Six years is a long time. A lot has happened in that time. A lot of changes. And a lot that has stayed the same. Whether any of this is good, bad or indifferent is a matter for debate, one which I can't begin to answer here and will not attempt to do so. The short version is it's probably all of them, but I digress. It's certainly a long time to wait for the next instalment in a series, but that's the length of the wait for A Dance with Dragons, the latest chapter of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. There aren't many books I'll buy in hardback or on the day they are released, but this ticks both of those boxes, despite me telling myself I wasn't going to get it – who was I kidding?
Having been put onto the series a few years ago, loved it, and having recommended it to several others, who have all largely been sucked in as much as me, this always had a heavy weight of expectation. So was it worth it? Frankly it's hard to say. In terms of length, weighing in at just over a thousand pages, it certainly has quantity. And on the basis I went through it in a week, the writing is still good, the characters captivating, the story still full of twists and turns, I suppose the answer can only really be yes.
When juggling casts as huge as this – and the cast really is huge, check out the 50 odd pages of family trees and characters at the back – it took a little while to remember who some of them were after such an absence, but very quickly the newcomers were back in place alongside many old friends. If friend is the right word, for one of the series' strengths is the fact that not only is nobody in it black or white, good or bad, they change, evolve and feel real. Fitting alongside the previous volume in timeframe, but focusing on different characters and areas, I was interested to see how it would work, but I think it largely did. And also by the end of the book was introducing others back in and moving the timeline forward. Plus having some of my favourite characters back, particularly Jon and the irrepressible Tyrion, who is surely destined for a place in the pantheon of great fantasy characters.
With so many characters, it can sometimes feel like things are moving slowly, but at the same time, with so much action taking place off-stage and it all being told from so many perspectives, the unreliability of the narration helps keep the pace and suspense up. And Martin's ability to shock remains, with both minor and major surprises. Possibly nothing in here compared to the "But you can't do that!" moments of books 1 and 3, but one in particular stands out. I'm not great at working out what I think will happen in books, but I wouldn't know where to begin in guessing the outcome of the series. Or even who will survive it, for this is a brutal world where mortality is constantly on the minds of most. So a cracking good read then. Just hope the wait for the next one is not quite so long – I dread to think where I might be in another six years.
Book number: 55
Title: A Dance with Dragons
Author: George R.R. Martin
Category: Chris' choice
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Monday, 11 July 2011
Knock, knock
Following an accidental splurge at the weekend, my bookshelf is now more bulging than it was before. I picked up several things I'd been after for a while and the odd random punt, but at a mere two pounds a pop, it would have been rude not to. Or to put it another way, rent be damned, I'll pick up the pieces next month. Needing something short that I could burn through in a day or so before the next brick of a book lands in my lap, one of the new purchases fitted that bill perfectly, as well as dropping neatly into a category.
"A good, swift, violent story" is how Dashiell Hammett described The Postman Always Rings Twice and a pretty apt summary it is too. James M. Cain's thriller is terse, tense, quick and brutal. And dark, for this is noir. The prose is matches the tone – short and to the point. And the style very much suits the story.
The characters are all as you would expect – sharply sketched and immoral against a backdrop of a monochrome California. A brief, torrid love affair meets with an inevitable result, but it's the way it twists and turns throughout what is in essence a very simple plot that makes it so good. That and the interactions between the characters, the betrayal and double-crossings, both deliberate and inadvertent, that keep it interesting. It's not just the crime, it's the punishment too and it's the wrestling with the guilt and the aftermath, along with the comeuppance at the end which prevents it being a more mundane work. And it proved to be a one sitting job, lounging in the park in the sun and when it comes down to it, few things in life are better than that.
Book number: 54
Title: The Postman Always Rings Twice
Author: James M. Cain
Category: Crime
"A good, swift, violent story" is how Dashiell Hammett described The Postman Always Rings Twice and a pretty apt summary it is too. James M. Cain's thriller is terse, tense, quick and brutal. And dark, for this is noir. The prose is matches the tone – short and to the point. And the style very much suits the story.
The characters are all as you would expect – sharply sketched and immoral against a backdrop of a monochrome California. A brief, torrid love affair meets with an inevitable result, but it's the way it twists and turns throughout what is in essence a very simple plot that makes it so good. That and the interactions between the characters, the betrayal and double-crossings, both deliberate and inadvertent, that keep it interesting. It's not just the crime, it's the punishment too and it's the wrestling with the guilt and the aftermath, along with the comeuppance at the end which prevents it being a more mundane work. And it proved to be a one sitting job, lounging in the park in the sun and when it comes down to it, few things in life are better than that.
Book number: 54
Title: The Postman Always Rings Twice
Author: James M. Cain
Category: Crime
Beautiful freak
And the award for the longest (and possibly best) title of anything I've read this year goes to... a Swede. A native of the Scandinavian realm, that is, not a vegetable similar to Graham Taylor. Fiction in translation is not something I generally read a lot of, but so far this year there have been a couple and this next one, passed on to me by a willing dupe, was Carl-Johan Vallgren's nineteenth-century tale, The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred. Even the acronym for that would be a mouthful. Ok, it's neither as witty or as pithy or as plain bonkers as the average Half Man Half Biscuit song title, but then not much is.
The story of the life of, well, a freak, Hercules Barefoot is a deformed deaf-mute dwarf born to a prostitute. Or at least part of his life, anyway – a lot more was hinted at in the prologue than actually happened in the novel, which did disappoint me slightly, but I do always like the creation of a larger world, dropping in details to give it hidden depths and history. Anyway, our hero, in my head at least resembles something out of Day of the Tentacle, but then my head can be a very odd place at times. Oh, and like the title says, he can actually read minds.
It's a colourful tale, taking in large areas of Europe and how Hercule is treated, or rather mistreated, by various parties. Although it is billed as a love story, with the protagonist being separated from his love and trying to track her down, to me it is more of a revenge story, with him wreaking his bloody venegance on the numerous people who wronged him. He also comes across a variety of other outcasts and freaks during his journeys, as well as regularly clashing with the church. A modern fairy tale then and a enjoyable one at that. It was a good read, with a bit of everything thrown in, though my only slight disappointment with it was that it perhaps wasn't as good as I thought it might be.
Book number: 53
Title: The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred
Author: Carl-Johan Vallgren
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
The story of the life of, well, a freak, Hercules Barefoot is a deformed deaf-mute dwarf born to a prostitute. Or at least part of his life, anyway – a lot more was hinted at in the prologue than actually happened in the novel, which did disappoint me slightly, but I do always like the creation of a larger world, dropping in details to give it hidden depths and history. Anyway, our hero, in my head at least resembles something out of Day of the Tentacle, but then my head can be a very odd place at times. Oh, and like the title says, he can actually read minds.
It's a colourful tale, taking in large areas of Europe and how Hercule is treated, or rather mistreated, by various parties. Although it is billed as a love story, with the protagonist being separated from his love and trying to track her down, to me it is more of a revenge story, with him wreaking his bloody venegance on the numerous people who wronged him. He also comes across a variety of other outcasts and freaks during his journeys, as well as regularly clashing with the church. A modern fairy tale then and a enjoyable one at that. It was a good read, with a bit of everything thrown in, though my only slight disappointment with it was that it perhaps wasn't as good as I thought it might be.
Book number: 53
Title: The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred
Author: Carl-Johan Vallgren
Category: Books by authors I've never heard of
Livin' on a prayer
By which I mean, naturally, I'm halfway there. Or indeed just over, but as I kicked off for the second half, as I reached the plateau and began the descent, as I crossed the threshold from June into July, I had read exactly 50 books. And with another couple of reviews to write (probably later), I'm still on task. To stick with the football analogy, it started well as I raced into an early lead, slowly got pegged back, fell behind and have slowly clawed my way back into and now sit level pegging at the halfway stage. Or, to put it another way, some months I've read more than others.
So what have I learnt? Firstly, that it has been a challenge. In between a having a day job and a life (the latter is more debatable), finding time to read that much is not always easy. But it's rarely time that I regret spending and at least having something to work towards keeps me focused and on track. Plus it's nice to have something to aim for.
Secondly, that it's been easy to find things I want to read for each category. Even if I haven't always wholly enjoyed them in the end, it's not been a problem finding things. And that's not really any different to normal, as you never know what it's going to be like until you've read it. (And the stating the bleeding obvious award goes to...)
Thirdly, it has certainly helped me to branch out and read some things I probably wouldn't have done otherwise. Which can be no bad thing. Especially as that's definitely something I wanted out of it. It's always good to try new things and sometimes that means stepping out of your comfort zone. I've been pleasantly surprised many times and discovered some new things I may not have done otherwise.
Finally, although it has sometimes required a lot of effort and motivation to write this blog, it's been worthwhile. Sometimes the reviews have been easy to write, sometimes they've been hard, but in doing so it has helped me to work out what I liked about books, what I didn't, and most of all helped me to remember more about the books I've read. I'm pretty awful (possibly an understatement) at remembering books I've read, even those read a mere couple of weeks ago. This could be due to reading so much or so quickly, but much the same as with everything I've read at book club over the last couple of years, being able to focus some thoughts on a book and to record them has made them easier to recall, which can be no bad thing. And it's nice to write as well, to keep my hand in the game, so to speak.
What have I liked then? Over the last couple of years I've been reading more non-fiction and it has opened up a whole new world of possibilities. I've really enjoyed that as a category and have read more there than anything else so far. Crime has also been opened up as a new category for me and I've read a lot of things I liked and can certainly see the attraction of the genre. Maybe it's just that I've stuck to classic titles, but that's a pretty good place to start and like all things, there's good and there's bad and the good will out. I'm hit and miss with the pre-20th century literature still, but I'll keep at it.; the Pulitzer winners have generally been very good; and I've not made nearly a big enough dent in the books that have been sat on my shelf for too long! I have, however, been a lot better at borrowing from the library (hurrah for libraries and public services!) and not buying so many (boo to the cost of living!), this weekend excepted.
And it wouldn't be right to do this kind of thing without some kind of High Fidelityesque top 5/10/best of/most of list-type thing, because that's how it works and that's probably what you want to know. Anyway, in no particular order (you can't get everything, at least not without pressing me a lot harder on the matter), the best five books I have read so far this year, or at least those that have stuck with me the most are:
The Great Gatsby
The Big Over Easy
The Easter Parade
The Virgin Suicides
Fup
Or at least that's what I'm going with today; tomorrow might be a different matter. Oh, and Jilted Generation still makes me angry six months on. Roll on the next six months...
So what have I learnt? Firstly, that it has been a challenge. In between a having a day job and a life (the latter is more debatable), finding time to read that much is not always easy. But it's rarely time that I regret spending and at least having something to work towards keeps me focused and on track. Plus it's nice to have something to aim for.
Secondly, that it's been easy to find things I want to read for each category. Even if I haven't always wholly enjoyed them in the end, it's not been a problem finding things. And that's not really any different to normal, as you never know what it's going to be like until you've read it. (And the stating the bleeding obvious award goes to...)
Thirdly, it has certainly helped me to branch out and read some things I probably wouldn't have done otherwise. Which can be no bad thing. Especially as that's definitely something I wanted out of it. It's always good to try new things and sometimes that means stepping out of your comfort zone. I've been pleasantly surprised many times and discovered some new things I may not have done otherwise.
Finally, although it has sometimes required a lot of effort and motivation to write this blog, it's been worthwhile. Sometimes the reviews have been easy to write, sometimes they've been hard, but in doing so it has helped me to work out what I liked about books, what I didn't, and most of all helped me to remember more about the books I've read. I'm pretty awful (possibly an understatement) at remembering books I've read, even those read a mere couple of weeks ago. This could be due to reading so much or so quickly, but much the same as with everything I've read at book club over the last couple of years, being able to focus some thoughts on a book and to record them has made them easier to recall, which can be no bad thing. And it's nice to write as well, to keep my hand in the game, so to speak.
What have I liked then? Over the last couple of years I've been reading more non-fiction and it has opened up a whole new world of possibilities. I've really enjoyed that as a category and have read more there than anything else so far. Crime has also been opened up as a new category for me and I've read a lot of things I liked and can certainly see the attraction of the genre. Maybe it's just that I've stuck to classic titles, but that's a pretty good place to start and like all things, there's good and there's bad and the good will out. I'm hit and miss with the pre-20th century literature still, but I'll keep at it.; the Pulitzer winners have generally been very good; and I've not made nearly a big enough dent in the books that have been sat on my shelf for too long! I have, however, been a lot better at borrowing from the library (hurrah for libraries and public services!) and not buying so many (boo to the cost of living!), this weekend excepted.
And it wouldn't be right to do this kind of thing without some kind of High Fidelityesque top 5/10/best of/most of list-type thing, because that's how it works and that's probably what you want to know. Anyway, in no particular order (you can't get everything, at least not without pressing me a lot harder on the matter), the best five books I have read so far this year, or at least those that have stuck with me the most are:
The Great Gatsby
The Big Over Easy
The Easter Parade
The Virgin Suicides
Fup
Or at least that's what I'm going with today; tomorrow might be a different matter. Oh, and Jilted Generation still makes me angry six months on. Roll on the next six months...
Thursday, 7 July 2011
Dear science
There aren't many authors that I have met in my life. Not puclished ones, anyway. But one I have most definitely met, and shaken hands with, is Bill Bryson. I may have mentioned this once or twice. I also have really enjoyed those of his works I've read, be they travelogues, memoirs or explorations into language. Science has never really been my strong point, whatever my GCSEs might falsely lead you to believe. If only it had all been as interesting as A Short History of Nearly Everything.
And that's exactly what it was: interesting. It was well-written, filled with fascinating characters and anecdotes and the wonders of life, the universe and everything. A far cry from dull, bland textbooks which teach the black and white facts and theories but without the colour to bring them to life. That's what this book does and does it very well. Covering biology, physics, chemistry and various offshoots of the Big Three, it stretches all the way back to the Year Dot and right through to What We Know Right Now.
For me, what was so good was that it had personality, both the writing and the people who were mentioned. In essence it's a history of science, so maybe it's the historian in me that was appreciating that aspect. Equally, the reader in me probably just appreciated the fact it's well-written, informative and interesting. One thing I found particularly interesting was how ideas and theories came about and when. Many ideas and technologies were a lot older than I had thought and yet at the same time some things which I have taken for granted because they have always been recognised as facts or 'the truth' throughout my lifetime, have only relatively recently become accepted gospel. It's clearly well-researched and it's pretty hefty. It also probably won't find its way onto any school curriculums any time soon either. Which is a pity, because it did something that didn't happen that often at school for me – it made science interesting.
Book number: 52
Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
Category: Non-fiction
And that's exactly what it was: interesting. It was well-written, filled with fascinating characters and anecdotes and the wonders of life, the universe and everything. A far cry from dull, bland textbooks which teach the black and white facts and theories but without the colour to bring them to life. That's what this book does and does it very well. Covering biology, physics, chemistry and various offshoots of the Big Three, it stretches all the way back to the Year Dot and right through to What We Know Right Now.
For me, what was so good was that it had personality, both the writing and the people who were mentioned. In essence it's a history of science, so maybe it's the historian in me that was appreciating that aspect. Equally, the reader in me probably just appreciated the fact it's well-written, informative and interesting. One thing I found particularly interesting was how ideas and theories came about and when. Many ideas and technologies were a lot older than I had thought and yet at the same time some things which I have taken for granted because they have always been recognised as facts or 'the truth' throughout my lifetime, have only relatively recently become accepted gospel. It's clearly well-researched and it's pretty hefty. It also probably won't find its way onto any school curriculums any time soon either. Which is a pity, because it did something that didn't happen that often at school for me – it made science interesting.
Book number: 52
Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
Category: Non-fiction
Your city or mine?
One thing that some classic authors know how to do is spin a good yarn. A romp, a caper, and adventure, some buckle with their swash. Of course, most classics obtain such status because some people (or even a large number of people) see something in them that keeps them admired, read and therefore alive. Jules Verne is definitely one such master of the genre and having read his best known works and found them excellent, I picked up The Underground City.
I suppose considering the scale of Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, I was expecting something a bit more eic than what I got. Which was a book about coal mining. Now in my undergraduate days, coal mining and I have a history of sorts, through a bizarrely highly marked yet probably very dull essay on the subject to parts of my dissertation, not forgetting of course I was slap bang in the middle of County Durham, a region whose history over the last couple of centuries has been inextricably linked with the activity.
Instead, this is Verne's homage to Scotland, a land which he was extremely fond of, though I did not know that beforehand. Smaller in scale it may have been, the premise being the creation of a new city, completely underground in what had previously been an abandoned mine. Yet it has in it enough mystery, suspense and romance to keep it a quick and entertaining read. Indeed it probably is a romance more than anything, both in the sense of the plot and the author's love affair with the country north of the border. He's probably more successful with the latter, his descriptions of Scotland being rather better than the romance. Not as good as his best then, but certainly not something I regret reading.
Book number: 51
Title: The Underground City
Author: Jules Verne
Category: Pre-20th century literature
I suppose considering the scale of Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, I was expecting something a bit more eic than what I got. Which was a book about coal mining. Now in my undergraduate days, coal mining and I have a history of sorts, through a bizarrely highly marked yet probably very dull essay on the subject to parts of my dissertation, not forgetting of course I was slap bang in the middle of County Durham, a region whose history over the last couple of centuries has been inextricably linked with the activity.
Instead, this is Verne's homage to Scotland, a land which he was extremely fond of, though I did not know that beforehand. Smaller in scale it may have been, the premise being the creation of a new city, completely underground in what had previously been an abandoned mine. Yet it has in it enough mystery, suspense and romance to keep it a quick and entertaining read. Indeed it probably is a romance more than anything, both in the sense of the plot and the author's love affair with the country north of the border. He's probably more successful with the latter, his descriptions of Scotland being rather better than the romance. Not as good as his best then, but certainly not something I regret reading.
Book number: 51
Title: The Underground City
Author: Jules Verne
Category: Pre-20th century literature
Well, shoot!
You can tell a book has become part of the national consciousness on some level when it becomes the subject of a parody or a play on its name. Reading library apparently lists We Need to Talk About Kevin Keegan as its first hit rather than the book more likely to be searched for, Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. And left to my own devices, I think there was more chance I'd have picked up the former rather than the latter, which I had written off as misery lit (and from the book club discussion it appears I wasn't the only one) and something I would ordinarily steer well clear of. I'd also had some mixed reviews from generally trusted sources, some hating it and some loving it. Either way, it's something that may well have passed me by, but aside from anything else, part of the fun of doing this challenge is to pick up things that I perhaps wouldn't otherwise.
I'm pleased to say that my fears of what it might be weren't realised, which was certainly a good start. I did on the whole enjoy it, if such is the right word. I have some issues with it, but certainly it was a lot better than I was expecting. The writing was generally good, if a little pretentious for my liking, particularly at the beginning. I know that this is the narrator, but I have a strong hunch that there's quite a lot of the author in her. And I do sympathise with Eva a lot. In fact I sympathise with a lot of the characters for a variety of reasons. I do not, however, really like any of them. Our narrator may not be wholly reliable, it is hard to be looking back on such events with the benefit of a possibly twisted hindsight, but she is frankly honest and raises a lot of interesting questions and talking points that perhaps should be talked about more. Namely the responsibility of having children, the reasons for doing so, the fear of what might happen and how significantly they change your life.
As for Kevin, he's cold-blooded, calculating and to my mind, for want of a better word (and it's one I'm generally hesitant to use normally), evil. Especially in the way that he doesn't always do things directly himself, but it's how he can manipulate others into hurting themselves. My problem is that in my interpretation he was born that way and I don't really buy that; I lean much more towards nurture than nature. Sure, both of his parents had their own shortcomings, but I don't think they were bad per se, more that they had ordinary human fallability. As for the others, Franklin and Celia were pretty one-dimensional as chacracters, but they largely served their purpose of being the respective yangs to the yins of the other two.
I'm not sure about the ending either. It's clear that however warped their relationship is, mother and son still have that relationship and there is some weird, twisted kind of mutual respect there. I think it's supposed to be a message of hope and redemption, but I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe he has changed, realised he's done as much as he can ever do and is wondering where he can go from there. Maybe he is facing up to the fact he won't be in control any more the way he has been his entire life. I'm just not sure it fits. Either way though, it was an excellent choice for book club as there was much to talk about and it made for some really interesting discussions. And you can't argue with that.
Book number: 50
Title: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Author: Lionel Shriver
Category: Charlotte's choice
I'm pleased to say that my fears of what it might be weren't realised, which was certainly a good start. I did on the whole enjoy it, if such is the right word. I have some issues with it, but certainly it was a lot better than I was expecting. The writing was generally good, if a little pretentious for my liking, particularly at the beginning. I know that this is the narrator, but I have a strong hunch that there's quite a lot of the author in her. And I do sympathise with Eva a lot. In fact I sympathise with a lot of the characters for a variety of reasons. I do not, however, really like any of them. Our narrator may not be wholly reliable, it is hard to be looking back on such events with the benefit of a possibly twisted hindsight, but she is frankly honest and raises a lot of interesting questions and talking points that perhaps should be talked about more. Namely the responsibility of having children, the reasons for doing so, the fear of what might happen and how significantly they change your life.
As for Kevin, he's cold-blooded, calculating and to my mind, for want of a better word (and it's one I'm generally hesitant to use normally), evil. Especially in the way that he doesn't always do things directly himself, but it's how he can manipulate others into hurting themselves. My problem is that in my interpretation he was born that way and I don't really buy that; I lean much more towards nurture than nature. Sure, both of his parents had their own shortcomings, but I don't think they were bad per se, more that they had ordinary human fallability. As for the others, Franklin and Celia were pretty one-dimensional as chacracters, but they largely served their purpose of being the respective yangs to the yins of the other two.
I'm not sure about the ending either. It's clear that however warped their relationship is, mother and son still have that relationship and there is some weird, twisted kind of mutual respect there. I think it's supposed to be a message of hope and redemption, but I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe he has changed, realised he's done as much as he can ever do and is wondering where he can go from there. Maybe he is facing up to the fact he won't be in control any more the way he has been his entire life. I'm just not sure it fits. Either way though, it was an excellent choice for book club as there was much to talk about and it made for some really interesting discussions. And you can't argue with that.
Book number: 50
Title: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Author: Lionel Shriver
Category: Charlotte's choice
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