May 2015 Wrap-Up

Haven't done a wrap-up in a while thanks to demands of Uni work and home, but as I have a spare few minutes, I am doing my May one now.

This month I have had TONNES of reading for Uni and so my reading-for-pleasure has been a bit more limited - I got through six books (hoping it will be seven by the time Sunday comes!).

This is a very varied bunch of novels - the Daniel Defoe trilogy was part of my Uni reading. It incorporates the famous tale of Robinson Crusoe but also the two sequels which are less well known. Admittedly I just skimmed through them but they were enjoyable.

Moses Migrating by Sam Selvon is also a book I have read for Uni essay preparation. It is the third in Selvon's 'Moses trilogy' - novels which focus on the experiences of West Indian immigrants in mid twentieth-century London. Selvon captures these experiences through comedy, his characterisations, and his narrative and I have found that each one of the books in the trilogy has opened my mind to how difficult and frustrating it is to be a marginalised person in society. These books really do make you a better human being!

The Complete Works by William Blake is yet more Uni reading - in particular this month I read 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'. Ok it took me a few read throughs to 'get' the poem, but it blew me away, parodying the whole concept of authority in religion. Really really good.

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie was a fascinating account of a young boy who is born on the stroke of midnight on the day India gains independence. As a result, he - and other children who were born within the first hour of this momentous day - are born with special powers. The novel is very well-written, you get to feel like you know the families involved in real-life, and, although maybe a bit long-winded especially towards the end, it is a book that is pretty hard to put down.

Moll Flanders was read for Uni, just to keep the Defoe theme going and to identify the links with Robinson Crusoe and J M Coetzee's Foe. Moll is your loveable villain who gains husband after husband whilst committing crimes she avoids being caught for......until one day she wanders into a house.....

On my Kindle, I read Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. It's a family drama following the Lee family, their hopes and aspirations, their loves and hates, the risks of 'pushy parenting', and the aftermath of a tragedy that concerns one of the family members. I gave it four stars on Goodreads.

I am three-quarters of the way through Kate Atkinson's Life After Life just now - am hoping to get it finished over the weekend. Loving it though, and will definitely be buying her new sequel.

The last book haul for May. I think.......

Seeing as it is my birthday on Monday, I decided to treat myself to some shiny new books, each of which I have bought on recommendation from others on Goodreads or Booktube.  I had to restrain myself to three (which was very hard work!) but these are the ones I settled for:

Evening is the Whole Day was a recommendation on Goodreads. It is set in Malaysia and follows the wealthy Rajasekharan family "as its closely guarded secrets are slowly peeled away" (so says the blurb on Goodreads). It has got a heap of five star ratings, with many readers saying it is their favourite novel of all time, so I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to this one. Love reading about India - M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions got me into my fascination with it, and having recently finished Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children I feel in the mood for another trip to the east whilst sitting on my sofa. 

I have never read anything by Wilbur Smith before, but - and I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover - I just love Egypt and myth, etc. It's his brand new historical fiction/adventure novel, two of my favourite genres, but has had mixed reviews so I am excited to find out for myself what this is like. 

The Enchanted April was a Booktube recommendation - it's a feelgood novel set in 1920s England/Italy, an era I absolutely love. From the blurb I can tell you that it's about four women who wish to escape the measly English weather by renting a villa in Italy for a month's sojourn, during which time each character undergoes "a heartening realisation about herself". Sounds right up my street!

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Kate Atkinson's Life After Life right now - am aiming to get it finished by Monday. Then it is the decision as to which one to read next.......

I didn't mean this to happen......honest.

So, I'm at my Uni tutorial last Saturday, when my tutor tips me off about a book sale that is occurring in a church along the road from the Uni, the proceeds from which are going to the charity Christian Aid. As my tutor proudly shows me the nine books he picked up for under £10, I am willing the following two hours to fly in so that I can go along. Just for a look, mind. I have enough books at home that need reading and besides, I don't have room on my bookshelves for any more tomes (seeing as a large number of my books are beginning a conquest of the floors).

Tutorial finishes, I grab a Starbucks and head along to the aforementioned church. I felt like a child in a sweetie shop.

There are literally stacks upon stacks of lovely literature, all yelling out at me to buy them. There weren't quite scuffles, but I dived in and rescued one or two titles that I had been wanting to get for ages, plus a couple of novels I haven't read since I was a teenager.

To cut a long story short, 1 hour and 2 full boxes later, this is what I left the church with......

Look what has just arrived......again!

I have been AWOL from my blog mainly due to Uni commitments (an essay and now a tonne of reading for the next one) but I still can't kick my addiction. I have spent a bit TOO much money on books over the past few months; these ones have just arrived today.

Oooh! Squee! New friends!!

My hot day reading list.

I am more than a little excited about this! Will do reviews on each one when I read them (I am still reading my way through the Terry Pratchett 'Discworld' series - on book 12 now - yes, I still need to do reviews for them too) and will do a proper April Book Haul and Wrap-Up in a few days.

It's a gorgeous hot day, so I'm off out into the back garden with a book. Shame it's literary criticism on Robinson Crusoe!

March Wrap-Up

March was a busy month reading-wise, where Uni texts fought big time with my reading-for-pleasure. With an essay due mid-April, I had to cut down a bit, but yet I still managed to read eleven books, which I am chuffed about.

Following the death of Sir Terry Pratchett, I decided to give his Discworld series another go; I had read Wyrd Sisters years ago, but didn't quite '"get" the book at all. This month, I have managed to read the first six, including Wyrd Sisters, which I absolutely loved on second reading. It's amazing how reading tastes change in a decade! I'm just about to start book 7, Pyramids, but - as per usual - essay guilt has prevented me from doing so today. I am also conscious that I haven't put my reviews up for the first few Discworlds, I am slacking! Will do that as soon as possible.

Other than Pratchett, four of the other books I read were from the Waterstone's Book Club, my favourite being Nora Webster of the four, with the creepy Her in second place. All are very good books though, and I have reviewed each on this blog.

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan was for Uni research - my essay includes writing about the 'body-politic' in Shakespeare's Coriolanus so I have been reading that text to fill myself in on what a healthy republic is, and how it becomes 'diseased'. Like many philosophy books, it is quite tricky to read at times but I *think* I got the argument!

So, on to April. Holidays are approaching, as is an even longer essay (on Robinson Crusoe and Coetzee's Foe), but I am hoping to get ten books read if I can. I'm feeling so smug that I am 17 books ahead of where I should be on my Goodreads 2015 Reading Challenge, need to try and top the fifty books that I thought I would read this year. So far so good.

Oh, and I have more books arriving from Waterstone's tomorrow........

Book Review: 'Her', by Harriet Lane

I picked up this novel, as it was one that the Waterstone's Book Club were reading, and the title just grabbed me. I know books shouldn't be judged from the title but this one seemed so menacing, and a nice easy diversion from the 'heavy' Shakespeare play that I am studying at Uni just now. I'm not a fan of chick-lit but the tag 'psychological thriller' eventually sold it to me so, always glad of a scary suspense novel, I decided to give it a go.

This is a freakishly chilling novel whose clever construction through the mirroring of the events of each chapter from one woman's viewpoint reflected in the following chapter from that of the other woman, allows the reader to fully experience the almost over-friendly 'two-facedness' of Nina, and the trusting naivete of Emma. Now in their early forties, these two women have met in the past; it isn't until the very end of the novel that the reader discovers the reason for Nina's obsessive, grudging and stalking attitude to the oblivious Emma, and the devastating and nightmarish consequences of these emotions. 

The characters were very well written - I got so frustrated with Emma and Ben and kept shouting at her to get him to do more to help her, while Nina just gave me the creeps, even before her darker side became evident. I got so engrossed in the characters and the spiralling events that I ended up reading this novel in just four hours! 

Really enjoyed it, so it gets four stars out of five from me.

Book Review: 'Nora Webster', by Colm Toibin

Oh my word! Where do I start with my thoughts on this book? 

Having not read any other novels by this author before, I decided to buy this book as it came highly recommended through the Waterstone's Book Club. At first I thought it was going to be a sad, morose tale of Nora Webster's adaptation to life as a widow - the loneliness of the book cover assisted me in coming to this conclusion. But how wrong I was. Yes, there are sad bits as Nora reminisces on the happy family life that she can no longer enjoy - family holidays being an example, but there are also threads of comedy, especially in the form of Phyllis whose attempts at a kind of karaoke stint didn't really pay off. There is also a seed of hope that life can go on after the death of a loved one, maybe pushing one to do things they never would have done before. Finally, there is also an unrelenting uncertainty and ambiguity about the book - what did Donal and Conor see in the department store, why were they so distant to Josie, what causes Donal to suddenly develop a stutter, and what on earth did the message from beyond the grave mean? And where did Francie Kavanagh disappear to? These questions and the hope in discovering the answers to them kept me turning the pages until......

.....NO! He can't finish the book THERE? Still so many ends left untied! I had to keep checking that I had read the last words of the novel to believe that the author had indeed ended the novel as he has. I just wanted to keep reading and reading, but alas! I feel like I have suddenly lost a good friend. 

So, in a nutshell, I loved this novel; I have ranked it among my favourites, which is quite an accolade.

Book review: 'Elizabeth is Missing' by Emma Healey

This novel took me on an emotional roller-coaster! I think having worked with demented people in hospital in my Gap Year after school, I could see some of my former patients in Maud - sometimes things she says or does are funny for not being in context, whilst at other times the harsher side of dementia left me feeling sad and frustrated for her and her family, and yet fearful that maybe I will end up like Maud in years to come - I'm not known for having the best memory at the moment! The thing that hit home with me was Maud's persistent quest to find her old friend Elizabeth; several patients I have cared for were on similar searches for "missing" loved ones, even though these sought-for people had been dead many years. 

This is a murder-mystery with a difference, only Maud can piece together the evidence, if only she can remember to write things down, and who she is investigating. The narrative is split between Maud now and her reminiscing about her childhood - her confused mind often blending the two together, often in darkly comic ways.

The novel reminds you that confused older people aren't as 'loopy' as they may seem - buried within themselves are coherent and lucid memories that they find hard to apply to normal life due to failing short-term memory, but yet these memories are important to their sense of self. These individuals are to be respected - after all, they were young too once.

Highly recommend this book, I know it is going to remain in my mind for a long time......... I hope!

Book Review: 'The Girl in the Red Coat', by Kate Hamer.

A fantastic and compelling debut novel by Kate Hamer which I read in one day because I could not put the book down!

The story is related via two first-person narrators, Beth Wakeford, and her eight-year-old daughter, Carmel, with aspects from each narrative overlapping through the author's clever use of motifs (the colour red, spiders, fog, open fields, and "strings").  That a chilling event has occurred is evident from the beginning of the novel with Beth setting the scene for the suspense and emotion which increase as the narrative gathers momentum. The book is extremely well-written, with identifiable and likeable characters - even the 'baddies' elicited a degree of sympathy from me. 

There are gaps in Carmel's narrative at certain points which, although I found a little confusing, actually serve the purpose in reflecting the character's disorientation very well as she, and the reader, adapt to life after her fateful trip when life changed forever for her and her family.

It's thrilling, it's exciting, and it is heart-wrenching - a real roller-coaster which keeps you turning those pages. 

** Thank you Waterstones and Faber & Faber  for sending me an Advance Reader Copy  to read in exchange for an honest review. **

Book Review: 'Ready Player One', by Ernest Cline.

"Then I paused and spent a moment staring at my immersion rig. I'd been so proud of all this high-tech hardware when I had first purchased it. But over the past few months, I'd come to see my rig for what it was: an elaborate contraption for deceiving my senses, to allow me to live in a world that didn't exist. Each component of my rig was a bar in the cell where I had willingly imprisoned myself".


This novel takes computer gaming to a whole new level (no pun intended!). Based in the year 2044, people log onto the OASIS virtual world where they lead completely different lives, go to school, get real qualifications, and 'hang out'. In fact, OASIS seems to *be* the main form of socialization in this futuristic year, where everybody from youths to elderly people don their haptic gloves, wear visors, and sit in their special suits in their haptic chairs shutting out reality and living out better lives than they really have.

That is, until OASIS's founder, Jim Halliday, dies and leaves his whole fortune hidden within the game, in the form of an Easter Egg Hunt, for 'gunters' to find; the winner acquiring billions of dollars as well as control of the OASIS world. Wade Watts, the protagonist, decides to undertake the challenge of looking for the prize "egg", undergoing several trials and threats in the process chiefly from the "Sixers" (the 'baddies') - an enemy communications conglomerate and service provider - who are itching to gain control of this virtual world and run it for capitalist reasons.

Sci-fi is not really my genre, but yet I really liked this book. There are a lot of references to 1980s pop culture and video games (as this was Halliday's favourite and happiest era, and one in which he based his Hunt on), and the characters are likeable - even if, in our world, Wade could be considered a bit "weird"! The author keeps the suspense moving through a fast-paced narrative, related from the viewpoint of Wade himself, with one or two twists in the storyline; the many diversions that Wade ("Parzival") takes from his Hunt for the prize and the choices he makes ensure that this book is a real page-turner as well as one which saw me yelling at the pages in frustration with him!

I think I would have enjoyed the novel more if I didn't know the outcome of the adventure at the beginning of the book, if the author had instead left the reader wondering whether he would succeed or not, finding out at the very end. Personally, for me, it kind of dampened the excitement level a little. However, that said, it was still addictive reading, and I am glad I took up this recommendation from Booktube. 

Mission Not-Buying-Books: Failure.

Well, things started off okay, until I happened to be passing Waterstone's, and there just happened to be a deal on, and the four books I have recently added to my TBR list were available through this deal.

Oops.

Another weekend feeding my reading habit. Maybe next week will be more successful.

Yet another ARC to review - happy days!

So, this morning I am ploughing through Plutarch's story of  Coriolanus when the doorbell rings. It's my long-suffering post-lady  (she seems to always be delivering me books I have ordered online for my degree), clutching yet another parcel for me. This time, instead of it containing another textbook of critical essays, it contained the above ARC/pre-proof novel direct from the publishers  (Faber and Faber) which I have to read and provide an honest review. What a lovely surprise! Of course that set me off excitement-wise, and subsequently, not much concentration went into Plutarch after this! 

Watch this space for a review; I'm half way through Ready Player One, which I hope to finish tomorrow on completion of which I will get going on it.  

Next challenge is to get through a weekend without buying any books - I have failed so far this year.......

Book Review: 'The City', by Dean Koontz.

** I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review** 

"In our lives, we come to moments of great significance that we fail to recognize, the meaning of which does not occur to us for many years. Each of us has his own agenda and focuses on it, and therefore we are often blind to what is before our eyes".

Having never read Dean Koontz before, I came to this novel with an open mind whilst taking notes of other reviews left on Goodreads. I have to say that I absolutely LOVED this novel; it was *BRILLIANT*! Where do I start with what I liked about it?

- I loved the descriptive narrative; it was so easy to get to know each character properly, thereby allowing me to identify with them and build up an empathy with them. On finishing the novel, I felt like I knew the Bledsoes/Kirks, Mr. Yoshioka and Mrs. Lorenzo almost as if they were real people. I also loved the author's use of chiaroscuro and gothic/supernatural features to increase the feeling of sensationalism and suspense in the novel. 

- I loved the motif of the eye and seeing which occurred throughout the novel in different forms: Fiona's blue-purple eyes, the eye from the stuffed toy, the painted eye of Fabritius's 'The Goldfinch', the circular shape cast by the pen-torch. Someone was always watching no matter where Jonah was.....

- The chapters being short was another bonus. This meant that I could pick the book up and put it down (however reluctantly) at my convenience, without willing long-winded chapters to end. In addition, the short chapters increased the book's pace, as events gained momentum in the lead up to the "single earth-shattering event". This story was such a page-turner though, that before I knew where I was, I had read 200 pages in a couple of hours. It is that gripping and absorbing.

- I have learned a new word: "eidetic"!

As I have to give an honest review, I should also pick up on negatives - but to be quite truthful, I can't think of any! The only thing would be the sudden exit of Mrs Nozawa, Mr Tamazaki and Dr. Mace-Maskil from the storyline. I was left wondering what happened to them - especially the nutty professor - whose appearance in the novel suggested that he was part of the 'gang' but who drifted out of the text almost as rapidly as he stormed into it. Maybe the author intended the ending to be somewhat ambiguous, but it left me feeling that ends maybe weren't as neatly tied up as they should be. But, as I say - maybe the author meant this, providing an uneasy uncertainty over the life of the city, a place where: "No matter what happens, disaster piled on calamity, no matter what, everything will be okay in the long run". Or will it.....?

Had to give this five stars, and am now adding a pile of Koontz novels to my TBR list. A fantastic but creepy novel which I will DEFINITELY be recommending to others.

Many thanks to Goodreads and Harper Collins Publishers for sending me this.

Book Review: 'The Bees', by Laline Paull.

"Accept, Obey and Serve [..] A flora may not make Wax for she is impure, nor work with Propolis for she is clumsy, nor may she ever forage for she has no taste, but only may she clean, and all may command her labour".

Flora 717 is one such flora-kin bee, deemed as the lowest of the low within the hive hierarchy, and only fit to carry her dead sister bees to the morgue or clean in Sanitation. In a community where "only the Queen may breed", this novel follows Flora's life from her hatching in the 'Arrivals Hall' as, one-by-one, she smashes each of the laws which determine her class and role - often leading her into scrapes, from which she must escape or risk death.

This novel is so well-written, and the language so lyrical, that it was so easy to identify with Flora 717, the author's bee-eye view offering a different perspective on issues which affect our environment and wildlife (such as insecticides), and the effect that these chemicals can have on the production of honey and the survival of the bees. Suddenly other insects and birds become enemies, even the slow slug, and the wars fought between the bees and these predators - as well as the 'civil wars' within the hive - make this book a real page-turner. I was hooked and sacrificed many hours' sleep just to find out what was going to happen!

I'm glad that I read this book - it is wonderful. It's different, but that is part of its charm and what makes it so memorable. The characters may be bees, but many of their issues have parallels in our human world: class and power struggles, attack, deception, working all hours in order to provide for families, and the emotion of love and sacrifice.

A fantastic debut novel! I don't think I will ever see bees in the same light again from now on.

My next read.....

Wow! Today I have finished reading two of the novels I started on Tuesday. Apparently I'm seven books ahead of target on my Goodreads challenge for this year, so I'm feeling pretty happy.

Not one to be book-less for any length of time, I have chosen to start reading one of the booms from my recent book-buying binge. After using the elaborate choosing system of Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, this is my next read.

This is one of the Waterstones Book Club novels, based in a beehive and is reviewed as being The Handmaiden's Tale meets The Hunger Games. Sounds interesting......watch out for my review.

Book Review: 'The Girl on the Train', by Paula Hawkins

I had heard so many enthusiastic reviews about this novel, both on Booktube and on Goodreads that I decided to see for myself if it matched the hype. I'm not really a contemporary fiction fan, my genre being the classics and the nineteenth century, but I have to say, I haven't enjoyed a book as much as this in ages. I literally could not put it down, so much so that I managed to put sugar in the curry sauce for dinner instead of salt! It is THAT gripping. 

The polyphonic narratives from Rachel, Megan, and Anna almost take the form of police statements, as if the reader is part of a jury to whom they are relating events, times of events, particular details; this narrative bringing to mind the type used by Wilkie Collins in The Woman In White, also a suspense/murder/crime novel but from the last century. The plot line twists and turns, unlike the straightness of a typical railway line - trains and railways playing a large part in the setting of this novel, and I have to say, the ending made me actually YELL at the characters involved..... I won't say any more in case of spoilers. Suffice to say, I am exhausted! Phew!

Fantastic book, highly recommended! I'm going to be raving about this one for weeks.

What I am reading now.....

OK, well, at Uni I am researching Shakespeare's tragedy 'Coriolanus' and so I have decided that my 'read for pleasure' book should be a comedy, to set the balance. Soooooo....... I have plumped for this one.

I have heard differing reviews of it, but it has been on my TBR shelf for way too long, so now is the time to enjoy Allan's adventures. Will let you know what I think of it when I finish it.