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Nation, Terry Pratchett

Nation by Terry Pratchett

This week I listened to a radio adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s ‘young adult’ novel Nation.

It’s the story of Mau – a boy from a Pacific island tribe who is returning from a rite of passage and so misses a tidal wave that destroys most of the rest of his tribe, the ‘Nation’. He meets Daphne a minor English royal whose ship is wrecked by the same wave. Together with a few other refugees they begin to build/re-build a life, and I guess, society on the island.

I enjoyed this. I liked the relationship between Mau and Daphne. She has a slightly irritating habit of being the sensible down-to-earth straight-talking girl whilst all adults and most males are silly and/or stupidly wrong. He has the annoying habit of sounding a bit twee – an attempt to make his language seem unsophisticated but not stupid I think.

The strangest thing about it is the relationship with the supernatural. On the one hand there’s a story thread about how Mau doesn’t believe in the gods, he thinks that they are stories made up when we don’t know or can’t find out the real reasons for things – he does come to the conclusion that whilst they may be fiction, they can be a useful fiction because they allow you to stop asking big questions about why are we here and get on with doing the things you need to do to survive. On the other hand there’s Locaha – the spirit of Death – and the voices of the dead (the ‘grandfathers’ speak to Mau and the ‘grandmothers’ to Daphne) and they appear to be real. So you have this odd juxtaposition of Mau talking about why he doesn’t believe in the gods shortly after having returned from a visit to the land of Locaha. I think those arguments get a little lost.

However near the end a character observes that no matter how much science we study we still speak of ghosts – so I guess he’s just being consistent in the idea that we always want supernatural in our stories.

7/10

In case you’re wondering I’m not counting this toward 6000 pages because I’m not doing that with audio books this year.

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages, One Day – David Nicholls (pages 1027-1474)

One Day - David Nicholls

When I first started doing reviews on this blog I decided that unless something was very new I wouldn’t constrain myself to not revealing spoilers. However up until now I don’t think I’ve given away anything.

Up until now because I don’t really feel I can talk about One Day by David Nicholls, and the impact it had on me, without talking about the ending. Just in case there is anyone out there who has alighted on this review and doesn’t want to be spoiled I’ll be using the WordPress click-here-for-more thingy.

So anyway – here goes.

I first came into contact with David Nicholls work when I saw the movie Starter for Ten which is based on his book of the same name. I enjoyed the movie – it’s a comedy of love, romance and University Challenge set in the 80s – but never read the book. However when I saw this book in the bookshop I was intrigued and so bought it (although I got the ebook version for my Kindle).

It’s about the relationship between two friends – starting as they’re just leaving Uni in 1988 – told in a series of chapters that take place on the same day of consecutive years. This is a device that works well I think. It gives a structure to the book even if it then feels a little episodic. But like the episodes of a good TV show they have their own stories, things to enjoy, whilst developing on-going plotlines and characters. There’s a sense in which you see these two people grow up and mature. If that sounds a little dull it’s not. I found it both funny and touching – but then (as has been mentioned before) I’m at the right stage of life to be considering things like how my life has developed so far.

If I have criticisms it’s when the current episode isn’t as funny/moving/interesting in and of itself. That may be a sense of humour thing. This could be another of those comedies I like but don’t laugh at.

The characters are likeable – surprisingly so in one case. I felt my sympathy more with Emma, the female main character, rather than Dexter. But Dexter does some terrible things and you still like him – which is how he’s supposed to be.

I dithered about what to score it. On Goodreads I gave it 4/5 stars so I guess it should be 7 or 8. I’m giving it a reluctant 8.

8/10 – might have been higher but for… well see below if you don’t mind being spoiled.

Pages read so far: 1592

Pages in completed books: 1474

Continue reading “6000 Pages, One Day – David Nicholls (pages 1027-1474)”
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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 pages, The Way Home – George Pelecanos (pages 718-1026)

The Way Home is a book I picked because of a recommendation on TV Book Club and because George Pelacanos is one of the writers on The Wire – a show I’ve never seen but heard consistently good things about so often that I probably will one day.

The Way Home is another book about crime that’s not really a crime thriller. It follows Chris Flynn who as a young teenager gets himself in trouble with the law and finds himself in a youth prison. Later as an adult he becomes involved once again with the world of crime but this time attempts to keep away from it.

I enjoyed this book. It builds slowly but by the end I was gripped. What could have been written as a straight-forward crime thriller became a brooding meditation on the effects of crime on young boys and men – and their families.

But that sounds a bit analytical. The thing I enjoyed about this book was that it put a crime story in the context of a person’s relationships. It wasn’t just a question of “what will happen? will they get the bad guy?” it was “what’s this going to do to his mum, dad, girlfriend?”

I did get the feeling there were cultural references I was missing and the street language was unfamiliar to me. Which was fine but left me definitely feeling I was on the outside of this world looking in – as Brit, a white guy, a middle class man who’s never had or been in that kind of trouble. Maybe that was the point – after all reading is about looking through someone else’s eyes into their world right?

The ending’s one of downbeat optimism if that makes any sense – which it may if you read it.

8/10 – interesting read which gets better the nearer to the end you are.

Pages Read so far: 1026

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 Pages, Small Gods – Terry Pratchett (pages 329-717)

Having read quite a lot of crime, crime-related and horror over the past year I felt it was time for something lighter, so what better time to go back and fill the gaps in my Discworld reading?

Small Gods is the first of those gaps. Actually I’ve read later Discworld books, but at the time this first came out – when I was still devouring each new Pratchett novel that came out in paper back – I wasn’t sure I wanted to see religion so effectively mocked as I was sure it would be. Weird huh?

Anyway I went back to it after – (checks) – 17 years (wow!).

Small Gods follows the story of Brutha a novice monk in a religion that worships the Great God Om, as he starts to hear the voice of his deity. He is somewhat surprised to find that Om takes the form of a small tortoise. What follows is a satire on religion and the usual romp around the colourful lanscape of the Discworld.

Discworld books in my experience fall into one of two categories. The first are very funny, very affecting and can be thought-provoking and even profound. The second are very funny, amiable and a little forgettable. Small Gods is one of the later kind – a chinese meal of a book – fun while it lasts but in a little while it’s left so little impact that you could easily have another.

What’s good about Small Gods is that it does effectively skewer the kinds of religion that deserve it without really attacking sincere faith. It has something interesting to say about institutional religion and how institutions take on a life of their own that can be oppressive and destructive of those involved in them. I also liked the character of Brutha. Pratchett’s good at creating likeable heroes who aren’t necessarily very smart or skillful or charming or charismatic but have … decency I guess.

What it shares with some of the weaker Discworld books is an inability to get to an ending – it’s not quite Lord of the Rings multiple endings drawn out but I did feel that it was basically done about 50 pages before the book actually ended.

7/10 – a weaker Discworld book which means still a fun, light read.

Pages Read so far: 717

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6000 pages reading reviews

6000 pages, The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold (pages 1-328)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is one of those books that I’d never have read a few years ago. And I’m not even talking about how I expanded my tastes after reading mostly SciFi/Fantasy about 10 years ago. I’m talking about the last couple of years when I’ve tried more ‘literary’ fiction.

However I remembered good reviews of The Lovely Bones and heard that Peter Jackson was making a movie so I thought it might be worth a look. It was.

The Lovely Bones is narrated (mostly) by Susie Salmon, who is 14 and is raped and murdered in chapter 1. She looks down on her family and friends from ‘her’ heaven and watches as the effects of her loss is felt.

The important thing to note about this book is that it’s not about solving Susie’s murder, or finding her body, it is about the relationships and the connections between her family and friends and how they are revealed by their corporate and individual grief. The times when I forgot that, when I felt the ‘murder-mystery’ plot was taking over, were times that I was setting myself up for disappointment.

But I did enjoy the family interaction and the slow coming to terms with Susie being gone.

I’m not entirely sure the device of having Susie narrate the book, with all the metaphysical baggage that requires, added much. Except that without it one of my favourite sections near the end wouldn’t have happened. I can’t be more detailed without spoiling it so I won’t.

7/10 – a good read, but if you’re looking for a murder-mystery, these are not the bones you are looking for.

Pages Read so far: 328

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books – 18 is *nearly* 25 right?

So this is the official “25 books“ 2009 wrap-up post. I nearly wrote it last night but in the end I only had time to collate the stats and work out the points. But we’ll get to that.

As you can see from the title the magic number was 18. I read 18 books in 2009. Not quite 25. Not even 20. But still quite a few more than I would have read and therefore an achievement. Instead of a book every two weeks I read one every three (roughly, on average).

Some Numbers

So since we’re talking numbers let’s do the stats thing. No point in keeping complicated spreadsheets and not doing the stats thing right? In 2009…

  • I read for a total of 98 hours and 23mins, or 16mins a day
  • My reading speed was 50pages/hour
  • I read a total of 4924 pages, or 13 pages a day
  • Since I read 18 books this means the books had an average of 274 pages each
  • I read one book every 20 1/4 days on average but…
  • I only read on 71 out of the 365 days meaning that…
  • I averaged 1hour 23mins on days I actually read
  • I read an average of 69 pages on those days
  • There were long gaps between bouts of reading. The longest was 54days. The next three longest were 40, 35 and 35 days respectively. So there really were isolated but intense periods of lots reading and literally weeks of not.

Enough Numbers What Have You Learnt?

Patience. How about I tell you about how well I did with regard to the “rules” of the challenge? You know the points?

Fair Enough – So How Did You Score?

Here’s those rules:

“1. Read at least 25 books before the end of 2009”

I read 18 books.

“2. No more than 3 (of the 25) can be books you’ve read before. If you read more than 25 can you re-read others.”

I didn’t re-read any books.

“3. You should read at least 3 books by authors you’ve not read before.”

Of the 18, 12 were by authors I’d never read before – Richard Matheson (I am Legend), David Almond (Skellig), W.E.Bowman (Rum Doodle), Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Great Gatsby), Brian Aldiss (Hothouse),Cally Taylor (Heaven Can Wait), J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye), John Lindqvist (Let the Right One In), (Beowulf), David Peace (1974), Paul Torday (Girl on the Landing)

“4. This should include at least 2 new authors (i.e. not just 3 books by 1 new author)”

See above

“5. At least one book must have been published (for the first time) in 2009”

Heaven Can Wait, Juliet Naked and Girl on the Landing were all new in 2009.

“6. For each of the targets 1-5 deduct a point if you miss it.”

Even though I only read 18 books that’s only one target missed so

-1

“7. If you read a book from a genre you’ve never read before add a point”

I read Horror, Travel Parody, Literary Fiction, Chick Lit., Crime/Thriller, Espionage. That’s six

+6 = 5

“8. If you read a book that you wouldn’t have read but for a recommendation add a point.”

My sister recommended Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I bought and read Skellig because it was on a display advertised as “recommended by Nick Hornby”. Rum Doodle was a secret santa present I wouldn’t have bought for myself.

+3 = 8

“9. If you read a book that can only be bought second-hand add a point.”

Hothouse is out of print.

+1 = 9

“10. If you read a book first published more than 50 years ago and still in print add a point. For books first published more than 200years ago add 2 points. For books published more than 500 years add 3 points and for books written over 1000years ago add 4 point.”

Beowulf dates from somewhere between the 8th and early 11th century. 1026 is the latest date associated with the manuscripts. I’m going to go with the probabilities and call it a 1000+ book.

+4 = 13

I had no 500+ or 200+ books. (Though I would have had if I hadn’t set aside Persuasion) but I had 4 50+ ones – Great Gatsby, I am Legend, Rum Doodle and Catcher in the Rye.

+1 (x4) = 17

So I scored 17points. Which is a fairly meaningless number without something to compare it to.

Speaking of Scores…

Almost forgot, the average score a book received was 7.0 – which means I basically enjoyed most of the books. That’s a little higher than I expected. I guess I remember the few low scoring ones.

So Any Conclusions?

I’ve learnt that given where I am right now, it makes more sense to read stuff I know I’ll enjoy rather than try to force myself to expand my horizons too much. Having said that I also learn that I enjoy genres I didn’t think I would like crime and horror. I also learnt that I tend to read a lot in little bursts – a few hours a day for a few days. I’d like to spread that out a little but honestly I think some of that coms from the way reading works – if you get into a good book you want to read it more.

All in all I feel pleased. By setting myself targets I read more that I would otherwise I and enjoyed most of what I read. I also read things I might not have considered.

I was going to wrap this up by setting out goals for 2010 (no, they’re not the same) but this post is long enough already.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, Book 18 – Dead Long Enough, James Hawes

I first read James Hawes when I first started to break out of the limited SciFi/Fantasy list of authors that I used to read. I picked up a double edition of A White Merc With Fins and Rancid Aluminium at a WHSmiths at train station (looking for something to read for the journey) and found I enjoyed both books a lot.

That was over ten years ago and Dead Long Enough had me wondering whether those were better books or whether my tastes have changed dramatically. Perhaps I was so ready for something different back then that Hawes seemed fresh and interesting. Perhaps in the 8 or 9 years between buying and reading this book I’d gotten too old for its themes.

Perhaps, but then again perhaps not, I think more happened in those other books.

Harry is a trendy “young” TV archaeologist who has an annual ritual of celebrating his “fake birthdays”* with his friends. This year, as they are all nearing or just past 40, they take a trip back to Harry’s native Dublin and discover something about his past, including why (and who) he left.

As you might have guessed I didn’t particularly enjoy this book. I found it a struggle to finish. Unlike my memory of his two previous books there seemed to be an awful lot of tell and not show, and an awful lot of both was very repetitive. There were long passages waxing lyrical in different ways essential on one thing – it sucks to get old. It took at least 2/3rds of the book for the action to really start. The first part is basically the introduction and backstory of the characters, their meeting up in a London pub and journey to a Dublin pub and then party. Meanwhile we get lots of ruminations both as narration and dialogue on what it means to hit middle age. I found it tedious.

When things finally did start to happen I didn’t feel like they made a huge amount of sense. As you know I’m not normally picky with plot holes – but when I am it’s because I stopped caring about the characters and story and started unravelling things. Here I never really started to care.

4/10 – long enough and dead boring.

(*He lies about his age for his job and so celebrates the birthday of the age he claims to be.)

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, book 17 – The Girl on the Landing, Paul Torday

So it’s February 2010 and “25 Books” was my 2009 challenge. I’m not going to tell you (yet) how many books I read and how many points I accrued, but I will say that I’ve nearly finished book 2 of 2010. So obviously I’m a bit behind on the corresponding blog posts. My goal for 2010 is to try not to get more than one book behind (once I’ve caught up that is.)

So anyway…

The Girl on the Landing is the story of Michael and his wife Elizabeth. Whilst staying with a friend in Ireland he sees an intriguing picture of a girl on the landing of his friend’s house. On mentioning it the next day he discovers that the picture in question has no girl in it. This odd occurrence marks the beginning of changes in him, his marriage and his life in general.

I bought this book one day when I was browsing in Waterstones and liked the blurb on the back. I was in my “forget-the-list-lets-just-read-something-enjoyable” phase. It turned out to be a good choice but I wasn’t sure of that initially. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to relate to the main characters. Michael is very rich and his life seems to be like something out of a period novel about posh folk. He’s very rich and owns a large estate in Scotland. He lives in London and his pass-the-time job is working for an exclusive club of which he’s a member. I swear the first 50 pages or so I kept looking for clues of when it was set because I was sure it was going to turn out to be the 1930s.

That was a minor concern though and faded once I got into the story. The transformation in Michael as a person and the growing effect it had on his marriage I found interesting. I was rooting for them as a couple who, having been married for some time found themselves perhaps for the first time falling really in love.

However as the pace of the story picks up there’s a kind of is-it-real supernatural element mixed with almost a crime thriller. Both of these in different ways had me intrigued as to what was going to happen next and what it meant. I found it quite exciting and intriguing and the early part of the book had made me care about the characters so that was all the more affecting.

I can see how some might see it as a strange mix of genres but that honestly never bothered me.

8/10 – an odd mix of romance, thriller and ghost story – but one that worked for me.

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25 books book reading reviews

25 Books, book 16 – The Innocent, Ian McEwan

The Innocent is my third book by Ian McEwan. You have to go back to Harry Potter a couple of years ago, or further to my Discworld-devouring 20s to find me having read more than a couple of books by the same author. I mention that only to say that to my surprise and despite my own expectations (it’s not genre!) I seem to be becoming a McEwan fan.

The Innocent is the story of Leonard – a naive 25-year-old English phone technician sent to Berlin in 1956 to work on a secret project. Predictably perhaps the books is all about him losing his innocence in various ways. He learns about espionage, he learns to drink, he learns about sex and then love, from a spirited, confident, slightly older Berlin native called Maria.

Given that I was looking for “something lighter” after 1974 those of you who know the story of The Innocent will perhaps smile. I don’t want to spoil but the pivotal event that occurs about halfway through is as dark and upsetting as anything in 1974. Having said that overall the book is much more optimistic.

It’s interesting that I read this enjoying the first half of the book, which establishes the characters, the setting, the relationships and so on. I was enjoying McEwan’s fine insight into relationships and they way they express themselves, especially through sex. I am slightly amused to find on finishing the book that many see this as slightly drawn-out set-up for the central incident and feel that the book is really about the fallout from that. I can see that, and I did enjoy that. I still enjoyed the early part of the book best though.

I guess I was at a disadavantage because before getting to the central event I flicked to the end to check the page number of the last page (to see how far through I was) and spoiled myself by catching sight of two words. Just two words! So what was I expect for some a “twist” was for me a gradual sad build-up to the inevitable. Fortunately the two words were not the final ones and unlike Atonement McEwan was able to rescue it for me on the final page.

9/10 – Innocence lost, hope regained.

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25 books book reading reviews

25 Books, book 15 – 1974, David Peace

As you know I bought 1974 when I was in search of something I actually wanted to read. My theory was that having liked The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo – which is basically a crime novel – I’d probably enjoy this. The TV adaptation of it was celebrated and so it seemed a reasonably bet that the source material was going to be good too.

My only reservations were: a) would I be happy with merely a page-turner of a crime story? b) was my stomach strong enough for what I had heard was fairly dark stuff?

The answer turned out to be yes on both counts.

1974 – set in the eponymous year, is the story of a journalist, Eddie Dunford, a crime reporter, on the Yorkshire Post. He’s recently returned from an unsucessful spell in Fleet Street and just buried his father. What seems to be a pretty ordinary missing girl case becomes far stranger when the body turns up. She’s naked, has been sexually abused in a bizarre way and has the wings of a swan stitched into her back. Then there’s the sniff of local government corruption around the sale of (what should have been) council houses, the harassment of a settlement of gypsies and the seemingly unrelated story of a man who killed himself and then his sister – the so-called ‘Ratcatcher’ – the story of which made Eddie’s name.

1974 starts slowly but soon picks up pace and then it simply does not let up. I read the first 100 pages over a couple of days but I read the remaining 200+ in a single night. Many books are said to be un-put-downable, I definitely found this one so. Peace has a slightly stylised way of writing, which once used to I liked. Although given the strange nature of some of the crimes and incidents in this book I wasn’t always sure what was going on when he mixed in the dreams and thought-life of Dunford with the ‘real’ action. It was effective though.

It was also quite a challenge. Not just for my stomach – though it was gruesome – but also because it was fairly bleak regarding human nature. If you get to the end of this book thinking there were any purely ‘good guys’ then I’d be surprised. And despite that, and despite even the slightly far-fetched explanation (which I only partly guessed – damn!) I did really enjoy this book. But I also felt the need for something lighter next. I have got the follow up, 1977 (which by all accounts is even darker) but I’m waiting a while to start it.

9/10 – dark, disturbing but very gripping