Winter, book review. (Ali Smith)

Everything is dead!
You name it and it’s dead: God is dead, chivalry is dead, Jazz, politics, thought, love, TV, Christmas, Earth, the internet, in fact the only thing that isn’t dead are ghosts.
Sophie wakes one morning in her fifteen bedroom house – Chei Bres – and sees a large floating head, just a head, which gradually transforms into the head of a small child before becoming a lifeless floating stone so, maybe ghosts too are dead?
Art (Arthur), Sophie’s son, is traveling to his mother’s for Christmas but has an issue. Charlotte, his girlfriend – possibly – and he, have fallen out and she’s trashing his Twitter feed, his ‘Art in Nature’ posts, which he just makes up anyway to sound earthy and environmentally conscious, so he needs a plan. His mother is expecting a Charlotte!
Talking of environmentally conscious, Sophie’s estranged sister, Iris, who, decades earlier used to squat in Chei Bres with a group of ecologically minded souls, now lives close-by because, in spite of their dislike for each other she worried when her sister moved to such a remote house – sisterly love in the face of adversity. Maybe not everything is dead!
Although it is supposed to be winter, it is also February when Iris takes Sophie to watch an Elvis movie when they were kids, April when a loved one passes, July when Sophie meets a man she first met at Chei Bres in ‘78 and abscond to Paris to look at art make love and drink coffee – he is Arthur’s father – and it is September, Greenham Common airbase and there’s a protest, and the few become thousands and they encircle the entire perimeter, hand in hand, one of them being Iris and then it’s Christmas eve and Art has arrived, called his aunt as his mother has no food and has to ask his fake girlfriend (Lux) to pretend to be Charlotte!
The crux of this story is love, family ties and how sometimes things get stretched to a point where you’d never believe it possible to pull them back but then, somehow they are, and I suppose, on that basis this book is about, above all else, hope.
Ali Smith’s writing bucks convention (see blogpost 04/09/22 for Spring) but is fluid, and her setting of a scene, her ability to create tension between the sisters, make Art feel unloved but loved, the reader to feel sorrow, anger, fear and joy and wonderment are a testament to her skill as a writer, a skill I feel all should enjoy and so, as bizarre as the above might sound, I’m recommending this to all.
Three and a half stars

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Lies Sleeping, book review (Ben Aaronovitch)

The 'Little Crocodiles' was a group of unlicensed practitioners of magic formed by the now deceased and not much missed Geoffrey Wheatcroft when he was at Oxford in the 1950s, and as some of those members have proved rather deadly in the past, tracking down those who may or may not have been involved and finding out what they did or didn't learn, seems as good a place to start as any if Peter Grant is ever going to find the elusive Chorley, and so, the hunt is on.
Lesley May is back - big time - assisting the faceless man, A.K.A Martin Chorley, who has made a bell that he thinks will summons Merlin, as long as he can fuel it with enough magic that is, which means sacrificing a god. So, as Lesley has a serious issue with Mr. Punch after he removed her face in book one, and Mr. Punch was given god-like status about 1500 years earlier, they can kill two birds with one stone, well, they could if it wasn't for Peter Grant, Nightingale and the ever-growing band of staff at the Folly - The Met police's HQ for all things squiffy - trying to thwart them.
Inquiries are made, plans are drawn, pubs explode, DI Stephanopoulos is shot - by Lesley no less - the goddess of the Walbrook is kidnapped - as is Peter - captured fae are freed and as is so often the case in Aaronovitch's River of London books, everything goes to bollocks!
As we race down London's streets and across its famous rivers, Aaronovitch speeds us through the books four hundred pages with deft skill and pace enough to keep you reading well into the night, and there's much to like, too. Characters that we've known and loved (some revered) since the very beginning, pop in and out with a healthy splattering of newer faces making welcome returns and becoming more entrenched in the narrative to good effect.
Peter Grant's pursuit of Chorley in an old Mk1 Ford Transit van is both riveting and hilarious - he's on a pushbike for starters - his temporary incarceration slows the narrative but still manages to move it along, which is clever, whilst foiling Chorley's plans, seizing and destroying his bells, time and again, before we reach the climax - and it's a good one, mark my words it is – where the tempo gets ramped to the max.
So, another thoroughly entertaining read from Aaronovitch then and one of my favourites so far. Four stars.
Oh (spoiler alert) Beverly is pregnant! Yeah.

The Girls, book review. (Emma Cline)

I've seen this book widely publicised in the press and in bookshops since its release and lots of Bookstagrammers seem to like it so I thought it was about time I dipped my toe in the water.

The writing style is right up my street with plenty of detail (sometimes a little too much) but the loss in momentum when the descriptions go off point is easily forgiven as you become increasingly immersed in the Californian summer of 1969.

You feel the sweat ooze from Evie Boyd's pores, the smell of garbage on Suzanne's clothes, the heat of the campfire as Russell strums his guitar but most of all you feel Evie's uneasiness as she gradually succumbs to her new surroundings.

The other girls are all older than Evie but she wants to be them, be liked by them, especially Suzanne, and so she goes to the ranch where Russell promises sex, drugs and a surreal, almost naturist lifestyle where rules are in short supply.

There's a record deal on the horizon, freedoms that fourteen-year-old Evie wouldn't have dreamt of in her previous life - where she hung out with the plump girl and did things that 'normal' fourteen-year-olds did.

At the ranch people just come and go; they steal food from dumpsters and borrow cars that aren't theirs. Their clothes are pooled and so, before the week is out Evie finds herself transformed. The drinks flow, drugs are shared and she is farmed out for sex, accompanying the indomitable Suzanne to Mitch's house - Mitch being the man promising the record deal.

For the most part, I found this book quite good, but what I do take umbrage with is the use of a fourteen-year-old protagonist.

The other girls are mostly eighteen so I saw no reason for Evie to be so young, other than for shock value, and the events in the book are shocking enough.
The other let down for me was (spoiler alert, spoiler alert) that the main event, the mass murder that is alluded to throughout the book, doesn't even involve Evie. What the hell!!

I wanted her to be in the thick of it, growing a conscience and trying to stop it or relishing in the slaughter, for Suzanne to save her maybe or take the hit because Evie was so young, what I didn't want was a flashback of the trial transcripts and a bit of hearsay.

So, The Girls is beautifully written and memorable but lets you down at the end.

Three stars.

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The Colour Purple, book review. (Alice Walker)

A recommended read from my wife this one, and now it is a recommended read from me too, but a word of warning - this book plays with your emotions. It is not an easy read.
The pain of what Celie goes through in the book, the trials of a life with a father who rapes her, a husband who beats her, loves another woman, can only be described as a hard, wretched life, but forsaking all of this, Celie pulls through. She has her God and there is joy in friendship, love from family and music in her soul.

Born poor, black, and down south, Celie has little going for her, even her sister manages to escape her fate by having a good head on her shoulders and the ability to learn quickly, something Celie finds hard, and so, barely a teenager, Celie gives birth to her first child, fathered by her dad, and it doesn't stop there.
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. The letters from Nettie come from Africa where she has ventured as a missionary, and these were some of the highlights for me.
Not knowing whether Nettie would succumb to infection or disease whilst in Africa, whether Celie would ever see her sister's letters - her father intercepts them for many years - or whether Nettie would ever find out what Celie has had to endure in life, keeps the narrative flowing and the pages turning fast.
By reading this book you open yourself up to a roller-coaster of emotion: 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.
Praise be then for The Colour Purple. Four stars.

Elizabeth is Missing, book review. (Emma Healey)

Confused.

That's how this book made me feel, confused. Let me explain.

The style is easy but the subject matter, dementia, is tough but handled well.
Our main character, Maud, is slowly losing her way in the world, wondering how one grows marrows and where her friend Elizabeth is. She is both warm and lovable, as well as damned right annoying, like your own Nan/Mum, maybe, and you feel for her.
She gets on the bus but can't remember why, goes to the shop to buy food she already has, driving her daughter Helen, mad, and she has a fixation on her friend Elizabeth, being missing. There are subtleties and quirks to her character that are very believable and you quickly warm to her, worrying that she might get lost or worse, injure herself.

I like the back story too - Maud's sister goes missing when she is a teenager - and the decisions she makes when she was still a child felt plausible and realistic, and I thought the narrative when she is older and confused, forgetting things that have just been explained to her, is well written and convincing, but for me the book jumps from the past to the present too much. I would have preferred the book to have been in parts rather than chapters. Let me explain.

Every chapter is split between the past and the present, and there are a lot of chapters in what is a relatively short book, and it is here that I think it would have worked better if there had been a run of chapters focusing on the past, and then the same for the present, so one could get more involved with the characters of that time, and what was happening to them, before hopping back and forth; other than that, the book was an enjoyable read.
Three stars then for Elizabeth is Missing.

Heart of Darkness, book review. (Joseph Conrad)

Sitting on a cruising yawl (a sailing boat to you and I), in the Thames estuary, waiting for a flood to subside and the tide to turn, Marlow - a seaman of some repute - recants the epic journey he once took into the heart of the African rain forests; to the heart of darkness.

Just getting a commission was hard enough, until a wealthy benefactor stepped in, and his passage from England to Europe and then on to the African continent, took weeks, all before he had to battle his way through the dense jungle of the Congo to discover 'his' steamer a wreck.

A month or two pass whilst he repairs his charge, making her seaworthy again, and then finally, he is able to press on, up the Congo River in search of the legendary explorer and ivory thief, Mr Kurtz.

With every mile travelled, the forest encroaches, the air thickens and the natives get bolder. As a reader you feel the tension build, the exhaustion and the sweat running down their backs, you hear the call of the birds, feel the humidity, as if you are right there in the jungle, and you get nervous when you see, through dense undergrowth, eyes staring back at you.

Heart of Darkness is a short book but the writing is as fierce as the mosquito filled heat soaked African rain forest, and as every meander in the river is traversed, the intensity rises and the tension builds, leaving you somewhat exhausted by the end but wanting more.

Three and a half stars for this one then, as it is good, builds tension well and has you on edge for a fair chunk of the book, but I did feel a bit lost sometimes, which might be me, but there you go.

Dolores Claiborne, book review. (Stephen King)

Dolores has a story to tell, her story, but don't think she's about to admit to killin' that bitch Vera, 'cause she ain't, she din't; she did however kill her husband, but everyone's known that for years, haven't they?

Told in one long continuous monologue, with no chapter breaks, breaks in the text, and with no interruptions from the policemen and woman who are present at her confession, this novel is a masterpiece.
Dolores is a normal, run of the mill, wife, mother, carer and all around nice person, but when Vera Donovan dies and she . . . better not give the story away here . . . the locals start to talk, point the finger at her. After all, Delores was the last person to see Vera alive, the person that spent the last few decades looking after Vera, listening to all her vile diatribe, and the person whose husband mysteriously fell down a well some years earlier.
As Dolores recants her story we fall under her spell, and so sincere is her confession that you don't think to question what might be true or false, whether her husband really was that bad, whether he really did hit on her, do the things she says he did to . . . well, we just have no way of knowing, we just trust the narrator and go with it, believing all that we are told.
It wasn't until later, whilst making notes for this blog post, that I realised this, that not once whilst I was reading the book did I question what Dolores was saying, that it might not be true, and here in is the cleverness of the author, making me question it, think about the story, the characters, days and weeks after I thought I'd finished.

Of course that question is still there, did she or didn’t she do it, and every now and then I will turn it over in my mind and wonder.

Four well deserved stars then and another King favourite.

Mark Haddon. (Author focus)

For my third author focus, I have chosen Mark Haddon, author of, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: the all-time classic, multi-million selling book, translated into untold languages and made into a West End play, but his first book is not all that he's good for, he's not just a one-trick pony.

     I first read, The Dog in the Night-time, some years ago now and then, when some of his other books came my way, I felt the need to delve deeper, explore a little more and I'd encourage you to do the same, because, A Spot of Bother is both funny, scary and sad all at the same time, and his exploration into family life, how they interact, clash, fight, envy, love, is spelled out in his third novel, The Red House, which again, is well worth a read.

     Then, his latest book, the collection of short stories that is, A Pier Falls, (not my normal fodder), was quirky, inviting, strange and damned right weird, but still had a certain something about it.

      Haddon has a very unusual writing style, which at first may seem strange, for there is a distinct lack of commas, semi-colons and other punctuation, but his characters, his settings, his prose, soon encapsulates you, pushing you through the stories, and I think it is his grasp of the mundane, the quirks of human beings, the simple every day, that make his books so readable, so down to earth and memorable.

     If you want a more in-depth review on the horrors of, A Spot of Bother, see my 25/04/17 post, family life in, The Red House can be found at 05/12/16 and if you've got the energy for more, The Pier Falls was reviewed on 30/08/16, so whatever you do, don't just leave it at, The Dog in the Night-time, a book that I will have to reread before giving you fine folk an honest an up to date review.

Enjoy.

Ready Player One, book review. (Ernest Cline)

Is sci-fi your thing? No.

How about something apocalyptic, geeky '80's retro? Four hundred pages about gaming?
No! Still not on board?
Well, you’re gonna miss out on one hell of a good book then because, Ready Player One is fantastic.
It is 2044, we’ve used all the oil, there's widespread famine and poverty, but hidden in the OASIS, (a computer generated universe consisting of thousands of worlds), there's hundreds of billions of dollars waiting to be won. All you have to do is solve the riddles set out by its deceased creator, Halliday, find the keys to the three gates and it’s yours. Some seek the fortune for good, to prosper, not only themselves but others, but the IOI Corporation wants it for itself and will stop at nothing it seems to get it, including murder.
Living at the top of a twenty story stack of mobile homes with limited aspirations, other than to win the fortune, Wade Watts, aka, Parzival spends all his spare time logged into Oasis, trying to solve the riddles.
When he stumbles upon the first of the three gate keys, he becomes instantly famous, a target, once he's made it through the first gate, he's on borrowed time. His aunt and the trailer where they lived, are blown to pieces, there's coercion, a feigned suicide, proposed kidnappings and more.

As riddles get solved, an epic game of Pacman is played, tempers fray and trust issues arise, you forget you’re in a fictional world within a fictional world and get pulled along for the ride, and all the while the characters in the book are, for the most part, avatars in a computer game.
Parzival is super geeky, but he's educated himself through the OASIS school system, his fellow gunters, (people who spend their time in OASIS looking to solve Halliday's riddles, but who haven't sold out to the corporation of IOI), all bring something different to the narrative, some more than others, of which we find out at the end of the book!
The author’s love of the 1980's was right up my street and some of the games, the computers, and most of the films he makes reference to - Parzival flies around in a DeLorean for goodness sake's - had me reminiscing, and there's always a sense that something's not quite right, that one of the gunters might not be telling the whole truth. With that in mind, the sixers (derogatory name for those who spend their days trying to crack the riddles in OASIS for IOI), gradually close in on Parzival and his friends but, can they beat them to Halliday's Egg and win the prize - Ownership of the entire virtual word, the Oasis?.

There is a huge amount of info-dump throughout this book, which gets a bit annoying but with the epic battle at the end, the tense week that preceded it, the journey through the various challenges, great characters and (for me anyway), the books effortless mix of nostalgia with a possible future and superb researching and originality, it easily earns four stars.

I just hope the film doesn’t let it down.

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IT, book review. (Stephen King)

My 1st edition and film tie-in copy along with themed T

O! M! G!

This book is hard for me to review objectively because IT and I have history. (See what I just did there?). I've read it before you see, twice in fact. The first time, when I was young, closer in age to the kids in the book, I saw things from their perspective and then, as I got older, I related to the adults more, and now, on my third visit, well, I just feel for them all.

This epic book runs to one thousand one hundred and sixty-six pages and has such depth, not just in the characters but in the history of the town in which they live, that in spite of its length, it has pace, firing you out from one chapter to the next.

You read the first fifty pages and you're hooked, the next two hundred pass in a blur of excitement, of reunion, of horror, and then, before you know it, you're half way through but still, new things are happening. Like the shootout in front of the pharmacy in broad daylight, where half the town came armed and ready to kill. The explosion of 1906 that killed 88 kids on an Easter egg hunt. The great flood that washed half the town away decades before and of course, the realisation that every twenty-seven years kids go missing, die left, right and centre, but with no one seeming to noticing, seeming to care. And why don't they notice, why don't they care?

IT . . . that's why.

IT has a hold over the town of Derry. People turn a blind eye, forget, dismiss, delude themselves that the missing and the dead left town, were trouble makers, fell out with their families, anything but admit the truth, but in the summer of '58', just as they break for summer vacation, seven kids become friends, become The Losers, and one of them, stuttering Bill, who lost his brother in the fall of '57', has a score to settle, a score that may well take him twenty-seven years to fulfil.

My copy from 1986

To label this book would be an injustice, to label it horror would be plain wrong, because it's a, coming of age, thriller, horror, murder mystery, sci-fi, history book, all rolled into one, and I bet you can’t say that very often, and the other thing, the worst thing about this book, (there always has to be a 'but' it seems), is that once you've raced through the first nine hundred or so pages and the end is nigh, you want it to slow down, because deep down you know, that when you turn that last page, read that last paragraph, you're gonna be left with a massive hole where those Losers where and the biggest book hangover you've ever had.
To give this book a star rating any less than six out of five would be a travesty, but as we're governed by convention I will have to settle for five.
If you haven't yet taken a journey to Derry, never been to the Barrens and met Henry Bowers, been in the thick of an apocalyptic rock fight, smelt the scorched remains of the Black Spot, been chased from 29 Neibolt street by a leper, a werewolf or Pennywise the dancing clown, you’ve never really lived.
Put simply, one of the greatest books I have ever read.

All Hell Let Loose, book review. (Max Hastings) (Warning! Content some may find upsetting).

I don't know about you but I don't tend to read a lot of non-fiction, but there are exceptions, this being one of them.

Along with, James Holland and Antony Beevor, Max Hastings is one of only a few non-fiction authors I have read more than once, and for good reason. His narrative is a mixture of cold hard facts, the death, destruction and destitution that comes with war, spliced with first hand testimony of those that fought in the fields, the streets, on the landing grounds, and with growing confidence and strength in the air, (thank you Winston), so our island, Europe, and millions of others around the world, could be free from tyranny.

The author also gives voice to those who never took up arms, the housewives, the land girls, WRENS, and some of the millions of refugees, and although I'm not going to discuss the cruelty that fellow humans inflict on those with the wrong bloodline, ethnicity, creed or beliefs, in this blog post, (you can read the book for that), what I will say is that Max Hastings' writing and research is truly amazing, humanising a book that is so full of depravity, that at times I questioned whether I wanted to continue.

This book charts the whole of World War II, from the phoney war of 39’ – 40’, to Japan's capitulation in 1945, from the tiniest islands in the Pacific, to the blood drenched streets of Stalingrad, and it is horrific beyond imagination. To put some sort of perspective on that, I'm going to ask you to visualise something.

Think back to the last time you sat in a packed cinema, the last football game you attended, rock concert maybe, and picture the crowd. How many people were there? 500? 2000? Maybe it was a stadium with 50,000, or a music festival with 100,000. Whatever the amount, fix that crowd in your mind.

Now, picture this: Between the 3rd September 1939 (the day Britain and her allies declared war on Germany remember) to the 14th August 1945, that's 2172 days, (or 5 years, 11 months and 11 days), and with your crowd in mind, how many people do you think died for every one of those days, on average?

Not maimed, or injured, raped or beaten, not starved or displaced, but killed.

Twenty seven thousand! That's, twenty seven thousand people dying, every day, for two thousand seven hundred and seventy-two days, consecutively.

If you takes just one thing from this book, it's how powerful the human spirit is, that when there is no hope, when there is mass genocide, rape, torture, starvation and deprivation beyond anything we can ever imagine, men, women and children manage to cling on and survive.

LET US NOT FORGET THAT SHALL WE. LET US NOT DO THIS AGAIN.

The Shadow of the Wind, book review. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

When Daniel Sempere is taken to the Cemetery of Forgotten books by his father and comes away with a copy of, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julian Carax, he is overwhelmed by its brilliance and vows to track down and read all the authors’ books.

However, the author seems to have disappeared, along with the vast majority of his works, and so, with what could be the only Julian Carax book left in existence, Daniel begins to investigate.

With the assistance of his beggar friend, de Torres, and with the rather unscrupulous, Inspector Fumero, shadowing their every move, Daniel starts to uncover the truth; the story of a young Julian, son of a milliner, and Penelope, daughter of one of Barcelona's richest families, and how they fell in love.

Due to their backgrounds, their relationship was kept a secret, but with just days to go to their planned elopement to Paris, their love affair is discovered, along with Penelope's pregnancy.
Before she can make her escape, Penelope is imprisoned by her father, and so, Julian - his life now in danger - is forced to make the journey alone.

Decades pass before Julian feels it is safe to return, and on learning Penelope's fate, start to destroy all his books, and it is in the dark, foggy, rain-soaked streets of Barcelona, that Daniel too, finds the truth.

The Gothic beauty in which Barcelona is painted here is so enticing. You feel the chill on your neck, the hairs prickle on your arms, and half expect to see Daniel, de Torres or Julian, running down the street the next time you go out in the dark.

The characters ooze such depth and quality that I want to meet them, shake their hands, kiss, or run from them. I want to visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books - just the once of course - walk through its many avenues, climb its many stairs, probe its depth, before finding my copy of, The Shadow of the Wind, and then I'd be its keeper, its custodian; share and protect it.

This book is so wonderfully written, in such a superb setting, that you feel the very danger Daniel's in, seeping from the page, and of Julian, having lost his one true love, damaged beyond repair, you feel his pain with every breath.

This book is such a solid five stars I can recommend it to all, and having read the second book first - I know, what an idiot - and the fourth book being out, I thought I would go back to the very beginning and start my journey again.

Duma Key, book review. (Stephen King)

Unlike Cell, which felt like a shortened version of a long story, Duma Key, felt like a longer version of a short story, something which is borne out by comments I have read on the internet.

Eddie Freemantle, is an ex-construction guy, who's lost an arm in an accident. He wakes up in a spiral of depression, beats his wife, who then files for divorce, and has an itching limb that no longer exists - something which I understand is true for some amputees.

So, on advice from friends and his doctor, Eddie make for Florida and ends up renting Salmon Point, (Big Pink), a large detached villa, with the most amazing views across the Gulf of Mexico.

To date, Eddie has no more than sketched a few doodles, but suddenly, and with great gusto, he begins to draw; an activity which brings him much relief.

He draws his daughter with the man she is engaged to, (even though he's never met him), he draws his old accountant, dead, calls his ex-wife and convinces her that he thinks the old boy is about to commit suicide, and saves his life. He draws his ex-wife's new flower tattoo, the one he's never seen, and he draws the face of a stranger, a man who's kidnapped and murdered a young girl, but he draws him without a nose or mouth, and the next day, said kidnapper has suffocated.

There's a lot of weird stuff going on in Duma Key, nothing more strange than the, ‘Girl in a Boat’ series of paintings, which have an uncanny resemblance to his youngest daughter, and seem to be drawing her ever closer to an old sailing boat in the distance.

I love the build-up in this book: Eddie gradually regaining his strength and purpose, the friendship that grows between him and his neighbour, (a stranger by the name of Wireman), who of course has secrets of his own, and Elizabeth, owner of Salmon Point.

Wireman is there to look after Elizabeth, the daughter of the man who used to own the whole island, and whose sister drowned, many, many years before. But there's a spirit on the island too, an evil spirit; a spirit that gives Eddie the ability to paint exquisite seascapes, to paint possible futures, but a spirit that could end up destroying everyone he loves, taking the island and much more with it.

A bit like in, ‘IT’, this spirit has been tackled before, but now, years, decades later, it is back and getting stronger, so, Eddie, Jack (Eddie's personal assistant), and Wireman must face it together.

There are some really good bit in this book: the early realisation that his drawings might be influencing real life, his relationship with his daughter and ex-wife, the art exhibition he's talked into putting on, and towards the end, the crocodile in the swimming pool incident, but overall, repetition start to creep in and spoils it a bit.
Not quite a four star book then, three and a half, but spooky enough in places to satisfy those that like a fright, and descriptive enough to make me feel like I'd been to the Florida Keys and that my arm was itching!

The Vanishing, book review. (Tim Krabbe)

This book is a tiny thin sliver of excellence.

Told in the third person but from just two perspectives - the victim's boyfriend’s and the perpetrator’s - it is simple, short, but shocking in equal measure.

I haven't seen the film or films - apparently there are two - so I didn't have any spoilers to deal with, and whizzed through it in just a few hours; yes, it is that short.

I've read quite a few books by European authors recently, and have liked them all, Tim Krabbe's being no exception, but ultimately, this book is too short; a novella really.

The story starts with Rex and Saskia driving through France, they are going on holiday, but before they reach their destination, they decide to stop for fuel and sustenance.

Before continuing their journey, Saskia returns to the shop for drinks and vanishes.

Cut to Frenchman, Raymond Lemorne, a married high school teacher, who dives into a canal and saves a young girl from drowning, and then, after his act of valour, he wonders: is he's capable of doing something equally vicious?

He'd saved the life of a random stranger, but can he now take one, and in the cruellest possible way?

Skip forward eight years: Rex has sort of moved on, but he still thinks about Saskia everyday, and then, out of nowhere, a stranger leaves him a message.
Raymond has found him and admit that it was he, that took Saskia, but before he will tell Rex what happened, he must agree to go through what Saskia went through; he must drink from the cup he is offered, and only then will Raymond reveal all.

Will Rex take the bait? Is it a trick? What became of Saskia? 

I won't spoil it for anyone here, you'll have to read the book, it is after all, only a hundred pages or so, so no excuses, but what I will tell you, is that it's definitely worth finding out.
Could have been a five star book this one, but it's just too short, so four stars.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, book review. (Ken Kesey)

I'm not going to lie to you; I found the first half of this book hard going. (Hence the Whisky!) I don't know what it is about classic American literature, but I always seem to struggle with it, be it F Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck or Salinger, there just seems to be a disconnect.

Many of you will have seen the film with Jack Nicholson, and therefore know the basic story - McMurphy is a wise cracking, gambler, who has avoided gaol (jail) for what he thinks is going to be a few easy months in a mental hospital, and he brings turmoil and discord to what was once a peaceful, psychiatric ward.

From what I remember, the film was really quite good, but I saw it too long ago to make any meaningful connection with the book; which I felt dragged, to the point where I had to put it to one side and read something else, before coming back to it.

I suppose, being told in the first person by an American Indian, who pretends to be deaf and dumb, is regularly drugged and resides in a mental institute, may have had something to do with that, but it's not until a fishing trip, (about half way through the book) that I felt it really started to get interesting.

There are flashes of greatness here, some of the group therapy sessions are tense and leave you guessing. McMurphy's ability to talk everyone around to his way of thinking, are intriguing but soon grow tiresome; the Chief's flashbacks of home are convincing and come with a hint of sadness, but his visions of a hidden world, a world where everything is controlled by the Combine, are lacklustre.

I think perseverance is the key with this book. I'm glad I stuck with it, and in the end I can see why some of you might like it, but for me, I can't recommend it.

Just scrapes three stars for those flashes of excellence then, the fishing trip being the one true highlight, but without that scene, it really don't think it would have been worth my while.

Cell, book review. (Stephen King)

Big, bold, blood thirsty apocalyptic fantasy fiction, all rolled into one neat little package by the best in the business?

Well, almost.

Some Stephen King books have as much in common with the horror genre as Bridget Jones's Diary, but Cell certainly isn't one of them.

The book starts like a punch to the face, smack, and you're in; you're in the middle of Boston to be precise, and the world is going mad, losing its head; people are starting to go crazy, committing mass suicide, attacking each other with gut retching, blood thirsty ferocity. (The incident is later referred to as the Pulse).

A proper Horror then? You bet; don't read this if you’re squeamish.

Our main character, Clayton Riddell - he's just managed to sell some artwork and has a spring in his step when the shit hits the fan - links up with the somewhat bookish Tom McCourt and rather excellent Alice Maxwell, (who quickly became my favourite character), her mixture of vulnerability and teenage verve being reminiscent of Beverly Marsh from 'It'.

The story centres round Clayton and his small posse, escaping the ever apocalyptic Boston, to begin the journey that will result (we hope) in Clayton finding his son.

They hole up in Tom McCourt's house for a night before pressing on, they find a school headmaster and a single pupil, (Jordan), who they try to convince to join their quest, and commit mass murder on the way.

Bloody, thoughtful, slightly SCI-FI, horrific and touching in equal measure, this book is Stephen King doing what everybody thinks he is doing, in all of his books, but rarely does, (most of his books are nowhere near as bloodthirsty as this one) and coming up trumps. 

It did feel like something was missing thought, and I won't spoil it by telling you the end, but it stopped very abruptly, and unlike a lot of his books, there was very little backstory to most of the characters.

It wouldn't surprise me it there's an unabridged version of this book somewhere in the SK vault; one with a bit more of a beginning, more character development, (like what happened at Jordan's school) and maybe even, what happened after Clayton finds . . .

Almost spoilt it!

Three and a half stars then, but if you're a King fan, I'm sure you'll read it anyway.

Rivers of London, book review. (Ben Aaronovich)

I just had to re-read this classic series again, before book six came out. (Too late!)

It's been a few years now, and what with Rivers of London, Moon over Soho, Whispers Underground and Broken Homes, starting to blend into one, I sort of needed a refresher.

Well, I've finished book one and I'm half way through book two, and if anything, I'm liking them more now than the first time.

Ben Aaronovich paints a picture of the secret magical wing of the Metropolitan police force, (which consists of: one man - who is over a hundred years old - a vampire ghost, and an H.Q called The Folly), very convincingly, and then, P.C Grant starts talking to a ghost in Covent Garden and the Folly has a new recruit.

P.C. Peter Grant, who, up until that fateful night, was just a regular probationary constable, is our main character here. On the discovery of ghosts being real and their ability to inflict serious damage on the living, (our first victim is beheaded), our story begins.

The normal police take a very dim view of the Folly and its purpose, until an ancient malevolent ghost starts killing people that is. After that results are expected and expected fast.

Whilst spending a lot of the book discovering that magic is real, trying to learn it, (as well as Latin), P.C Grant, also finds himself embroiled in the middle of a feud between the mother and father of the river Thames. (Hence the book’s title).

With centuries of history and immense power between them, the two entities, along with their extended families, control all the river of London; the Thames of course being the biggest. With much fumbling, and only a small amount of destruction, our intrepid trainee magician, mediates the situation the best he can.

There is horror in this book, fun, laughter, genuine intrigue and as you tread the cobbles of one of the most famous placing in the world, (Covent Garden), you get trapped; trapped in a world of magic, policing, and fear, a world that hovers behind a thin veil between normality and fiction.

Exquisitely researched, so much so that I thought the author was a Jazz playing ex policeman, who wondered the streets of London of an evening, smoking something that could result in his arrest, and it’s fast paced too.
The chase at the end, with P.C Grant running through a London that gets magically younger, before finally disappearing altogether, going back to pre-Roman times, is just fantastic.

So, five big fat delicious stars for this book then, and with Moon over Soho under way, I'll be back in touch in a week or so with another update.

Keep reading and don't forget your Children in Need donation.

The Angel's Game, book review. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

I've been having a foreign affair (evidence to the left), and what a ride.

It goes to show just how important it is for books to be translated and shared around the world, because these three are great.

This post is about my favourite one though, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's, The Angel's Game.

Where do I start with this book? It's one of the few books I've read that doesn't fit into a given genre. It is thrilling, sexy, frightening and spooky, in equal measure. It is pacey, has excellent and very memorable characters; there is love and loss, and all wrapped up in the atmospheric backdrop of early twentieth century Barcelona.

So, where better to read a book that is set in the fair city of Barcelona, than Barcelona!

No I didn't arrange my summer holiday around my reading habits, (I'm not that sad), but I did wait for Barcelona before I started the book, and it added to the experience.

The novel follows the life the loves, the ups and downs, of the main character, David Martin, as he fights his way out of poverty, start to write under a pseudonym, fall desperately ill, only to be saved by the mysterious Senor Corelli, with a book deal to end all book deals: One hundred thousand Francs, for a single book to be written over a twelve month period. (I'm still waiting for my letter, Senor Corelli).

The deal is struck and Martin's illness wanes, but there is skulduggery abound. His previous employers are killed in an arson attack, his beloved Cristina, is betrothed to another, (his benefactor) only to be driven to despair and . . . (no spoilers here I'm afraid). His muse, a young girl by the name of Isabella, is thrust upon him one night, and I couldn't tell whether she was going to be a distraction, a love interest, or fill his world with further anguish!!

A shockingly good read then, and all the better I think for being the middle book in a three book series, that was so good as a stand-alone novel, that I didn't realise it had a prequel and a sequel, until after I'd read it.  

As near to a five star book as I've got this year and I feel certain that it will be in my top five books of 2016.

Highly recommended

The Curious case of Benjamin Button, book review. (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Yes, very curious indeed. 

A few years ago I read the Great Gatsby by the same author and really liked it, but this collection of short stories is quite something else. 

Firstly, Benjamin Button is only a dozen or so pages, so a really short story then; quirky though. 

Some of the other stories here are better, my favourite being, O Russet Witch, which has a certain charm about it that captures the mood of an affluent 1920's America. Coming in a close second is the equally delightful, but somewhat brutish, May Day, which centres on a mob running through the city, and is the longest story here. 

Some of the others were a bit boring, but that's the beauty of short stories I suppose, the good ones stick with you, the others can be quickly forgotten, and you don't end up kicking yourself for wasting too much time. 

This is the third selection of short stories I've read this year, diversifying from my usual novels, and it's been a breath of fresh air; something I would heartily recommend you try, especially as we all seem to lead such busy lives these days and have so little time to do the things we really love, (like having the time to escape into the depth of a great book every day).

So, grab a collection that suits you, whether it be a classic like this, something contemporary, like Mark Haddon's The Pier Falls, (Blog review on 30th August), or something dark like Stephen King's, Full Dark, No Stars, and dig in; you won't regret it. 

This collection gets a 'reasonably entertaining' three stars. 

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, book review. (J.K. Rowling)

This might lose me a few followers or anger a few Potter fans, but I'm going to say it anyway, this book is just too long. 

There are moments of pure genius, the whole Ministry of Magic escapade towards the end is really good, and the way Professor Umbridge gets under your skin and frustrates the reader as much as she does the characters in the book, is great, but other bits are just too long winded. 

Take Hagrid's brother Grawp as an example, I know he has to be there, so as to affect the ending, but it could have been done quicker and more effectively, as could the whole of the beginning. 

The time it take for Harry to be attacked by dementors, summonsed to the Ministry of Magic for trial, found innocent, explore his Godfather's house and get to Hogwarts, is frustratingly slow. 

Again, I realise that some of what happens, happens for a reason and adds to the overall story, but cleaning the curtains in one of Sirius Blacks reception rooms is totally unnecessary.  

Unlike the film, Dobby turns up, Hermione goes on about SPEW again, which is also unnecessary, and we get an insight into how much Sirius and Snape hate each other; all the while, Voldemort is gets stronger, Harry is falling in love and The High Inquisitor of Hogwarts - the aforementioned Umbridge - is implementing evermore draconian punishments.

I like the conflicting emotions that Harry has over Cho and Ginny, the isolation when Dumbledore ignores him and he's banned from quidditch, and the solace he finds in Dumbledore's Army. I like Christmas at St Mungo's (wizard hospital) and the introduction of Luna Lovegood, but it takes over seven hundred pages before the world accepts that Voldemort is back, and it could have been done quicker. 

In conclusion then, if you want to know the whole story, it's a book you have to read, but compared to The Goblet of Fire, and the two books that follow, this one is a bit of chore. 

Four stars then, because in spite of the negatives, hidden within those many pages are moments of pure pleasure.