Not sure this book quite works, but if it doesn't, it's not for want of trying.

About to set it free ...

RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

My first "catch". I phoned Radio Shropshire and spoke to a very nice guy. I said, "This is going to sound like a strange question but have you got a bookcrossing book in your reception?" Apparently that wasn't the strangest question he'd ever heard and yes the book was there. Half an hour later and I'm back in my office with the book. My boss hadn't even noticed I'd gone out (bonus!). I'm going to start reading this tonight so I can send it back into the wild as soon as possible.

This book was very... different. I'm going to offer it up as a book-ray so it gets to travel. If you're interested in joining please PM me.

International Book-Ray

1. On receipt of the book please make a journal entry.

2. Please try to read the book within 4 weeks but if you can't finish it in that time please PM me and also the next person on the list to let us know.

3. When you've finished the book make a journal entry on what you thought of it and then PM the next bod on the list for their address.

I will be starting the ray in the next couple of days.

Order of Participants:
1. ajsmom, Canada
2. TheBowieFollies, US
3. Buffra, US
4. Kizmiaz, Portugal
5. Hellie, UK

Received today from tabbystripes, along with a delicious treat! Yum and thanks! I will start it in the next couple of days and hopefully get it in the mail before Christmas.

This book was very different. It's interesting that the cover art is a patchwork quilt, because that's useful in describing the story. I think maybe the author had too many stories going at once, though - I found it a little confusing at times. He has great powers of description, though!

I will have it in the mail to thebowiefollies next week.

Yes! The book Ive been most anxious to read, it came today oddly enough this 12 bar blues and I was just having a proper blues jam with one another guitarist I know. AJSMOM, CHEERS!!!You are wonderful and quite perspicacious I adore Lindts chocolate, far superior to the cadbury flake,,mmm ive devoured it already and I shall devour this book..will be back soon to deconstruct..chuffed to be one of the droogs on this ring
HAPPY CRIMBO ALL XXXXX
veronica.

Phantasmaglorical!! Let me start by saying as a musician, studying for my doctorate in musicology, this book absolutely summoned me. The structure of this book around the tonic dominant and sub dominant harmonics in each of the connected fabrics that made up and represented the 12 bars.
It must have been quite the feat for Mister Neate to accomplish this, to write in such narrative and his texture and characters are immense...
You would feel if you were not initially aware of his anglo saxon heritage that he very well may have born on the Bayou himself! The vernacular and foibles were flawless. Yes i am actually an English lass from Liverpool but lived for a while in New Orleans as irony would have this and he really hones in on the disposition of the black magic town that it is. How vicarious of him! As he led a life so disparate as he is a veritable Londoner and to depict it in the manner in which he did - left me awestruck with his mojo..and conjo respectively!! As John Schlessinger accomplished the feel of a New Yorker ever so dilligently in 1969s Midnight Cowboy, a man who never stepped foot in America nonetheless New York, Neate is so astute, and as they say a writer must write what he knows, he must know this!
Even if by osmosis!
I am going to actually amazon a copy of this dead soon!
PMed buffra awaiting her responce and will post to her straight away
Happy READS :)
HAPPY CRIMBO
Veronica Cake.

Will be posting to Buffra next week :) Merry Reads love.

On its way to buffra
12 January
I hope you love it as much as I did kidda

Happy Reads.

Got it! It's got a few reads ahead, but I have confidence that it'll be moving again soon. Thanks!
***

This is the book that pulled me out of my reading slump. I read it fitfully for a bit – starting and stopping – but couldn’t bring myself to mail it onward without finishing. By the end, I was well-involved. Yay! I’m reading again!

It’s several stories at once. Stories that are loosely (or maybe not so loosely) tied together. Stories that are connected by an ancient and timeless African curse (of sorts). Stories that are tied together by jazz and music. Stories that are tied together by fate, by story itself, and by the power of a soul-deep sort of longing and love.

I found myself intrigued by each story arc and half-wondering what each set of characters were doing while I was reading about the others. The bits about New Orleans were wonderful and yet so sad at the same time – that such incredible difficulty is not just a fictional construct but that people have (and do) live in that manner. I think that those pieces of the story were my favorite – the story of Lick Holden and Sophie.

I was not as enamored of the more recent bits of the story. I liked Jim a great deal, most of the time, but I found some of those sections a bit rambling, a bit tedious and repetitive – all their searching for answers and the petty jealousies – and also a bit confusing – I kept forgetting where they were going and why (maybe that was me, though!). At the same time, it was through those bits that I searched for the hoped-for conclusion to all the threads.

Having read the other reviews now, I think that it wasn't me, but that perhaps there was a bit too much going on in those sections. Never mind that, even with that bit of confusion, it was a grand trip – from New Orleans to Africa to London, Chicago, New York.

Just got it, thanks buffra. I'll get to it as soon as possible, it won't be long.

What a great book! I had a wonderful time reading it and thought the way the various stories grow entwined was pure genius.
Unfortunately I’ve never been to New Orleans but the description that Patrick Neate gives is amazing, I felt like I was one of the costumers of those dingy bars just chillin’, listening to good music and maybe getting into a fight or two on account of those tantalizing ladies.
The African mythology works fabulously with the rest of the story and the characters are unforgetful.
What can I say? A great plot, a moving story and a good sense of humour, this book has it all.
Well worth the read, thanks tabbystripes.
It's on its way to Hellie (03.05.2006)

Arrived today...love reading books set in the deep south...shall get to it very soon