Category: Read Every Day

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RED Book 16: The Shining – Stephen King

So I’ve been a bad boy – in two ways, but I’ll just name the first here – that I read this book 3 weeks ago and haven’t written it up yet. Which is a problem because my memory is terrible and any details I recall have since merged into an overall impression. So I might approach this review slightly differently.

Normally at this point I’d do a little synopsis of the start of the plot so you’d know what kind of story it is and then make my comments on how I enjoyed it (or not). But do I really need to do that?

OK so a writer takes a job as a housekeeper-handyman for an isolated hotel that’s closed for the winter. As he and his family become more cut off by the weather strange things begin to happen.

But you probably knew that because of the film. Even if like me you’ve never really seen the film all the way through it’s one of those things that has so seeped into the culture that you’ll have seen a few clips, or even parodies of famous moments – “Here’s Johnny“? “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy“? (neither of those moments are in the book by the way)

The thing is – and I can’t stress this enough – the book is not the film. The film as powerful as it is – and since reading the book I have watched the film from start to finish – is a different story. It has the same elements but the film is really about the descent of a man into a kind of madness, a cabin fever brought on by boredom and isolation in which some spooky things happen but they may just be in his mind. The book is the story of a place, a place where powerful and malevolent forces have infiltrated the fabric of the hotel that’s built there and manifest themselves in increasingly disturbing ways.

I can see why fans of the book might dislike the film.

I wasn’t gripped straight away. It took maybe 50-100 pages. But during the early part of the book I identified – too much for comfort – with the character of Jack Torrance and that kept me interested. Once we get to the hotel, the tension ratchets up increasingly as the chapters go by and by the end it’s a really suspenseful page-turning thrill of a ride.

Funny anecdote – whilst I was still about halfway through for a little light relief I decided to break from reading and watch that episode of Friends where Joey’s reading the Shining and has to put it in the freezer. Of course what I’d forgotten about that episode, kinda the point of that strand of it, is that Joey spoils the book for Rachel. So even though I knew I knew the ending of the film, I also knew that the ending of the book was slightly different and didn’t know exactly what it was – until I spoilt myself by watching Friends.

Except not really. One way I can tell this is really a great book is that even though I knew a lot of the bare bones of the story (from the film) including the ending (from Friends) I still enjoyed this read.

8/10 – A master story-teller on his game.

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Read Every Day reading reviews

RED Book 15: A Princess of Mars – Edgar Rice Burroughs

So yes this is the first of the John Carter of Mars books, and yes I did read it now because of the movie coming out. But I’ll have you know that it (along with the other 10 books in the series) was amongst my first wave of downloads when I got a Kindle and started looking at Project Gutenberg in earnest.

A Princess of Mars concerns John Carter, a man from 19th century Virginia, Earth, mysteriously travelling to Mars and the adventures he has there. He meets the six-limbed green martians first of all, then later the more human-looking red martians, one of whom is the beautiful princess Dejah Thoris.

It’s worth pointing out that this book is  hundred years old. So when I say that it’s an old-fashioned adventure yarn with an old-fashioned hero then I mean really old-fashioned. John Carter is an American Civil War veteran, a fighting man with a sword. He’s never anything less than brave and he always wins the day. He’s also, to a modern reader (or even a child of the 1970s/80s like me) a bit too ready to pull out his sword. I found it strange that Burroughs happily uses “man” and even “human” to describe all the different races – which in more modern fiction I’d see as a signifier of granting them equal status – and yet Carter is happy to start fights that will inevitably lead to the deaths of several of them, often because an alternate plan is simply more inconvenient.

But then maybe it’s not just martian life that’s cheap, maybe he’s just used to a more precarious and dangerous world.

His relationship with the Princess is probably what you’d expect given the time it was written. She’s not a weak character but her strength is in her emotional reserve initially and her willingness to follow him into danger later on. There’s also a strong theme of love thwarted by convention, a contrived barrier that is eventually overcome.

I also found some of the SciFi names (Barsoom, Thark, Tars Tarkas) and the descriptions of weird and wonderful martian “stuff” (the landscape, the animals, the way martian society is organised, the mating habits and life-cycle of the martians)  a bit annoying. It felt to my probably jaded eyes like exotica for exotica’s sake – not essential to the plot and just there for colour. Probably unfair since in 1912 this was probably cutting edge stuff and not at all cringe-worthy.

If you’re getting the feeling I didn’t enjoy it then you’re almost right. It had its moments. I actually did become interested in whether and how Carter and the Princess would get it together (UST strikes again). But other than that…

I probably read it too late. It’s a (very) old-fashioned SciFi romp. I should have read it at 12/13 and probably would have thought a) it was great and b) I was very grown-up and sophisticated for seeing past the slightly archaic language and attitudes.

At 45 it still seems like an ok read but a bit creaky.

6/10 – dated but not completely without merit.




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RED Book 14: The Man Who Forgot His Wife – John O’Farrell

I confess I was slightly naughty here. I wasn’t supposed to buy any new books in March was I? However the book I was supposed to receive this month that was pre-ordered last year[*] won’t now arrive until April so I put this in as a substitute. Plus I’d just heard it reviewed and it sounded like the kind of thing I’d enjoy. Sometimes you just have to break the rules.

The Man Who Forgot His Wife concerns Vaughan who suffers a sudden attack of amnesia where he forgets pretty much everyone in his life. He forgets what he did for a living, his friends, his family and as the title suggests of course, his wife. So he has to start to re-build his life and these relationships. The only problem is that he’s in the middle of divorcing his wife and he no longer knows why.

I definitely enjoyed this book and read it in a couple of days. I’d say there were only a couple of laugh out loud moments but I was smiling most of the way through. O’Farrell writes warmly and sympathetically about marriage and family life, and particularly the way in which it’s not always a bed of roses. It’s not quite at Nick Hornby levels for me, who is my gold standard for these kind of topics, but it is very readable and fun.

7/10 – occasionally profound, often funny and always warm-hearted.

[*]I’m aware I keep talking about this without saying what it is. That’s deliberate.




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RED Book 13: Remix – Lexi Revellian

Remix is another “indie”. I bought it for I think 99p when it was in the top 10 kindle books.

Caz Tallis makes and repairs rocking horses in her London flat. She’s somewhat surprised one morning to discover what looks like a vagrant and his dog on her roof-top patio since he must have climbed up there somehow. She’s even more surprised when she realises this is Ric Kealey, lead singer of the band The Voices, not least because he supposed to have been dead for the last three years.

After this intriguing opening what follows is a crime thriller that focuses on Caz trying to help Ric sort out some issues from his past and discover exactly who is responsible for some of the things he was accused of.

Remix is not a bad book. It’s certainly very readable and the plot has enough questions and diversions to keep you interested and guessing. I’d say the pace is a little sedate at first but the nearer the end you get the more things pick up. There’s quite a bit more violence toward the end of the book than the tone of the writing before that point might lead you to suppose.

I also felt like some of the characterisation was lifted from a chick-lit novel and placed in a crime story. It may be that was deliberate and the target audience was people who enjoy both those genres but for me the setting up of the two rivals for Caz’s affections and their relative character qualities felt a bit too cliched. Having said that it didn’t dominate the story and it wasn’t wrapped up as neatly as I’d expect in a pure romantic novel (I did wonder if that was to make space for a sequel).

7/10 – a fun easy read.

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RED Book 12: Perfect People – Peter James

So I’m a little behind on my write-ups. And this is a bit of a problem because I tend to forget the details of a book I’ve read quite quickly. Also I’d like to catch-up today so expect multiple short posts.

Perfect People is one of those books that has a SciFi premise but is not written by a SciFi writer or in a SciFi way. I’m thinking of things like Children of Men. The premise here is that of “designer babies” i.e. that it will be possible to control and select the genetic traits an embryo has before implantation.

John and Naomi have recently lost their four year old boy to a genetically inherited condition. The idea that they can exclude this possibility from a further child is obviously hugely attractive, however the doctor they approach for this offers them far far more than simply avoiding disease. Looks, intelligence, athletic ability even temperament are on the menu. And then there’s more unusual traits such as the ability to survive on less sleep and calories than a regular person. As you can guess things don’t go exactly as they expect.

Perfect People is quite a fun read though I think it’s a little long. The first part of the book is largely set up, explaining the ideas and setting out the scenario where by the genetic shenanigans can take place. After they become pregnant and have the offspring it becomes very much like Midwich Cuckoos. There’s also a sort of thriller element in that an extremist religious group has taken exception to this tampering with nature and they are hunting the couple.

It definitely has its moments and the premise is interesting. It explores the ideas a little but a more serious examination would probably require a less fantastical version of what exactly is possible. The characters are subservient to the plot and things like the state of their marriage, a supposed infidelity and so on seemed to take centre stage when needed but fade into the background at other times.

6/10 – not perfect, not bad.

 

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RED Book 11: Alan Moore’s the Courtyard – Alan Moore, Jacen Burrows

When I bought this I was in a mood to read a graphic novel/comic but didn’t know much about the medium (still don’t really). I confess I bought this because it had Alan Moore’s name on it (and I liked Watchmen) and it was relatively cheap.

So bear that in mind.

The reason it was cheap was probably because it was short, just 48 pages I believe. Which of course made me dither about whether to include it in my RED list without feeling like I cheated. But, well, it’s listed as a book on Goodreads and so it’ll come off my TBR total and will be added to my list of books for the 2012 challenge on Goodreads, so…

Anyway even though it’s short it is rather beautifully drawn and so there was a chance to linger over the artwork.

The story – well it reads like a short story in that it’s leading up to a very specific ending, punchline, whatever – and that’s OK. Except I felt it wasn’t as strong an idea as it needed to be (or possibly I’ve read too many short stories). It may help if you’ve read H.P. Lovecraft[*]

6/10  not a total classic but not bad as a story and nice to look at

[*]though I haven’t and I sort of got the references[**]
[**]well I got that there were references to get and that they were Lovecraftian.




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RED book 10: Death Notice – Todd Ritter

Death Notice is the second of the two books I read for my Goodreads february book group. It’s another indie/self-pub and so I’ve decided to read through my current set of indies (which number about 6 or 7 at the moment). So expect to see some more soon.

Death Notice takes place in a small town with virtually no crime. The local cop is a single mum who at the beginning of the book considers it a big day when she has to investigate a van stolen from the local florist. In a back room in the offices of the town newspaper works a man called Henry who writes obituaries. He receives the “death notices”  (name, date, time and place of death) from the local funeral homes when someone dies, so he’s not surprised when he receives a fax one day with the notice for a local farmer. Not until that is he finds out it was sent before the man died.

I really enjoyed this book. It had its weaknesses – the prose itself was pretty flat and uninteresting and the dialogue was ok but either very matter of fact or cliched. However the book did manage to create characters that I cared about and was interested in, and what it really did well was plot. The plot was put together with immaculate precision. It had just the right amount of twists and turns, lulls and surprises. It’s possible that the ending might not work for some people on a purely plausibility level –  there’s a question of medical possibilities shall we say – but honestly I was more than prepared to give the book the benefit of the doubt and go with the story.

I’d say if you like crime thrillers and you’re not afraid of a bit of gore (the killings are nasty) then this is quite a lot of fun.

7/10 – a read if you like a good story with strong characters and don’t mind a bit of blood.




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RED book 9: Bet you can’t… Find Me – Linda Prather

Bet you can’t… Find Me is one of the February books on my Goodreads Kindle UK group. I chose it because of that and because I liked the sound of it, which is to say it sounded like a good crime thriller with a supernatural twist.

The story concerns Catherine Mans a professional psychic who helps the police solve murder cases. However she herself becomes the focus of an investigation when a series of murders with a connection to her past occur. She’s the prime suspect but the real killer, a much more powerful and dangerous psychic, starts taunting her and threatening those she loves. So it becomes a race against time to find the killer, face her past and protect her friends.

Bet you can’t… Find Me is my first completed “indie” ebook and it’s fair to say they have a somewhat dubious reputation. It is now easy for anyone to effectively self-publish through Amazon or iTunes or Smashwords and I’ve heard horror stories of novels which are full of typos and bad formatting and worse grammar. However I honestly approached this as just another book that I’d hopefully enjoy. It has a great looking cover, the reviews and ratings are positive and its premise is one I find intriguing so I started reading with no reason to think it wouldn’t be great.

Unfortunately… well it wasn’t great. And I don’t just mean it wasn’t my cup of tea. I really think it just wasn’t very well written. It would be very easy to slip into more of a writing critique than a review but I really don’t want to do that. Too much.

I think the biggest things for me were:

– Some fairly big plausibility problems. The police and federal agents act in a way I found hard to believe. Also, whilst it’s no problem for a novel to be set in a world where psychic powers really exist there was remarkably little scepticism about them so I wondered whether this was supposed to be a world where everyone knows they’re real – like vampires in the Anita Blake books for e.g. – but towards the end of the book characters do start expressing doubts. However by that stage we’d had a whole swathe of plot points essentially around the fact that the authority treat rogue psychics as a very real threat.

– And the plot itself whilst not really that complicated per se felt convoluted because of the way that it’s told. I definitely lost my place in some of the back story and its relevance to what was happening in the present.

– I thought the characterisation was ok at first, a bit stock but in a plot driven book that’s not too big a problem. However whenever love or attraction raised its head it felt like a lurch into a very different and much more sentimental place. Formerly fierce and feisty women and hard-bitten all-about-the-job cops suddenly become a bit gooey. There was a lot of blushing and fighting back of tears (when the object of affection was in danger). In fact even an attempt at a buddy-cop camaraderie fell into this problem.

I could go on listing problems but I don’t have the heart. I did finish the book but more because the spirit of RED is to finish pretty much every book. Plus it was a bit of a slog. I do think there’s potential here, lots of ideas but it needs work on the execution.

3/10 – a decent blurb and a great cover in search of a better book.




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RED book 8: Soon I Will Be Invincible – Austin Grossman

Soon I will be Invincible is one of those books I have had around for a while but haven’t read, or at least finished. I recall wanting something different to read and browsing through Amazon. I think I was checking categories or related links or something. Anyway that’s how I came to buy this book.

Soon I will be Invincible is the story of a supervillain, Doctor Impossible and his quest to become, well, invincible. Actually it’s really his quest to triumph over his various enemies. Trouble is Doctor Impossible’s one of those guys that not only has to win, everyone else has to lose. So that pretty much means taking over the world.

I should say straight away that this is not quite a spoof of the superhero genre but it’s definitely tongue in cheek. It’s also in the somewhat crowded space of ‘de-constructed superhero stories’ – from Watchmen to Mystery Men, from The Specials to Doctor Horrible’s Sing-along Blog, this is well-worn territory. Where it’s almost unique is that it takes place in a world where there are 1600+ “meta-humans” some on the side of good and some not, and in fact all the characters in this book are either superheroes or supervillains.

The story begins with Doctor Impossible in prison. He’s soon to break out and pursue his goal of world domination, meanwhile his arch-nemesis and leader of the superhero team The Champions, a truly invincible individual called CoreFire whose origin story is intertwined with the evil genius’ own, has gone missing.

The book is told with alternate chapters narrated by Doctor Impossible and Fatale, the newest member of the New Champions (they just re-formed after CoreFire’s disappearance) a cyborg with a past she can barely remember and powers she never asked for. She also has some sort of connection to the Doctor and is trying to work out what it is.

I found this book a slog to read. Having given up on it once I was still somehow convinced it was a light read. I still feel it may be. Maybe the slog element came from having read 7 books in January and generally having less enthusiam for reading. The story feels not convoluted but dense. Every superhero/villan we meet – and there are many – gets some form of origin story and that starts to feel like overload, especially for the more minor characters. Also whilst I quite liked Fatale, there was another female character I’d’ve quite liked to give the second pov to. I understand why not – that other character needed to have a sense of mystery, and had secrets which would not have worked as well if we knew what she was thinking – but as it was Fatale felt a little too far from the true centre of the story.

Having said all that I found myself liking this story a lot more having finished it then I did whilst I was slogging through the final third. I think that’s because whilst I was bored with so many origin stories and the capital-P Plot was only mildly intriguing, I did like the characters. Grossman manages to get you to feel like these titans, these heroes and villains are almost victims, certainly they’re ambivalent about their powers and position. There’s a sense of melancholy, of being strange and an outside, of a longing for things to just work out this once. But in world where almost everyone has powers then the story of trying to take over the world can easily seem like a drama about a frustrating day at the office – which is both a good and a bad thing.

7/10 – worth a look if you like superheroes.




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RED book 7: The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Well the awesome power of RED means I’ve finished another book that I’ve previously stalled on, which is obviously a good thing.

The Book Thief is a novel narrated by Death and tells the story of a young girl, Liesel Meminger growing up in war-time Germany. As the story begins she’s taken to live with foster parents as her mother can no longer cope and her ill younger brother dies on the way there. We follow Liesel, her best friend Rudy and her new Papa and Mama as she learns to read, to love books and grows up. Her new family are poor and not exactly sympathetic to the Nazi regime they’re living under, so life is hard I guess, though through the eyes of a child this is just the way the world is.

This was a weird one for me. At any individual point when I was reading it I was aware of how well it was written. The characters are vibrant and engaging, colourful and alive. The use of language is clever and playful. And yet I really had to push myself to finish it. I had a sense of plodding through it. Partly I think this was because the story exists as a series of anecdotes about a girl growing up, and whilst some of these are major events and part of a bigger story – both in terms of what was going on in the world but also in terms of her life – a lot are just little incidents that illustrate what that life was like – hard, joyous, confusing, exciting and so on. I suppose after about half way through the book I wanted more of just “the story” and less of the illustration.

I would recommend this book though because I do think it is well written and it has the power to move you. It’s light in places but not a light read. I was just thinking that you could write the same story without the need for Death to take a role as an actual character, but then I think he’s there to underline a point.

7/10 – A well-written book that may be a tough read for some, but worth it I think.




So that was 7 books in January, well ahead of schedule. I’ve stalled a little in that I haven’t read very much in the 4 days since I finished it – a paltry 14 pages. I guess that makes it nice that I’ve got a bit of a lead on the target. I was aware when I started this new regime (and remember I started unofficially back in November) that the possibility existed to ‘burn out’ by reading too much too quickly and then just needing a break. I am still wary of that – I’d rather read 50 pages a day every day than hit 50+books but have weeks off at a time. Well I say that but it’s nice to feel like I’m doing well at something…