Booklog #15

It feels like Spring is finally here to stay (fingers crossed!) - blue sky, sunshine, daffodils emerging from the ground.  Will I celebrate by spending all my time outdoors?  Not likely...there's too many books to be read! 

This week I've finished:

* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
After what seems like months (oh, because it is months), I have finally finished Pillars!  Amazon has it down as containing 1100 pages, but I was reading it on Kindle so only had 'locations' to go off (there are 22118 - which sounds even worse!).  It certainly fills them well though - pretty much everything that could happen in  12th century England did happen in this book.  Murder, rape, revolution, war, peace, religion, treachery, marriage, love, babies, fires, harvest failures, terrible accidents, great successes.  You're with them all the way.  And it's wonderfully written...it just flows so well, the characters are realistic (I came to hate William Hamleigh as much as the heroine Aliena did!), the landscapes, towns and cities are described so vividly with sound, sight and smell that you feel like you're there.  I'm almost reluctant to watch the TV adaptation in case it ruins my memory of it!  If you like historical novels then you really must read this.  5/5

* Picture Perfect ~ Jodi Picoult
I'm in two minds about this book.  Firstly I admire Jodi Picoult as I know what great praise My Sister's Keeper always gets - she's obviously a very great talent within her genre.  This book is pretty long (480 pages) and I wasn't sure what to expect as I've not read any of her others, I thought (mistakenly) that it was chick lit - not the light frothy kind (which I do enjoy), perhaps a slightly more grown-up kind.  However it became apparent that this was not the case.  WARNING - SPOILERS ALERT! 

The main character, Cassie, is found with amnesia, totally unaware of who she is.  Taken in by the police officer who found her, she is soon 'claimed' by her husband, who turns out to be A-list Hollywood megastar Alex Rivers, who whisks her back to a red carpet lifestyle that she slowly begins to remember.  "Great" you might think...unfortunately though, as her memories start to come back to her, she remembers that Alex abuses her, frequently punching and kicking her in wild rages.  He has all sorts of issues from childhood, as does she, and these are used as the reason behind this abuse.  And this is where my problem lies. 

I'm sure that Jodi Picoult did her research before writing about such a sensitive subject, and I'm sure that this kind of thing happens a lot, but I found it impossible to identify with as I've never been through it, nor known anybody who has (or has admitted it anyway).  As such, I simply cannot get past the constant thought of "just leave him".  Even as I type that I know it's not that straightforward, that abused women often feel trapped and unable to leave, feel that they're to blame and that they almost deserve what they're getting, but I just can't get my head round it.  Cassie frustrates me all the way through by being such a doormat, sticking with Alex despite what he does to her - leaving town to have his baby in secret, then going back to him, only for - guess what? - him to start beating her again.  I just found it incredibly frustrating, as she was a successful professional woman before meeting him, then turns into a sort of non-entity.  Though Alex is flawed (and his terrible childhood is thrown at you again and again to make sure you don't forget why Cassie feels she has to look after him), he's not likeable even when he's being nice - he's too controlling, too overbearing.  I felt like I was walking on eggshells just as much as Cassie was, and that doesn't make for an enjoyable read, feeling tense all the way through.  I'm sure the book must have done good things for awareness of domestic abuse, but that wasn't what I was looking for - I just wanted an entertaining read.  On the plus side, her writing style is very smooth and descriptive - it is hard to put down, because every chapter leads so well into the next...even if that next chapter is just as tense as the last.  At least I'm more aware now that Picoult writes about Serious Issues so I can steer clear in future: 2/5

* The Diviner's Tale ~ Bradford Morrow
As if Picture Perfect wasn't heavy enough, this too was quite draining to read.  It's the story of a diviner, or dowser, called Cassandra (another Cassie!) who finds herself experiencing visions of slightly sinister young girls.  Secrets which were buried in her childhood start to re-emerge and she must decide whether to acknowledge them, and also whether to try and push away her more 'mystical' side for the well-being of her family, or embrace it and risk their safety as she tries to help 'someone' who is in danger.  It's hard to describe without giving a lot away!  I did enjoy it, but I think I would have enjoyed it more had I not been reading other complex/involved books at the same time.  There's a lesson there - I need to keep more balance in my reading!  3/5

* The Time Machine ~ H.G. Wells
Continuing my unofficial foray into the world of (free) classics, I tried out some H.G. Wells.  I've seen the 2002 film with Guy Pearce, Jeremy Irons etc but to be honest this bears only a basic resemblance to that.  The book does have action scenes, but not on the same scale as the film.  The 'above-ground' creatures the time traveller meets are very different - in the film they were basically regular humans (including Samantha Mumba of early 2000's UK pop fame), but in the book they are tiny and ethereal and infuriatingly childlike.  It seems a very odd change to me.  Short as the book is, I did enjoy it - the writing is very descriptive but still quite tight, and it really conveys an image of the strange world the time traveller lands in.  There is an incident towards the end that occurs amid some frenetic action which is beautifully written, really touching and sad, even though so much is going on around it.  The ending itself was quite a surprise (though I won't say why)!  4/5

* I, Robot ~ Cory Doctorow
This was a strange little read - I assumed it would be something to do with the Will Smith film, and it sort of was in that robots were used in various human roles such as police officers and there were laws as to what they could and couldn't do.  But the human characters were completely new to me.  Then I discovered (shamefully - I feel know that I probably should have known already) that the original I, Robot was written by Isaac Asimov, so I guess it is that version that the film was based on.  Either way, Cory Doctorow's is a short story about a human cop, his daughter and estranged wife and their troubled interaction with the technological world they inhabit.  It gets a little creepy, as the state can track them literally anywhere, always aware of what they're doing, who they're with and so on.  The ending is extremely ambiguous and feels very much like a set-up for a sequel, which did frustrate me a little as the characters went through a big change and it would have been nice to see the outcome develop fully.  As I'm not really into techie sci-fi: 2/5

This week I've started:

* Styx and Stones ~ Carola Dunn (the new book club book)

* The Best of Times ~ Penny Vincenzi

I'm still reading:

* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard (I really must push on and finish this)

Wow, quite a clear out this week!  It's nice to finally come to the close of longer books like Pillars - not because I can cross them off the list (as it were), chalk up another number and forget all about them, but because the journey I've been on with the characters has been really up and down and quite exhausting.  I need to read something shorter so I feel like I'm having a rest! 
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Booklog #14

And so another weekend has zipped by already...

This week I've finished:

* Murder on the Flying Scotsman ~ Carola Dunn
Well, let me just tell you that it's a good job my two book club buddies and I aren't actual detectives...we were hopelessly wrong with our theories as to who the murderer was in this!  It's very much Agatha Christie-esque, but seems somewhat less substantial - as though the characters are less fleshed out and more like comical caricatures.  It doesn't really matter though as it's an easy read and the fun part is trying to pick out the clues from the red herrings.  There are lots more in this 'Daisy Dalrymple' series and we've already picked our next one...  4/5

* Manifesting Change ~ Mike Dooley
If you've ever read the best-selling blockbuster The Secret then you'll be familiar with the ideas behind this book.   Essentially, Mike Dooley's belief is that 'Thoughts Become Things', so think positive thoughts and your life will be blessed with positive things.  Obviously that sounds ridiculously simplistic when I sum it up like that - but he does go into much more detail, explaining the reasons why he believes this, why bad things still happen in the world and how to apply it all to your own life.  I did feel that it was a bit 'hippy-trippy' in parts - such as where he's explaining how time doesn't actually exist in a linear way and so we can make anything happen because it doesn't happen in a certain point in time (???) and suchlike - but for the most part it's pretty easy to follow and quite thought-provoking indeed.  Certain sections really resonated with me and I will definitely be putting his suggestions into practice to bring about the changes I want in my life.  For more info see his website: Tut's Adventurers Club  4.5/5 (half a mark off for the bits I didn't understand!)

* A Room With A View ~ E.M. Forster
In the spirit of continuing to try classics that I've never found time to read in the past (especially if I can download them for free now!) I dabbled in a little E.M. Forster.  I'll be honest - perhaps revealing a new level of ignorance - and admit that I knew nothing about Forster or this book before starting it.  I couldn't have told you a single thing about it.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I rather enjoyed it!  It's about one Miss Lucy Honeychurch, a young lady who, while holidaying in Florence with her chaperone, not only witnesses a murder but also has her heart awakened by a fellow tourist.  We then follow Lucy back home to England and through the troubles she faces when that same man moves into the village just as she accepts a marriage proposal from a local gentleman.  It's a fairly simple story but beautifully told - both Italy and England really come to life on the page, and the interplay between the characters as they dance around their feelings is subtle yet complex.  There is a good amount of philosophising about choices and life and the ending is both expected and yet still surprising in one way (I won't ruin it by telling you why).  4/5

This week I've started:

Nothing new this week, I've been caught up in Pillars of the Earth when I wasn't reading the 'finished' books above! 

I'm still reading:

* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett (74%)
* Picture Perfect ~ Jodi Picoult
* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard
* The Diviner's Tale ~ Bradford Morrow

Have a great week!  :o)
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Booklog #14

Before I begin, I must offer the humblest of apologies for missing last Sunday's post.  It feels like an eternity ago already, but to look on the positive side, I now have lots to talk about today so every cloud has a silver lining! 

Since the last Booklog I've finished:

* White Fang ~ Jack London
This is one of those stories that I've always had a vague awareness of, but never known anything about, other than it's about a wolf - so when I saw it for free within the 'Aldiko' book reader app on my Android I thought I'd give it a try.  To be honest I was a little sceptical - how good can a story told from an animal's point of view really be?  Especially when White Fang doesn't actually have a 'voice' of his own (not even an internal one), it's all told as description of what he perceives through his sense and instincts. 

I felt that the start was a little slow for my liking - it concerns his mother, who lives with a pack of wolves despite being half domesticated dog and takes you from a time where she and the pack are facing starvation through to where she gives birth to White Fang and his siblings.  From this point it gets a lot more interesting as White Fang is a real character!  He's more fearless and feisty than the other cubs, and this gets him into quite a few scrapes from the off.  Even from such a young age his life is rather eventful, so I can't really say much more without giving away spoilers, however I will say that there is a significant amount of violence throughout.  If you're very sensitive to the thought of animals being harmed or harming each other then you might want to steer clear, as Jack London doesn't hold back with his description.  Despite this, it's a very well-told story with a lot of twists and turns, White Fang himself is very cleverly characterised and overall I really enjoyed it.  4/5

* Cleanskin ~ Val McDermid
One of the 'Quick Reads' shortish stories on Kindle.  Though I enjoy crime fiction, I've never tried any Val McDermid so I thought this might be a good place to start.  As you might expect from such a star of this genre, it's an intriguing tale of murder and mystery (and gore - there's been a lot of violence in my reading this last couple of weeks!), told, as usual, from the perspective of a detective with flaws and unresolved issues of his own.  The daughter of a well-known-but-never-able-to-pin-anything-on-him crime lord is murdered and soon after other members of the criminal fraternity start showing up in gruesome crime scenes.  But 'Mr Big' has disappeared - is he dead or is he out there getting revenge?  Our detective has to try and find out...  For such a short piece the characters are really well developed and there are a couple of huge and unexpected plot twists that really surprised me (I'm still shocked now, a week later!).  If you like crime dramas, you'll almost certainly enjoy this.  4/5

* The Middle Passage ~ Julia Golding
A nice bit of historical fiction now!  This is another short piece - a sort of after-story to a series which was set in the Caribbean.  Set in 1792, it follows a feisty young woman named Cat Royal as she journeys home to Britain, accompanied by one Billy Shepherd (who you might say is a bit of a rogue).  On the way they stop off at the Azores islands and get involved in a solving a mystery. 

I just checked the Amazon write-up to remind myself what year it was set in and was surprised to see that it is 'perfect for girls of 9 and above'...oh!  I  hadn't realised it was a children's story!  Which is testament to Julia Golding's writing I suppose - they do say that when writing for children you should never patronise or 'write down' to them and she certainly doesn't do that.  I thought it was just solid, descriptive, pacy writing.  The characters are brought to life very well - I would definitely like to read about their other adventures - and the mystery plot is built up steadily and resolved neatly.  All in all, an enjoyable novella-length read.  4/5

* The Crying Tree ~ Naseem Rakha
Last but not least for this week is the story of a teenage boy's murder and the after-effects it has on his family.  It explores some deep subjects - capital punishment, forgiveness, family bonds and hidden secrets - and though some of it makes for uncomfortable reading, it is all very compelling reading.  The crux of the plot is essentially 'will the murderer's execution go ahead or not', but the detail and all the emotion relates to how each member of the family - mother Irene, father Nate and daughter Bliss - deals with their grief.  They are very different characters and we journey with them over the twenty years that follow that fateful day, seeing them change and learn things they never knew about one another, as well as about the son that was lost.  Pulls on the heart-strings, but not in a twee way and really gets you thinking about subjects that aren't often discussed.  4.5/5

Since the last Booklog I've started:

* The Diviner's Tale ~ Bradford Morrow
* A Room With A View ~ E.M. Forster
* Manifesting Change ~ Mike Dooley

I'm still reading:

* Picture Perfect ~ Jodi Picoult
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett (60%)
* Murder on the Flying Scotsman ~ Carola Dunn (it's our final book club meeting about this one this week!)
* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard

This puts me at 14/100 for the 100 Books In A Year Challenge. 

Phew!  Time for a lie down I think..! 
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Booklog #13

Ooh - number 13, will this be the unluckiest Booklog..? 

This week I've finished:

* The Golden Acorn ~ Catherine Cooper
This is, admittedly, a children's story, and when I say 'children's' I don't mean that Young Adult sort of group that Real Adults can just about get away with enjoying, it is properly for children (perhaps 10-12 year olds?).  But it was a free (I think) Kindle download so in the spirit of trying things, I tried it.  It's actually very well-written...even though it is relatively simplistic, the plot is solid, the characters are charming (mostly, there are one or two less pleasant ones!) and the action is well-paced. 

It's the adventure of a young boy called Jack, who turns out to be The Chosen One to fulfil a prophecy which will save some supernatural beings (water nymphs, faery folk, dragons etc) and the forest they live in from fading away and dying.  Essentially the message is about bravery, standing up for your friends and that kind of thing - Jack has to take a leap of faith more than once and must learn a lot, but by the end he's a better person for it.  One thing that did annoy me was that the ending is very abrupt - I suppose it may well be preparation for a sequel.  For that reason: 3/5

* The Library of Gold ~ Gayle Lynds
Ah, I do enjoy a good historical-artefact-chase-thriller!  And when you mix in a mythical library (a library!  A book about books - what could be better?!) I'm sold.  Luckily, the characters and the writing also lived up to the high quality of the promised storyline and once again I found myself engrossed in a book that I just didn't want to put down.  It's a thrilling chase around the world (including Athens and the Parthenon, which was nice after having just studied it) with assassins, gunfights, spies, double-crossing and clues aplenty.  I won't spoil anything for you, but will just say that if you enjoy Dan Brown you'll enjoy this.  4.5/5 (half a mark deducted as I feel that a perfect book has re-readability, and of course this doesn't because by the end you know the answers to everything)

This week I've started:

* White Fang ~ Jack London

I'm still reading:

* Picture Perfect ~ Jodi Picoult
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
* Murder on the Flying Scotsman ~ Carola Dunn
* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard

This puts me at 10/100 for the 100 Books in a Year Challenge. 

How's your reading going this year? 
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Booklog #12

I've one word for you: HALLELUJAH!!! 

This week I've finished:

* The Children's Book ~ A.S. Byatt
At last!  After goodness knows how many months of slogging away (and two more chapters than I realised - a most unwelcome discovery) I've finally beaten it!  And do you know what?  I cared as little for the characters by the end as I did at the beginning.  They seem to float around, vaguely interacting with one another, but never becoming fully '3D' as it were and when the First World War comes into play towards the end (I think you can guess what this means for at least some of them) I found myself really disassociated from them - I didn't care what happened to them.  The best word to describe them would be 'flat'. I know characters can't all be likeable - it would be boring if everyone were lovely - but this bunch just seem like a group of half-sketched out ghosts. 

I've pondered for some time why it makes me feel this way and I think it comes down to the style of the writing.  There is a huge amount of background information shoe-horned into the story, to the point where it feels as though Byatt is writing in a 'look how much I know about everything' kind of way.  The story seems a convenient vehicle for her to show off all the research she's done, whether it's relevant or not.  The parts involving the main families are written in what seems like an odd way to me.  It's as if she has done a really quick draft to get down the ideas of what will happen, but then not gone back and edited into something that flows.  For example: 

Philip had no idea where the pony's stall was.  He stood mute.  Fludd cursed him in mediaeval English and strode in through the door through which Dobbin had gone.  The carriage rolled into the yard.  Geraint climbed down and started to see to the horses.  There seemed to be no servants to help him.  (p.104)

There are almost certainly better examples than this but I can't face trawling through the book to find one!  Hopefully you can see what I mean though - it's one isolated sentence after another: bam-bam-bam, and I think this is partly what makes it feel like the characters are all very separate, like they're not existing in the same place.  Dialogue sections are the same - literally "'Blah blah blah' said Philip.  'Blah blah blah' said Olive."  These sections do have the benefit of breaking up the long and winding demonstrations of Byatt's understanding of politics, current affairs of the time and such, but they feel cold and passionless and make the characters unlikeable (to me at least). 

I don't think I've ever had such a strong reaction to a book...I think you can probably gather that I wouldn't recommend it!  Perhaps it's just me (though I know two other people who feel exactly the same way about it) and I've missed the point somehow, but I really think that if Byatt wanted to demonstrate her knowledge then she should have written a non-fiction book, instead of stringing together a plot to loosely drape over the mass of information she wanted to show off.  Can't believe I would ever say this about a book, but: 0/5

* Moab Is My Washpot ~ Stephen Fry
Ahhhhh - Stephen Fry, how I love him!  I could listen to him talk all day, I just adore his way with language.  If the writing in The Children's Book was like wading through mud, this is like flying with the birds!  It chronicles his life up to the age of about twenty - through schools, prison, first love and everything in between.  It's amazingly honest, he really reveals all sorts of personal things you would expect a person would want to keep to themselves and as a result I feel that I know him that bit better now.  I could blather on, but it's easier to just say: if you don't know who he is you probably won't get much from this, but if you like him on TV, you will enjoy this book - read it!  5/5

* The Rome Express ~ Arthur Griffiths
A 'Murder on the Orient Express' type of whodunit (though written much earlier - about 1907), this is quite a short book (I felt I deserved it after The Children's Book!) and very simply written.  It doesn't have the wonderful characterisation and clever plotting of Agatha Christie but is still an enjoyable read.  And I didn't work out whodunit, so that's a mark in its favour!  Find it cheap on Kindle: 3/5

* Inhuman ~ Danielle Q Lee
Another Kindle cheapie, this is a paranormal romance/thriller, refreshingly not another vampire/werewolf but something else altogether (something indefinable in fact!).  The main character, Cassia, is well-defined and - I felt - quite believable.  Her love interest, Keanu (you can't help but visualise Mr Reeves throughout, which is somewhat distracting - perhaps another name would have been better) is a bit of a mystery, though one which is soon explained.  Their adventure is compelling, you want to keep reading to find out what happens to them, though I felt the end was perhaps a little bit rushed and not explained as fully as it could have been (or is it setting up for a sequel?).  Anyhoo: 3/5

This week I've started:

* Picture Perfect ~ Jodi Picoult

* The Golden Acorn ~ Catherine Cooper

* The Library of Gold ~ Gayle Lynds

I'm still reading:

* The Parthenon ~ Mary Beard
* Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follett
* Murder on the Flying Scotsman ~ Carola Dunn

This puts me at 8/100 for the 100 Books In A Year challenge. 

Have a great week!  
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