The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

Reviewed by Dr. Janice Russell

This is a book of three parts.

Pippa Lee, middle class sophisticate wife, has moved into a retirement village with her 80 year old husband, Herb, a successful American publishing executive. As the youngest person there, Pippa inevitably begins to question whether retirement world is where she wants to be, and begins to find herself experiencing strange sense of disquiets and disturbing symptoms of unrest, such as sleepwalking. Not in a usual sense, but in an extreme sense. Thus begins a journey which leads the reader through the chronicles of Pippa’s past life, revealing depths and experiences that are not immediately apparent within the character.

The second section of the book makes the reader privy as to why this may be, basically summarising Pippa’s life journey, and is written with sensitivity and depth, traversing worlds of bohemia and excess, exploration of sexualities, and addiction to drugs. Themes of mother daughter relationship and guilt are explored with insight and expertise, and the text is eloquent, the themes compelling.

Part Three of the book integrates past and present with an unsurprising dénouement which embraces the themes you might expect – conflict resolution within the family, repeated patterns within the marriage, and Pippa’s exorcism of her ghosts which enable her to move forwards a free woman. In a sense, this is an odyssey, the chronicle of challenges and triumphs

I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would from the first chapter, and in a way, this is symptomatic of the structure. Three distinct parts, all written from the point of view of an omniscient narrator, trying to take us inside the heads of Pippa, her mother, her daughter, and Chris, the somewhat erratic son of Pippa’s neighbour up the road. If anything, this structure slightly distracts from what is otherwise a very convincing read – it is compartmentalised rather than threaded, a structure I would have preferred. While we are privy to Pippa’s past life in the second part of the book,, there is no indication that she is remembering the same things, discovering the same insights. Maybe this is deliberate, and just indicates that these evets are conspiring on an unconscious level.

That said, this book is intelligent and bold, courageous enough to suggest the darker aspects of parent child relationships, the complexities of responsibility, the shadow side of the protagonist. It is also frank in its observations of the ageing process, which is a refreshing change from the line that seventy is the new forty, and other such clichés, which, while empowering, can fail to look honestly at the effects of time on our bodies and minds and the real impact that this has for relationships. It is also far from the usual depiction of the all American family, for which I am grateful. Overall, an excellent read and I would recommend persevering beyond the first chapter into the body of the book.

Janice Russell is a life and business coach, and a writer and tutor. She has written Keeping Abreast, a factional, entertaining and provocative story of surviving breast cancer, currently being reprinted. Her latest novel, Rough Diamonds, is being published by Legend Press, and both will be ready to order by Christmas, Janice teaches creative writing online, and offers workshops and critiques in the Algarve.

Visit: www.insightlifeandbusinesssolutions.com
www.algarvecreativewriting.blogspot.com

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

Obama's memoir, written long before his political career began, which is a remarkable story of one man's search for his identity. The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama was only 2 when his father walked out. Many years later, he received a phone call from Kenya telling him of his father's death. This set him off on an odyssey to learn the truth of his estranged father's life.

Available from Magna Carta Bookshop in paperback. Price: 12,60€

You Can Heal Your Life: The Movie

This movie came out early this year and it's one of the bestsellers in our shop, as well as the book with the same name. At the time of releasing the video trailer wasn't available but since I just found it, I'll share it now.

Louis Roederer International Wine Book of the Year 2008 for 'The Wine & Food Lover's Guide to Portugal'

A travel guide, The Wine & Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal, has won the Louis Roederer International Wine Book of the Year 2008.

Awarded in London last night, The Wine & Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal is a guidebook for visitors to Portugal who enjoy eating and drinking. ‘This book absolutely makes me want to jump on the next plane to Portugal,’ enthused one of the judges. It’s not only a highly digestible guide to Portugal’s foods and cooking and the brilliant but as yet little-known wines. Authors Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter (who wrote their first book on Portugal over 20 years ago) also write about the churches, museums, galleries and other top places of interest, covering the whole of Portugal and its islands, including the spectacular mountains and historic towns and villages of the undiscovered interior.

They also give entirely independent recommendations (no fees for publication have been asked for or accepted) of restaurants, bars, wine and food shops and places to stay. These range from tiny, hole-in-the-wall tascas (the simplest form of Portuguese restaurant) to the finest of modern and traditional eating, and from bed-and-breakfast accommodation and houses to rent to the grandest and most luxurious hotels. Always with an eye out for the best gastronomic experiences in every corner of Portugal. The guide is hardback, with 446 pages, 1 600 colour photographs and 19 specially-commissioned maps.

Press release published here with the authors permission.

You can buy this book here

Equator by Miguel Sousa Tavares

“It is Lisbon in the year 1905 and our hero, Luis Bernardo Valenca, a 37-year-old bachelor and owner of a small shipping business, is revelling in the luxury of Lisbon's high society. Intellectually curious, he writes about politics in his spare time, believing that Portugal's vast empire is having a civilising effect on the far-off lands it has colonised.

But his life is turned upside down when King Dom Carlos asks him to become governor of Portugal's smallest colony, the tiny island of Sao Tome e Principe, stuck out in the Atlantic off the coast of equatorial West Africa, whose economy rests almost entirely on its cocoa plantations.

However, the English believe that slavery still exists illegally in Sao Tome and intend to send a diplomatic envoy to check it out. (Of course the English, with their rival cocoa plantations in Africa, have their own reasons for trying to prevent the export of cocoa from Sao Tome).As a gentleman used to a softer urban life, Luis Bernardo is ill-prepared for the challenges of plantation life, and he is shocked by the conditions under which the Angolan workers labour - although he is more than willing to engage romantically with the wife of the English consul, one of several candidates for his attentions.

"Equator "is a compelling and constantly surprising novel, casting light on a little-known corner of colonial life. Epic in scope, laced with emotional and moral complexity, "Equator" brings this simmering tropical community to life through the entanglements and betrayals of its cast of unforgettable characters. A best-seller in Portugal, and sold in many languages, "Equator" will also amaze and delights its English readers.”

Price: 23,80€ (hardcover) Buy here

The Gardens of Portugal by Helena Attlee

The gardens of Portugal borrow from every phase of the country’s sea-faring history, bringing together ideas from East and West in a style that is confident, flamboyant, slightly exotic but always distinctly Portuguese.

Helena Attlee’s books opens with a lively introduction outlining the history of Portuguese gardens and their place in the country’s social and economic history. It then features some twenty gardens, covering first the temperate and humid northern parts of the country and then the gardens of Lisbon, Sintra and the hotter and more arid parts of central Portugal.

Glazed tiles are everywhere – on pots, seats, garden walls and the ceilings of pavilions. This is a Moorish style adopted along with the distinctive water tanks fed by ice-cold springs, whose still surfaces mirror pavilions, trees and sky.

The camellia shade house - a striking and substantial structure made from camellias grown over a frame – is often found in the mild and humid parts of the country where exotic plants and trees thrive in great abundance. Further south baroque sculpture and elaborate stonework play a large part in garden schemes.

Thousands of visitors are drawn to Portugal each year but few of them visit its gardens. These are rarely crowded and foreign visitors often receive a particularly enthusiastic welcome. – text from inner cover.

Price: 42€ Buy Here

Rock in Rio - Bon Jovi

I am going a bit off track here by posting this, as it's nothing to do with books, BUT I promise this will be an exception. I am just very excited about the fact that this Saturday my husband and I are off to see Bon Jovi in Rock in Rio. Yes, we've been before in the UK and I'd been twice here in Portugal, the last time being 13 years ago, but this is the first time we get to go together to see them in Lisbon where it all started (or at least progressed to bring us here).

At the age of 18 I won a writing competition that allowed me to be on stage with the band. It was from that dream-come-true that I decided to become a member of their official fan club "Backstage with Jon Bon Jovi". We would get a member card and four newsletters a year in the post. At the back of these newsletters the fan club divulged other fans' addresses, so we could write to each other. I did just that. I loved spending time writing to people from all over the world, getting to know about their lives, exchanging Bon Jovi material, etc.

My husband, Stefan, was one of those many pen pals and we've been now married for 9 years. When we look back at our lives and everything we now have was only made possible because one man we never met one day decided to be a rock star. If Bon Jovi had never happened I wouldn't be here now writing this...so, my husband and I often say when things go either good, or not so well for us ,"it's Jon Bon Jovi's fault"...

Oh, and don't worry. The shop will be open as usual. Someone will be here taking good care of our customers.

Algarve's Plants with Ornamental Interest

The book “Plantas do Algarve com Interesse Ornamental/Algarve’s Plants with Ornamental Interest” by Fernando Santos Pessoa, José Rosa Pinto and José Rocha Alexandre is a bilingual guide for anyone who wants to know more about the Algarve’s unique landscape. It includes a brief description of Algarve’s flora, trees, shrubs, perennial and bulbous herbs, climbers and Algarve’s flora in gardens and parks.

Price: 12,00€ Buy here

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

I knew once I got started on Philippa Gregory's book it'd be hard to stop...

The Boleyn Inheritance is an evocation of the court of Henry VIII, and the one woman who destroyed two of his queens. This work presents the story of three young women, trying to make their own way through the most volatile court in Europe at a time of religious upheaval and political uncertainty.

Have you read any novels by this author?

Fabrico Próprio: The Design of Portuguese Semi-Industrial Confectionery

By Rita João, Pedro Ferreira e Frederico Duarte

"Fabrico Próprio" means "Own Production", an expression used by most Portuguese cafés and patisseries in their shop signs, windows and packaging. It is a warrant of freshness and quality, but also of uniqueness and prestige of the baked goods they sell – most of them sweet, one-portion cakes.
"Fabrico Próprio - The Design of Semi-Industrial Confectionery" is a 292-page, hardcover book dedicated to Portuguese confectionery and its relation to design. Reflecting the importance of this universe in our culture and society, it is primordially an encyclopaedic record of several specimens of Portuguese daily confectionery cakes photographed and shown close to real scale. This compilation – the first consistent record ever conducted in our country on this kind of food products – is joined by introductory texts, historic notes and also a confectionery glossary. The book also includes perspectives from 23 Portuguese and foreign professionals, which can be found along its pages in the form of three essays and several sections. Photographers, illustrators, architecture and food critics, a chef and an art curator take Portuguese semi-industrial confectionery as a source of inspiration, offering unexpected approaches to this surprising world.
"Fabrico Próprio" is a multidisciplinary project dedicated to Portuguese semi-industrial confectionery and its relation to design, authored by Pedrita (Rita João, Pedro Ferreira) and Frederico Duarte. It is composed of this book, a workshop, the fabricoproprio.net website and a series of launches in Portugal and abroad. This project is financed by the Direcção Geral das Artes do Ministério da Cultura and has Tourism Portugal as its institutional sponsor, ARESP and CFPSA as its strategic partners and Delta Cafés as its private sponsor.





Price: 34,90€ Buy here

Piri Piri Star Fish: Portugal Found by Tessa Kiros

Tessa Kiros believes that food is the essence of any country's people - a quilt that is patchworked together with their language, culture and songs. When she takes her family to live and travel in Portugal, she is captivated by the country and charmed by the old-fashioned way of doing things. Portugal has everything she loves - the markets, the sea, the beautiful old pousadas - but she would have gone for the pastéis de nata alone. In "Piri Piri Starfish", Tessa embroiders the recipes, traditions and Portuguese way of living together with her own unique colours and threads. Some of the present day wonder of this small country can be attibuted to its great history during the Age of Discovery: when the world beyond nearby lands and seas was little more than a mysterious dream to most Europeans, this land of bay leaves, bacalhau and piri piri stretched out her roots over the globe.

Price: 31,50€ click here to buy

Currently Reading...

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory


Dazzled by the golden prince, Mary's joy is cut short when she discovers that she is a pawn in the dynastic plots of her family. When the capricious king's interest wanes, Mary is ordered to pass on her knowledge of how to please him to her friend and rival: her sister, Anne.

Anne soon becomes irresistible to Henry, and Mary can do nothing to achieve her own ambition. From now on, Mary will be no more than the other Boleyn girl. But beyond the court is a man who dares to challenge the power of her family to offer Mary a life of freedom and passion. If only she has the courage to break away - before the Boleyn enemies turn on the Boleyn girls...

Currently reading (and enjoying) "Notes from an Exhibition" by Patrick Gale

Gifted artist Rachel Kelly is a whirlwind of creative highs and anguished, crippling lows. She's also something of an enigma to her husband and four children. So when she is found dead in her Penzance studio, leaving behind some extraordinary new paintings, there's a painful need for answers. Her Quaker husband appeals for information on the internet. The fragments of a shattered life slowly come to light, and it becomes clear that bohemian Rachel has left her children not only a gift for art - but also her haunting demons. --- text from book's back cover.

Network Short-Story Competition

The Network Short Story Competition is here – it’s open to anyone living in Portugal, so please take the opportunity to get the creative juices flowing and support this first time venture.

Stories can be on any theme, with a maximum word count of 2000 words. Entries cost 5 euros and will be judged by Jenny Grainer, writer, journalist and tutor in Creative Writing, and Lisa Selvidge, who tutors in Creative Writing in the Algarve and online with the University of East Anglia. Entries will need to be in the English language for this first year, and need to be received by March 31st.

The winning story will receive 100 euros worth of book vouchers, sponsored by Network, the Magna Carta Bookshop, and the Griffin Bookshop. The event is supported by the Portugal News who will publish the winning entry. Winners will be announced on 23rd April 2008, international book day.

For more details and application form, please e-mail netpres@networkalgarve.org , ring Janice Russell on 915584668 ask at the Griffin or Magna Carta bookshop, or download the form from www.networkalgarve.org

The Wine and Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal by Charles Metcalfe & Kathryn McWhirter

`The Wine & Food Lover's Guide to Portugal' is a 446-page hardback book for people who like to eat and drink well, stay in welcoming and interesting places, and want to explore Portugal - and not just the beaches. Discover the delights of the best Portuguese wines. Find out about the best restaurants, fabulously fresh fish and seafood, scrumptious suckling pig, fine, creative, modern cuisine based on excellent, fresh local produce, or the famous doces conventuais, confections of eggs, sugar, almonds and other flavours. Want to visit interesting castles, climb soaring mountains, walk along unspoiled rivers, or wonder at magnificent cathedrals and museums? It's all in the book. As are a selection of the most friendly and interesting places to stay, to suit all pockets, with contact details and prices. Each regional chapter has a general introduction, introductions to wine and to food, lists of wineries to visit (with tasting notes on recommended wines), selected restaurants and hotels, and things to do and see `between meals'. All with addresses, contact details, prices and opening times, helpful maps and about 1,600 colour photos. And all independently chosen for quality, fun and enjoyment - no one paid to be included.

Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter wrote their first book on Portuguese wines over 20 years ago, and are still at it. Charles is one of the most spontaneous and amusing wine critics in Britain, and a well-known face on British television, having been part of the ITV This Morning team for 12 years. He was a co-founder of WINE International magazine, and is co-chairman of the International WINE Challenge, the world's biggest wine competition. Before turning to wine, he was a professional singer. Kathryn was drinks correspondent for the Independent on Sunday for nine years, sometimes also writing about food. She wrote and edited the Which? Wine Guide and Good Wine Bar Guide for the Consumers' Association, as well as wine list reviews for the Good Food Guide. Together Charles and Kathryn have written wine and wine-with-food books for Sainsbury's, Tesco and Marks & Spencer, as well as other publishers.

You may purchase the book here

A Magical Guide to The Enchanted Realm

This was my favourite book for children in 2007 (although I've had adults secretly buying it for themselves - myself included). I began my collection of fairy books last year and I've proudly added "Fairies: The Magical Guide to the Enchanted Realm" to my specials bookshelf.

The author is Alison Maloney and the stunning illustrations are by Patricia Moffett.

Buy here

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

It is the year 1991. Bougainville is a small village on a lush tropical island in the South Pacific. Eighty-six days have passed since Matilda's last day of school as, quietly, war is encroaching from the other end of the island. Bougainville's children are surprised to find the island's only white man, a recluse, re-opening the school.

This book was shorlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2007.

Buy it here Promotion: was 19.50€ now 13.50 (limited to existent stock)

Eye on Africa - 30 Years of Africa Images

Sebastiao Salgado is one the most respected photojournalists. His work concentrates on Africa, where he has shot more than 40 reportage works over a period of 30 years. This book brings together Salgado's photos of Africa in three parts. It is a document of Africa and also an homage to the continent's history, people, and natural phenomena.

You can buy it here

Prose not Prozac

I just came across a very good article in The Guardian. For those of you who may have started the new year hiding under the duvet, Blake Morrisson seems to have a good prescription:



"
The Reading Cure

The idea that literature can make us emotionally and physically stronger goes back to Plato. But now book groups are proving that Shakespeare can be as beneficial as self-help guides. Blake Morrison investigates the rise of bibliotherapy. ..." Read more (click here)