It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.
Finished this week:
You can read the recap over here.
So... finished. Not a character in it that I could like, people with so much money that 400,000 billion pounds means nothing. Old money, old powerful, supercilious men, old secretary/companion still in lobe with old boss.
I did really like Melissa, a reporter who cracks the story to the newspapers, after losing her job and starting a scintillating blog.
But it is a gripping tale of the current economy when an old private English bank that gets caught up in the hedge funds scandals and has to use family money to prop up the bank's balance sheet so they can sell it to an American bank and walk away with gobs of money never worrying about who gets hurt in the meantime, the ordinary, other people. As long as they can come out with their lifestyles, it's all that matters.
This is a new author, to me, but I will be looking at his other books.
Also finished this week:
This was a very quick read of a modern day tawdry affair in post Celtic Tiger times in Dublin. I had not read this author either before but will also be looking for more of her books.
The narrator is Gina, who leaves her husband for an older married with child man. Sean is dashing but cold. I could never see what she saw in him. I understand the kisses and mad passion in the hallways of hotels but more than that with him? No.
Gina is a nasty piece of work. Her humour crackles with desperation, however, I did share her impatience with her overprotective sister (whose children have never seen a cigarette) we want to distance ourselves from whatever she is thinking (even though you might be thinking the same thing).
Gina’s is lazy in her recounting of the affairs: how, why and when the critical events in her story take place. (“I can’t be too bothered here, with chronology.”) And she’s hazy on details, preferring the fuzzy and general summary to the sharp and particular representation. Her job involves translation, but not from “the romance languages, unfortunately, I do the beer countries, not the wine.”
Her mother is dying, but she hides her head in the sand until it's too late and then gets all morose.
One of my favourite sentences that I bookmarked to repeat here was:
"Delighted that the end of her marriage to the hapless Conor has rescued her from having to visit his boring family, she crows: “I just can’t believe it. That all you have to do is sleep with somebody and get caught and you never have to see your in-laws again. Ever. Pfffft! Gone. It’s the nearest thing to magic I have yet found.”
Much as Other People's Money above is about greed and money this also touches on these topics.
I did enjoy the voyeurism into the seedier side of their adultery.
All in all a good read.
Plan to start:
From the book jacket:
One freezing winter morning a dead body is found in the backyard of the Dharma family's house. It's the body of their tenant, Anu Krishnan. Why had she, a stranger to the mountains, been foolish enough to go out into the blizzard? From this gripping opening, Anita Rau Badami threads together a story of love and need, and of chilling secrets never told aloud.
For Anu, seeking a secluded retreat from the city, the Dharmas--the authoritarian Vikram, his aged mother, gentle Suman whom he has brought from the bustling warmth of India in a swiftly arranged marriage, their young daughter, Varsha, and her little brother--are a tightly knit family with values to uphold. The joy of Suman's good Indian cooking, the tales told by old Akka, the beauty of the place, delight her; but she soon realizes that the Dharma family holds unexpected secrets--Suman is a trapped, silent and fearful woman--and the memory of Vikram's first wife who died in an accident casts a long shadow over the household. Anu's arrival will change the balance of the Dharma household, and when the secrets start to spill out, something terrible is bound to happen...
For Anu, seeking a secluded retreat from the city, the Dharmas--the authoritarian Vikram, his aged mother, gentle Suman whom he has brought from the bustling warmth of India in a swiftly arranged marriage, their young daughter, Varsha, and her little brother--are a tightly knit family with values to uphold. The joy of Suman's good Indian cooking, the tales told by old Akka, the beauty of the place, delight her; but she soon realizes that the Dharma family holds unexpected secrets--Suman is a trapped, silent and fearful woman--and the memory of Vikram's first wife who died in an accident casts a long shadow over the household. Anu's arrival will change the balance of the Dharma household, and when the secrets start to spill out, something terrible is bound to happen...
