Sunday Salon – 22 March

March 22, 2015 in Sunday Salon | 4 comments

sunday-salon-2A much better week and quite a bit more reading done and new challenges and bookish things coming up so I am in a very good mood. For now at least 😀

Challenges:

My tally for the TBR Double Dog stands at thirteen books (although I have actually read sixteen in total).

I re-read (and was pleased to find it stood the test of time) Carrie for the King’s March challenge.

And today I signed up for Once Upon a Time IX with a launch post which you can read here. That’s a long list.

Oh and I’ve decided to re-read The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf’s first novel which celebrates the anniversary of its publication this week.

In progress

I finished the very wonderful Vanessa & Her Sister in plenty of time for the Bloomsbury event on 24 March, and I’m also now just short of halfway way through Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge. And I decided I would also try to squeeze another Stephen King novel in so on Saturday afternoon I started Cell which I had completely forgotten I had until it caught my eye while I was looking for something else, and I’m working my way through that at a rate of knots.

The Jane Eyre Update

I have actually made a start with this and I’m three chapters in and already finding Jane herself to be a bit of a pain but I’m going to persevere, though I need to get moving.

New Books

No new books this week. I am counting the days until the embargo finishes and I can go on a wee bit of a spree.

There are a couple of lovely bookish events coming up this week so it’s all very exciting.

Once Upon a Time IX

March 21, 2015 in Challenges | Tags: | 8 comments

00 OUAT IXHurrah, here we are, spring is definitely on the way because it’s time for Carl’s annual Once Upon a Time challenge! And the eighth time I’ve got involved in the nine years it’s been running. The challenge starts today and runs until 21 June, which seems ages away but given how quickly the first quarter of this year has disappeared it will come around in a flash 🙂

I’ve pulled together quite a long (for me) list to choose from but I’m only aiming to complete Quest the First which means I have to:

read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time categories. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres

Really looking forward to taking part!

So, this is what I will be selecting from (in no particular order):

  • Tithe by Holly Black – I’ve been planing to read this for years “Sixteen year old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces them back to her child home. The place where she used to see faeries”
  • Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce – “It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phone call from his parents, asking him to come round. It pulls him away from his wife and children and into a bewildering mystery”
  • Poison by Sarah Pinborough – SP is becoming a favourite author, and this is “a beautifully illustrated re-telling of the Snow White story which takes all the elements of the classic fairytale that we love (the handsome prince, the jealous queen, the beautiful girl and, of course, the poisoning) and puts a modern spin on the characters, their motives and their desires”
  • The Road to Bedlam by Mike Shevdon – the is the second volume in a series of four and I reviewed the first one here “There’s been an accident. It’s your daughter. But Alex isn’t dead. She’s been snatched because she came into her magical power early. Her father, Niall Petersen, must use his own wayward magic to track her down and save her from the madness of Bedlam.
  • On Becoming a Fairy Godmother by Sara Maitland – I started this book for last year’s challenge but for some reason didn’t get very far with it, so happy to pick it up again; this is a collection that “breathes new life into old legends and brings the magic of myth back into modern women’s lives”
  • The Copper Promise by Jen Williams – I have signed copy of this novel from book event where I met the JW (along with Den Patrick below); “There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel – about magic and mages and monsters and gods.”
  • Songs of Earth and Power by Greg Bear – a re-read of what I thought was a hugely important fantasy book. “The Song of Power opens the gateway to the Realm of the Sidhe, a fantastic, beautiful, dangerous world.”
  • White Apples by Jonathan Carroll – which is “a captivating and constantly surprising tale of life, death, and the realm between.”
  • The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick – as mentioned above, I also have a signed copy of this – “Lucien de Fontein is one of the Orfano, the deformed of Landfall. He is lonely, tormented by his difference and a pawn in a political game.”
  • Time and Again by Jack Finney – “Si Morley is marking time: he’s bored with his job as a commercial artist and his social life doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. So when he’s approached by an affable ex-football star and told he’s just what the government is looking for to be part of a top-secret project, he doesn’t hesitate for long.”
  • The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling – a selection of the fantastical stories of Kipling, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman and an afterword by Stephen Jones who edited the collection. I have already started this one!
  • The Book of the New Sun (Volume 1) by Gene Wolfe – “Recently voted the greatest fantasy of all time, after The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun is an extraordinary epic, set a million years in the future, on an Earth transformed in mysterious and wondrous ways, in a time when our present culture is no longer even a memory.”

once9quest1

I’m also going to take part in Quest on the Screen and will try to watch two films I’ve had on my shelves for ages:

  • Stardust – based on Neil Gaiman’s lovely novel, I’m embarrassed that I haven’t watched this yet
  • Tangled – Rapunzel in cartoon form, thought I’d watch this in preference to Frozen (though I will get to that eventually!)

once9screen

Carrie

March 17, 2015 in Challenges, Reviews | Tags: , | 10 comments

155652About Carrie

Carrie White was no ordinary girl. Carrie White had a gift – the gift of telekinesis. And when, one horrifying and endless night, she exercised that terrible gift on the town that mocked and loathed her, the result was stunning and macabre.

When did I first read this? Late 1975, in one sitting; I remember it vividly 🙂

What age was I? An impressionable 13 

How many times since then? Apparently this is only the third time that I have read Carrie, which seems astonishing to me as I feel I know the story so well, but there you go, stats don’t lie. Probably.

Thoughts about the book:

This was the first Stephen King book that I read and I was totally blown away by it in the way that is only possible when you are a young teenager. Unlike people coming to King for the first time today there was of course no back catalogue of work to dive into to feed the obsession, and although I read ‘Salem’s Lot later that year (and you can find out what I thought about re-reading that in this post) from then on it was all about having to wait for his new books to be published.

But why did Carrie resonate so much? It seems obvious to say that a teenage girl would find a lot to empathise with in the story of another teenage girl but I think that’s too easy; after all we had very little in common – Us vs UK, fundamentalist religion vs (relatively) free thinking, unpopular and downtrodden vs ordinary middle-of-the-roadness. And of course the small matter of my not having any telekinetic abilities whatsoever. Or at least none that have manifested themselves so far and at the age of 53 (and unless the menopause unleashes that sort of thing in the same way puberty does) it isn’t likely to happen now!

I think looking back it was the idea of raw power and what might be possible if you had an untapped ability and what could be done if you learned to control it. Of course the whole point of Carrie (and I don’t think I’m giving anything away here as it’s made pretty clear from the start of the book) is that although she learns to control it in part, the Unfortunate Incident at the Prom tips her over the edge and she lets it all out. Of course, there are Consequences of a devastating nature.

I also think this may very well have been the first novel I read that had this kind of structure, a mix of traditional third person story telling with newspaper reports and eye-witness testimony and book and letter extracts from after the fact. And I’m still a sucker for that sort of thing (I’m currently reading Vanessa and her Sister which is constructed from diary entries interspersed with letters and postcards and which I am thoroughly enjoying, although it is obviously a very different sort of thing).

It was an interesting experience reading Carrie again. For a start I had forgotten how short it is, less than 250 pages so really more like a novella. It’s much clearer to me now that the real villain is Billy, and that Chris may not have gone through with it in the end if he hadn’t forced her. And I feel sorry for Carrie herself but more so for Sue, who has to deal with surviving the whole thing.

So, although it’s clearly an early work and his later stuff became much more polished I still find this a very effective and affecting story and was pleased that it hadn’t lost its punch

Though really, what is it with King and the name Christine for baddies? First Chris Hargerson here, then the eponymous killer car, it’s just not right….

Additional thoughts about the film versions:

I also remember going to the cinema with my then boyfriend to see Brian de Palma’s version of Carrie, nice and bloody and with a couple of great performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, and of course that unexpected ending which made me jump and scream out loud. I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the recent re-make yet.

If you want to read more about the films then I really recommend Anne Billson’s thoughts on the matter on her blog, an excellent assessment I think.

I re-read Carrie because I’ve been looking for an excuse to do so and that came in the form of the King’s March challenge.

Short Reads Round-Up #3 – Stephen King special

March 15, 2015 in Reviews | Tags: , , | 3 comments

A couple of short stories by Stephen King read for the King’s March challenge

Mile 81

IMG_0239Abandoned service station on major stretch of highway (I have never entirely understood what a turnpike is so forgive me US friends if I’ve got that wrong), boarded up, magnet for youngsters up to no good. Small boy mildly misbehaving through boredom. Particularly suspicious looking abandoned car. Tiny (but smart) children in peril. Very clever use of magnifying glass. Moral of the story – don’t approach strange cars, keep on driving, it will only end in tears. One of King’s specialities is this type of story where extreme weirdness happens in a very ordinary setting with no rhyme or reason. Liked it.

In the Tall Grass (written with Joe Hill)

IMG_0240

Abandoned (sort-of) church along a relatively lonely stretch of highway. Brother and (pregnant) sister on road trip before she has baby. Pull off the road after hearing cries from the tall grass that seems to stretch for miles. Small child in peril. Getting lost. Disorientation. Ancient evil (probably). Moral of the story – don’t stop for strange cries, keep on driving, it will only end in tears (sound familiar?). An accidental companion piece to Mile 81, totally unplanned in that I didn’t really investigate the plot of either story before I started to read them. Very very dark and ultimately depressing.

Interesting to compare standalone King to a story written in collaboration with his son, whose work I have also read but have found problematic in the past (see N0S4R2 for a start). King can be very nasty on occasion but I find him to have greater humanity in his stories than Hill. Without giving anything away, In the Tall Grass seems to offer no hope at all, whereas Mile 81 gives us the possibilities of human ingenuity in fighting off the bad stuff.

Sunday Salon – 15 March

March 15, 2015 in Sunday Salon | 6 comments

sunday-salon-2Another stressful week interrupted by a  bout of illness which left me unable to read much 😦

Challenges:

No increase in my tally for the TBR Double Dog so still at twelve books (although I have actually read fourteen in total). I didn’t finish anything this week and didn’t really make huge progress on those books I did start.

I read a couple of short stories on Kindle for the King’s March challenge.

In progress

As planned last week, I have made a very very slow start to Vanessa & Her Sister which I would really like to finish this coming week in preparation for the Bloomsbury event on 24 March, and I’m also about a quarter of the way through Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge.

The Jane Eyre Update

Haven’t started it yet because of illness but I have re-worked my reading plan and still think I can finish it in the six weeks before the book club discussions.

New Books

No new books this week, the embargo is holding with only two and a bit weeks to go 😀

This should be the last of the really horrible work weeks coming up and I feel much more inclined to read so hoping to make lots of progress.

Irregularity

March 14, 2015 in Reviews, Short stories | Tags: , , | 1 comment

IMG_0223What’s it all about?

Irregularity is an anthology of short stories which, as the blurb says

is a collaboration between the National Maritime Museum and award-winning publisher Jurassic London: a collection of original stories inspired by the Age of Reason. Using the Longitude Act as the jumping off point, IRREGULARITY is inspired by the great thinkers of the Age of Reason – those courageous men and women who set out to map, chart, name and classify the world around them. The great minds who brought order and discipline to the universe. Except where they didn’t.

I couldn’t have put it better myself and as you can see I didn’t even consider trying 🙂

Why did I want to read it?

I think I first came across this because I follow one of the authors on Twitter (I actually follow a few of them now) and she (pretty sure it was @kimecurran) mentioned that she had a story included in this volume, and then I looked at the other authors listed many of whom already were or were on the way to becoming favourites, and so downloaded it was.

What did I think of it?

I’ve said this ad nauseam but I’m going to repeat it, just because – anthologies are tricky to review because there are very few collections in which every story hits the spot. And I have to say that at first – and I will admit that I may possibly *ahem* have forgotten what the theme of the collection was when I started reading it – I wasn’t entirely sure where this was all going, but I can safely say that only a couple of the stories didn’t do it for me, and that’s not a bad hit rate out of 14.

It’s worth mentioning the following, which stood out:

  • The Spiders of Stockholm by EJ Swift – a writer new to me whom I was lucky enough to meet at a reading at the end of January, this is a story about spiders and dreams and categorisation and what happens when you put a name to something (and this story is up for the Sunday Times short story award)
  • The Assassination of Isaac Newton by the Coward Robert Boyle by Adam Roberts – (1) extraordinarily cool title (2) draws attention to Newton’s resemblance to (yes, that) Brian May (3) totally bonkers
  • The Voyage of the Basset by Claire North – Darwin + butterflies + coronation = wonderful story
  • A Woman out of Time by Kim Curran – things must happen as intended, ut who makes sure that it does?

As well as these the collection covers mapping the winds, understanding clocks, the hunt for impossible animals, dissection & art, animated dinosaurs and whether science can quantify love. Amongst lots of other stuff. Recommended.

Sunday Salon – 8 March

March 8, 2015 in Sunday Salon | 7 comments

sunday-salon-2A stressful week at work where I really thought I wasn’t going to get anything read (not for relaxation anyway) but which improved immeasurably at the end.

Challenges:

My tally for the TBR Double Dog stands at twelve books (although I have actually read fourteen in total).

I finished Revival by Stephen King (reviewed here) and an excellent book of short stories, Irregularity (review to follow in a few days) and read the newest Goth Girl short novel for World Book Day on Thursday (but doesn’t count towards the dare because I bought it recently).

I’ve also joined a new challenge, King’s March, which only lasts for a month but gave me an excuse to read the King novel and permission (as if I really needed it) to re-read Carrie.

In progress

I have weeded out my reading list and set a few of the non-fiction book aside, clearing out my currently reading widget on the sidebar just to show fiction; that’s because my non-fiction reading tends to be erratic at the best of times and when I’m very tired (as I ave been recently) I just can’t cope with real things. So just about to start Vanessa & Her Sister (as I’m intending to go to a Bloomsbury event with the author later in March) in hard copy and Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge (which is up for the James Herbert award) on Kindle. I’m doing a lot of commuting this week so hopefully will get some proper reading done.

The Jane Eyre Update

Haven’t started it yet, because tired, overworked and stressed, so my Reading Plan is already out of sync, but I have until late April to read this so still hopeful of participation.

New Books

No new books this week, the embargo is more or less holding with only three and a bit weeks to go 😀

The upcoming week is going to be my heaviest for a wee while so hopefully reading will help. Or I may just curl up in a ball and whimper….

Revival

March 7, 2015 in Challenges, Reviews | Tags: , , | 12 comments

19196719What’s it all about?

Well, according to King’s own official website, Revival is

a dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism and what might exist on the other side

Jamie Morton is a small boy in New England when he meets the Rev Charles Jacobs who, with his wife Patsy and little boy Morrie, becomes an influence for good in the town. Well, at least until the dreadful accident that robs him of his family and possibly his faith. After the day of the Terrible Sermon he is driven out of town and when he and Jamie meet again the former is using his deep interest on electricity to earn a living on the carny circuit and the latter is a musician and heroin addict. Jacobs uses his knowledge to cure Jamie and from that point on the two are intertwined, right to the very end when Jacobs’ obsession takes it’s final form.

Why did I want to read it?

I’ve been reading and enjoying King’s works for *gulp* nearly 40 years. I haven’t read everything he’s written (not yet at least) but I always look forward to anything he publishes and he has never really let me down (not even with The Tommyknockers or Dreamcatcher, both flawed but still interesting). And the hints before publication and in early reviews that there was a Lovecraftian element to this book was just an added bonus. Two of my earliest horror influences coming together sounded just the ticket.

What did I think of it?

This was exactly what I needed to read during a stressful week where I was working flat-out, running an almost constant headache and not sleeping terribly well. For a couple of days as soon as work was over I was able to lose myself in the life of Jamie Morton, a flawed but basically decent person who has gone through some tough times and his interest in the man whom he has admired since he was a small boy and who was instrumental in helping him both kick his addiction and find a career. But Jamie always knew things weren’t quite right (‘Something Happened’) and over time he realises that he will have to confront Jacobs. And of course that’s when the nature of the older man’s obsession becomes clear and things get very weird indeed.

I thought this was great. I really liked Jamie which is essential if you are going to enjoy this book as it is told entirely in the first person. And it really doesn’t read like a horror novel until the last section, though there is a growing sense of foreboding and not-rightness (which isn’t a word but the best way to describe it I think). The Lovecraftian elements are pretty subtle until the end, and of course there are Repercussions; one of the things I’ve always liked about King is that there are always consequences and sometimes (most times) the good guys don’t get away unscathed.

King himself mentions that The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen (which I haven’t read for years) was a major influence on Revival.

It’s not King’s scariest novel by any means but it’s a strong story with disturbing elements. I really liked it and definitely recommend it.

Goth Girl and the Pirate Queen #WorldBookDay edition

March 6, 2015 in Reviews | Tags: , , | 5 comments

Goth Girl 3What’s it all about?

Ada Goth has been invited to Brighton by one of her father’s friends to attend World Frock Day. She has twenty guineas to spend on a suitable dress. Will she go for a creation by Jean-Paul Goatee or Lady Vivienne Dashwood? But before she can decide, disaster strikes, her money is missing and she needs to think of something else….

Why did I want to read it?

It’s a special World Book day book. It’s written and illustrated by one of my favourites, Chris Riddell. I have a huge soft spot for Ada having read Ghost of  Mouse and A Fete Worse than Death at the end of last year. They make me giggle with their silly jokes and puns.

What did I think of it?

My only complaint is that Goth Girl and the Pirate Queen is Far Too Short, but still lovely addition to the Goth canon. As well as poking lots of fun at fashion – not just the designers but the esteemed personage of Empress Anna Winter, editor of Brogue (the journal of sensible footwear) – it’s a sweet little story where everything comes right in the end, including the Pirate Queen herself (Tall Nell) having great success with her new piece of confectionery, Brighton Rock. It’s all just great fun and I look forward to the next volume (Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright) with anticipation.

Silvery Dude Recommends #WorldBookDay

March 5, 2015 in Stuff | Tags: , | 2 comments

IMG_0366Image credit Chris Riddell

So one of the great things about a love of all things bookish is getting to talk about them with like-minded people, most of which I do on this blog but IRL not so much. But when I do actually talk to actual people in real time then if it isn’t the Book God (and let’s face it, how else would he have achieved said title?) it will be my great friend Silvery Dude.

Thanks to his recommendations (and the occasional birthday gift) I discovered authors like Ben Aaronovitch and Lloyd Shepherd (to name only two), and in return I got him to read Christopher Fowler and Jon Ajvide Lindqvist.

Which seems a fair exchange.

And as I was trawling through my TBR Mountain recently looking for future reads I found quite a number he had suggested, so it seemed to me that it was time for a Silvery Dude Recommends Reading List

I’m positive there are loads more, and there are certainly books that I already owned that have climbed their way to the top of the pile because the Dudester had read them before me (I am looking at you The Night Circus).

Long may this continue 😀

Bride of the Book God

Follow brideofthebook on Twitter

Scottish, in my fifties, love books but not always able to find the time to read them as much as I would like. I’m based in London and happily married to the Book God.

I also blog at Bride of the Screen God (all about movies and TV) and The Dowager Bride, if you are interested in ramblings about stuff of little consequence

If you would like to get in touch you can contact me at brideofthebookgod (at) btinternet (dot) com.

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