Autumn, book review. (Ali Smith)

Being part one of the author's 'Seasons' series, I first read this about five years ago but, having read Spring and Winter last year (see post 04/09/22 & 06/10/22 respectively), I thought a re-read in order.

With the same style of narrative but lacking the cold of Winter and the brightness of Spring, Autumn is my least favourite of the series so far but it's not all bad. (I'm yet to read Summer ).

There is love and hope and sadness: there is art and war and loneliness, there is growing up and growing old, being young and being bold, angst between family and friendships between neighbours, and not a small amount of chatter about a certain antiques show on the television - no, not the Fiona Bruce one!

Elisabeth meets Daniel, who is seventy years her senior, when they become neighbours and, twenty years later, with Daniel on his death bed, Elisabeth is the only person who visits.

Daniel spends his days asleep, dreaming of his past life, how he fell in love when he was young, fell in love with an artist, the only female Pop Artist in fact and how that love was never reciprocated.

The artist in question, Pauline Boty, influenced Elisabeth enough when she was young for her to become an art lecturer, so Daniel's love for Pauline did, in a way, lead Elisabeth to her chosen career.

Aside from art and love and friendship, this novel is about Brexit, but it's about human failure and human achievement too.

Elisabeth's mother's failure to see her daughter and Daniel's relationship as unusual but healthy, as opposed to just, wrong. Daniel's failure to move on from a love he never had. Elisabeth's failure to form strong bonds with people and find love herself but, then you have to ask: are these really failures or are they choices?

Could it not be an achievement that Daniel dedicated his life to his career and later on helped Elizabeth with hers? That Elisabeth isn't looking for love, or is just plane happy in her own company? Could we not argue that Brexit is both a good and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it?

Autumn is written in a way that leaves me confused. It hops around a bit and the style - as I have eluded to before - is somewhat strange, and I've yet to work out exactly what this book is about. I suppose it's about all of the above: love, friendship, fear and hate, being old and being young, art and division but even though I've had plenty of time for all of that to sink in, I'm still not sure what to take from it, even after a re-read.

Three stars.

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To Have and Have Not, book review. (Ernest Hemingway)

What a strange book.

Harry Morgan is a fisherman who just got duped out of over eight hundred dollars by an American tourist (it's the 1930s by the way and the man who chartered Harry's boat, used his bate and lost his rods and reels for three weeks, has scarpered without paying), so he can no longer make a living out of fishing so, instead, he uses his boat illegally to transport both booze and people from Florida to Cuba, or Cuba to Florida.

After the tourist disappears, Harry's first 'job' is to take a dozen Chinamen from Cuba to America for the princely sum of twelve hundred dollars, but surmising a double cross, Harry makes sure he gets the drop on the ring leader and then dumps the twelve men on a local beach.

Then it's booze, which ends up with his boat being seized and him being shot at - which costs him his arm - and so, with no boat, only one arm and a family to feed, he steals a boat and ferries four Cubans from Florida back to Cuba so they can join the revolution.

There is some good writing here: the gunfight at the very beginning, his double-cross of the chief Chinaman, the night at the Veteran's bar and the ambushing of the Cubans before they get to close to home and shot him first, are all standout moments but the rest of the book just jumps around, with some of it being completely pointless.

There's seemingly random chapters about characters that have little or nothing to do with the overall story randomly interjected through the narrative, which is really weird - I can only guess that the author needed a few more 'haves' to balance against Harry and the rest of the 'have nots'.

One example is when Harry walks into Freddy's bar and calls one of the customers a whore, for the book to then shot of on a tangent and follow the loves, lives and affairs of these strangers until Harry comes back a few chapters later and the main story thread continues.

This happens again at the very end of the book when we're randomly taken from cabin to cabin of all the luxury yachts in the marina - in great detail I might add - from a man in his sixties worrying about his outstanding tax bill in America, through a family who are good and wholesome and treat everyone well and so sleep soundly, to a woman who is contemplating whether to take a sleeping draft of not, and again, I thought this was really strange. (Ironically this was one of the better written parts of the book, even though it had nothing to do with the story arc.)

So, To Have and Have Not, is good in parts but those parts are few and far between, so I can't really recommend it. Two stars.

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Thinner, book review. (Stephen King)

A book with a very distinct message this one, and it's showing its age, too.

Like a lot of King novels (this one was originally released under his pseudonym Richard Bachman by the way), Thinner has a magical realism to it - the world ticks by and all is nice and normal, as it would be for you and I on any given day, but with a twist, a curse, an old Gypsy curse in this case, and it's one of my favourite things about this author's books. Everything is so normal bar that one thing: be it an ancient alien monster that dresses like a clown, a door in time that might help prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or an old man living with a seventy year old mouse, reality is only ever skewed just a little.

Having killed an old Gypsy woman who stepped out in front of his car (he was concentration on his wife's hand down his pant rather than the road), and the police chief and local Judge whitewashing the whole affair, William (Bill) Halleck walks away, scot-free - well, he would have if the old Gypsy, Lemke, hadn't brushed his cheek on the courthouse steps and whispered that one word: Thinner.

The weight starts to drop off immediately, and the first half of this book is all about his cloths getting baggy, seeing his doctor, friends and colleagues, who, along with his wife and daughter, think it's a good thing but then start to worry, all whilst Bill is in denial, pretending to himself that he didn't hear what Lemke said. The second half is Halleck on the road searching for the Gypsy, tracking him down, and it is the better half, more fluid, emotional, but it's also where the age of the book starts to show.

The writing on a whole is okay, some of the latter chapters almost reach excellence, but when Halleck thinks of his teenage daughter as having 'coltish legs' and a random stranger unnecessarily uses the N word amongst the many other racist slurs against Gypsies, you begin to realise how times have changed.

That disappointment aside (it was written in the mid 80s - which is NOT an excuse by the way but a possible reason), the last hundred pages fly by, and as tensions rise and Halleck's weight plummets (he was 255 at the beginning, now down to 115), and the ending nears - which I won't spoil - the message I referred to at the beginning becomes blatantly clear.

Treat people how you would like to be treated.

Whether it's yourself, your loved ones, neighbours and strangers alike, and take responsibility for your actions. Think before you speak but speak anyway, but be honest, with yourself and those around you, because if you don't, something terrible could happen, something terrible like . . .

Three stars for Thinner then but only just, and no surprise that it was first published under his pseudonym.

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Ei8ght Cranleigh Gardens, by Michael J Richardson (Aka, me). Self promotion Sunday.

More self-promotion for today’s post then and with Hallowe’en last week I thought, what better than a haunted house to chill one’s bones.
Don't worry, I'll still be posting reviews on the many books that I read and I'll do my best to keep them as eclectic as possible so you don't get bored, but in the meantime, I thought it only right to share some of my writing with you - this is Mad Mike's Writing Blog after all!
Most of my writing has a similar theme - be they short stories, poems or novels - and that theme being: reality interspliced with a little something out of the ordinary. This could be a haunting (as is the case here), a vampire, magic or werewolves, but I like the unreality just touched upon, hinted at, rather than dominating the narrative so, over the next few months you'll see a few more posts like this; posts about what I write and what might be coming.
I hope you enjoy these and I look forward to any feedback too, so without further ado, Ei8ht Cranleigh Gardens, the subject of this post, which is one of my longest short stories (oxymoron alert) and has been inspired by all the times I've ‘felt’ something, in the many empty houses I’ve visited over the last thirty years.
Amidst the death and infidelity here, you’ll find passion and infatuation, so have fun and next time I'll introduce you to a vampire, or some good old-fashioned magic.
Ei8ht Cranleigh Gardens can be downloaded for free from:

https://www.amazon.in/Ei8ht-Cranleigh-Gardens-infatuation-haunting-ebook/dp/B00FL56IYG

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.

Spring, book review. (Ali Smith)

Well, this is a strange one because, let’s face it, I have bemoaned many an author before for being lazy with the time honoured tradition of using the comma, speech-marks and the full stop where appropriate and, when lacking I become somewhat distracted which, for me, spoils the experience but here, Ali Smith's writing style has such a sense of freedom to it, unshackled by those conventions and structures that it just works. Strange!
So, in honour of this damned right annoyance having been nothing more than a slight irritation, I shall fill you in on all things Spring.
Spring does not start it germinates. It germinates from Winter but the only connection between the books is the author's name on the cover, so you can read the seasons in any order you wish.
Spring is about loss, the loss of a friend; a best friend and onetime lover, for Paddy is dead, gone, and for Richard, who has known her, loved her, worked with her for decades, there seems little reason to carry on. With his ex-wife and daughter estranged he might as well just crawl under the train that’s arrived in the remote Scottish station and wait for it to roll.
Spring is about Florence, a schoolgirl with amazing powers, powers of persuasion. A schoolgirl who walks into a brothel and out again without hurt or trauma, whilst emancipating the ‘workers’. A girl who rescues her mother from a high security detention centre for illegal immigrants saves Richard and travel the country with impunity without payment or service.
Spring is about detention, immigration, power and our inability as a nation to truly comprehend the trauma, fear, pain, anguish and steadfast resolve those who have fled their countries have really gone through to get here, but when Brittany meets Florence and they travel to Scotland and save Richard and met Alda – not her real name as she too is illegal – and Florence and Alda disappear, it focuses the mind, Richard’s in particular.
Spring is a time for regeneration, life to bloom, death to be celebrated, be it the death of winter or Paddy’s death, and Richard is rejuvenated, he has a new project: Immigration, and he’s filming again, working, he’s found meaning.
This book is a charming, scary, slightly surreal experience that has an almost poetic flow to the narrative that has you not only flicking forward to see how things materialise but back to check you've made sense of it all and Spring, be it the book or the season, are so full of delights I can recommend them both. Be out, get out, come rain - which we have a lot of in England - or shine, and enjoy it, them, life, the memories of those who have passed, and read; read this, Spring, but read that too, the one you’ve been putting off the one you loved as a child, the one you didn’t read but should have and revel in beginnings.
Three and a half stars.

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.

Lycanthrope, by Michael J Richardson (Aka, me). Self promotion Sunday.

Two long have I written this blog with no self-promotion so, as of today, that's stopping.
Don't worry, I'll still be posting reviews on the many books that I read and I'll do my best to keep them as eclectic as possible so you don't get bored but in the meantime I thought it only right to share some of my writing with you - this is Mad Mike's Writing Blog after all!
Most of my writing has a similar theme - be it the short stories, poems or novels - that theme being, reality interspliced with a little something out of the ordinary. This could be a haunting, a vampire, magic or, as is the case here, a Werewolf, but I like the unreality just touched upon, hinted at, rather than it dominate the narrative so, over the next few months you'll see a few more posts like this; posts about what I write and what might be coming.
I hope you enjoy these and I look forward to any feedback too, so without further ado, Lycanthrope, the subject of this post, which I thought a perfect place to start as it is one of my oldest short stories, one I wrote when I was nineteen - now why would that be of any significance, constant readers? - and I've learnt a lot since then.
Probably one of my less subtle efforts, admittedly but I still feel it has something all these years later as, amidst all the death and violence the main theme here is that of love. So have fun discovering it for yourselves and next time I'll introduce you to a ghost, a vampire, or some good old-fashioned magic.
In addition, as a little bonus, you can also read about an unfortunate runner who trips and has a fall, in the flash fiction, Root.
Lycanthrope can be downloaded for free from:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E4X8YY8/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

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.

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.

The Haunting of Hill House, book review. (Shirley Jackson)

Another reread and another 'Glad I did' moment when I finished.
On first acquaintance I felt this book rather lacklustre - I cut my teeth on James Herbert and progressed to Susan Hill remember - but something niggled.

I saw reviews on Goodreads championing the book, Bookstagramers on Instagram rating it highly and then, a Netflix series, which got me thinking: what had I missed?
So, as 2021 is the year of the reread, I added it to my list.
The story begins with a Dr Montague having written to numerous individuals across the country who either think they have, or have actually witnessed 'something special', for assistance in an experiment he wishes to conduct, and so he invites them to Hill House, which he has agreed to lease for the summer in order to gain as much evidence as he can that paranormal activity exists - Hill House is widely regarded as one of the most haunted houses ever.

One of the terms of said lease is that Luke Sanderson, the heir to the house, is present, so when Eleanor (who has recently lost the mother she cared for, for most of her life) and Theodora (who is rather bohemian), arrive, being the only two who responded to the doctor, most of the cast is assembled.
The story builds slowly but not too slowly, introducing the characters gradually - and they're all different enough to have a depth and personality of their own and develop little by little throughout the narrative, revealing, right up to the very last pages their strengths and weaknesses. Later, Dr Montague's rather overpowering wife and her side kick, Arthur Parker arrive at the house and add an element of flair to proceedings. Add to that, Mrs Dudley - who doesn't stay at Hill House after dark and sets breakfast at 9, lunch at 1 and dinner at 6, but flitters almost ghostlike in and out of rooms, the house and the narrative, and an element of intrigue is created and one can't help but speculate as to what is real and what is not.

Much of the tension in the book is implied and, rightly or wrongly, I decided that the rattling of doors and thumping of walls was all in Eleanor's head, or she somehow manifested them, as others only seemed to witness it when they were with her, which got me thinking: maybe she was the conduit for the spirits, the reason there was something to witness at all, and had she not been there, whether the others would have spent a rather serene but (from a paranormal activity perspective), rather disappointing summer in an old remote house?

With the book ending the way it did (no spoilers as usual), with Eleanor being ostracised, forced to leave, separated from the others and Hill House - or was she? - I felt I might have got to the crux of this novel, but of course, many of you may disagree or, like me when I first read it, not have analysed it so deeply.

All the same, three and a half stars for this slightly creepy haunted house novel and a better experience than my first read.

Enjoy, and happy Hallowe'en.

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.

Girls on fire, book review. (Robin Wasserman)

Oh boy!

When I read the blurb on this one, I thought, okay, sound like this could get messy.

Rarely do I purchase a book, take it home and start reading it the same day; normally because I'm in the middle of reading something else, but not this time. 
Having just finished Stephen King's Revival, (see blog post 14th July) I was about to start a selection of short stories, but got sidetracked by 'Girls on Fire', diving in the moment I got home. (Well, I actually read the first few pages whilst sitting in my car, and I hadn't done that since I purchaser 'The Book Thief' by Marcus Zusak). 
So, to the characters. 
We have the loner, Dex, the beautiful prom queen, Nikki and we have the outsider, (read: bad influence) Lacey. 
This book is told mainly in the first person by Dex (real name Hannah Dexter), and Lacey. 
This is a story of teenage anger, peer pressure, drugs alcohol, Nirvana and sex, and things certainly start to burn quickly; alcohol is consumed in large quantities, drugs are smoked, sex is mostly consensual and the music is turned up to eleven. 
After the suicide of a well liked, well respected and very talented high school boy, Craig (who happened to be dating Nikki), Dex and Lacey are thrown together. 
The story runs on two timelines, the present, told by Dex, and the year before, told by Lacey, which (spoiler alert) gradually reveals how she had been having an affair with Nikki and her talented high school boyfriend. 
Lacey's voice speaks mostly from the past in almost apologetic reflection to Dex, as if she is writing a journal, and I though this worked well. 
The climax is sort of what I was expecting, but I don't think it was written with the intention of being a big secret, (Lacey gives too many clues as we journey through the book for that), but the very very end was a bit of a let down.
I suppose you can only have so much kindle for a fire, and when it's gone it's gone. Oh well!

The Shock of the Fall, book review (Nathan Filer)

A great little book this, recommended to me by a colleague at work and well worth a read. 

Told in the first person by Matthew, a young man who has been in and out of an institution, due to mental illness; it takes us through his teenage life, and teaches us what matters to him and what does not.
The author handles the subject of mental illness with a certain subtlety which I felt suited the book, and has a good balance of back story. As one progresses, the reader starts to understand some of the main character's angst towards his family, his doctors and his dead brother. 

Some aspects of the story I found a bit unrealistic (moving out of the family home into a rented flat at seventeen, with schizophrenia), and I couldn't work out if the author intended the reader to guess at the fact that Matthew was somehow involved in his brother death, or whether it was supposed to be a surprise. Rest assured it was not.
Overall I enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it, Three and half stars,

The Almost Moon, book review. (Alice Sebold)

Having purchased Alice Sebold's 'The Lovely Bones' for a work colleague and it receiving high praise, I decided to purchase 'The Almost Moon' when it cropped up in my local charity shop. 

The book is set over a single, twenty four hour period, and starts with Helen Knightly tending her mother. The tension between them is tangible and within a few chapters, Helen Knightly is a murderer. 

Sebold handles what is a very personal crime, with great skill. During the book, Helen seems to go from slightly deranged, she has sex with her best friends son (he's an adult), to being childlike, she confides in her ex husband that she's killed her mother, and everything in between, like going to work, which happens to be life modelling.

This is a short book, and an odd one too. The subject of matricide is one that I hadn't come across before, but an interesting one all the same; and as you read further, a history of agoraphobia and other mental illness's in the family are revealed. So, reasons for Helen's instability become apparent, and the author could easily have tried to justify the murder this way, but she doesn't, she just uses the past to explaining why Helen might have murdered her mother. 

So, a good little book then. Three and a half stars, but not four, so I'll settle on three.

Now all I have to do is borrow 'The Lovely Bones', which I saw on film but haven't read yet.