Bride of the Book God

Just After Sunset

March 7, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: Creepy stuff, Ghosts, Gothic | 3 comments

So, Just After Sunset is the second volume in my Stephen King short-stories-to-shock-you-out-of-illness mini-readathon.

This is a classic collection of thirteen or so short stories, and like all such collections a mixed bunch. The usual King themes are here – fighting back against violence, creepy cats, ghosts and revenge.

Not going to go into each story but I can tell you that my favourites were:

The Things They Left Behind – a 9/11 story

N – in the the tradition of Arthur Machen and MR James but modern day creepiness

The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates – sad

Another good collection.

Full Dark, No Stars

March 7, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: Creepy stuff, Serial killers | 1 comment

I know that I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: I am a huge fan of Stephen King and have been for over thirty years which in one way is depressing (how can I possibly be old enough?) but is also comforting (the Bride’s brand loyalty is second to none). What I have found, though, is that despite buying his books as soon as they come out (timing is good for the Christmas list) I tend to read him in spurts. I have a bit of a backlog at the moment, but my recent illness (and I promise I will stop talking about that soon) had me heading towards two of his collections of short stories so that I could read in small chunks.

But of course I ended up devouring both of them as if they were novels (or boxes of chocolates….)

So Full Dark, No Stars is his most recent book and is a set of four novellas or at least longer short stories. They are:

1922 – domestic strife and stress leading to unforeseen and far-reaching consequences (really liked this one)

Big Driver – a revenge story following an act of dreadful violence

Fair Extension – what would you do if you were given an extension? Would you be prepared to pay the price?

A Good Marriage – you think you know the person you’re married to (to whom you are married) and then you go rummaging in the garage….

Well, I know that King isn’t to everyone’s taste because of the fact that a lot (if not most) of the violence is directed against women, but much of horror fiction is and I think his stuff works because most of his female characters are find strength and fight back. Some of the details in these stories did make me wince, but they are well written and full of suspense. And on occasion quite frightening, which is after all the point.

And as always the afterword is well-worth reading.

A good collection.

Rivers of London

March 6, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: Anarchy in the UK, Creepy stuff, Fantasy, Ghosts, London, Silvery Dude Recommends | 11 comments

Well, lots of things have been happening chez Bride, including preparing for an interview and getting myself properly promoted into the job that I’ve been doing for just over a year. Massively exciting and not a little stressful which is why I haven’t been reading, blogging or commenting but hopefully things will settle down now that I’ve been successful, especially now that another big decision has been made, which is that the Book God will be retiring from the wonderful world of work in the early summer.

I don’t know about you guys but when I’m going through periods of change I find it difficult to settle to read. But I have a plan; I am hoping to carve out proper time for reading every day from now on and set myself sensible goals, even if it’s just “read 20 pages of x today”.

And all I need to kickstart myself is another book as good as Rivers of London.

I have to give thanks to Silvery Dude who bought this for me as a birthday present, for two reasons really (1) it’s a cracking story and (2) it was exactly the right thing for the two days on which I succumbed to my horrible cold and sulked in my tent until I felt better. So I read this in two sittings.

Peter Grant is a probationary police constable in central London who discovers he has some interesting talents (basically he can speak to the dead) when a strange crime is committed on Covent Garden. He comes to the attention of Inspector Nightingale (who just happens to be the last wizard in England) and a whole new world opens up to him.

This is a fabulous story; a quote on the cover suggests that this is what it would be like if Harry Potter grew up and joined the police and I can understand where that’s come from but this is remarkably inventive and enjoyable in a totally different way; for a start it’s considerably more violent than HP (bit not excessively so). It’s a serial killer novel with magic and mythology. And I loved it.

For a start, most of the action takes place in Covent Garden and The Strand, both of which are close to where I work, and it was great fun to imagine the rather strange plot unfolding in such familiar surroundings. And then there’s the whole mythology of the Thames, with the rivers in human form, which I thought worked wonderfully well.

I haven’t said much about the plot, but it’s a great story of the supernatural and mythological punching through to the real world (no pun intended…)

I loved it so much that I’ve pre-ordered the sequel, and it definitely took my mind off my unwellness. You should really, really get this.

What to read when feeling unwell

February 20, 2011 in Reviews, Stuff | Tags: Gothic, Graphic Novels | 2 comments

I’ve been fairly quiet recently, partly due to stressful stuff at work (more of that on another occasion perhaps) but mostly because I have had a really nasty, horrible, debilitating cold for a few weeks and am only just beginning to feel that I’m properly recovering. I managed to struggle through one review last week and that took so much out of me that I had to go and lie down in a darkened room. Or something.

When I was first developing said cold, two weeks ago today in fact, I really didn’t feel like doing very much, couldn’t settle to TV or reading anything that required huge amounts of concentration and anything with more than one syllables was definitely out of the question.

But I was bored and had to do something in between medication and naps, and decided that graphic novels were just the thing.

Started with Amphigorey by one of my heroes Edward Gorey. This is a collection of (I think) fifteen of Gorey’s works and was ideal because the ratio of pictures to words was high (or do I mean low – more of the former than the latter, anyway) and of course Gorey’s wonderfully gothic sensibility is just the ticket when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. Loved it as much as I knew I would.

I then moved on to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (I actually wanted to call him the Ancient Manager, which is how I feel at the moment), and this was great fun in a very different way. The poem is one of my favourites (though over the years I’ve singularly failed to memorise it, though not for want of trying) and I have loved Hunt Emerson’s cartoons in Fortean Times which I have subscribed to for years. And the image of the albatross with a rubber-suckered arrow stuck on his head still tickles me.

So picture books good for early stages of a cold. When I actually gave in, stopped struggling in to work and flumped, I at least didn’t have a headache and could read more words I actually read more over that few days than I had in the weeks before so every cloud has a silver lining. But more of those later.

The Pattern in the Carpet

February 13, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: Memoirs & Diaries | 2 comments

I really did mean to blog about this ages ago but got caught up in other things as explained in recent posts, but I’m really keen to write about it now in case you haven’t come across it yet, because it was so absorbing.

Pattern in the Carpet is subtitled “a personal history with jigsaws” which is a lovely description of a wonderful, ostensibly rambling but actually probably very carefully constructed book.

And it’s important to say that I really enjoyed this book and dashed off to a cupboard in my study where I believe my own collection of jigsaws are stashed but couldn’t actually get to them because of other stuff.

Margaret Drabble is very clear what’s important to her about the toys/games/pastimes/whatever you call them:

one of the reasons why the jigsaw appeals to me, as I have already suggested, is that it is pre-made, its limits finite, its frame fixed. […] It can’t be done badly. Slowly, but not badly. All one needs is patience. […] in this aspect , the jigsaw is the very opposite of the novel.

It’s a book full of learning, reminiscences, anecdotes and the kind of information that I absolutely love to store away and drop into conversation and (if I’m ever invited) pub trivia quizzes. Such as the fact that Paternoster Row, which used to have lots of bookshops, was “wiped out in all but name on the night of 29 December 1940, along with six million books.” Six million books, can you imagine?

There is a great deal about children’s education over the centuries and how jigsaws came to be, but in the end she feels that she “has strayed far from my plan , which was to write a brief illustrated history of the jigsaw puzzle.” And I’m glad she did because this is so much richer being as much I think about memory and family as anything else.

There is so much to this book and I can’t recommend it enough. I’ll finish with my favourite quote which is about Margaret Drabble’s father:

I don’t know whether or not he believed in God, but he would certainly have liked to be able to do so, and he behaved as though he did

Please give this a try.

The Bride’s New Acquisitions

February 5, 2011 in Book buys | Tags: Joyce Carol Oates | 5 comments

So I may have mentioned once or twice recently that it was my birthday at the end of January (and I promise that I will try not to do so again – well at least not until November) and that of course meant once or two wee pressies of a bookish nature. Plus a couple of small purchases of my own….

First of all, the pressies:

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton – I know everyone except me read this ages ago but better late than never, and after all in the Summer of 1924, young poet kills himself, two sisters witness this and never speak to each other again; cue Winter 1999….
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn – read her first one in 2009 (I think) and thought I’d give this a try, who can resist the “Farmhouse Satan Sacrifices”
Bright Young Things by DJ Taylor – my mild obsession with the inter-war period continues
Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill – terror lies behind the door of Apartment 16; all I can say is we shall see
Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates – tales of mystery by one of my very favourite authors

Plus a couple of treats for myself:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – now a major motion pircture of course but this has been on my wish list for ages, but it has taken Carey, Andrew and Kiera to make it happen
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami – a recommendation from the very nice Japanese girl who gave me a facial in the Covent Garden Molton Brown store last week

Quite pleased especially as this is likely to be the last major book haul for some time.

By way of catching-up

February 5, 2011 in Stuff | Tags: Excuses excuses | 2 comments

So here we are in the first weekend of February and it’s been nearly a month since I actually posted anything about stuff I’ve read or am reading. In fact it’s been very quiet around here in terms of anything substantial and this is something that has to change.

So why the quietness?

technology – I got an iPad before Christmas and an iPhone a week or so ago and now spend my commuting time playing about with them, especially as I am now on Twitter (button on the sidebar if you want to follow my inane ramblings and grumpy-old-womanish stuff);
heavy workload – I had the whole of Christmas off and suffered for it as soon as I got back to work on 4 Jan – and in so many ways I’m still suffering for it;
general lack of backbone – as evidenced by failing to get anywhere with either the Sci-fi Experience or Virago Reading Week despite both best intentions and something vaguely resembling a plan (though I still have 3 weeks to make an impact on the former) – although to be fair all of the books I haven’t been reading have been within the permitted rules of the TBR Dare;
my birthday – my real one at the end of January which involved eating and cocktails and spending time with lovely people and talking about books (just not reading them…..)

But none of this should have prevented me from reading, and as I said to Silvery Dude only the other day, if you really want to do something you’ll make time for it. Which just proves that (a) I talk a lot of nonsense and (b) I don’t practise what I preach – though that’s the prerogative of being an older sister (don’t do what I do, do what I say).

But I have plans.

I will:

write the one book and two film review posts outstanding from January;
go through my “I’ve started so I’ll finish” bookpile and weed out the ones I’m not in the mood for at the moment;
post about the really nice books I got for my birthday
start reading regularly again

So watch this space, something might actually happen!

Virago Reading Week

January 23, 2011 in Challenges | 2 comments

Virago Reading Week is here, and I have decided that despite workload and other stuff (I haven’t been very well recently and am vastly behind with everything) I would still try to take part.

I have pulled the following off the shelves:

Good Bones by Margaret Atwood
The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
The Sheik by E M Hull

Although all my copies have lovely old fashioned green Virago covers.

And this challenge will also help with the TBR Dare. Hurrah!

Fourth Blogiversary

January 20, 2011 in Stuff | 5 comments

Yes, astonishingly enough the Bride is four today. Feels both extremely pleasant and very strange all at once, as I confess I’m surprised that I’ve kept going in some respects. I’m putting that down to not feeling pressure to blog every day and of course to my lovely readers out there with their own fabulous blogs and their always interesting comments.

The book blogging community is absolutely the best.

I will find myself some real cake (or equivalent) later to celebrate!

And will try to catch up with the (admittedly only one) outstanding review at some point soon.

The Winter Ghosts

January 9, 2011 in Reviews | Tags: Ghosts, WWI | 5 comments

The Winter Ghosts was my first experience of Kate Mosse, though I have both Labyrinth and Sepulchre somewhere in the stacks but just haven’t got round to them yet. I may have been slightly put off by comments from friends that her writing style wasn’t great and although I don’t usually pay attention to that sort of thing (our tastes are all different after all, and sometimes a story transcends the style in which it was written) it possibly prevented these floating to the top of the TBR pile.

However, I was looking for something reasonably short and suitably wintery to lug around in the old handbag to read on the commute, and this seemed to fit the bill.

So the story is that Freddie Watson is on holiday in the French Pyrenees in winter. Even though its 1928, he is still mourning the loss of his older brother in World War I; he’s emotionally paralysed by his grief, compounded by the fact that his brother’s body was never found so for a long time he didn’t accept that he was dead, and so ended up in a psychiatric hospital. But here he is, after the death of parents who don’t seem to have loved him as much as their dead son, trying to achieve some semblance of normality.

But he hears voices in the mountains, and on a lonely road in the middle of a snowstorm he crashes his car and has to take refuge in a small village where at a feast to mark St Etienne he meets a young, beautiful but sad woman and unburdens himself of his grief and escapes with her when strange events begin to unfold. And of course in the morning he finds himself in his room with no sign that he had been anywhere the night before, and no-one knows who the girl was. A mystery to be unravelled – will he solve it and bring peace to the village and himself?

Of course he will.

I actually rather enjoyed this. It had a nice atmosphere, the story was nicely book-ended and it does have a basis in historical events in the area. It was a nice melancholy read for a dark night; I read it over two sittings and might have enjoyed it more if I had been able to read it all in one, as the atmosphere builds nicely and can get lost if you take a break. It’s not ground-breaking and the central mystery about the girl isn’t in some respects a mystery at all, but the tension where it exists is all about Freddie – will he get to the bottom of things and will it help him?

So on the basis of this I’m going to give her other works a go this year (though having looked at some of the reviews on Amazon I may have to manage my expectations…)

Update: this is part of the TBR challenge – the book has been on my stacks since November 2010.

Bride of the Book God

Just After Sunset

Full Dark, No Stars

Rivers of London

What to read when feeling unwell

The Pattern in the Carpet

The Bride’s New Acquisitions

By way of catching-up

Virago Reading Week

Fourth Blogiversary

The Winter Ghosts

Bride of the Book God

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