Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

This highly acclaimed book is nothing short of a delightful, truly American little quip of a read. Weighing in at just 100 pages, it manages to illustrate a host of characters, places and situations between so few pieces of paper it actually almost reads the way a movie feels: like a brief but very detailed... tangible glimpse into another person's world.

The novella's narrator is an incomplete character; his real name is ambiguous (I thought) and he seems to serve mainly as a voyeur of Holly Golightly's life. However there is more to him, for example in the opening line of the book: "I am always drawn back to places I have lived; the houses and their neighbourhoods." – we immediately start to build a sense of him, and that sense is pieced together throughout the novella in bits, though never quite making a whole. It is through this hazy character's eyes that the reader sees Miss Golightly, though in a slightly rose-tinted hue.

Holly Golightly is a young woman living alone in New York - hosting parties at her tiny (largely unfurnished) apartment, dancing in exclusive clubs with sailors, horse-riding in Central Park, and yes, dreaming of breakfast at Tiffany's. She is remarkable because, as this story was written in 1958, she lives in a time when women are not usually so outlandish. She is bold, smart, independent, beautiful and talented, although, like all the best characters, she is largely flawed and lost. She is on the run from a guilty past and, it seems, is quite trapped by the life and identity she has built herself in New York. She is secretive, even secretly secretive. She doesn't want to let on who she really is, and as such wears the many masks of the social butterfly (but wears them gloriously).

Truman Capote is arguably one of the best American writers of the latter 20th century, and in this - probably his most famous - novella, he demonstrates why with style, sensitivity and a precision of character betraying his astuteness. He maintains a great balance between aesthetics (which are a delight) and intellectual intrigue. The edition I picked up (above) also contained three of his short stories: House of Flowers, Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory, all of which adhere to what I've said about his writing and left an excellent impression on me – and a deep burning desire to read In Cold Blood, the praises of which I have heard sung endlessly by many friends! One for the bookshop amnesia list, methinks.

The Naked Drinking Club by Rhona Cameron

Ok, I'll be honest. I picked up this book for three superficial reasons:

1) It is set in Australia
2) The title (and sub-title, which reads: "drunk, disorderly & down under")
3) Russell Brand's endorsement on the front.

Lame, I know. But there is a bit more to this book than meets the eye, although I'm going to say right now that it didn't meet the potential I thought it had. There were some really insightful moments and some truly tragic scenes, and some scarily precise depictions of destructive and hedonistic behaviour. At times, though, Cameron's writing brought the whole thing down, and it occasionally read like a piece of chick-lit fluff.

Kerry arrives in Sydney plastered and with her tongue down a stranger's throat. She has drunk sex with him for a few days before wandering off to Glebe to find a job and start on her 'mission' - the reason she left Edinburgh. When she starts working for a company called ART, selling mass-produced paintings door-to-door (flogging them as originals), the path of her destiny seems to lead her into increasingly more bizarre circumstances. Day-long binges of alcohol and drugs, sex with strangers, drunk phone calls to her grandfather in Scotland, and the intriguing banter with her boss, Anaya, keep Kerry on her toes and in a confusing whirlwind - and, seemingly, away from her ultimate goal.

Just underneath the surface of all this partying and promiscuity is real heart: Kerry is a broken girl, and she's looking for something to heal her. The characters are touching and true, the setting of Sydney sizzles with its unique vivacity, and the emotional desperation and tenseness builds well throughout the story. There was just a little - I don't know. Something held this book back from being the moving, imprint-leaving novel it had all the ingredients to be. Having said that, it is Cameron's debut - and by day she is a comedienne... so perhaps that's why it felt so light at times. I enjoyed it - there were some really hilarious moments and it maintained a level of frankness that would make the bluntest comedians blush.

Maybe it didn't come to be what I thought it could be. But as it is, The Naked Drinking Club interesting, fun, tragic and outrageous with subtle, dark tones. Weightier than your average beach read.

Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter

Sophie Fevvers: Flight or Fancy? Fevvers (as she is affectionately called) is a celebrated aerialiste, a larger-than-life trapeze artist of the most unique kind: she has wings. The public adore her, madmen want to make a human(?) sacrifice of her, Grand Dukes attempt seduction. Who is she, though? And more importantly - is she real? Such are the questions on the lips of American journalist Jack Walser, who decides to depart from his familiar territory of war & disaster reporting, and concentrate on a more 'human interest' angle. Initially, he interviews Fevvers simply for her 'thus far' story, but decides it is not enough and, thinly disguised as a clown, joins the circus of which she is a star performer and follows her to Petersburg and beyond. I'd like to say "hilarious consequences ensue", but in Nights At The Circus the hilariousness of the events that unfold (and there ARE moments of extreme hilarity) is outweighed, for the most part, by shock, gruesomeness, and all-too-serious ridiculousness.

A book that seems at first glance to be a bit of a fancy turns into a much more serious look at psyche, tribalism, cruelty, endurance, love, and the absurd. From what I gleaned from the intro by Sarah Waters that preceded the edition I read, Carter's writing is often like this. She is spoken of as a 'magical realist', and I can see why - but I think this novel is a bit like an ocean - sparkly and wondrous on top but with dark, hidden depths of endless foreboding possibility. The 'magical' element is more of an enchantment, and certainly not a flimsy, Potter-esque sorcery. Waters opines in her intro that Nights At The Circus is Carter's masterpiece; and also the most 'engaging and accessible' of her fictions, which very much intrigues me to read some of Carter's other work.

It is a huge novel; geographically spanning from London to Siberia but also the characters emotional journeys are diverse and all-encompassing. Carter's writing has an odd and unique style - she is a queen of metaphor, a lover of detail and a master of significance; foretelling; symbolism. Some paragraphs are so lush they hook you right in to their seams, some are so bland they reel you out to their perimeters. At times I was smiling, laughing, wincing, gasping, praying - eyes glued to the page, willing them with all my might not to skip ahead in anticipation... I mean, not every chapter was compelling, some were downright listless, but once again, I am loath to criticise as when you reach the end of a good book, you realise even the bits you didn't like reading at the time were just necessary elements of the incredible whole.

The characters are colourful and sometimes astounding - I suppose that almost automatically comes with the setting of a circus. I remember (like most kids?) wanting to run away with the circus when I was little, after I read a book set in one, but Carter did not glamourise or romanticise the circus in that way. It became appealing seeing it through Walser's eyes, (he DID run away with the circus) - the dirt, the animosity, chimps wearing clothes, tigers dancing, elephants stamping their chained feet, clowns endlessly tumbling and playing, music everywhere, the wondrous and spectacular becoming the 'norm', the extreme characters, the buzz and frivolity of the routine... all rolled up into one bright, bustling, vibrant, multicoloured mass of molecular dazzle - a Circus. Although Fevvers, her foster-mother Lizzie, and Walser are all intensely interesting characters - it was the Circus itself which stole my attention the whole way through making the rest fall under its brilliant light. I liked Nights At The Circus, even though the plot sometimes disagreed with me, and I was occasionally confused. I like that it was different, exciting, weird and wonderful. I like what I came to know of Angela Carter, and hope to explore her work further. I recommend it if you're looking for something a little different, with plenty of rich language and stories within stories; bizarre characters and iridescent settings. I think it is essentially feminist: Fevvers comes into her own and kicks off all labels and categories, to finally speak for herself.... which, of course, resonated with me.

Ripening Seed by Colette

This short novel is quintessentially Colette. Full of innuendo, implication and subtlety; poetry infused into thoughts, actions and settings. It resonates with salty sea air, the confused emotion of adolesence, and the lingering imagery of suggestion. A big holiday house on the coast of Brittany echoes with the childlike voices of Vinca and Phillipe - friends since birth, but now fast approaching the awkward age where a rift nudges its way between boys and girls - the rift of puberty.

Vinca cannot recognise nor make much sense of her feelings towards Phillipe, and all he recognises is his desire for possession - not quite yet in the physical sense; not so simple as that. Then Phillipe meets an older woman, Mme Dalleray, who takes a shine to him and swiftly manouvers him from the border of childhood and adolesence into full blown young adulthood.

Colette's prose, when describing natural surroundings is evocative and strong on the senses. You can taste the salt in the air. You can see vividly the hues of green and blue in the sea. Her methods of describing the processes of thought and emotion can be somewhat convoluted and coded - although I suspect there is an element of it's magic that is lost in translation. French is a language full of implication - surely some of those coded meanings lost their way on the road to English.

What I loved about this novel was what it left me with: a lasting sense of possibility, a refreshed belief in the romance of eye colour, an endless scope of wonder about the things it didn't tell, and a strong desire to read all the Colette I can get my hot little hands on.