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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

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25 books reading

25 Books, Book 12, Catcher in the Rye

Holden Caulfield.

Holden Caulfield!

What can you say about Holden Caulfield? He’s kind of annoying and yet strangely endearing. He has this breathless energy and an utter inability to stick to the point that means that he’ll tell you his life story, about a couple books he’s read and incidents about people he knows – with a few tall tales thrown in – all in response to “Hello” and before you’ve had a chance to blink. He has this kind of vulnerability and superficial optimism that carries him through though I guess.

I suppose I’d’ve appreciated him more when I was nearer his age. I read somewhere recently that there are some books, films etc that if you don’t catch when you’re young enough then it’s sort of too late. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I was wrong-footed by the vague impressions I’d picked up or just the fact that this was supposed to be a great book. I can see how in a world that didn’t have a lot of time for, care or know much about teenagers, and ditto but even less so for/about mental illness – then a sympathetic first-person account of someone like Holden would seem shocking and new. As it is, well it’s sad and touching but not shocking.

It’s odd but I was a little bored by him during the time we spent together, but now, as the memory softens, I find myself thinking kindly of him. Glad to have met him, not sure if I want to spend a lot more time with him. Like I said, annoying but strangely endearing.

7/10 – nice bloke, rambles on a bit.

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reviews

What Do You Get The Man Who Never Reads?

A Kindle.

I’ve wanted one of these – or something like it – since I first heard about “eInk” book readers a couple of years ago. I have gotten used to reading things off a screen but the promise of something that was a bit more like paper, but with the searchability and capacity of a small computer – that sounded good.

However as you may know it’s taken Amazon a while to offer the Kindle outside of the US. This largely has to do with the deal surrounding wireless/3G networks because one of Kindle’s big selling points is that you can purchase and download the ebooks directly onto the device. You can copy stuff over from a computer but there’s no need to.

So anyway I’ve had my new gadget for a couple of weeks and have read one complete novel on it (Juliet, Naked) and here’s my thoughts:

 

Pros:

  • It’s light and small
  • It looks nice
  • It has a decent amount of memory (2Gb)
  • It has a simple interface with the PC – basically it appears as a USB drive and adding to your library is as simple as copying files across. (Some might have hoped for more sophisticated ‘helper’ software but for me that would have just meant hunting for a linux equivalent.)
  • There’s a free service to convert documents to the native format – though it understands text and .mobi ebook format.
  • It will play mp3s and a few other audio formats.
  • It has a text-to-speech feature

Cons:

  • the look of the ‘paper’ is good but not great. It’s essentially dark grey on light grey so you need a decent amount of light, more so than a black-on-white paper book.
  • the controls are fiddly to use physically
  • the controls are non-intuitive in terms of what they do
  • ebooks from Amazon are still quite expensive. Juliet, Naked was cheaper than the immediate alternative – buying a physical hardback, but not by much and certainly if I’d waited for the paperback.
  • the selection isn’t great. Amazon are selling out of their US store so what there is is a little US-centric. Also some titles, although available in kindle form are not for sale to us non-USans. Most of the 40-something titles I’ve loaded on so far are classics from Project Gutenberg.
  • the text-to-speech feature is an interesting curiosity. I can’t imagine using it for any length of time. (“back-quote hello she said.”)

I thought I’d be distracted by the turning of a page – the eInk takes a second or so to refresh which means when you turn the page it ‘flashes’ black for a visible amount of time. It turns out it’s not too bad because it’s not that frequent. I also found I slightly missed the physical feel of a real book – which I wouldn’t have thought about myself.

Overall it’s not perfect. There are some technical challenges to overcome and some organisational ones. I’m hopeful that the prices will come down and the availability/range will go up in time (they plan to sell out of amazon.co.uk at some point). It’s possible a software update will at least ease some of the controls issues. I’m happy with my purchase whilst realising it has its flaws.

8/10 – a nice thing to have if you like gadgets and like reading.

 

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, Book 11, Juliet,Naked – Nick Hornby

Juliet, Naked is the latest novel by Nick Hornby who, as you know, I tend to quite like. Which is to say at his best I really enjoy his work (High Fidelity, Slam) but even his lesser books are very readable (How to be Good, About a Boy).

The Juliet of the title refers to a seminal album by a slightly obscure singer-songwriter, Tucker Crowe, who hasn’t written or recorded anything, or even performed in twenty-odd years. The book follows one of his more obsessive fans, Duncan, Duncan’s girlfriend Annie and Tucker himself. When Annie and Duncan split up, Annie writes a scathing review of a newly released CD of demos “Juliet, Naked” and posts it on Duncan’s fan-website. Tucker reads it, agrees with it and emails Annie. An unlikely and slightly odd friendship develops.

It was strange reading this on the heels of Starting Over because it covers some of the same ground – middle-aged regret and soul-searching – but I hadn’t consciously decided to read books with those themes. It was interesting that of the three characters I mention above it’s Duncan – who is in some ways is another music-nerd straight out of High Fidelity – who gets the least time in the book (though he has a pivotal scene near the end). It’s interesting because it’s as if we’ve gone back to High Fidelity but are now looking at the same things through different eyes. This book is nowhere near as forgiving of the fan-ish behaviour. Instead we follow Annie, who at best tolerated Duncan’s fandom and Tucker who has a messy life the reality of which is almost unconnected with his fans’ perceptions.

There was a lot that I liked about this book. Annie was an interesting female perspective to follow and someone I felt for. Tucker was also a character that I liked, though I was slightly exasperated with some of his selfishness. His charm tended to make me forgive him – which seems to be his impact on those around him generally. If there was humour in this book that I ‘got’ (and there was) it was usually from Tucker’s strand.

What I liked less was the ending. Without giving too much away, whether you feel it is a happy, or even just satisfying ending will probably depend on the degree to which you like and care about the different characters. The one(s) I most wanted a positive resolution for got a rather vague, possibly optimistic one, and the one(s) that got the ‘best’ ending I felt deserved it least. That’s a bit confusing but I don’t want to give it away because despite that I think it’s worth a read.

7/10 – not Hornby’s best and shame about the ending.

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25 books reading reviews

25 Books, book 6, The Great Gatsby

I’ve owed you this review for a while. I finished this about… (checks) …over a month ago.

Before I get into the review proper, a few sentences about book choice. Part of the reason for “25 books” was to encourage me not only to read more but to read more widely. However what this initially seemed to mean was ploughing through long books I didn’t particularly enjoy. So I decided to add in a few books that were a) shorter (so I could catch up) and b) classics – which would hopefully mean they were enjoyable. The Great Gatsby was the first of these, look for Catcher in the Rye sometime before the end of the year (if I ever get that far).

Well this sort of worked. Certainly it’s a short book. Did I enjoy it? It was ok. Someone on Goodreads called it “The eh Gatsby” and I know what they mean. As a story it was ok. Some of the prose stood out as well put together. I think I can see why it’s hailed as the great American novel because I can see parallels between Gatsby as a character and the US as a country. However my literary appreciation skills are limited and so a book really has to get me with story and or characters. This didn’t, well not much. There’s a fairly interesting soap opera plot about affairs of rich people and the poor people who get caught up in the cross-fire. There’s some intrigue about who Gatsby is as a person and the truth when it comes turns out to be less than inspiring – which I think is the point. He also turns out to be less than sympathetic – well to me, to the narrator he apparently was. So I found that a little odd.

Put it this way, I’m glad I’ve read it because it’s a classic but I don’t think I’d go back to it in a hurry.

6/10 – a little so what? but at least it’s short.

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reviews

Battlestar Galactica

I’ve just watched the finale of Battlestar Galactica, and whilst I’m probably not up to a proper review I did want to say something about it.

Earlier in the year I bought a box set with the mini-series and seasons 1-3 in and worked my way through it in a matter of weeks. I then started on season 4 – courtesy of my internet friends – but had had the final 3 or 4 episodes sitting on my harddrive for the last few months. I think part of me didn’t want to watch the end, and part of me had run out of patience with the increasingly convoluted plot and depressing storylines of season 4.

Anyway yesterday I finished all but the finale and today I watched that.

What a let-down. Not because I expected cast-iron consistency or wanted all those outstanding questions answered (“because of God’s plan” seemed to be the one-size-fits-all one anyway) but because I wanted something a bit more uplifting. Everyone seems to end up either dead or alone, or at the very least facing a life of hard work as a subsistence farmer with only their SO as company.

I’ll admit it’s been a tough weekend personally so I may be projecting my need for a happy ending but I found that, at best, a little flat.

One of my favourite Joss Whedon quotes comes from a commentary track where he’s discussing the liberties they took with consistency and reality etc and he says

“Some shows, X-Files for example, very much into the realism, the science behind whatever the horror is, explaining it, really justifying it in the world. We are so much more about the emotion resulting from
this. Not why there might actually be vampires, but how you might actually feel in high school if you had to fight them.”

BSG at its best let you experience what it would feel like to be a small band of refugees on the run from an enemy trying to wipe you out. All the technical stuff it always felt like it was grounded in how people relate to modern-day technology. So it felt real.

This ending didn’t feel real. Because I think that whilst there would be some spreading out if 38,000 people had a whole planet to share, I think there would be large groups wanting to stay close.

And despite the beauty of the African plains or whereever they were supposed to be, I reckon they’d never be so foolish as to throw away all their existing technology. “Never underestimate the desire for a clean slate,” says Adama. “Never underestimate a writer’s willingness to override the logical for the poetic, ” say I.

Still the series as a whole was excellent.

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movie reviews

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Despite lukewarm reviews I had high-ish hopes for this movie – at least in a stay-in-and-slob-out-feel-good-waste-of-time kind of way. Firstly it’s the kind of movie I’ve liked in the past – gentle rom-com with young attractive leads – and second I liked Michael Cera in Juno. So did it live up to my modest expectations?

Not quite.

It reminds me of those movies from the eighties that involve some kind of journey – Adventures in Babysitting; Blind Date; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; and even Risky Business. Here the MacGuffin is the quest for a secret gig by a cool on-the-up band. Michael Cera’s Nick and Kat Dennings’ Norah are on the hunt for this gig and along the way they share some fun, grow a little closer, there’s misunderstanding then… well you can guess the rest, it’s a rom-com right?

The leads are likeable enough but I can decide if the lack of spark between them is the fault of the un-inspired script of just that missing je ne sais quoix they call chemistry. The film also suffers from not really knowing what it wants to be tonally – there are elements of gross-out comedy, slapstick and as mentioned, following the leads’ strengths, a very gentle burgeoning teen romance. It never quite meshes but one would be expecting a lot to think that it might – I blame, as ever, the legacy of American Pie for that.

It’s also the fact that none of the necessary non-Nick, non-Norah scenes are that memorable or interesting. The obligatory comedy sidekicks are neither endearing nor outrageous enough. The funny set-pieces aren’t funny enough.

Perhaps notable is the sex scene, not for any lascivious reasons – it was reasonably discreetly done – but for message it conveyed. The idea that “it’s in his kiss” is used in many rom-coms – they use the song in Adventures in Babysitting – but this was the first time I seen a movie where “you’ll know he’s the one if he can give you an orgasm” was the message. And as this was – of course – their first mutual experience that’s kind of unhelpful and unrealistic. But it is the logical extension of what Hollywood has been saying about romance for years I suppose. I dunno though there’s room in the subtlety for a little more realistic fantasy.

5/10 – vaguely likeable, almost entirely unmemorable and done better elsewhere.