Books: Mildly amusing nonsense

Actress Celia Imrie's first novel is set in France. Photo / Supplied

Not Quite Nice
By Celia Imrie (Bloomsbury)
I really like the actress Celia Imrie, one of the stars of the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies. So I wanted to like her debut novel, but I struggled at times. Imrie is strong on dialogue and this story of expats living in the South of France bubbles with fun but it was difficult to look away from the flaws. The prose has a tendency to run along well-worn lines. In the first line the sea sparkles like a diamond and there's a bizarre amount of repetition with several characters saddled with selfish, awful children and an implausible number of people who aren't what they seem. Plus the plot becomes increasingly bonkers. When Theresa is pushed into early retirement she moves to a small town on the Mediterranean near Nice. As she experiences the ups and downs of creating a new life she befriends the locals, some of whom turn out to be up to no good. Theresa ends up holding cooking classes to make some cash so there are a few simple French recipes dotted through the story and they may be among the best things about it. I still like Celia Imrie. I think her novel is mildly amusing nonsense.

The Strange Library
By Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker)
I kept breaking off from reading this book to sniff its pages. They smelled amazing (try that with a Kindle). Japanese writer Murakami's short, creepy tale is held within the most gorgeous volume. Its front cover has a little library pocket stuck to it and inside it's illustrated with materials from London Library's collections. The story is about a boy who pops into the library after school to find a book on how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. He is sent to the bowels of the building where an old man locks him in a reading room. There, he awaits a terrible fate as he crams facts from books into his brain and is brought amazing doughnuts by a sheep-man. Meanwhile, his mother will be worrying why he isn't home for dinner. Everything about this little novella is strange and beautiful. An eccentric, dark fairy tale for adults and older kids.

Recipes From My French Kitchen
By Allyson Gofton (Penguin Random House)

What I love about this cookbook is its realness. Kiwi cook Allyson Gofton's account of the year she and her family spent in France's Hautes-Pyrenees region isn't all frolics and frogs' legs. She is open about the isolation she felt arriving in Caixon at the start of winter with a language barrier and cultural differences to overcome plus the upsets and outbursts of two unsettled children. Even better, instead of endless shots of a glammed-up Gofton drifting about serenely with herbs in her hands, we get her own snaps showing her makeup-free and shiny-faced as she meets locals and investigates their cuisine. The recipes are very much rustic French fare and move through the seasons. There's lots of duck confit and hearty meat dishes; for autumn I'm intrigued by a roast chicken with a stuffing of pork mince, chestnuts and crumbled Pain d'Epice (a honey and spice loaf). This is far more than just a food book, and anyone who has dreamed of decamping with the family to live overseas for a while will find it honest and inspiring.

The Birthday Monster
By Bridget Sherlock, illustrated by Izzy Ivy
It's Peter's birthday so the day is going to be all about him. He declares he is a birthday monster then proceeds to be mean to his brother and sister. Suddenly, Peter discovers he has turned into an actual monster with horns, fangs and talons for toes. Somehow he must find a way to transform back into a birthday boy. While this picture book for young children by Auckland author Bridget Sherlock isn't especially subtle about its message - be good, kids - there's lots of fun in reading it aloud with all the drama of Peter becoming a fantastical creation and bold, colourful illustrations bringing the story to life.

There Will Be Lies
by Nick Lake, Bloomsbury

An action-packed thriller for young adults, There Will Be Lies packs plenty of punch with its twists and turns. Shelby Cooper is 17 and living with her mum in Arizona. She's home-schooled and rarely goes out of the house. We quickly realise that Shelby's mother is hiding more than one secret and a car accident sets Shelby on course to find what is truth, and what are lies. Shelby is a great sassy and sarcastic teen character and, while some parts of the book are more convincing than others, the major plot twist is a fantastic idea to hang a storyline on and was a genuine surprise.

• Review by Ngaire Atmore Pattison who blogs about books at bookiemonster.co.nz

The Nightingale
By Kristin Hannah (Macmillan)
Often, war stories focus on heroic exploits of men but this is not the case with The Nightingale. Isabelle Rossignol and her sister, Vianne, were raised by a disinterested, war-scarred father. As a result, Vianne seeks love and security in the arms of a man, whereas Isabelle rebels, running away from the many boarding schools where she has been dumped. Peacetime character flaws become heroic wartime traits when the Nazis occupy Paris. Isabelle's rebellious streak leads her to the Maquis, the free French Resistance. She's code-named "the Nightingale". No Nazi can believe such a beautiful girl can be so courageous. This is Isabelle's salvation, but it has a terrible price. If you can get through this book without crying you're doing better than me. This is a powerful tale of heroism, suffering and love. I found it hard to put down and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

• Review by Victoria Elmes an Auckland teacher of English and classics.

Nicky's best read

Bestseller

Fifty Shades Of Grey

by E.L. James started life as online fan fiction, and there are literally thousands of other people out there writing their own versions of popular stories from Harry Potter to Bridget Jones' Diary. Now Fifty Shades Of Grey has even sparked its own fan fiction. Find far too much of it at

fanfiction.net

Booklover

Anne O'Brien is the director of the

Auckland Writers Festival

, which runs May 13-17.

The book I love most is ... Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne, a masterful combination of simplicity, charm and insight.

The book I'm reading right now is ... Ian McEwan's The Children's Act. I'm catching up on reading I haven't been able to do during programme preparation.

The book I'd like to read next is ... Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle.

I heard him speak in New York and was captivated and intrigued.

My favourite bookshop is ... the Festival Bookshop combo of Unity Books and The Women's Bookshop, of course.

The book that changed me is ... The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen charting a physical and a spiritual journey in the Himalayas.

The book I wish I'd never read is ... I don't have any reading regrets. Every book expands my knowledge somehow, even if it's simply to refine my understanding of what makes a good (or bad) book.