38 posts tagged “books read”
Taken from an Amazon Review (cos I am lazy). Thank you Carey Green.
After a minor stroke, Gloria finds herself in Sea View, an old people's home with a nice big television in the lounge, where, if you look carefully through the big picture window, you can see the sea. There's also a problem with Gloria's memory. She may have Alzheimer's, she may just have selective memory loss - if you talk to certain members of her family, she may not have anything wrong with her mind other than a bit of deliberate Gloria bolshiness.
Funny thing is Gloria can remember so much about the war, when she and her sister worked in a munitions factory in Bristol and she met Ron, or Raan, the GI who initiated her in the ways of the flesh. One Yank and they're off too true! She can remember her first date with Ron, going to see the Great Zedorro, a hypnotist who got her up on stage and made her feel like a rod of iron. She can remember the day the telegram arrived about her sister's boyfriend and how Marge went off to drive ambulances in London and Gloria got lumbered with an Irish evacuee and her snotty kids. She can even remember much later, after the war finally ended, working as a pro back in London, where her Dad had worked the meat down at Smithfield market.
But there's so much more poor old Gloria can't remember. Things her son and the Jill woman keep ranting on about. Why do they want her to rake over all that boring old stuff? Why can't they just let sleeping dogs lie? What does it all matter now?
In War Crimes for the Home, Liz Jensen has conjured up a fabulously inventive, gripping tale; a sort of modern twist on the whodunnit, or in this case, who-dunn-what, with a very real, very spiky protagonist. Gloria bristles with indignation, speaks her mind however harsh it sounds and loves to shock with her filthy jokes and even filthier suggestions--which means that War Crimes is not for the prudish. It is however a wonderfully original but painfully raw story of an era when people lived in constant fear, hearts ruled heads and everyone lived for the moment. And Gloria was no exception. Although sometimes the moment turned out to be the future and people have to learn to live with the consequences, however unpalatable they may be.
Not science fiction, not fantasy - but a rollicking good tale with lots of dark humour, death and sex. Recommended.
I had a whole post, with the usual quotes from the back, when Vox crashed. Boo-hoo. So sorry, now you get the abridged version.
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams - touted as one of Britain's best SF writers and rightly so, this is steak and ale next to Panic. I borrowed this from the library and when I got to bed with it realised I had read it before. Bugger. But I am stuck in bed with this the only book to hand. OK. I will read it again. And very glad I am too. Gothic and world-spanning, full of genetically modified humans and quite a few aliens, this is a story of Earth's far future when Earth is ruled by the Martian Matriarchy and Earth itself is drowned and dying. Highly recommended - I now have all Liz Wiliams books on my Wish List at Amazon (hint, hint)
The Touch of Ghosts by John Rickard - again, a library I discovered I had already read. This one did not bear a second reading so well, unfortunately. Well written, well plotted, but ultimately lacking that spark that keeps you wanting to know what happens next (and I am pretty sure I felt this was first time round too!). Don't bother, unless you are just about to embark on an eight-hour flight or train journey and it is the only book to hand.
The Apothecary's House by Adrian Mathews - Recommended. Not what I expected, but a good gripping read with an unexpected end.
Glotka is crippled by torture and is now a Torturer for the King's Inquisition.
Logen Nine-Fingers is tortured by the memories of all the people he has killed.
Ferro feels no pain, and is the Carrier of the Seed.
Bayuz is the First of the Magi, and possibly the last.
Together and separately, they must prevent the uprising of evil and bring about a more democratic reign. If they survive...
Do you suspect I have a deep liking for Science Fiction and Fantasy, magic and role-playing games? No? Well, I do, and these are set in a world that could be Dungeons & Dragons material, dark and funny at the same time. Very realistic in a way fantasies are more and more becoming these days. Well worth a read if you enjoy fantasy without prophecy, but with magic.
And that is 2008 read to a halt. I wonder what 2009 will bring?
From the cover:
Grainy CCTV footage shows a man walking into a bank and putting a gun to a cashier’s head. He tells her to count to twenty-five. When he doesn’t get his money in time, she is executed. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case.
While Harry’s girlfriend is away in Russia, an old flame gets in touch. He goes to dinner at her house and wakes up at home with no memory of the past twelve hours. The same morning the girl is found shot dead in her bed. Harry begins to receive threatening emails. Is someone trying to frame him for this unexplained death? Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery.
Nemesis is the new thriller by one of the biggest
stars of Scandinavian crime fiction.
Recommended,
A slow starting book, this did not grip me until about a hundred pages in (another reason it took so long to read!)
From the cover:
What we can't see can hurt us...
Off the Peruvian coast a fisherman drowns, dragged to his death by a mysterious underwater current, He is not alone. Over the coming weeks, thousands like him will die each day - killed at sea, killed on beaches, killed by oceans that no longer behave in a way that mankind can predict.
These deaths are not coincidences - and from the moment an enormous unidentifiable form flashes across the radar of two North Sea scientists, it is clear they are being caused by a natural force more complex and more devastating that anything science is able to comprehend, Beneath the waves, something is wreaking havoc on the global ecosystem, bringing the world to the brink of destruction. It is ecological disaster on an unprecedented scale - disaster some are determined to prevent, but others are determined to exploit in their pursuit of power.
Epic, intense and frighteningly real, Frank Schatzing;s international best seller is a thrilling cautionary tale for our age - a timely warning of the vulnerability of our existence in a fragile world.
Loved it. It's a big bugger of a read, but not impossible. Just don't try and read it in the bath...
Fire Sale - Sara Paretsky is always good. This is no exception so, if you like her and have not read this, you will not be disappointed. If you have never read her and you like heroines who are also human, read her. You will not be disappointed either.
Jayne Anne Krentz - Remember I said I would never read another book by Jayne? Well, I lied. But only because I was in the library, noticed this and realised it was a sequel to the only other one I had ever read. So I read it. A light read, quite a page turner but a bit like candyfloss. If you want meat and two veg, don't bother. And read the other one first.
Ben Elton - Now this was excellent. Ben can be a bit up and down (loved Gridlock, hated Popcorn) - this is an up. A post-apocalyptic novel, a Big Brother novel (and I mean 1984 crossed with Reality TV Show), a coming of age novel... just read it, OK.
Carl Hiaasen - Excellent. Now I exhausted my library's stock of Hiaasen, I am either going to have to buy or book the remainder. But I will. I will read them all...
Martha O’Connor - The Bitch Goddess Notebook
From the Cover: In a high school in 1988 three misfit schoolgirls join forces with devastating consequences…
Rennie, the stunningly attractive A-student embarks on an affair with her married teacher. Amy tears up her cheerleader’s uniform while her drunken parents present a façade of perfect family life. Cherry, the co-called juvenile delinquent, builds a shrine to Princess Diana and looks after her hippy mother. Together, they are the Bitch Goddesses and swear to stick together - until one night when something horrific happens to shatter their friendships for ever.
Fifteen years later, it is clear that although the Bitch Goddesses have grown up, they can’t break free from their past…
I found this a bit much, to be honest. Maybe because I am not a teen. Nor thirty two, which is the other age the girls are. However, I did finish it!
The story is told from their differing viewpoints, now and
then. I found waiting for the
“friendship shattering event” annoying.
I was enjoying the story and then - Pow! - another reference to “that
which is to come”.
That aside, it is a good read. And, unusually, it does not come with a neat fnish. Their stories are, like real life, left
unfinished. Recommended, sort of. Maybe it is just that I am a bit
genre-ridden, and this is not my genre.
But while I did finish it, and mostly enjoyed it, it is going straight
to Amazon and I will not be bothering with more (if there are any more) from
Martha.
Clare Sambrook - Hide & Seek
From the Cover: “The grown-ups held an inquiry into how a child came to disappear, but they didn’t name names like they do when children let grown-ups down. They talked about a catalogue of errors as if mistakes were something that turned up in the post and got paid for later.
I had my own ideas…”
From Inside the Cover: Meet Harry Pickles,
aged nine and a bit. Harry is the
fastest boy runner in the world (probably), first son of Mo and Pa ( the best
looking parents in the school car park), big brother to Daniel (who runs like a
girl but is, in his own twerpy way, a star).
His life is good. He’s premier
league. At least, that’s the way it was
before the school trip…
Another non-typical ending. Another non-typical book. I think this is written for teens, but I loved it. Excellent characterisation of the major players and the breakdown, and recovery, of a family. Recommended.
Light In Shadow - Jayne Ann Krentz
From the cover: Zoë Luce is a successful interior designer, and when she senses that one of her clients may be hiding a dark secret, she enlists private investigator Ethan Truax to find the truth.
But Ethan’s investigative skills start to backfire on Zoë. She never wanted to let him find out about her former life. Or to reveal to him her powerful, inexplicable gift for sensing the history hidden within a house’s walls. And she certainly never wanted him to know that “Zoë Luce” doesn’t really exist.
But now, Ethan may be her only hope, as just when Zoë started to dream of a normal life and think about the future, her own past starts to shadow her every step - because the people she's been running from are getting close finding her…
From inside the cover - Janye Anne Krentz, who has also
written under the names Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle, has thirty-two New York
Times best-sellers to her credit.
Who? I had never
heard of Jayne before I picked this book up for 20p from my library. 32 best-sellers? If they are all like this... Froth. Pure froth. I finished this book quickly and with more enjoyment than expected - however, I doubt I will read another by her.
David Hewson - The Promised Land
From the cover: I couldn’t believe so much could change in twenty years…
Bierce was a happily married cop with a bright future. Then, on sunny day in July, his wife and young son were savagely beaten to death. Bierce was convicted of their murders. Languishing on Death Row twenty-three years later, he still has no memory of the incident.
Unexpectedly released just seconds before his execution, Bierce teams up with the beautiful, feisty, half-Chinese Alice Loong, who guides him through the strange new world of the twenty-first century. But it soon becomes clear that Alice is hiding dark secrets of her own.
Pursued by mysterious enemies who are convinced that Bierce knows more than he is telling about his wife’s death, the pair are forced to embark on a dangerous race against time to uncover the real truth about the events of that fateful day…
Ultimately, an unsatisfying read. All the bits were he hit the 21st century were good, though - having tried to teach my father in law how to access a computer - I found his quick ability to pick up emailing and googling a little unlikely! I liked how Wife became less nice the more we knew about her, but the "this is why he cannot remember anything" reveal was - unrealistic. Which sucked, as it spoiled the denouement for me. Buy this for reading on a plane, train or beach. Somewhere you can put it down and pick it up a lot. It is not a Grab You book!
From the cover: It begins in 2016. Another wet summer, another year of storm surges and high tides. But this time the Thames Barrier is breached and central London is swamped. The waters recede, life goes on, the economy begins to recover, people watch the news reports of other floods around the world. And then the waters rise again. And again.
Lily, Helen, Gary and Piers, hostages released from five years captivity at the hands of Christian Extremists in Spain, return to England and the first rumours of a flood of positively Biblical proportions…
Sea levels have begun to rise, at catastrophic speed. Within two years London and New York will be under water. The Pope will give his last address from the Vatican before Rome is swallowed by the rising water. Mecca too will vanish beneath the waves.
The world is drowning. A desperate race to find out what is happening begins. The popular theory is that we are paying the price for our profligacy and that climate change is about to redress Gaia’s balance. But there are dissenting views. And all the time the waters continue to rise and mankind begins the great retreat to higher ground. Millions will die, billions will become migrants. Wars will be fought over mountains.
Has mankind begun its final battle for survival?
“Strong imagination and a capacity for awe abound in the work of Stephen Baxter” - The Times Literary Supplement
I expected one kind of book here (a disaster novel of the the hard science type Baxter is so very, very good at) but got a completely different book altogether - a book about people, about how they cope with disaster, and how they survive it.
The first 50 pages or so are really slow. Introducing the characters and explaining why the flood waters are rising. It is not a book you jump into, more a book you plod along, wondering where it is going. But, after the initial burst of flooding has happened, suddenly the book and its characters become more vivid, and it becomes much harder to put down. Gotta say some of the characters are not loveable and throughout the book the hostage situation felt contrived, just a way of linking the main characters together; but in the end it did not matter. This is still a very good book, for all its flaws.
The fact it took me a fortnight, and three other books, to finish this, is a tribute to its size. It is physically large (473 pages, large format paperback) and the story makes you have to stop and think, absorbing it.
Recommended, but really, if you are not a big book sort of person, don’t bother. It will not grip you soon enough or long enough. If you love a rambling, people driven disaster novel, then this is most definitely for you.
From the Cover: Summer, 1954. US Marshall Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck Aule, he sets out to find an escaped murderess named Rachel Solando, as a hurricane bears down upon them.
But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is as it seems. And neither is Teddy Daniels. Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumours of Ashecliffe’s radical approach to psychiatry? As the investigation deepens, the questions remain.
How has a barefoot woman escaped an island from a locked room? Who is leaving them clues in the form of cryptic clues? Why is there no record of a patient committed just one year before? What really goes on in Ward C? Why is an empty lighthouse surrounded by an electrified fence and armed guards?
The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more
elusive it becomes, ad the more they begin to believe that they may never leave
Shutter Island. Because someone is
trying to drive them insane…
Again, not what I was expecting - should I be learning something from this? More a look into how people regard the insane than a murder mystery, this intrigued, irritated, engaged and annoyed me in equal measure. This book will not easily be forgotten - I enjoyed it more than not, in the end. And, in the end, the story seems unresolved. If you read it, let me know what you think!
From the Cover: A young woman walks home by herself, the tapping of her high heels the only sound. At two o’clock in the morning, it’s cold, the streets are deserted, and she thinks she’s all alone. Waiting for her, sleeping soundly in his bed, is her baby son. When he wakes the next morning his mother still isn't back. She's never coming back. Because the streets weren't as deserted as she thought.
Three women are dead, and Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt is searching for a serial killer. In Houghton-le-Spring it’s Feast Week, a time when all hell is let loose as the fair comes to town, and a frenzy of celebration and decadence provides a temporary distraction from the grim realities of everyday life. It’s not a good time to be searching for a stranger. It’s not a good time to be a woman alone….
I liked this, with reservations. When I read her debut novel, I did not notice the characters all spoke in dialect. In this one I did. Either the first had no dialect, or did it better. And I do not like the Newcastle way of talking, so it grated. The story, however, was (mostly) good. Like the last one, some of it was just not credible.
Verdict - a good way to fill a long journey, not the best
thing I have ever read but far from the worst!
6 out of 10.
From the Cover: Flanagan (who is, for want of a better word, a pirate) has a plan. It seems relatively simple: kidnap Lena, the Cheo’s daughter; demand a vast ransom for her safe return; sit back and wait. Only the Cheo, despotic ruler of the known universe, isn't playing ball.
Flanagan and his crew have seen this before, of course, but since they’ve learned a few tricks from the bad old days and since they know something about Lena that should make the plan foolproof, the Cheo’s defiance is a major setback.
It’s a situation that calls for extreme measures. Luckily, Flanagan a considerable expertise in this area…
I am glad I persevered with this. The first chapter is meh. Very meh. I nearly quit. But then there was only this book to hand and I needed to read something on the bus. So…
It is like reading Flash Gordon. The original, black and white, serialised in the flea pits, Flash Gordon. With a goodly dash of the Flash Gordon with Queen soundtrack from later years.
Not, obviously, in storyline. But it is big. It is fucking brash like nothing else I have read in quite a while. It sprawls, it narrates from different viewpoints constantly (but does tell you in the heading who is speaking - you just have to keep up), it has pirates and slavery and oppression and aliens (by god, does it have aliens) - in fact, it is one of the best Science Fiction novels I have read.
Get this. Read it. If you don’t like it, come and shout at me. But, if SF is your thing, then I will not hear shouting.
From the cover: Even the baddest birdwatcher on the planet knows something about birds…
Look out the window.
See a bird.
Enjoy it.
Congratulations. You are now a bad birdwatcher.
Anyone who has ever gazed up at the sky or stared out of the window knows something about birds. In this funny, inspiring, eye-opening book, Simon Barnes paints a riveting picture of how bird-watching has framed his life and can help us all to a better understanding of our place on this planet.
How to Be a Bad Birdwatcher show why bird watching is not the preserve of twitchers, but one of the simplest, cheapest and most rewarding pastimes around.
An Extract; Perhaps you know nothing at all about birds. Perhaps you even say it: well, me, I know nothing at all about birds. If so, you are lying through your teeth. It is impossible to know nothing at all about birds. Trust me: you can identify several different kids of birds. Let’s compile a list of birds that you can already recognise - even if you call yourself the most ignorant birdwatcher in the land:
robin
swan
duck
blackbird
swallow
crow
sparrow
blue tit
heron
pigeon
That’s ten for a start. Now we’ll thrown in cuckoo, because that is one bird everyone can recognise on call. And you might add a few more:
thrush
seagull
goose
kestrel
owl
pheasant
eagle
kingfisher
magpie
Simon's love of birds, his tips for a greater enjoyment when watching them, and the simplicity of a hobby that involves something we call can see, even when we live in a city, has inspired me to look more at birds. Read it yourself - I recommend it, and you can pick it up on Amazon for 1p plus postage - and see if it does the same for you. We all need a bit of nature in our lives!
Sorry if you're reading this, Peter, but your book sucks big time.
Do not bother with it - go for a long walk instead - do not be misled by the blurb on the cover into thinking you are getting a nifty little ghost story. You are getting a naff and predictable ghost story.
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