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

Well we've covered the classics, horror and apocalyptic (see 03/10 post), so what's left?

I don't really read crime or thrillers as the few I have read over the years seemed rather formulaic, and I don't read much Sci-fi (although what I have read has mostly been entertaining) but I do read Literary Fiction, authors like Ishiguro, McEwan (Enduring Love being a firm favourite) Cormac McCarthy's sublime No Country for Old Men, Ali & Zadie Smith and Jesmyn Ward to name but a few and although short in length, most have left lasting impressions.
Y/A (Young Adult), books like, Since You've been Gone, Thirteen Reasons Why, We Were Liars, Emma Cline's, The Girls, All The Bright Places, The Hate U Give, After the Fire and of course, John Green's back catalogue (Looking For Alaska being my favourite), have also entertained beyond maybe what I thought they would and are well worth checking out - most of what I write is in the Y/A genre so maybe I'm being slightly biased there - but I often find books in that category have far more substance than their initial subject matter might imply.
Book series then, like Justin Cronin's The Passage, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (I'll blog about that one soon, after another reread), Ben Aaronovitch with his witty magical Rivers of London novels, Stephen King's Dark Tower, the aforementioned Harry Potters series and Carlos Ruiz Zafon's (yes him again), stunning Cemetery of Forgotten Books collective are some of my all-time favourites, so much so that I have read most of them more than once and some of them too many times to actually remember, and will no doubt do them all again one day.
I also love history and so, Robert Harris and his superb back catalogue is one I can whole heartedly recommend, The Office and the Spy probably being my all-time favourite of his but it's not all fiction. James Holland's Fortress Malta and The Battle of Britain, rate alongside Antony Beevor's Stalingrad and Max Hastings' All Hell Let Lose, as some of the most horrific five star books I have ever had the pleasure (if you can call it that), of reading and are books I'll never hesitate to recommend.
So where does that leave us?
Anywhere I suppose. Which is where I recommend you let your mind wander the next time you're in a bookshop (physical of virtual). Bypass the shelf you think you want, mix it up a bit, pick the book next to the one you thought you wanted, the one in the plain brown wrapping that some shops now sell, and see where it takes you, and if you've got a birthday coming up and someone asks you what they can get you, ask them to surprise you because, if it's any of the above and you've not read them yet, you're in for one hell of a ride.

Happy reading.

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

The Prisoner of Heaven, book review. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

If you've ever read The Shadow of the Wind (and let's face it, many millions have) and thought it was a standalone book, that the story ended there, that the author's subsequent books where independent of each other, then you'd be right and wrong. This book, the third in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series (and shortest by some margin) is the link between the first two - the afore mentioned Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game (which anyone who is familiar with my blog will know, are held by me in high regard) and therefore moves both Daniel Sempere's story and that of David Martin to a point where they converge with the help of the indelible Fermin as the connection.

With its heart in your mouth pace one minute, genuine fear the next, to giggling from the shear absurdity of Fermin's tomfoolery, the pages here turn quickly, and you are under no illusion that even though this is a short book, the author has not dropped the ball and that you are invested in the same brilliance that went before.

We still have Fermin with his jokes, Daniel's beautiful wife Bea, their little boy Julian - named after the unfortunate Julian Carax - who wrote The Shadow of the Wind in book one; Daniel's father, who is aging but well, Bernarda, who is betrothed to Fermin (which is the crux of the book) and the deeply disturbing Valls, who's methods of torture: starvation, solitary confinement, bribery and poisoning to name but a few, are slowly revealed as we learn of Fermin's past and why he believes he will never be able to marry the love of his life.

The tangled web that unthreads through the pages of this book brings joy and sorrow, and with Fermin confessing his darkest secret, the promise he made to Martin when incarcerated together - Martin is the prisoner of heaven by the way - that he would look after and protect the love of Martin's life, Isabella (Daniel's mother) if their escape attempt worked, is all handled with aplomb. Here is a man who has befriended Daniel (who will be his best-man at his wedding), his father, works in their shop, and has found what he hopes is true love, but he holds a secret which, in his eyes, is his worst crime.

That crime being: his failure to fulfil his promise to Senor Martin by allowing Valls to get to Isabella and poison her.

The Prisoner of Heaven is written in the same beautifully menacing but somehow witty prose that lead me to attributing the first two books in this series with top honours and possesses the same, must-keep-reading-whatever-the-time-is-because-I-just-can't-put-it-down, style that will have readers up well into night, early in the morning and late for their Zoom meetings.

A fantastic read then - four and a half stars.

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

2021 - The year of the reread. Books I've loved so much I'm having to revisit.

Do you have a favourite book?
Is it long, short? Did you read it at a time that was poignant? Is it a book about love that you read after a breakup? A book about an apocalyptic virus that you read last year?!! Or is it a favourite from childhood that still has you turning the pages and laughing, screaming, crying, in all the same places? Well, whatever it is - and speaking to the readers and writers I know, it seems that most of us do have a favourite, or at least a top five that's forever fluid because we just can't decide in which order to place them - I've decided to reread some of my favourites (Harry Potter excluded).
I'll need a bit of filler though because there's some big old tomes here - that copy of, The Stand in the picture, is one thousand four hundred and twenty pages, so I won't be going for volume (I read forty-one books last year so I'll be lucky to make half that this) but needs must.
Clive Barker is an author from my childhood and his ability to create worlds that seem so fantastical but so real, is both startling and brilliant, so I intend to revisit his superb, Imajica - which, along with his Weaveworld and Two Books of the Art, The Great and Secret Show and Everville are amongst those that have influenced my own writing more than any.
Having supped on the delights of Frenchman's Creek and My Cousin Rachel in recent years it feels like an age since I read Rebecca and its sequel, Mrs de Winter (did you know it had a sequel?) as does my last visit to Hobbiton, to Frodo, Gandalf and Sam, in a book that needs no introduction, that I first read as a teenager and understood a lot more as an adult (but that was near on twenty years ago now) so again, the need to dip one's toes in the waters of the Brandywine river and share that epic adventure again has begun to outweigh the compulsion to read something new.
There's nothing wrong with something new of course. I have never completed Stieg Larssons's Millennium trilogy, so this will be part reread and part first read, as will reading Stephen King's Dark Tower for the first time, having reread the first six books over the last year or two, so I'm not completely mad, I have got some new (to me anyway) books lined up for the coming year.
There's the latest Rivers of London book, False Value to read, before the next one comes out, Malorie, the sequel to Bird Box - which you might know from the film of the same name - the final book in the unbelievably superb Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, The Labyrinth of the Spirits (which I'm probably looking forward to the most) and a whole host of others that I'm sure will steer me from my path, but you can rest assured I'll keep you all posted, whatever happens.
Happy reading folks and stay safe.

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

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

Where do I start with this book? It's one of the few books I've read that doesn't fit 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, loss, desperation, suspense and it's all wrapped up in the atmospheric backdrop of early twentieth-century Barcelona.

The novel follows the life and loves, the ups and downs of David Martin, a talented but poorly paid journalist with a wealthy benefactor 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 - oh, no, actually, scrap that, I think I'll stick with what I've got).

His muse, a young girl by the name of Isabella, is thrust upon him one night when she leaves her family to become a writer, ending up on his doorstep because he is the only writer she knows, and I couldn't tell at first whether she was going to be a distraction - she is young, beautiful and talented - a love interest, or whether she would fill his world with further anguish, but after a rocky start they find a bond and David takes her to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books so she can choose.

After a deal is struck with the mysterious Senor Corelli, Martin's illness wanes, but there is skulduggery abound. His previous employers, who were unwilling to compromise on his contract, are suddenly killed in an arson attack, his beloved Christina is suddenly betrothed to another (Martin's benefactor friend) only to be driven to despair and . . . (no spoilers here I'm afraid) as the body count rises and David becomes ever more entrenched in the mystery that is Senor Corelli and the fate that seemed to befall his previous employee (Diego Marlasca - who was also commissioned to write a book and, it turns out, lived in the very same house as Martin - The Tower House) the similarities between them becomes all too clear. Wherever David turns it seems, people are dying, being killing or going missing and with the police following his every move he leaves Barcelona not a moment to soon, to go in search of his beloved Christina, only to find . . .

I'll give nothing away here but when he eventually returns and uncovers the truth, is chased around Barcelona, running for his life, cornered, trapped in the cable car, hanging, suspended hundreds of feet in the air, confronted by an armed man with blood on his hands and murder on his mind, you wiz through the last third of the book so quickly it leaves you dizzy, wanting more, which is good because this is only book two of four, so there's more than enough to quench your enthusiasm.

A shockingly good read then, and all the better for it being part of a four-book series but just as good as a stand-alone novel.

If we rated books out of ten, this would get nine and a three quarters, it is that good, so it's as near to a five star book as you can get without it actually being so and very much worth a read. On to book three then, which I’ve not read before, so here’s hoping.

Don't forget to search my blog for your favourite authors and books to see if I have read them yet and if I have not, 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.

The Midnight Palace, book review. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)

Having read the worldwide bestseller, The Shadow of the Wind by this author, and having been somewhat blown away by it, I was intrigued to see how one of his lesser known books might fair, and I have to say, I was not disappointed.

Having lived his life in an orphanage in Calcutta, Ben is turning sixteen and will soon be released from the institute he has called home since he was taken there as a new-born. He will be free to pursue his ambitions, his dreams and carve out a life for himself but there's something dark in his past that he must conquer first, something he has no knowledge of until his mentor and headmaster of the orphanage is brutally attacked.

Enter Sheere, the sister he never knew he had, Aryami, their grandmother, Jawahal the wraith of a man who glows from the embers of a fire that consumed him just days after Ben was born, and add the dark depth of 1930's Calcutta and the scene is set.

The writing here may well be aimed at a younger audience but it lacks nothing for it, with delicious passages like, 'a suffocating mist rose from the Hooghly River, seeping through the streets of the Black Town like the fumes from a poised marsh' speeding you through the story.

It is a short book, too so you can whizz through it in a day or so, (which might be good or bad, I'm still yet to decide) but the writing is top notch, the characters are likeable and believable and the villain, decidedly chilling.

So all in all a good read then and one that if you haven't read Zafon before, would be an easy way to get to know his work. For me, I love his books, so if you can't find this one but come across another, just grab it and enjoy.

Four stars for The Midnight Palace then, for its excellent setting of scene, it's Gothic portrayal of 1930's Calcutta and its very spooky villain.