The Kowloon Diaries

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

It's not often you find a book that is really, truly funny and a serious literary novel at the same time. It says everything that needs to be said about the state of the world today: fools leading fools with foolish ideas. I completely fell in love with mad, bad Ignatius J Reilly.

How Novels Work by John Mullan

This is a series of articles written for the Guardian. It's very nicely done, nothing groundshattering, but it does lay out all the elements of novels clearly. It's more about literary criticism than a how-to writing book. Mullan's disections of the techniques used in (mostly) contemporary novels made them seem less mysterious. I like that the examples he uses are mostly contemporary, eg Brick Lane, Atonement, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby

This is the story of a French magazine editor who had a stroke and ended up paralyzed, only able to move his left eye. It's a short and moving description of how he felt being locked in his body. Sounds depressing but it wasn't, it's just beautifully uplifting. The only thing that bugged me was that tagged on the end of my film tie-in version were several articles about the marketing and sales success of the book. It really took away the enjoyment when I read about how the publisher commissioned the book. You could just imagine them rubbing their greedy hands together and saying, 'ooh, he's trapped in his body and typing a novel using his left eyelid, I smell a bestseller!'

Miss Chopsticks by Xinran

The story is about three sisters,named Three, Five and Six. Three is the artistic one, Five is the stupid one, and six is the clever one. They leave their dirt-poor village and go to the city of Nanjing, and each one of them is remarkably lucky in finding work that they love and kind-hearted people who take care of them. Then they go home and give their mother money, and are the toasts of the village. Didn't find this quite as powerful as The Good Women of China, though it was interesting to read about migrant workers, something I haven't read about before.

Chococats and Birthday Lobster

Recent sightings: the Chococat Cafe we visited in Tsim Sha Tsui, where the cats wander free over and under tables - my kids LOVED it. And the wonderful fresh lobster lunch we had in Sai Kung at the weekend. I have before and after pics of the lobster, which I'll probably never get round to uploading. Being captain of the tennis team is proving time consuming. It was worth it on Thursday though, when we beat the Hong Lok Yuen team 7-1.  Yayy! 

My novel is going along, as it does in fits and starts. I'm rewriting again, but now I feel I'm closer to the end than the start. National Novel Writing Month starts in November. I can't make up my mind whether to rewrite this one or start a new one.

Also I learnt today that bananas are the greatest food known to man and can do everything from prevent strokes to clean shoes. I have resolved to eat one everyday. So far I've had two.