Bride of the Book God

Fall Into Reading Challenge

September 24, 2008 in Challenges | Tags: Wishful thinking | 3 comments

So though I said I wasn’t going to get involved in any more challenges, I couldn’t resist this one as it is such a simple idea. I’ve been thinking quite carefully about what to set myself as goals, and I’ve come up with the following:

to read the following books left over from RIP III challenge:
- Duma Key by Stephen King
- Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
- Come Closer by Sara Gran
- Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman
to finish Jigs and Reels by Joanne Harris which I started reading way back when?
to finish The Mandlebaum Gate which I abandoned earlier this year, and kick-start my Muriel Spark readathon once again
to read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman as soon as I get my sticky paws on it
to find enough books in addition to these, and make the time to read them, so that I hit my 52 books in 52 weeks goal

That looks like enough to get on with, I think!

Rape: A Love Story

September 24, 2008 in Challenges, Reviews | Tags: Crime, Joyce Carol Oates | 7 comments

Where to start with this one? A controversial title (I received some askance looks when reading this on my daily commute) perhaps, but as with all works by Joyce Carol Oates carefully chosen, not for shock value but to reflect what the nub of the story really is.

Rape is about Teena Maguire, a single mother, and her daughter Bethie, 12 years old, and the consequences of their short-cut through a local park late at night after a Fourth of July party. Teena is raped by a number of men who are high on drugs and alcohol, beaten and left for dead; Bethie is beaten but escapes, though she can hear from her hiding place what is happening to her mother.

The men’s families hire a lawyer who is able to get their charges reduced to assault by claiming that there was consent and the beating and so on must have been carried out by a different group of men who came along later; after all, no-one actually witnessed the rape. Some of the most difficult parts of the story are here, where the justice system seems to fail Teena and Bethie; the author has made it clear from the start that these men are guilty, there is no room for ambiguity or doubt, but Teena’s poor choice that night, her dress and her family circumstances are used against her. But there is one man who is determined to see justice done, and the latter part of the novella concentrates on how he achieves that; whether his actions are right or wrong is left to the reader to decide.

This is an incredibly powerful story, but not to everyone’s taste; I’m sure many will find it a difficult read. I have said elsewhere that I admire Joyce Carol Oates greatly, and a number of her novels deal with the undercurrent of violence in modern society and how it often erupts into the lives of otherwise ordinary families, and this is no exception. The events stay with Bethie into her adult life.

This is my fifth read for the Novella Challenge.

Heart-Shaped Box

September 20, 2008 in Challenges, Reviews | Tags: Creepy stuff, Rock stars | 5 comments

First things first – I loved this book. I read it slowly so that I could enjoy the experience for as long as possible and I’ve been mulling it over ever since, trying to work out exactly why Heart-Shaped Box is so good.

I think it’s basically such a wonderful idea – rock star buys ghost over the Internet and when the titular heart-shaped box containing a black suit arrives, he finds himself genuinely and creepily haunted. And it all goes downhill from there, as he and his current lady-friend try to find a way to rid themselves of this malicious presence.

It helps if you like the characters and I thought all of them were well-rounded, particularly Jude and Marybeth, and I found it was really easy to invest myself in their survival. I particularly loved the stuff about the dogs- I won’t say anymore as I’m sure I’m not actually the last person in the world to read this, although it feels like that sometimes.

It would be really easy to compare Joe Hill’s writing to that of his dad, who as everybody probably knows by now is the great Stephen King, but that comparison would be a bit unfair as Hill has his own distinctive voice. I’m really looking forward to reading more – I have Twentieth Century Ghosts tucked away somewhere for winter reading.

If you haven’t read this you should really give it a try. Great stuff.

This is my second read for the RIP III Challenge.

The 2nd Canadian Book Challenge, Eh?

September 6, 2008 in Challenges | Tags: Canada | 2 comments

I started to write this post in July and promptly forgot all about it while I dithered over the book pool for this challenge – but never mind, got there in the end!

——————————

So I’ve already mentioned elsewhere that I signed up for this challenge, which I have to say I’m really looking forward to as I have been fascinated by Canada and things Canadian since I was quite young; I’ve no idea why, but there you are. Some of my favourite bands are Canadian (Rush, Barenaked Ladies) and I’ve read quite a few authors, most of whom will be represented on my reading list.

The challenge is – starting (well, started) July 1st, 2008 and running to July 1st, 2009 – to read (and write about) 13 Canadian books (by Canadians and/or about Canadians).

I’ve been pondering my booklist, and have come up with the following:

1. A Celibate Season by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard

2. Pilgrim by Timothy Findley

3. Garbo Laughs by Elizabeth Hay

4. The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint

5. Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

6. For Your Eye Alone: The Letters of Robertson Davies

7. The Glenn Gould Reader

8. After Edgar by Joan Barfoot

9. The Diviners by Margaret Laurence

10. Runaway by Alice Munro

11. Neuromancer by William Gibson

12. Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland

13. Strange Things by Margaret Atwood

These are all books that were kicking around the house, it was just a question of gathering them up. Now all I have to do is start to read!

The Terror

September 6, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: Arctic, Creepy stuff, Ursus maritimus | 8 comments

The Terror is my first Dan Simmons novel, and I have to say that I’m really very impressed. I wasn’t at all sure what to expect, but found the story really gripping and I read what is a fairly chunky book (at over 750 pages) in pretty quick time for me.

So this is based on the true story of Sir John Franklin’s expedition to find the North West Passage in the 1840s, an attempt that failed with the apparent loss of the crews of the two ships involved, The Erebus and The Terror. Over the years it has become clear that the ships had become stuck in the ice and that the men succumbed to scurvy, starvation, botulism and lead poisoning, the latter from the poorly soldered cans in which much of their food was provided. Dan Simmons builds all this into his tale, but adds a little something extra – what if there was also something out on the ice stalking the men, picking them off, something not natural….?

I couldn’t tear myself away from this, picking it up at every spare moment to find out what was going to happen next. The story is told from the viewpoints of several of the main characters, almost all based on real crew members; this works really well. There is a real sense of foreboding in the novel and the sensation that even the widest of wide-open spaces can be oppressive when you can’t get away. I even enjoyed all the detail about ship-board life, the difference between whaleboats and pinnaces, and I now know much more about the effects of scurvy than I probably wanted to! I also know a little bit more about Inuit mythology than I did before. I found the resolution satisfying, and the mixture of historical fiction and horror worked well, so recommended.

This is my first read for the RIP III challenge.

An Incomplete Revenge

September 6, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: Crime, WWI | Leave a comment

An Incomplete Revenge is the fifth Maisie Dobbs mystery, and maintains the high quality of the series. It is 1931 and Maisie is asked by the son of her former employers to investigate the circumstances around a series of petty thefts and fires in a Kent village where he is intending to buy a brick works. With the help of her assistant who is in the area hop-picking with his family she uncovers the circumstances surrounding a Zeppelin raid in 1916 which has cast a shadow over the community.

I really enjoyed this, as I always do with the Maisie Dobbs stories as I find her such a sympathetic figure. I could see where the story was generally heading, but not the detail around it; this is the second crime novel in recent weeks where that has happened (perhaps I’m reading too many of them) but I don’t mind that really, as long as the novel is well-written and I have an interest in the characters.

I found descriptions of the travelling people (or Romany or gypsies) fascinating, and what we learn about Maisie through her interaction with them really develops her as a character; it is interesting to see how little has changed really in terms of the suspicion and prejudice these people come across wherever they go.

If you haven’t read any of these novels before I wouldn’t start with this one as there is an arc story in the background which reaches a partial conclusion here; they are so lightly written (in a good way) with a lot of compassion and humanity that I would recommend reading the the whole series from the start.

Peer Pressure « Booking Through Thursday

September 4, 2008 in BTT | 4 comments

This week’s question is:

I was looking through books yesterday at the shops and saw all the Twilight books, which I know basically nothing about. What I do know is that I’m beginning to feel like I’m the *only* person who knows nothing about them.

Despite being almost broke and trying to save money, I almost bought the expensive book (Australian book prices are often completely nutty) just because I felt the need to be ‘up’ on what everyone else was reading.

Have you ever felt pressured to read something because ‘everyone else’ was reading it? Have you ever given in and read the book(s) in question or do you resist? If you are a reviewer, etc, do you feel it’s your duty to keep up on current trends?

Peer Pressure « Booking Through Thursday.

Well….. I’m often tempted as I don’t like to feel I’m missing something, but this usually manifests itself by buying the book in question, putting it away somewhere and not reading it until ages after everyone else. The only time I gave in was with The Da Vinci Code and I so wish I hadn’t.

Despite my love of all things vampire I haven’t tried any of the Twilight books yet…….

RIP III Challenge

August 27, 2008 in Challenges | Tags: Creepy stuff | 13 comments

So ever since Carl announced RIP III I’ve been wandering around the house looking for suitable books to use as my pool for the challenge.

And even though there are more I could add, I think I’m going to plump for the following list from which to complete Peril the First, where I have to read four books of any length from any subgenre of scary stories I choose:

The Terror by Dan Simmons [6 September]
Duma Key by Stephen King
Come Closer by Sara Gran
Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist [25 September]
Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror by Chris Priestley [3 October]
Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill [14 September]
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

I would love to have included The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman but it doesn’t come out in the UK until the end of October as far as I can tell.

I also intend to round off the challenge with my annual viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas, which seems fitting given Carl’s fabulous challenge button!

The Vows of Silence

August 26, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: Crime | 2 comments

I’ve become very fond of Susan Hill’s Simon Serailler series, and have saved the reading of the latest until I could give it full and undivided attention.

The Vows of Silence begins with the shooting of a young woman, newly married. This is rapidly followed by the deaths of several others, all by a gunman, but what is the connection (if any) and is there more than one killer?

It’s fair to say that this isn’t really a standard police procedural; by that I mean that although there is the usual stuff you would expect, this is a novel as much about Serailler the private man as it is about a senior policemen leading the hunt for a dangerous killer. A lot of the book deals with several characters we have met before, including Serrailler’s family, especially his sister Cat. I didn’t find this a problem; I have grown very attached to these characters over previous novels, and in some ways the personal parts of the book were more compelling than the solution of the crime, especially as I worked out the identity of the killer quite early on.

Parts of this book are really quite moving; there is family tragedy which is so well described that I did have to reach for the tissues, something which doesn’t happen that often (and hasn’t since reading this book). So this might not be to everyone’s taste, but I enjoyed it very much.

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders

August 25, 2008 in Reviews | Tags: Conan Doyle, Crime, Victoriana | 1 comment

I have to confess that I have never really warmed to Gyles Brandreth, whether as a journalist, a TV personality or as an MP. However, with Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders, I have been pleasantly surprised and will probably have to reassess my view of him.

It is 1889 and Oscar Wilde finds the body of a young man with his throat cut in the room of a house in Westminster where Wilde has an appointment. Although Scotland Yard do become involved, Wilde decides to investigate on his own as the young man was known to him, and he enlists two of his friends. Which sounds much as you would expect, except his friends are Robert Sherard, writer and great-grandson of William Wordsworth, and Artur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. The game is indeed afoot.

This is really good fun, witty and clever and gives a sense of what Wilde might have been like as a friend. His relationships with both Sherard and Conan Doyle are based on fact, and there are interesting biogrpahical notes at the end of the story for those of us who like to know a bit more of the factual background to this type of novel.

I did twig reasonably early on who might be involved in the death of Billy Wood, but not the reasons why or the detail around the murder and subsequent events. Trying to guess the culprit in a crime novel is all part of the fun as far as I am concerned and it’s always enjoyable to find out just how right or wrong I am. What makes this book so satisfying is the picture it portrays of late Victorian London and the lifestyles of those with a bit of money.

This is the first in a series (I think there are three so far) and I look forward to reading the others.

Bride of the Book God

Fall Into Reading Challenge

Rape: A Love Story

Heart-Shaped Box

The 2nd Canadian Book Challenge, Eh?

The Terror

An Incomplete Revenge

Peer Pressure « Booking Through Thursday

RIP III Challenge

The Vows of Silence

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders

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