I’m catching
up on my notes about the books I’ve read since my last book post. They are as follows:- (Oops – just realised
some are duplicated from the last post but I’m not amending this.)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón - The Shadow of the
Wind [La Sombra del
Viento] (2004) 10/10 (see
separate review)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón – The Prince of
Mist (1992 – English
translation 2010) 7/10
A Young
Adult novel of magic and mystery. Well written but I didn’t take to the plot.
Sally Gardner – I, Coriander
(2005) 8/10 Children’s Book. The story of a girl born in 1643, the evil
which befalls her in Commonwealth England and the magic that helps her
survive. “The world we live in is
nothing more than a mirror that reflects another world below its silvery
surface, a land where time is but a small and unimportant thing, stripped of
all its power. I hope to find you there.”
S.G.
Mary Stewart – Touch not the Cat (1976) 10/10 I have read most of Mary
Stewart's srories two or three times before and knew what I was getting. So probably only 8/10 this time because I’ve
read it twice before and know the plot but that was the whole point of reading
it. I wanted a cosy but well-written
romantic mystery with a tinge of the uncanny.
Martin Hopkinson - ‘Ex Libris, The
Art of Bookplates’ (2011)
10/10 See separate review.
Neil Gaiman –
Stardust
(1999) 10/10. A book to rival Terry Pratchett. In the Victorian town of Wall the beautiful
Victoria Forester tells lovelorn Tristran Thorn that she will marry him if he
finds the falling star they have just seen. In a charming faerie world he makes
his quest and seeks his prize.
She laughed, and the
sound was a clear rill bubbling over rocks and stones.
…for no one crossed
Bridget Forester: she had a tongue that could, the villagers said, blister the paint
from a barn door and tear the bark from an oak.
Every boy in the
village was in love with Victoria Forester. And many a sedate gentleman,
quietly married with grey in is beard, would stare at her as she walked down
the street, becoming, for a few moments, a boy ince more, in the spring of his
years with a spring in his step.
Tristran could smell
the distant winter on the air – a mixture of night-mist and crisp darkness and
the tang of fallen leaves.
While clothes do
not, as the saying would sometimes have it, make the man, and fine feathers do
not make fine birds, sometimes they can add a certain spice to a recipe.
Essie Fox – The
Somnambulist
(2011) 8/10. Set in Victorian
England this mystery and romance covers lost love, grief, murder, madness and a
stern morality. When seventeen year old Phoebe Turner loses her favourite Aunt Cissy
and around the same time becomes companion to the reclusive wife of a rich
merchant she finds her life changes in so many ways.
James Patterson
& Andrew Gross – The Jester (2003) 9/10
A historical mystery and adventure set in eleventh century France where a
serf’s life is worth nothing but where one serf sets out to combat the tyranny
and oppression of the local lords.
Chivalry and honour – but not among the lords!
Terry Pratchett
& Bernard Pearson - The celebrated Discworld almanak for the year of the
prawn
(2004) 129 p. 10/10
Terry
Pratchett joined forces with Bernard Pearson to produce the definitive Almanak
to the Common Year 2005. An essential guide to all aspects of life, and a sure
means of ensuring fertility of crops and livestock. It includes recipes,
horoscopes, and an extract from the 'Cabbage Companion'. Including homemade remedies for common
ailments, recipes, horoscopes, scientific discoveries, a calendar, strange
tales and many valuable facts about the cabbage. With witty illustrations from
Paul Kidby, this is an artistically presented package guaranteed to tickle the
funny bone of all Pratchett fans. I can't understand why I
didn't get it when it came out.
Martin Davies – The
Conjuror’s Bird
(2005) 10/10
The
novel switches between the worlds of Joseph Banks (seventeenth century English
naturalist, botanist, patron of the natural sciences and a hero of mine) and
that of a twentieth century taxidermist who is hunting for a missing bird
specimen. Not only enjoyable and informative but with a twist of the mysterious
and a hint of romance. I loved it.
Markus Zusak – The
Book Thief
(2005) 10/10
I
read this only a couple of years’ ago and it was reviewed on my book blog.
Terry Pratchett
& Stephen Baxter – The Long Earth (2012) 9/10. This is very much a Stephen Baxter science
fiction with an over-glaze of Pratchett humour. Much as I enjoyed it I felt it
was unfinished. I can only conclude it
is to end up as part one of a trilogy or series.
If Humphrey
Llewellyn III could have his way, every book ever written would be treasured,
aqt least one copy bound in sheepskin and illuminated by monks (or specifically
by naked nuns, his predilection being somewhat biased in that direction). So now, he hoped, here was a chance to bring
mankind back into the book-loving fold.
He gloated. There was still no electronics in the pioneer worlds, was
there! Where was your internet?
Hah! Where was Google? Where was your
mother’s old Kindle? Your iPad 25? Where
was Wickedpedia? (Very primly he always called it that, just to show his
disdain; very few people noticed.)
Felix J Palma – the
Map of Time
(2011) 8/10. Originally published in Spanish in 2008.
Never have I read a more infuriating and frustrating novel and yet it not only
read well with realistic expression of emotions but it was almost impossible to
put down. Part of the frustration came from the excessive biographical detail about
H G Wells – I like to learn things from a novel but I don’t want it to be
non-fiction. The other part came from trying to get one’s head around the
possibilities /impossibilities of time travel and the theories of what happens
when someone goes back in time and changes events. All in all a brilliantly conceived plot but
be prepared to be driven up the wall at times! The first two quotations below relate to
feelings upon the loss of a loved one and the fourth is the sort of book review
I wish I had written at times!
His sorrow
intensified until it became physical torment.
Suddenly it was agony to be in his body, as if he lay in a sarcophagus lined
with nails. He wanted to feel, unshackle
himself from the excruciating substance he was made of, but he was trapped
inside the martyred flesh.
He gazed out of the
window. People were coming and going,
carrying on their lives without the slightest token of respect. Why did they
not notice that the world had changed, that it was no longer habitable? He gave
a deep sigh. The world had changed only for him.
Anyone who has been
to Billingsgate fish market in the early hours knows that smell travels faster
than light.
“In my opinion, not
only have you started out with a rather naïve premise, but you have developed
it in a most unfortunate way, stifling its few possibilities. The structure of your narrative is
inconsistent and muddled, the episodes are linked only tenuously, and in the
end one has the impression that events occur higgeledy-piggledy, without any
inner cohesion, simply because it suits you. This tiresome randomness of the
plot, added to your writing style – worthy of some legal clerk who admires Jane
Austen’s romantic novels – inevitably produces boredom in the reader, or if
npt, ab profound aversion to what he is reading.”
Jen Campbell - Weird
Things Customers Say in Bookshops (2012) 7/10.
Knowing from personal experience, and from many a good story in the staff room,
what weird things customers say in libraries I had hoped for better of this
book. It is fun and will be an
eye-opener to those who don’t work with the public but, perhaps, unfortunately,
many were all too familiar, like
“I read a book in
the sixties. I don’t remember the
author, or the title. But it was green, and it made me laugh. Do you know the
one I mean? “
Or –
Customer: I don’t
know why she wants it, but my wife asked for a copy of The Dinosaur Cookbook.
Bookseller: The
Dinah Shore Cookbook?
Customer That must
be it; I wondered what she was up to.
The one
that I loved was -
“Do you have this
children’s book I’ve heard about? It’s supposed to be very good. It's called
Lionel Richie and the Wardrobe’.”
I
was most annoyed by the page numbers which are tiny things hidden within dark
grey blobs and suitable only for those with 40/20 vision or an illuminated
magnifying glass. Why do publishers so
often get the little things (literally) so wrong!
Barbara Vine (pseudonym of Ruth
Rendell) – The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy
(1998) 10/10. A mystery occurs when a famous novelist dies
and one of his two overly devoted daughters decides to write his biography. He
seems to have invented himself in his twenties. As she delves deeper she finds out he was not
the person she thought he was. I loved
the idea of quoting from the famous author’s own books at the start of each
chapter. A clever twist.
When the
guests had gone, Peter said, quoting Goethe or someone, They are pleasant
enough people but if they had been books I wouldn’t have read them.
Our children when
young are part of ourselves but when they grow up they are just other people.
Ursula knew very
well how a penetrating comment on the incongruities of one’s behaviour, a
remark that brings home an unacceptable truth, arouses dislike for she who
utters it.
Neil Gaiman – Smoke &
Mirrors
(1999) 8/10 A collection of Gaiman’s
short fiction. OK but disappointing by comparison with Stardust. Mind you, I
loved it when an elderly lady found the Holy Grail in a charity shop…
Christopher Paolini
- The Inheritance Cycle
1.
Eragon (2001) 10/10
2.
Eldest (2005) 9/10
3.
Brisingr (2008) 8/10
4.
Inheritance (2011) 10/10
I
loved Eragon – written when Paolini left school at 15. An epic fantasy of 2270 pages with the obligatory dragon and all the other characters one would expect. The saga became a bit repetitive after a while. Nevertheless, in my view, it joins
the classic fantasy sagas.
Books should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf.
