Mad Mike's Writing blog, book of the year 2022

Welcome friends, book bloggers and avid readers alike, to my annual book of the year post. As usual, this post is not necessarily about books written or published this year, it’s about books that I have read this year, and with dozens to choose from it hasn't been easy whittling them down. I won’t bore you with a big long list of all my reads from 2022, for that you can look me up on Goodreads, so without further ado –

Kicking things off at number five is: A Slow Fire Burning

by PaulaHawkins (20/02/22 post). 'Who cares for labels when a book takes you through so much at such pace with characters you root for (and some you don’t), in such a great setting in the heart of London? I don’t and I suggest neither should you because whether it's Laura, Theo, Carla, little old Irene (remember Miss Marple, who fools everyone time and again into thinking she's a frail old lady sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted?), Angela, before she had her ‘fall’ or invisible Miriam on her nice tidy narrowboat, who is the murderer, you are going to love finding out.' I said back in February and it's stuck in my mind ever since.

In fourth place this year, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (24/04/2022 post). 'Hosseini's writing is brilliant throughout and has a way about it that elicits multiple emotions, sometimes even on a single page, and I praise him highly for that. The chapters that deal with the 'changing of the guard' shall we say, when Baba's influence and power is no more and he and Amir have to make for Pakistan, had my heart in my mouth, whereas the chapter where Hassan takes a beating and more, and Amir is too scared, to cowardly to intervene, (which comes back to haunt him, of course), made me both angry and sad and then there's the euphoria that Hassan and Amir feel when flying their kite and running it down, which I wish could be bottled.' I said back in April.

 

In bronze position then, Animal Farm by George Orwell. The writing here is simple but effective, not a word is wasted or unnecessary and so it is a short book, more novella than novel, so you’ll speed through it, but the power each of those words holds, the images they depict, the subtleties they portray, are superb. You envisage the farm with ease, the windmill as it is built and then destroyed, the animals and their traits: the cat sloping off, as any cat would, Boxer the Shire horse and Benjamin the donkey, working hard and doing virtually nothing in equal measure, the hens laying ever more eggs to just fatten up the pigs and Napoleon, their self-appointed leader, who surrounds himself with dogs and sows fear through misinformation - which is so close to reality around the world at the moment it’s scary - all feels so real. (21/01/23 post).

So, the runner up spot goes to, Spitfire: A Very British Love Story by John Nichol. This book is about so much more than just an aeroplane - albeit one of the most recognisable and well-regarded aeroplanes ever to have been built - it is about people. These who flew them, serviced them, designed and maintained them and it’s about tails of valour and heroism – not that those who risked their lives saw it that way - but above all else it's about those who lost their lives whilst defending freedom, and for that, this book is a truly excellent read and comes highly recommended. (18/02/23 post).

And the winner, my book of the year 2022 is: How (Not) To Be Strong by Alex Scott. (05/12/2022 post). 'Enjoying a book when the subject matter is so personal and to a large degree about abuse, is probably the wrong word to use but I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the discovery, both mine and the author's as I got the profound sense that she discovered something about herself whilst writing this memoir and has found her way out of her darkness and is moving towards the light - at least I hope she is. 
So, a very good read in my opinion, very much a, konnichiwa rather than a, konnichi-nah (you had us laughing out loud with that one Alex), and comes highly recommended,' is what I told you all earlier this month, and it came as a big surprise to me that a memoir would ever interest me, let alone move me in the way that this one has. NB: All proceeds from this book are being donated to the domestic abuse charity, Refuge. refuge.org.uk

To finish, I would just like to wish you all a very happy New Year and hope you all find happiness, in whatever form that might take, in 2023. 

The Kite Runner, book review. (Khaled Hosseini)

This is a first time read for me and I am well aware of how much has been said and written about this book over the years (over eighty-two and a half thousand reviews on Goodreads alone when I last looked), so I will do my utmost not to replicate and bore you with the same, and so . . . shocking as it might sound, I liked this book but preferred both, A Thousand Splendid Suns (blog post 22/09/19) and, And the Mountains Echoed, which in a way is a good thing.
Too many times have debut novels defined an author, outshining what followed, an extreme example of this being Harper Lee and her own belief that she could, or would, never be able to better her sublime, To Kill a Mocking Bird and so, wrote nothing else until very late in life, which I think was a real shame.
So, the huge hit that was The Kite Runner, has not, in my opinion defined the author, but it is a most excellent beginning to his trilogy of books based in and around Afghanistan and the troubles it and its people have gone through over the last fifty years or so. It is a book about fierce loyalty and friendship, jealousy, envy, fear, hope, death and possible redemption, and is a book about people.
There isn't a single character in this book that steals the limelight, in my opinion, all it seems are equal, be it our main character Amir and his best friend and fellow kite runner, Hassan, Amir's father, Baba or his best friend, Rahim Khan, Amir's wife, Soraya, Hassan's father Ali, even Hassan's mother seems to have influence over the narrative beyond the few pages on which she is mentioned which I liked, and the ability of the author to create a cast that occupy the same time and space but with such opposing storylines but all on equal footing, I thought was clever, whether intended or not.
This book is also about hypocrisy; secrets and lies.
Some big, some small, but, as usual I suppose, it is the big ones that shape the story and those in it, following them to the next village, town, country or halfway around the world, and those secrets have consequences, consequences that again, shape the people they impact, giving peace to some, death, family, hope and a future unimaginable to others.
Hosseini's writing is brilliant throughout and has a way about it that elicits multiple emotions, sometimes even on a single page, and I praise him highly for that - the chapters that deal with the 'changing of the guard' shall we say, when Baba's influence and power is no more and he and Amir have to make for Pakistan, had my heart in my mouth, whereas the chapter where Hassan takes a beating and more, and Amir is too scared, to cowardly to intervene, (which comes back to haunt him, of course), made me both angry and sad and then there's the euphoria that Hassan and Amir feel when flying their kite and running it down, which I wish could be bottled.

Well, I'm glad that I've now read all this author's books, albeit out of sequence and can highly recommend them - as long as you are aware that they are gritty and don't pull any punches - and eagerly await whatever he comes up with next.
Four stars then and well worth investing your time.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them, message me with your recommendations.

Who & what do you read? Questions I get asked as a book blogger (Pt I) Michael J Richardson

For those of you who don't know me, I've been reading and writing since I was a teenager (properly reading that is, not force fed books I had no interest in at school, which excludes Stig of the Dump of course, which was my first serial reading experience), so that's a good thirty years under my belt, but what floats my boat, gets me going back for more?

Well, why don't we start with the classics. But wait, what is a classic? A book written over a hundred years ago? Over fifty? Harry Potter will be defined as a classic in the future if not already, so do I include them? Maybe it's Austin, Bronte or Dickens (of which I've liked but not loved - except A Christmas Carol, that will always be a 5 star book in my opinion), or Du Maurier, whose My Cousin Rachel is one of my all-time favourites. Looking further afield we have Jules Verne, not bad, Platonov, weird and Kafka - seriously, I think something got lost in translation like: plot and anything that actually makes sense - and I've never really enjoyed American classics either with Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, The Catcher in the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest all being a bit lacklustre - although I did like, The Great Gatsby and I am Legend is a masterpiece.

How about horror then? But again, what is horror? I recently read Roxane Gay's superb, An Untamed State, one of the most horrific books I've read recently but you'll only find it in the fiction section, as with Khaled Hosseini, who writes about the horrors of war torn Afghanistan in a way that pulls at your heart. I've also read The Girl with all the Gifts and its prequel (zombie apocalypse for those who don't know), but they're no more horrific than Stephen King epics' like The Stand and It, which are simply undefinable in genre. Then there are horror classics like Dracula (superb) Frankenstein (okay) and The Exorcist (seriously creepy) to consider, all having such great characters and depth that to simply call them 'Horror' would do them a great injustice.

I have always loved apocalyptic stories, too, from the short and punchy like, The War of the Worlds, I am Legend and The Day or the Triffids, to huge tomes like The Passage series and of course, the best of the best, The Stand - all fourteen hundred plus pages of it, and how the whole experience of reading books like these leaves you feeling lonely and apprehensive but with a fierce determination that if it were ever to happen to you, you'd be the good guy/girl, be on the right side and survive.

So where does that leave us? Well, this subject is far too long for one post so I'll blog part II in a few days' time and talk it through a bit more with you then. See you soon.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books and if I haven't read them, why not message me with your recommendations.

Lockdown reads from Mad Mike's writing blog.

Well, a lot of us are at home, furloughed - or worse - but as the restrictions begin to be lifted and life returns to a new normal, it means that some of us - me included - are being drafted back to work.

So what has everyone been reading during the lockdown? More, less, the same? And what genres have you gone for? Uplifting novels to perk you up or dystopian virus novels as a reality check?

I've certainly read more, as well as editing down the 87,000 word manuscript of my third novel to the much more novella (ish) size that is currently just over 70,000 but it's all been fun - I think!

Anyway, on to the book stack photo that is my lockdown reads. All very different I think you'll agree, from the world-famous literary titans that are William Golding and Khaled Hosseini to the gothically atmospheric depth of Barcelona and the small fishing village of Fishbourne, from Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Kate Mosse respectively (I'll be blogging about those two shortly) to the hilarity that is magical policing in London from Ben Aaronovitch, Stephen King's first novel, Carrie and finishing with the depravity of human beings with Gabriel Tallent's, My Absolute Darling and the superbly written but brutal book, An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay.

I liked all of these books in one way or another - some were better than others of course - but by reading such a cross-section of authors - there's both men and women here from a somewhat international spectrum - I think it helps me to not only find new favourites (whilst revisit old ones) but opens my mind to books I didn't even know existed before - An Untamed State being an excellent example.

So, for me, I will continue to search for different authors as well as read and re-read the ones I love and although I have enjoyed the time that being furloughed has afforded me, I would hope that we will never have to go through this and lose so many, ever again.

I know our situation in England is far from over so stay safe all who read this and hopefully I will get to see some of you again soon.

Mad Mike's writing blog, book of the year 2019

Welcome friends, book bloggers and avid readers alike, to my annual book of the year post. As usual, this post is not about books written or published this year, this is about the books that I have read this year, and with dozens to choose from, it's no easy task. I won't bore you with a big long list of all my reads from 2019, for that you can check out my historic posts or look at Amazon/Goodreads for my reviews, so without further ado:-

In at number five is, Two Years Eight Months & Twenty-Eight Nights, by Salman Rushdie (10/11/19 post)

'This book is about the few, the powerful, controlling the masses and seeking to divide them, create panic, sow fear, feeding on their desperation, and feels so relevant in today's society, and although this book has many aspects of fantasy and of mythical culture woven within it, it is still firmly rooted in the present day and is very thought-provoking,' I said back in November and stand by that statement today. Very weird but a must-read.

My number four is, The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker

(24/02/19 post)

'Told in a series of letters, written by Celie, firstly to her God and then to her sister, Nettie and eventually, from her sister back to her, The Colour Purple is a fiercely compelling book that has you at times on the edge of your seat. It is a roller-coaster of emotions: there will be tears, you will feel fear, hatred, and anger, but as the book comes to a close you will feel a deep, deep respect for the main character and the author, for this is a journey that feels so real it could be autobiographical.'

In the bronze position then: Daisy Jones & The Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Ooooooooh! SMACK! PUNCH! SLAP! Phew . . .
Well, that about sums up this rather superb biopic novel of the rock 'n' roll band that was, Daisy Jones & the Six. This book is a journey, and it's a journey I'd recommend you all take because, if you're not in a rock n roll band, if you're not touring with a number one album to your name, or never will, this'll be about as close as you'll ever get to finding out what you missed. Told by the band members many years later, in an interview style, it is bloody brilliant – it even has the song lyrics at the end for the entire Aurora album – how cool is that?

So, this year’s runner: A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled  Hosseini (22/09/19 post)

'To be able to weave the delicacies of love and passion, for life and one another, for the children they have borne or grown to love, into a story of such depravity and desolation, of loss and grief, is a true testament to this author's writing, and so I don't hesitate to recommend this book to all, and can, with hand on heart say, that it is one of the best I have read so far this year,' I said back in September, and stand 100% behind those comments. A superb but brutal read.

And the winner, my favourite book of 2019: The City of Mirrors, by Justin Cronin

(14/02/19 post)

'We're back in the year 122 A.V (after virus). Zero's army is coming, forged from the people who moved to the outlining townships. Michael (Circuit) has spent the last twenty years rebuilding a ship he hopes to escape on, but will it be ready? The virals are massing, the gates to the Homestead are closed once again, Carter has woken and Amy walks amongst the people once more, and then . . .

The ground rumbles, the virals breakthrough and panic ensues, and it is here, as the narrative flicks from one character's peril to another, that the book takes off, and as the pages pass in a blur, the tension builds, characters we have known since the beginning fall, Carter's army clashes with Zero's, Amy tries to save Alicia, and the rest of the human race fight their way to Michael's ship, you realise that this story really is one of the very best you've ever read.'

N.B: If you like your books spooky & atmospheric, maybe check out a couple of my runners-up, Bird Box, by Josh Malermam and Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, book review. (Khaled Hosseini)

I've heard much about this author, how authentic his books are, compelling even - on the cover of this very book is a quote from, Isabel Allende, which simply reads, Unforgettable - and even for someone like me, who has a shockingly bad memory, I have to agree.

Unforgettable.

I know little about Afghanistan's history but by reading his book I feel my eyes have been opened. Yes, I knew the Russians invaded and of course I've heard of the Mujahideen and the Taliban, who dispersed so many civilians during their occupation, but through this work of fiction, through the eyes of this incredible author, I feel I've grasped a little of what it must have been like for those who lived and died, endured lose and torture during those dreadfully long years.

The book centres around two young women from very different backgrounds who both find themselves married to the tyrant, Rasheed, who beats then, chastises them and favours his second child over his first, simply because he is a boy!

And the two women, Mariam and Laila, not only do they have to endure the beatings and his mood swings but also his unwanted sexual advances, but over time (Mariam is unable to bear children, having had many miscarriages over the years, whilst Laila gives birth and raises her daughter in their shared house) and with the common goal of protecting themselves from their husband, an alliance is formed; an uneasy one at first, but their love for the child and each other soon grows.

With the Russians gone there is celebration, but it is short-lived. The war might be over but the spoils are not so easily split and so, the Mujahideen fight amongst themselves and with shells raining down and bullets flying, Kabul is once again under siege.

Women can no longer learn, be seen, having to hide beneath full-face burkas, and are assaulted if caught without male chaperones. As time passes, the Taliban's grip on the country tightens and Rasheed's frustrations grow, until the women are forced to take drastic action!

To be able to weave the delicacies of love and passion, for life and one another, for the children they have borne or grown to love, into a story of such depravity and desolation, of loss and grief, is a true testament to this author's writing, and so I don't hesitate to recommend this book to all and can with hand on heart say that it is one of the best I have read so far this year.

Four big fat lovely gold stars for, A Thousand Splendid Suns then. Enjoy.