregation). Eyeopening and inspiring. 

2. "The Group" by Mary McCathy 
Interested in feminism or womens rights? Enjoyed Sex & The City but found its values superficial? Drop the boxsets and pick up this book instead. It is a tale of women in 1930s New York, a time and place where the role of women and the traditional gender patterns were changing rapidly and drastically. 

1. "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong
This is a must read for women born in the 1980s and 1990s because even though it was written in 1973, it was never more relevant than today. It is about the mental emancipation of one headstrong yet insecure young woman and I've probably thought about this book and about its protagonist Isadora every day since I started reading it It and she really made an impression on me and taught me something about letting go of your fears. More than just a book, this is a zeitgeist, a manifest and a must read for young women. 

Role Models - Fascinating Fictional Females

I'm not sure if I'd call myself a feminist - I'm not that into the whole women-against-men rhetorics to be honest but I'm happy to confess that I love nothing more than a book with a strong female protagonist. Like Katniss Everdeen or Scarlett O'Hara. I like my women, like I like my G&T - strong and unapologetic. 

And with no further ado, here's my list of books that features strong, sassy females who make for great (albeit fictional) role models and mentors: 

"Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong

"The Group" by Mary McCarthy

"Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles

"The Best of Everything" by Rona Jaffe

"Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell

"A Vision of Loveliness" by Louise Levene

"The Stars in the Bright Sky" by Alan Warner

"The Summer Without Men" by Siri Hustvedt

A Prostitute, A Highwayman and A Pirate Walks into a Bar...

I have officially become a convert to the fandom of Erica Jong. Before I brought "Fear of Flying" with me no holiday and realised that Jong is a genius, I was terribly prejudiced and sure that she was one of those horribly 1970's shouting feminist, burning bras and condemning the use of mascara. How very wrong I was, this is one cool woman! I love her books and currently, I'm working my way through her many great novels.

On the menu this weekend was "Fanny", a novel that sounds like it was a bit of project for Jong. This is not just any old novel, it is a novel published in the 1980s but written 18th century style yet with a very modern heroine.

Fanny Hackabout-Jones is a fierce young woman who has to go through an awful lot at a terribly young age.
Orphaned at birth, she was left in the care of Lord and Lady Bellars at Lymeworth and grew up as a child of the household. The rakish Lord Bellars is never at home, preferring the parties and women of London but when he returns to Lymeworth after a two-year long absence, he falls violently in lust with the beautiful 17-year old Fanny. All red hair, white skin and large bosom, the beauty is both Fanny's best asset but also her downfall. Raped by her stepfather, she flees Lymeworth to seek her fortune in London, hoping to make it as a female bard, a writer. Quite a dream for a girl of her age and her time and as in all good fairytales, she has to go through an awful lot of ... well ... awful stuff before she can fulfill her destiny.
On her way to London she takes part in a witches' ritual, loses a close friend and is robbed by highwaymen who abduct her. 
Eventually she makes it to London where she has to make a living in the oldest way possible... From there her adventures become more and more daring and dangerous and along the way she meets secret societies, sadistic sea captains and honourable pirates. 

This is a romp through another time. Full of rump. Like a Georgette Heyer with more sex and more drama. The plot is not believable at all but that's the point - it's not about the plot, it's about the spirit. And if there's something that Fanny is full of, it's spirit. She's a feisty young lady with plenty of courage and her story is well worth a read. 

Read it if: You like your women like you like your chili pepper: redheaded, fiery and full of power. 

Fear of Flying, Fondness of F......

Did my headline seem like a bit much? If so, I'm sorry. Well, not really. If I'm being totally honest, it sums up "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong rather nicely, I think.


This is not the kind of sex that you find in "50 Shades of Whatever" and its counter-parts. It's dirty, yes, but mostly because the people taking part in the sexual acts haven't had a shower in days... The sex in "Fear of Flying" is more real, not stylized in any way and way cooler than a lot of the drivel in the market at the moment. 


Isadora Wing is a 29-year old divorced and remarried author. Having married and divorced her clinically insane college boyfriend, she is now married to psychoanalyst Bennett and together they are attending a psychoanalysts' conference in Vienna. What better setting for a comedic drama than a room full of psychoanalysts all peddling their individual interpretation of Freud and Jung? While in Vienna, Isadora falls in lust with the psychoanalyst (yes there are a lot of them in this book, somewhere close to 120) Adrian Goodlove who appears to Isadora to be able to supply her with something that she has always wanted: the zipless fuck. As in an anonymous, non-commital, passionate roll in the hay. 
This is a love triangle unlike any I've come across in a novel before, especially as it is terribly short on love, and it causes Isadora to think back and consider her history with men in particular and with her own sense of self in general. 


As a main character, Isadora is interesting because she's bloody annoying. She is indecisive and does not know her own mind. She's frustrated with her sisters for looking down on her for not having children, yet condescends their life decisions. She is passive when she should be proactive, then stumbles mindlessly into trouble when she should be considering the best line of action. Yet somehow, she is also likeable, probably because she puts herself through an awful lot in the hope that things will end up right. Some will be appalled by what has been deemed her promiscuity but sex for Isadora is about more than the physical act, for her it seems to be a tool used to explore her own identify. She is on a journey of self-discovery and her fear of flying is not only literal but also a symbol of her fear of searching for herself and for her own identity instead of searching for a man whose identity she can mould herself on.   


It could all get a bit stuffy (especially as so many psychoanalysts are involved) but actually it is a really funny book, particularly the parts involved Isadora's sisters who really are quite a bunch. When it comes to dumb remarks and stupid decisions, they are up there with the Bennett sisters from "Pride and Prejudice". 


This is the thinking young woman's book. If you are a 18 to 20-year-old considering whether to spend your money on 50 Shades, please pick up "Fear of Flying" instead. It'll give you much more to think about and to consider, about yourself and your generation, about your mother's generation, about men and about sex.


Read it if: You're a woman between the ages of 18 and 60 with a sense of humour and an appetite for passion. 

Packing Up the Books

The time has come - there are only a few days left until I go on holiday and I have now officially started packing. Most girls would probably start with their dresses and bikinis but I have to admit that I start differently. With my books. The rights books can make a vacation just that much better. Lazing on the beach or in a flowery garden with a fantastic book is one of the best things ever! Pure bliss!

So here is what I will be bringing with me as summer reading: 

The Group by Mary McCarthy

From amazon.com: Mary McCarthy’s most celebrated novel follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates, known simply to their classmates as “the group.” An eclectic mix of personalities and upbringings, they meet a week after graduation to watch Kay Strong get married. After the ceremony, the women begin their adult lives—traveling to Europe, tackling the worlds of nursing and publishing, and finding love and heartbreak in the streets of New York City. 

The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

From amazon.com: In the late summer of 1913, George Sawle brings his Cambridge schoolmate—a handsome, aristocratic young poet named Cecil Valance—to his family’s modest home outside London for the weekend. George is enthralled by Cecil, and soon his sixteen-year-old sister, Daphne, is equally besotted by him and the stories he tells about Corley Court, the country estate he is heir to. But what Cecil writes in Daphne’s autograph album will change their and their families’ lives forever: a poem that, after Cecil is killed in the Great War and his reputation burnished, will become a touchstone for a generation, a work recited by every schoolchild in England. Over time, a tragic love story is spun, even as other secrets lie buried—until, decades later, an ambitious biographer threatens to unearth them.

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

From play.com: Compulsive daydreamer Isadora Wing doesn't want much - just to be free and to find the perfect, guiltless, zipless sexual encounter. Pursuing this ideal across two continents, she discovers just how hard it can be to make one's dreams come true. Though Isadora fears flying (in all possible senses), she forces herself to keep travelling, risking her marriage and even her life for her own special brand of liberation. This intensely witty and exuberant novel is about how she achieves her freedom and loses her fear.

The Leopard by Guiseppe di Lampedusa

From amazon.com: Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue The Leopard with its particular melancholy beauty and power, and place it among the greatest historical novels of our time.