The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder

I'm rarely completely in two minds about a book but I am about The Christmas Mystery

On the positive side, it introduces the true meanings of Christmas, of familial love, bringing people together, and a sense of the history of Christianity since the birth of Christ in an intelligent way.

40 years ago a little girl called Elisabet runs away from her mother in Norway in pursuit of a lamb. 40 years later a yong boy named Joachim is given an old looking advent calender by a bookseller, the calendar was left in his shop by an iterant flower seller called John. As Joachim opens the first door a piece of paper falls out. On it, written in tiny writing, is a story of what happened to Elisabet as she finds herself running with the lamb backwards through time and across the northern hemisphere from Norway to Bethlehem with an entourage that increases each day of the advent calendar and includes the wise men, shepherd, sheep, angels and historial figures. As Joachim's parents find out about the calendar it draws them together and they are able to help John solve the mystery of Elisabet's disappearance.

On the negative side, I found it repetitive and obvious, the homilies of what the story of the nativity teaches us were rather bluntly put with little finesse or subtlety. It is charming but could have been better written.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale

Summerscale relates the true story of the murder on the night of 30 June 1860 of the youngest son of the family at Road Hill House, throat cut wide open and dumped down the servant's toilet in the grounds of the house. The murder exposes the internal workings of the upper middle class family, jealousy, adultery, guilt, grief and hatred. The Road Hill House case is significant in that it was one of the very first detective investigations undertaken by the fledgling Scotland yard and the story of the murder and the character of the detectives, in particular the lead detective Mr Whicher, directly inspired the early victorian melodramas and penny dreadfuls from Wilike Collins' The Moonstone to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. Informed by contemporary developments in psychology, in particular the emerging theories of Freud, this is the classic murder mystery: the germ of the detective and crime novel which traces its routes through Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie to the present day.

I found the book interesting, but not compelling. It is perhaps the point of the book that because of our thorough grounding the present day with regard to forensic psychology which had its origins in the alienists and detectives of this time, that I knew pretty quickly who the murderer was and why. I did finish the book but there was no mystery to it and I found it rather dry and in the end unfulfilling.

Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nichols (AUDIO)

Sam is dying from leukaemia. But Sam is also a typical 11 year old boy. He loves facts and warhammer, wants to be a teenager, fly in an airship, go into outer space, try smoking and kissing a girl. Sam wants answers to the questions nobody ever asks: what does it feel like to die? does it hurt? Why do people make such a fuss about dying when it's as natural as falling asleep? There is no self pity or fear in Sam, this wonderful book is instead full of the joy of a life lived to the full, a very normal family living with a heart breaking reality of time running out fast, I was in floods of tears at the end.

The Horse Boy: A Father's Quest to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson (AUDIO)

Deeply moving and inspirational. Isaacson's son Rowan is diagnosed with autism and as his rages, difficult behaviours and inability to toilet train bring Isaacson and his wife to the edge of their coping abilities at age 5 he is walking one day with his father in the woods and throws himself at the feet of a neighbour's horse, Bessie. She spontaneously submits to him, some kind of non-verbal communication takes place. Isaacson begins to ride with Rowan in front of him on Bessie and then gets the crazy idea of taking Rowan to meet with the horse shamans of Mongolia to see if they are able to heal him. What follows is the tale of an amazing journey from the States (a meeting with Temple Grandin) via the UK to the dirty urban sprawl of Ulan Bataar, a healing ceremony performed by 9 shamans from all over Mongolia and an epic journey north by jolting van and horseback to seek the reindeer shaman Ghost in the great Siberian Taiga forests. Isaacson explores faith, desperation and describes the journey he, his wife and Rowan take with a healthy cynicism. An unmissable book, and the proceeds from the book go to help the family in their project to help more autistic children by giving them the chance to work with horses.

Corbenic by Catherine Fisher

Beautifully written, tender and heartbreaking this is a reworking of the Grail myth through the life of a lost boy running from the hell of his life caring for his alcoholic schizophrenic mother. Cal leaves his mother to live with and work for his uncle but he gets off the train at the wrong stop, a station called Corbenic. In the rain and oncoming storm he stumbles upon a beautiful luxurious country hotel and is treated like a king, but when he denies the evidence of his own senses he sets in motion events which take him on a painful journey of self discovery and atonement. A book I hated to finish and that had me wanting to read the source texts.

Corbenic by Catherine Fisher

Beautifully written, tender and heartbreaking this is a reworking of the Grail myth through the life of a lost boy running from the hell of his life caring for his alcoholic schizophrenic mother. Cal leaves his mother to live with and work for his uncle but he gets off the train at the wrong stop, a station called Corbenic. In the rain and oncoming storm he stumbles upon a beautiful luxurious country hotel and is treated like a king, but when he denies the evidence of his own senses he sets in motion events which take him on a painful journey of self discovery and atonement. A book I hated to finish and that had me wanting to read the source texts.

kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich (writer and illustrator)

kimmie66 is the virtual best friend of Telly Kade, an ordiary girl living in the 23rd century where people spend much of their lives and meanigful life experiences within the 'lairs', virtual experience worlds which are rigidly segmented from each other and based on lifestyle choices such as sci-fi futuristic / goth loner / moog warlord style / elves and dragons etc etc. When kimmie66 sends a message to Telly that she has committed suicide but her avatar continues to appear in the lairs Telly goes in search of the reality behind the vr of her world. Great art and ideas although a little thin on depth.

The Oracle and The Archon by Catherine Fisher

These are both well written and interesting, the first two of the Oracle trilogy (the third is The Scarab). They are set in an archaic society, the Two Lands which is kind of a combination of Egyptian and Greek and in which trade depends on the Lands' currency: prophecy from the Oracle. Mirany is the newly created Bearer, one of the elite group the Nine, girls who live on The Island and communicate directly with The Oracle through a crack in the Temple of the God. Just beyond the end of the causeway at the entrance to The Port lies the Palace of the Archon, the personification in human form of the God, and to the south of the Island lies the massive City of the Dead where a hive of workers and scribes work above the Tombs.

In The Oracle the Two Lands are trapped in drought and The Archon offers his life to appease the Rain Queen and return water to the land but as the Archon's body travels through the Nine Houses of Mourning on his journey to his tomb and the search begins for his successor, a 10 year old boy into whose body the God has transferred, Mirany realises that she is at the centre of a web of conspiracy, coercion and danger. With the scribe Seth, attempting to sell his knowledge of the tombs to the mysterious tomb robbers The Jackal and The Fox in return for water, the most precious commodity in the drought stricken Lands, and ex musician Oblek who should have been killed along with the rest of the Archon's retinue to accompany him to the underworld, a twisting turning tale of intrigue begins as the group are pursued by the nefarious general Argelin and treachery within the Nine.

In The Archon Oblek and Seth travel with the new Archon Alexos to the Mountains of the Moon in an attempt to find the Well of Songs and undo the wrong a previous Archon did which plunged the Two Lands into drought. The land they travel across is marked with great shapes of animals incised into the ground in the manner of the Nazca lines in Peru but these are more than just lines in the ground. Fisher blends history, imagination and mystery in a fascinating fast paced story.

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway

How can you heart keep beating when the man you love is dead, a man who you're not even permitted to grieve for because although he had left his wife it is she who claims his body and is named at the funeral. This is the story of the ironically named Joy 'lasting' this ordeal after her lover drowns, her complete breakdown in the face of the shattering of her world consigning her to a psychiatric ward, and the men and women who love her and despite her continue to reach her. Reveals the true horror of grief and the dangers of wrapping a life around a single person. Deeply moving, Galloway traces a narrative through a blasted emotional landscape with skill and feeling.

The House of Djinn by Suzanne Fisher Staples

In this third book of the trilogy (Daughter of the Wind; Under the Same Stars; The House of Djinn) Fisher Staples continues to write beautifully about the lives of women in tribal Islamic society.

Shabanu lives a half life in the summer pavillion on the roof of a haveli, ten years after staging her own death to save the life of her child Mumtaz. Mumtaz is now 15 and her only relief from life with her half sister Layla who treats her as a servant, insists on being called Auntie and tormets Mumtaz as Layla's mother Amina did Shabanu, is when her cousin Jameel returns from San Francisco to spend the summer in Lahore. But then secrets begin to unravel, Jameel's beloved grandfather Baba dies and Nazir, who killed his own brother Rahim, (the tribal leader, Shabanu's husband and Mumtaz's father) moves to take control of the tribe. There is a real strength in there not being a westernised conventional happy ever after, instead, the conclusions really make you think about what it means to act as an adult and about the quality of love. A good conclusion to the series but not as heartbreaking as the first two.

Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples

Beautifully written and packed with the sights and smells of Cholistani nomadic desert life, this is the story of Shabanu, whose name means Princess. Aged 12 she and her older sister Phulan and herself are both betrothed and this book is on one level about Shabanu growing up, but also an amazing depiction of a society and landscape completely alien to a reader in wet, cold, November Scotland, a society where women have to learn to obey and the rule is of father, brother and husband and how a girl can retain herself within those strictures.

After having fallen in love with 'Under The Same Stars', the second book in the three book series (Daughter of the Wind; Under the Same Stars; The House of Djinn) I was eager to read the prequel and I wasn't disappointed.