I seem to have whizzed through a handful of books in the last few weeks, including Madonna: An Intimate Biography (J. Randy Taraborrelli, 2002) which does what it says on the cover, up to the Drowned World tour in 2002 anyway. With Madonna's MDNA proving to be all kinds of danceable I decided to finally pull this book off the shelf before it got even more out of date (I was hoping the library would have the more up-to-date edition, but sadly not) and find out a bit more about the Queen of Pop. Taraborrelli seems to have had excellent access to friends and family, as well as having a healthy regard for the successes and failures that Madonna has experienced in the worlds of music and movies in her life. My over-whelming impression was that she was a bit of a bitch with a single-minded desire for success and infamy, but that a lot of the bluster of Madonna comes from her experiences as a child, losing her mother young and seeing her father remarry. Reading about Madonna's life gave me a greater understanding of some of her lyrics, why she went in certain directions, and how hard it must be for a man to be in a relationship with her. The biography was an easy, enlightening read, full of gossip and intrigue but without being salacious or tawdry.
Slightly different non-fiction, but I suppose still dealing with a mythical creature, The Natural History of Unicorns (Chris Lavers, 2009) was the very first book I've taken out of a (public) library. It caught my eye as I browsed the shelves as it seemed like such an odd concept that I had to know more. Lavers traces the history of the unicorn in ancient texts from disparate parts of the world, through representations in the Bible and Christianity, to treks into Africa to hunt the fabled one-horned creature. In trying to uncover the real life animals that prompted belief in the unicorn, and the mystical attributes given to 'alicorn', the name given to the horn and the substane it is made from, Lavers provides a natural history of the narwhal, the okapi and various antelope and goats that could have inspired the myths. While on occasion the text seemed to veer too far away from unicorns in parsing ancient bits of writing, Lavers creates convincing arguments to point to how unicorns were/are real, they are just amalgamations of living animals combined with the desire and belief of humans that such a divine being can exist.
On the fiction front I polished off Buried (Mark Billingham, 2006), in which DI Thorne, who I haven't caught up with in a while, investigates a kidnapping in his own inimitable, realistic and humorous style; and Murder Suicide (Keith Ablow, 2004) which sees forensic psychologist Frank Clevenger trying to understand whether a brilliant inventor committed suicide days before life-changing surgery, or whether he was murdered by one of the many suspects in his life. Thorne and Clevenger are typical crime heroes in that they are somewhat maverick-style loners with flaws, yet Billingham and Ablow steer clear of cliché with tightly plotted mysteries that are all about character and character development of their leads. So Thorne continues to grapple with the death of his father a couple of books ago, while Clevenger has an adopted teenage son to mentor and protect. Billingham and Ablow are writers I am always happy to come back to.
In a break away from detective fiction I took another long-term resident from the book shelf and 
finally cracked the front page on The Princess Bride (William Goldman, 1973/99). I had seen the movie version some time ago and must admit that I didn't really get it, so I was intrigued by what the book would be. It's an oddity. Goldman is supposedly so enamoured with a book that his grandfather read to him as a sick child, written by S. Morgenstern of Florin, a country supposedly existing in Northern Europe, and so he sets out to translate an English abridgement for his own son. Thus Goldman and his 'family' are characters in the background of the telling of the tale of Princess Buttercup, her suitor Wesley, evil Prince Humperdinck, giant Fezzik and swordsman Inigo Montoya, and Goldman regularly breaks into the story to explain parts, tell you what he cut from the Morgenstern text and to reassure the reader when it looks like a favourite character may die. It's a tricky way to write a book, and I'm not sure I really bought it and the reasons for it. It is funny in the parody aspect of fairy tale heroes and adventurous derring do, and the plot is engaging and warm hearted, I just can't help but feel that perhaps it doesn't have quite enough bite to really work as a spoof.
My second library loan was Remembrance of Things I Forgot (Bob Smith, 2011), a book that has rattled around in my mind for days after reading. The premise is fantastic - John Sherkston plans to break up with his boyfriend, who has just invented a time machine for the US Government in 2006, when evil Vice President Dick Cheney hits a switch and sends John back to 1986, where he teams up with his young self and young future-boyfriend to try and prevent his sister from killing herself in 15 years, as well as to prevent George W. Bush from becoming President and screwing the country. How could this set up not reap huge rewards? And it truly does, for the most part. Smith has a fantastically ascerbic wit that had me really laughing out loud, and the time travel plotting is intricate and well constructed, full of what ifs and ponderous questions like, if you could go back and time and change something, would you. Nowhere is this question better explored than in John's attempts to save his father from drinking himself to death, and his sister from shooting herself - his interactions with his family as a middle-aged man are touchingly portrayed, adding much depth and emotional heft to the novel. Initially, the idea of an evil Cheney running around 1986 trying to stop John from changing the future is hilarious and the liberal bias of the character and writer is screamingly clear. Unfortunately, I found the continued attacks on Cheney and Bush became wearying and a little repetitive, and the characters' plans to frame Bush in a sex scandal thereby preventing his presidency is funny but on occasion the barbs are just out right nasty. I mean, I understand that their time in office wasn't the best - yes there were wars, people died - but they were not super villains without conscience (or Syria's Assad). Luckily things get back on track by the end of the book and the bad taste doesn't linger as long as the exciting ideas thrown up by the time travel plot - chief of which involves the confusing sexual attraction between John and his 26 year old self ('Junior'), a quirk that wouldn't have been possible had the lead been heterosexual, and a very enticing quandry it is at that.
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Narrated by Christopher Boone, a teenager with autism (or Asperger's, neither diagnosis is confirmed within the text, although the dust jacket declares the latter to be so), The Curious Incident begins as a detective novel before turning into an affecting piece about the relationships between Christopher, his father and his 'deceased' mother.
brilliant...
As the book is written in first person by a young man with a distinctive voice, a unique view of the world and an unconfirmed special need, Curious Incident immediately put me in mind of the excellent The Incredible Adam Spark. It wouldn't be appropriate to compare the two for enjoyment and inventive style as they both stand proud as very different works, packed with heart and humour. Haddon's central mystery, about a dog murdered by a garden fork to the stomach, is a good hook for the young protagonists' book, and it gets even more interesting when the mystery surrounding his mother is unravelled, leading to some emotional scenes - no mean task from a narrator who is a stranger to recognising emotion. Every exchange of dialogue is necessarily therefore 'she said' and 'I said' - no 'he exlaimed' or 'she erupted' - and so the writer has to work harder to create an impact, and it is something he does well and you don't notice how easily you're drawn into Christopher's logical world. As with Adam Spark, the humour does not come at the expense of the learning difficulties of the central character, rather from their unique view of life. Although the author has not claimed to be any authority on autism or the like, it is encouraging, although possibly a little naive, to think that the condition does not mean that those experiencing it cannot lead a full and happy life as Christopher does.
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Charming, funny and heartfelt, a real pleasure to read.
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Hugh DeLuc, an 11th century inn-keeper, finds himself caught up in the Crusades and in possession of a historical relic that unscrupulous nobles will stop at nothing to acquire. Hugh's wife and son are captured and so he learns the jester's trade to infiltrate the castle of his lord to find his love in a plot that sees him leading a revolt against the upper classes.
brilliant...
I haven't read any James Patterson for a while. I enjoyed his exciting Alex Cross detective thrillers but I went off him when he started churning out books that were written in partnership with other people. This is the first such book I've read of his, co-written with Andrew Gross, and while it keeps the short chapter-structure and punchy, non-stop plotting the setting is very different. The characters do talk like they've been transplanted from the twenty-first century and there is a lot of blood, sex and action - Labyrinth this ain't - so it's an exciting ride that barely pauses for breath. It is quite refreshing to read something set in the past that doesn't fawn or pander to a languid exploration of the period and just cracks on with plot, plot and more plot.
but...
Some of the plot is fairly predictable, and the revelation containing Hugh's love interest, Emilie, and her parentage comes as no surprise to anyone who's ever read a book before. Characters are introduced and dispatched in breathtakingly short spells, in often ridiculously short chapters. Dan Brown managed to mix excitement with (some) character-development, this latter isn't much of a concern for Patterson and Gross. It is interesting that I read The Jester during the same week I watched G-Force, as Patterson and Bruckheimer share a sensationalist streak that sometimes means subtly suffers, or vanishes altogether.
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Exciting, plot-driven thrills from a skilled writer (and friend) that I will forget almost as quickly as I read it. A passing pleasure with no lasting impression.
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The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World is a very funny, informative account of A.J. Jacob's self-imposed quest to read the entire 33 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
brilliant...
A quirky concept, the book is broken down into chapters by letter, and further fragmented into sections headed by a specific Britannica topic. Jacobs relates interesting, shocking or amusing anecdotes from the revered tomes and provides commentary on his experience of reading every single entry across 33,000 pages. It's a mammoth task, and although he rarely wavers, there are moments when he questions what exactly he's getting out of it - is he learning more, does he remember what he has read, is it all futile? It's a funny journey and one that I enjoyed sharing. More than just a collection of facts, The Know-It-All provides an insight into the author's life as a journalist living in New York post-9/11, and we follow his growing relationship with his super-brainy father, and his wife's attempts to get pregnant. Jacobs joins Mensa and tries to use his new knowledge to win big on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, as well as impressing/irritating friends and family with facts about obscure Latvian villages or ancient customs. I've retained little of the knowledge I gleaned from Jacob's watered-down version of the Britannica, but as with the author, I think I learned more from the human stories, about the quest for knowledge and how it is not an end in itself.
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Warm and witty, fact-packed and teeming with humanity too, The Know-It-All is a treasure trove of unexpected pleasures.
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An American 'classic' that sees narrator Sal Paradise recounting his travels across the USA and finally down to Mexico.
brilliant...
Ok I didn't 'get' The Catcher in the Rye, and now I can't see the fuss about On the Road, so that's two for two on classic US literature I can't appreciate. However, I liked On the Road the most of the two, because the protagonist is not obnoxious, and the style of writing is original. The stream of consciousness makes the book easy to read, and the social history of 1950's USA is interesting too.
but...
Nothing happens in this book. Sal travels from New York to Los Angeles by hitch-hiking, bus and by car. Then he travels back. And then back again. And eventually down to Mexico, and back. All the time hero-worshipping bum/waster Dean Moriarty, who actually is quite irritating. If it wasn't for all the casual skirt that both characters chase, and the casual homophobia, I'd expect this to be an unrequited love story. But it isn't. It's a plotless, almost-tedious snorefest with few characters to care about, too much detail about specific bits of each journey and little character-development. Although it is heartening to see that Sal appears to tire of Dean's more erratic ways as time moves on, it takes too long for him to see this loser for who he is. And then I'm not she he actually does see this.
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Well I'm glad I read On the Road, because now I don't have to see it again. Well written but ultimately pointless.
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A slim volume from the stacks of books I've yet to read, Alarums looked like it was going to be a horror or at least a thriller. What actually happens is that Melanie has a vision of her father being hit by a car, she travels with boyfriend Bodie to check up on him and discovers that her sister Pen has been receiving nuisance phone calls and that her stepmom may be shagging her dad's business partner.
brilliant...
I liked Alarums from the beginning, it was fast paced and dialogue heavy, not too much time spent on describing the set-ups, so I was looking forward to a thriller like Creepers. What the novel turned out to be was more of a slow-burn relationship drama between Bodie and the two sisters, Melanie the jealous, suspicious one, and Pen the strong yet frightened sexpest victim. Laymon writes believable characters and realistic dialogue and creates a compelling sense of intrigue that kept me going to the shocking last chapter.
but...
The trouble with Alarums is that it all seems to build to that last chapter revelations, which turns some of what has gone before on its head and leaves you pondering the morality of the characters. This is all well and good but I would have liked a less straight forward mystery with my shock ending, even if the characters were almost enough to keep my interest. The supernatural thriller element - Melanie's visions - is under-used, although its integral to that final twist. I think Alarums would have worked better as a short story, even shorter than this slim 300 page volume.
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A good set up and cast is let down by a too-linear mystery and not-quite-worth-it ending.
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A trilogy of investigations into the human animal by Desmond Morris, from the (in)famous The Naked Ape (1967) through less well known The Human Zoo (1969) and Intimate Behaviour (1971).
brilliant...
I picked up this hardback in a charity shop, drawn by my fleeting knowledge of the Naked Ape and the intriguing subject matter. It's taken me a few months to get through all 3 alongside various works of fiction, even though combined they only total 500 pages, and it's been an interesting read. The Naked Ape stirred controversy when it came out in 1967 for Morris' study of the animalistic, zoological approach that he takes with human nature. He looks for reasons behind human behaviour in the history and evolution of the species, as well as in the context of our busy modern lives, with comparisons made with our hairier ape cousins. The 'sequel' looks at how humanity's move to the cities is mirrored by the lives of captive zoo animals and how the conditions affect our behaviours. The final piece of the trilogy sees Morris examine the ways that human beings are intimate, from handshakes and sex to using pets, masturbation and pillows as intimacy proxies. While some of the statistics and references are dated the conclusions that Morris draws are interesting and leave many a moment for pause and reflection. It seems like Morris has an evolutionary, behavioural or childhood explanation for every single human action, from the tiniest thing like the way your cross your legs to the reasons we like certain animals over others. It's a fascinating trilogy, with the first and third books my favourites, and it's a really easy read - there are no footnotes or bothersome facts and statistics, well there are a few, but mostly the books are written to be read and understood by anyone so are refreshingly jargon-free.
but...
The dated references include some dubious responses to homosexuality. I'm surprised it's covered at all, but for the most part, as with the majority of the activities explored by Morris, homosexuality is treated dispassionately, without judgement. Maybe it was just me though but sometimes I did feel that there was a bias against homosexuality on occasion, which I take as a sign of the times the books were written. The 'prejudice' also stretches to descriptions of women as mothers and homemakers, and the assumption that couples are married before having children - a bit old-fashioned but excusable.
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Not as shocking as I expected, The Naked Ape Trilogy has been eclipsed by a more free-thinking time, where this sort of human behaviour study is not novel, but even many decades later Morris makes strong arguments that are difficult to disagree with.
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Another week, another thriller from the pile. This week I picked up one of 4 books I seem to have acquired within box sets of thrillers written by John Francome, who is probably sick of the Dick Francis comparisons, but hey they both wrote crime novels set in the world of horse racing. Would knew there were so many plots to be had in that world? Stone Cold sees jockey Kelly Connor playing detective to find out who had her father killed and what it had to do with a shady bookie and a millionaire Qatari playboy prince.
brilliant...
Different to Dead Cert in many ways, Stone Cold is set in the nineties and sees Kelly travelling the world, to Japan and America at least, to race. I never knew that horse-racing was such an international thing - this and other incidental racing trivia makes for an interesting read. The central mystery as the deaths stack up is pretty compelling too, and almost lasts til the end. Kelly's investigations don't feel as forced as in some crime novels where the non-detective/police character suddenly turns super sleuth. She slowly begins to question the people in her life, while trying to grieve for her father and maintain/claw back her standing in the racing world.
but...
Sadly I thought the revelation about who the mastermind behind all the deaths was a tad too predictable and I lost interest towards the end.
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A pleasurable read set in a world that I have no interest in, yet Francome makes compelling - so full marks for that!
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Another random selection from my stack of unread thrillers, Creepers is a Thriller with a capital 'T'. In it Frank Balenger joins a group of 4 urban explorers (or 'creepers') as they investigate a long-abandoned hotel before it is knocked down. Needless to say, things go awry pretty quickly when it appears that the Paragon may not be as empty as they thought...
brilliant...
Wow - talk about exciting, unputdownable fiction, this book hit all the right notes and had me desperate to get back to it. Morrell (creator of Rambo) is a new name to me, and if his other work is as good as Creepers I'll definitely be searching it out (turns out I have another of his books tucked in my box sets, score!). His style is punchy, his characters well sketched without too much detail slowing down the action, and the plot unravels like a skillfully wrapped confection, especially in the way that Balenger's history and true motives are revealed bit by bit. I didn't know what to expect from this book, and I thought from the cover it might be a horror or have a science fiction bent. Rather it's a tale of greed, obsession and some pretty gory action as Balenger and his new friends face off against a trio of well-equipped thieves and the real boogie man that has been haunting the hotel for decades. The book reads like a gripping movie, in a good way, although I wouldn't like to see an adaptation as it would be too bloody for my viewing taste.
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An unexpectedly fantastic chiller that is written with such verve that every time I put it down to go to sleep I felt disappointed.
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A dashing adventure story set in 1880s Southern Africa, The Diamond Frontier sees ex-soldier Simon Fonthill and faithful Welsh companion '352' Jenkins fighting off Afghans, Boers and bushmen as they rescue a young damsel in distress and become caught up in General Wolseley's attack on Sekukunis Town. Oh and there's blossoming, buttoned up romance too, with plucky reporter Alice Griffith.
brilliant...
A change from the variously set detective novels of recent weeks, this heroic tale is packed with exciting escapades, jolly British derring do and a lot of realistic colonial history thrown in for good measure. Fonthill is an engaging hero, and his sidekick Jenkins, whose dialogue is written in convincing Welsh vernacular, is amusing, while Alice is a tough cookie making it in a man's world. The action sequences are gripping, the setting is authentic and original and the whole thing is a more than satisfying way to pass the time on a cold winter evening.
but...
Yet another book from the cheap 'thriller' collections that is the third in a series! It didn't matter a jot to the story that I hadn't met Fonthill and co before, but it would've been good to experience their adventures in Afghanistan and India first hand.
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All this excitement at the expense of Johnny-foreigner makes one proud to be British! Or something...
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Two crime novels written by female authors, starring two very different sets of detectives in different locations. In Arabesk Inspectors Suleyman and İkmen investigate the murder of a singer's wife in Istanbul, while in Mourn Not Your Dead Superintendent Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James try to discover who killed a Police Commander in a small English village.
brilliant...
Both books came from crime boxed-sets, and both turned out to be the third in the series featuring these particular detectives. And both were well-written, had intriguing mysteries that didn't feature any really clever twists, and were populated with interesting, real characters. Arabesk was novel in the setting and I was drawn into Nadel's descriptions of Turkish life, into the chain-smoking male detectives, the old-fashioned-yet-modern male-female relationships, and the differences between different peoples and their backgrounds. It didn't feel like this was just a murder mystery that happened to be set in Istanbul, rather because it was set there it opened up new possibilities for motives, for character interaction and for extraneous detail. Crombie's more 'traditional' tale of sleepy village life, where everyone knows each others' business rises above stereotypes with a realistic central duo, Kincaid and Gemma (interesting that's he's always identified by surname and she by first name) who shared a sexual relationship in the last book that creates all sorts of tensions in this story.
but...
As I noted above, neither story has a revelation that surprised me or came out of the blue, in contrast to The Dead of Jericho, and so the pay offs felt a little flat, even though they were real. The resolution to Mourn Not Your Dead was the more pedestrian in terms of the murder investigation, the personal relationships were more interesting.
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Two solid novels that capture their worlds wonderfully and feature fallible, credible detective heroes whose further adventures I'd be happy to follow.
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I never liked Morse on TV, mostly because I found John Thaw a boring actor. Admittedly I only saw bits of it when I was younger, and I might even enjoy it now, but that's my abiding idea of the Oxford-based detective. This opinion has now changed after reading the 5th book in Dexter's Morse series (I've only got a couple of them from bargain thriller box-sets) in which the inspector investigates an apparent suicide and subsequent murder in suburbia.
brilliant...
The Morse in the book bares little resemblance to my version based on the bits of Thaw I've seen, which may or may not be accurate. In the book, Morse is spikey, obstinate and barely even around for a chunk at the beginning. Dexter crafts the mystery with considerable skill, moving between characters and providing red herrings, involving Morse in a personal capacity with the victim, and generally creating a believable, solid world for the characters to inhabit. I was surprised that Lewis, Morse's TV sidekick, had very little to do in this mystery, but then he wasn't particularly needed - much of the investigation is fuelled by the inspector's close-association with the tragic victim. I was surprised by the ending, in that I hadn't been able to work out whodunnit, and overall I was left feeling much more positive about this Morse chap, and happy to read more.
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It's easy to see why Dexter's Morse is so popular. An excellent mystery, deftly written.
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I spotted this title and a few others in the series in the excellent Yorkshire Book Clearance Outlet in Skipton. I picked up the first one and delved in pretty quickly, thinking if it was good I'd get the rest...
brilliant...
The best thing about Dead Witch Walking is the set up: Rachel is a witch who works for an FBI-type unit that deals with crimes by supernatural beings - since a virus wiped out a quarter of the human population 40 years ago, werewolves, vampires and witches, among other things, came out of hiding and now exist semi-peacefully alongside humanity itself. I guess you could see a gay/straight parallel in there if you look closely. Anyway, Rachel decides to quit the bureau, moves into a church with her sexy vampire friend and pixy assistant in order to set up on her own...
but...
I've no idea how the book turns out though as I gave up halfway through. From an intriguing set up, Harrison over-writes an oddly uninvolving, and at times simply boring, plot. Maybe it is my Creative Writing course that has alerted me to poor writing, or maybe this is just plain bad. Either way, I semi-reluctantly gave up. I've decided that there are far too many other books out there to be read without wasting my time slogging through something I'm not enjoying. Needless to say, I won't be picking up any more books in this series.
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A crushing disappointment that did not live up to the promise of the premise.
The Christmas / New Year period was fairly busy for some reason, and it's only since this last weekend I've been able to unwind, at least that's how it feels. So I'm going to do a quick catch up on the stuff I've been watching and reading to bring me up to date to start the new year.
Back at the end of 2011 I loved every minute of Forbrydelsen II / The Killing II (2009). While not as long or perhaps as compelling as the first series, the second still held my rapt attention. Sarah Lund returned to Copenhagen to track a series of killings involving the army and incident in Afghanistan many years before. Grisly murder scenes and lots of pensive Lund moments mixed with new politician Thomas Buch's investigations into his predecessor's conduct as Justice Minister combined for some pretty exciting TV. I did not see the ending coming AT ALL and it was super intense. The intelligent way that The Killing handles plot, character and drama makes it one of my favourite show of the year. Roll on series 3!
Another returning series was Merlin: Series 4, which kicked things up a notch early on by dispatching Uther (and Lancelot) and crowning Arthur King of Camelot, before treading water with some ho-hum warlock-of-the-week episodes before shifting gear again on the overarching plot and marrying off the new king to Gwen. Still no sign of Merlin revealing his magical secret to his best mate and boss, but there were more interesting developments that almost got forgotten in the final episode of the series when the boy magician finished off evil Agravaine! I'm sure that's going to come back to haunt Merlin and add some angst to series 5.
The small yet perfectly formed Rev came back with a new series that saw some big name guest stars in Reverend Adam Smallbone's tiny congregation. Still funny, endearing and often unexpectedly, refreshingly rude, Rev still feels like a hidden gem.
While in Crewe for New Year I had the 'pleasure' of watching a few bits and pieces on my in-laws' new 3D TV, including some Kylie concert, a bit of a CGI movie and a whole programme in the form of nature documentary The Bachelor King 3D. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough the over-long one off followed the life and times of a king penguin - at least it purported to do, until the closing credits revealed that the penguin lead was actually 'played' by several different birds. The 3D was a nice touch, but as I've said before, watching something in 3 dimensions does not improve the actual experience. It's a novelty and nothing more, and after 75 minutes with heavy 3D glasses it's also a bit of a headache. The programme was good, though didn't shed any new light on the lives of a well-documented species.
TV short Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas was charming though distinctly odd. I understand the conceit of talking mammoths, sloths, etc, but I just cannot credit the presence of a human Santa Claus or the very notion of Christian Christmas many thousands (millions?) of years too early. I know it's a kids' holiday special but come on! Paradoxes aside, the short was a lot of fun and made me want to finally watch the movie sequels to the not-quite-classic-but-better-than-most-cgi-movies original.
I found time to read a couple of books over Christmas. The first I actually received as a gift last year, The Interrogative Mood (2010) by Padgett Powell. A bizarre 'novel' constructed entirely throughout its 164 pages by a random string of questions. It's an odd beast, and not really my idea of a novel, but it's hardly non-fiction either. Occasionally there seem to be groups of questions that link but there is no connected through-line. Strangely the overall impression of the book is that whatever it is, it works. It really has to be read to be believed.
More straightforward was Kate Mosse's Labyrinth (2005), an epic grail quest that feels incredibly sedate compared to the Da Vinci Code. I say grail quest, it's not until the last third of the novel that the relic evens merits a mention. Before that the story is split between Alice in the present and Alaïs in the 13th century as the former pieces together bits of the life of the latter until both narratives cleverly converge in the same cave in the French Pyrenees. I rarely had this book out of my hands over New Year, I very much relished the dual-narrative style, the subject matter and the wonderfully drawn characters. I particularly liked Alaïs' experiences in a foreign country and a dim and distant past for the fact that both aspects of her life were so different and original. Where Dan Brown's book felt like a thriller for the MTV generation, Labyrinth was more like a 20 part Danish drama, slowly unfolding over time to reveal a deftly plotted adventure.
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The Silence of the Lambs is an excellent movie, so I was intrigued as to what the source novel was like. Packaged together in one volume with Red Dragon, the first of Harris' novels to feature Hannibal Lecter and FBI man Jack Crawford, I devoured them one after the other. Dragon sees reluctant, semi-retired profiler Will Graham trying to track the titular killer before he slaughers another family, while Lambs reads like a script to the movie, acting as a fleshed out version of Clarice Starling's hunt for deranged lady-skinner Jame 'Buffalo Bill' Gumb for a reader already familiar with the Oscar winning adaptation.
brilliant...
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The first Matt Scudder mystery sees the ex-cop doing a 'favour' for the father of recently murdered Wendy Hanniford by delving into her life to find out who she was. The killer, her repressed gay roommate, Richie Vanderpoel, has already professed his guilt and hanged himself in his cell, but is the case really as open and shut as the police believe?
brilliant...
This is a wonderful little (182 page) crime novel, written with real skill and economy of language. Block's second page description of 'a kid with a tentative beard' charmed me and drew me deeper into Scudder's grey world, as interested by the words used to craft the mystery as the story itself. From the first chapter you know that the murder can't be as clean cut as it appears and Scudder slowly peels back the layers to reveal more about both victim and killer that ultimately leads to an unexpected yet I-should-have-seen it revelation about what really happened. Scudder is an interesting flawed hero - he retired from the force after a bullet meant for a thief ricocheted and killed a child - with a less than black and white view of the world. He doesn't want to solve the crime for monetary gain or for his bosses (he has none) but to lay to rest the spirits of Wendy and Richie. For a book from the seventies, the depiction of Richie's struggle with his homosexuality is sensitively played - other characters may judge him but Scudder doesn't, he's happy to live and let live, unless you're evil and a murderer that is.
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A quick read that stays with you, and a protagonist to believe in, I will search out more from Lawrence Block.
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Is there anyone who doesn't know what The Da Vinci Code is about? I know I'm late to the party reading this, but I deliberately wanted to read it once the hype had died down. I read Angels & Demons, the first of Brown's code-filled thrillers starring Robert Langdon two years ago and I thought it was time to see what it's more famous sequel was really all about.
brilliant...
I'm a little surprised to find that I found this book utterly enjoyable - it's exciting, fast paced (everything happens within about 24 hours), intelligent and thought-provoking. It's also preposterous and sometimes too clever for its own good, but that didn't detract from Brown's cracking tale of cryptexes, novel takes on the life of Jesus Christ and an albino monk. I found the discussions of religious history fascinating, and the fact that it is all set in recognisable parts of Paris and London made the more outlandish claims and feats more real and believable. I can see why people got up in arms about the claims espoused by Langdon and co, but then again it is only a work of fiction. An exciting, riveting one too.
but...
As with Angels & Demons, Langdon is not really that interesting a protagonist, but at least his female companions have some spunk. It's really all about the plot though, so I can forgive Brown's not making Langdon into anything other than an engine to get the story moving from puzzle to puzzle.
briefly...
After all of the hype is stripped away, The Da Vinci Code remains a ripping mystery that challenges the status quo and offers food for thought. Plus, did I mention the albino monk?
basics...
Following the weighty Sophie's World, which took me about a month to plow through, I wanted to read something fast and funny. So I picked up Bad Monkeys, one of those books on my shelf that I bought based on the front cover, title and blurb alone. It sees Jane Charlotte narrate to a police doctor the events that led her to be arrested for murder. The story takes in her initiation and subsequent work with the Bad Monkeys, a group tasked with killing evil people with guns that shoot heart attacks...
brilliant...
Bad Monkeys is bonkers, and I loved every minute of it! The reviews on the back are not kidding when they compare the story with The Matrix - Ruff's tale is cinematic, action packed and a bit of a mind-fuck as twists pile on twists and you question everything that has gone before - before the rug is once more pulled from under your feet. I really like the way the novel evolves from a seemingly normal criminal situation, to a possible unreliable narrator who is proved to have been mistaken, and then the whole conceit of the interview is called into question... Jane Charlotte is a flawed, believable hero, but can she be trusted? Revelations about her brother and her allegiances build quickly through the final third of the book, but never once do any of the twists feel forced or implausible, considering what else has happened. This book is going to be a keeper, I intend to devour it again with the knowledge of the ending to try and properly work out just what the hell was going on.
briefly...
Bad Monkeys posed even more questions than Sophie's World, and was a great deal more exciting while it did so. Stunningly imaginative and inventive.
basics...
Sophie is a 14 year old school girl who receives a letter with a lesson on philosophy in the mail. What follows is a history of the subject told alongside a mystery that could affect Sophie's whole world - who is Hilde, and is she real?
brilliant...
This is one of those books I got as a teenager, started, and then put to one side. Catch-22 was a similar tome, and after trying a second time to get into it I gave up on that one as a bad job. Sophie's World, tackled as an adult, is a more enjoyable experience - it's far too hard going for a young reader. And to be frank, at times it had me scratching my head. The best part of the book was the bits that weren't long treatises on specific philosophers or eras, where Sophie tries to figure out a) who the hell is sending her these mysterious lessons, b) why they have picked her, c) who Hilde is, and d) whether she even exists. I enjoyed the plot for the sheer gutsiness of what Gaarder does with his young protagonist, and these parts really zipped along.
but...
Unfortunately, try as he might, Gaarder's passages on philosophy slow the book down in places. I know this is the book's raison d'etre but still. Sophie's World is not really a great book to pick up at bedtime after a hard day's work. It's a book that you have to take time to dive into and think about later. There's too much info coming all at once though and I did not keep up and take it all in as Sophie does.
briefly...
A great idea for introducing people to philosophy, if only those lessons were as interesting and compelling as the actual plot.
basics...
Andrew and I both polished off the 6 Scott Pilgrim graphic novels within a week. The series on which the awesome Edgar Wright movie is based, the books are: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life (2004), SP vs. the World (2005), SP & the Infinite Sadness (2006), SP Gets it Together (2007), SP vs. the Universe (2009), and SP's Finest Hour (2010).
bitchin'...
It's hard having watched the movie first to separate the abiding memory of how completely fantastic the film is from the written experience. It's especially hard since whole lines of dialogue, plot points and even graphic panels are copied verbatim to the movie medium - this serves to remind me how brilliant the film is and took something away from my enjoyment of the books. I think I enjoyed the bits I knew more than the 'new' bits sometimes! Obviously, over 6 books there's a lot more backstory for Scott and his extended family of friends, and there's more meat on the relationship with Ramona, although she is still a bit of a cold fish. Each book builds to a fight with one (or two) of Ramona's evil exes and we see a little more of each of them. Knives Chau remains one of the best characters in the weird Pilgrim universe, closely followed by Scott's gay roommate Wallace who disappears a bit in later volumes. There weren't as many pop culture and video game references across the pages as I would have expected, although there was plenty of unexplained phenomena, such as Scott's fighting abilities and Gideon's weird omniscience. Ultimately, I felt that as a massive fan of the movie, the books act as an interesting added extra, providing more background and a slightly different overall flavour that probably would have had more impact on me had I read them first.
briefly...
An interesting look at how Scott Pilgrim came to be, and ultimately came to be made into one of the best comic book / computer game movies of the last decade/ever! The series reads like storyboards for the film, which is no bad thing.
finally cracked the front page on The Princess Bride (William Goldman, 1973/99). I had seen the movie version some time ago and must admit that I didn't really get it, so I was intrigued by what the book would be. It's an oddity. Goldman is supposedly so enamoured with a book that his grandfather read to him as a sick child, written by S. Morgenstern of Florin, a country supposedly existing in Northern Europe, and so he sets out to translate an English abridgement for his own son. Thus Goldman and his 'family' are characters in the background of the telling of the tale of Princess Buttercup, her suitor Wesley, evil Prince Humperdinck, giant Fezzik and swordsman Inigo Montoya, and Goldman regularly breaks into the story to explain parts, tell you what he cut from the Morgenstern text and to reassure the reader when it looks like a favourite character may die. It's a tricky way to write a book, and I'm not sure I really bought it and the reasons for it. It is funny in the parody aspect of fairy tale heroes and adventurous derring do, and the plot is engaging and warm hearted, I just can't help but feel that perhaps it doesn't have quite enough bite to really work as a spoof. 
