Books Wot I Have Read
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Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
| Time |
Event |
| 7:38p |
The Death of Bunny Munro, by NIck Cave
 Nick Cave is one of my favourite musicians. He writes great lyrics, his songs often have a more impressive plot than many novels I’ve read, and his previous novel ( And the Ass Saw the Angel) is a great piece of gothic Americana. I read it years ago, and would be hard-pressed to remember many of the details, but the feel and tone of the book have stayed with me. So you can imagine how pleased I was to be able to snaffle a reading copy of his second novel, due in September. I started off with great enthusiasm. OK, the setting – Brighton - may be a little less exotic then his other novel, and the cover didn’t give much away, but hey – Nick Cave, can’t be bad. And I whipped through the first 75 pages or so (this isn’t a long novel, only 278 pages), enjoying the journey in a fairly low-key way, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t sure what the point was. Oh, the prose is enjoyable, if perhaps a little florid for some people’s taste (you certainly wouldn’t find it hard to guess that it was written by Cave), and the plot felt like it was building up to something, but I just had a sense that the book was treading water. There are only really two main characters of note – the titular Bunny and his son, Bunny junior – and it rapidly becomes obvious that we’re getting set up for a road trip, but it does take a while to get going. That turns out not to be a terribly bad thing. I thought I was having minor problems with the book to begin with, but I was optimistic that everything would come together, and that I’d work out what the novel was for. I could cope with the fact that Bunny Sr was a deeply unpleasant person, and that the book had some pretty grotesque moments – this is Nick Cave, I’m not squeamish, they’re well written, that’s fine – but after a while I just couldn’t be bothered to pick up the book and plough on with it. I had to sit myself down and make myself get on with things in order to actually get to the end, and to me that isn’t a sign of a good book (or, at the very least, it means that it isn’t working for me). When I did finally finish things off I was left with a surprisingly mixed opinion. There’s no doubt that Cave is a strong writer. There are some lovely bits of imagery and prose contained within the book, and he plays some very clever tricks with the reader. I lost count of the occasions on which I suddenly had to go back and reread, normally because Cave lets slip a little bit of information that recasts the previous paragraphs in a completely new light, often shocking. It’s a good trick, and Cave doesn’t overuse it. He also deals well with the bewilderment that Bunny Jr feels as his father goes off the rails, and Bunny Sr’s breakdown is depicted in a way that feels both inevitable and surprising, which is a clever duality to pull off. The ending, while it doesn’t exactly out of nowhere, is moving and in part redeems the previous excesses of the book. Those excesses are, to a certain very limited extent, part of my problem with the book. As I said, I have no issue with grotesquerie, ‘difficult’ or ‘provocative’ writing (and make no mistake, this book will be unpalatable to a great many people) or attempts to shock. The trouble is, those attributes can be deeply powerful, but there has to be a reason to use them. Here, I’m not entirely sure what the point is. There’s a certain enjoyment to be had in watching the boundaries being crossed quite so flagrantly, and seeing how far Bunny Sr is prepared to fall, but it doesn’t seem to be the thrust of the book. Perhaps I’m being unfair, and the journey is the destination – this is a road trip book, after all – but I just felt that, for all of the bluster and attention seeking, the novel had no core. There are suggestions of a relevance, of an intent, but I certainly wasn’t convinced by them. Cave achieves an emotional intensity, both within the book and in (this) reader, that should be enough of a defence for the book, but I can’t shake the feeling it just isn’t enough. Perhaps my hopes were too high, perhaps I’ve missed something obvious (or implied), and there is certainly enjoyment to be had here, but for me this was a real disappointment. I read a proof, which I was very grateful to receive, even if I didn't love it. Started in the first week of May, finished in the last. It comes out in September, ISBN: 1847673767. | | 7:44p |
Thicker Than Water, by Mike Carey
 Finally, the fourth of Carey’s supernatural detective stories. I didn’t know much about Carey, but someone convinced me to read the first of these books, and I enjoyed it far more than I’d expected. I felt there was a slight dip in quality in the third volume – it just felt a little too repetitive – but I was still looking forward to this one, and I’m very glad that Carey seems to have struck off in a direction that negates my concerns. Or, of course, it may be that the long delay between books three and four has whetted my appetite. Either way, this was great fun, and I’m now very much looking forward to the next one A subplot that had been bubbling under in the previous books comes to the fore here – Carey tries to make new readers welcome, but I suspect you really need to have read at least the first book for everything to make sense – and ends on a cliffhanger that is properly shocking, a rare enough thing in series fiction. There’s a pretty good plot here, as well as the metastory stuff, although Carey keeps the reader as much in the dark as Felix Castor, his hero. Castor has a nasty time of it this time around, getting beaten up, framed for murder and so on. His much-vaunted exorcist skills aren’t a lot of use, and instead he must rely on his wits, friends and contacts. It isn’t very surprising that he finds this quite hard. Carey is also very good at place – his London is very recognisable, and his grim estates and neon-lit hospitals are very evocative of the underworld in which Castor plys his trade. My only real criticism is a slight tendency for the other characters to be pushed into the background – perhaps unsurprising given the first person narrative – but there are a couple of welcome new additions to the cast here, and the interplay is generally well done. There are still some elements of similarity to Hellblazer (which Carey used to write) that can’t quite be shaken off, but as the series progresses and starts to create its own mythology, the echoes grow fainter. This is a really fun series, well-written and a joy to read, but it really should be started at the beginning. Crime fans shouldn’t let the horror trappings put them off, and horror/fantasy/s-f people shouldn’t worry about the attempts to locate the book in the mainstream. They’re well worth a try, and I’m very pleased that this book brings the series back up to the heights we know it can achieve. I had to wait for the book to actually come out, boo, and for me to finish the Nick Cave book, so I didn't get around to this until the last week of May. Out now, ISBN: 1841496561. | | 7:55p |
The Red Dwarf Omnibus, by Grant Naylor
 Inspired by the recent new episodes, I ordered up the Red Dwarf books for the shop and then found myself drawn to this bind-up of the first two. I have a copy of my own stuck in a box or at the bottom of a book pile somewhere, but haven’t read them since I was thirteen or so. I remembered them as being very enjoyable, but the TV series and the books had, I think, merged together in my memory, so I had no idea if I was going to enjoy these or not. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised. There’s a real sense of an attempt to make the various unconnected TV episodes string together into a novelistic plot, and the backstory had obviously been well developed, even if it was done in retrospect. The first book is the weaker of the two, although it starts very strongly, with a long sequence set before the first TV episode that is genuinely funny. Then we get a long selection of quotes and incidents lifted (often verbatim) from the scripts, although this isn’t badly done, and then the book goes off on its own tangent again towards a properly disturbing ending. The second book picks up from there, and although it does have the odd jarring moment as a piece of TV is used, feels much more like an original piece of fiction. Again, some very funny sequences, but the most striking thing is the emotional strength of some of the writing here. That may seem an unlikely claim to make for the novelisation of a sci-fi comedy show, but Red Dwarf was often subtler than it was given credit for, and the best bits of these books stand up very well, even after this long. I read this in tea breaks at work, throughout May. Been out for years, obviously, ISBN: 0140174664. | | 7:57p |
Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes volume three, by various
 Another in the very cheap and very thick, and therefore very good value, collection of classic DC Comics. I don’t have the shelf space to buy as many of these as I’d like, so I have to pick and choose, but the Legion volumes are essential. They were some of the first comics I really got into, back when I was ten or eleven, and they’ve always been one of my favourites. This volume fills in a bunch of the complex backstory that intrigued and attracted me as a kid, and although the individual stories can be really quite rubbish, not to mention sexist – a perennial problem with early comics – they’re generally a lot of fun. Not for everybody, but £8 well spent for me. I read this on a day off, sometime at the end of May. ISBN: 1401221858. | | 7:59p |
Starman Omnibus volume 1, by James Robinson
 I’d heard good things about this series (from the early 90’s, which was when I’d stopped reading comics) and the decision to put it out in lavish hardback volumes suggested to me that it might be worth a go. Plus, I’m a sucker for nice editions of books and comics. This collection – containing the first 17 issues - worked quite well as an introductory volume, I felt, but the story perhaps didn’t quite get up to full steam within these pages. There was definitely something worthwhile here, though, so I’ll have a punt on the second book, and see if it fulfils its promise. Given how many people rate this run of comics, I hope not to be disappointed. I read this on a day off at the beginning of June, ISBN: 1401216994. | | 8:00p |
The Gay Divorcee, by Paul Burston
 Not my normal reading material, but I was selling books at a party where the author was speaking, and it seemed rude to read my own book, so I started on this. I was there for about two hours and finished the book with about half an hour to go, so it isn’t exactly a challenging read. Best described as gay chick lit, I guess, which is not a genre I know much about, so I have no idea if this is groundbreaking, or derivative, or what. I rather enjoyed it as a light read – the beer I was drinking may have helped – but it didn’t exactly feel deep, and I don’t know if it was accurate in its depiction of gay Soho life. It felt realistic enough, and the lead character was appealing, but some of the supporting cast were such bastards that it felt a little overblown. There’s a fairly pointless subplot about the identity of a bitchy blogger, which didn’t do much for me, but the main thrust of the book was enjoyable, which is all you can ask for, really. I’m not a big fan of modern settings in a beach read, which effectively is what this felt like, but overall I enjoyed it much more than I thought I was going to. The fact that I was cheering on the protagonist as he sorted out his life and ended up with the right man is a good sign, and I was surprised that I got as involved as I did. Not sure I’d be too bothered about reading more of this nature – fluffy chick lit, gay or otherwise, really isn’t too my taste – but a nice diversion. I read this at the launch party, sitting on an uncomfortable shelf, at the end of May. Out now in paperback, ISBN: 1847442080. | | 8:03p |
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan
 Another of Gollancz’s American-originating Young Adult-ish books – the most recent I read was Graceling - which they’re aiming a bit more at the adult SF market. I like YA fiction, generally, although I read a lot less of it than I used too, but I do get a little annoyed when I read one without being warned. I suspect it’s something to do with expectations, which may not be fair – a book should be judged on what it is, not what the reader thinks it will be – but still, I was hoping for something with a bit more bite (hah!) than this. The set-up is better than average, if not exactly entirely new, amalgamating as it does a post-apocalypse setting with zombies. That may sound a little straight-forward, but there are some nice touches, and Ryan is very good at creating the sense of normality that her characters have settled into. Yes, there are the zombie-esque remains of their friends and family clustered around their little village, battering on the fence, but that’s just the way things are, and have been for some time. Something to be scared of, but nothing more than a background to life. Of course, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that things don’t remain calm for long. After a lovely beginning, in which our main character’s mother is dragged off to become a zombie, the book loses the path a little. There’s a little too much time spent with the minutiae of orphan life and religious training, and far too much time spent on the unfairness of life and, overwhelmingly, love. A few bits of mystery are scattered over this section, which are welcome, but the endless worry about which of the two local boys our heroine is in love with - and which will ask her to marry them, and which will end up with her best friend – are a little wearying. I can see what the author’s trying to do, and perhaps I’m just not the right reader (I don’t think I’ll like Twilight, either, although I shouldn’t prejudge…), but it just didn’t work for me. Things pick up a bit when the expected catastrophe occurs, and the hormonal youths must flee the village where they’ve spent all of their lives, and head off into the titular forest. Are there other survivors out there, even though the local authorities have always said there can’t be? Will the strange numbers on the path lead to some form of salvation? Will Mary ever stop dreaming about the sea? Will she ever get to have sex with the boy she loves, even if she isn’t sure which of the two brothers that is? Do we care, or should the author just get on with what she’s good at, which is the creepy atmospherics and willingness to do horrible things to main characters? These are, in case you hadn’t guessed, rhetorical questions. There’s much to admire here, and I suspect that if I was a lot younger, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more (especially, I suspect, if I was a young teenage girl, which I’m not). The setting is well depicted, the prose is generally solid, the characters mostly convincing (if whiny), and the horror elements are nicely underplayed, and occasionally gruesome to good effect. I just can’t help but feel that there should have been a bit more to it, and the open-ended conclusion didn’t exactly inspire me to wait with bated breath for the next instalment. Solid, and not a bad read, but not my cup of tea. I suspect it’ll be embraced by the target audience with more enthusiasm than I can muster. I read this in a couple of days at the beginning of June, and it should be out in the first week of July, ISBN: 0575090847. | | 8:06p |
The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood
 A new Atwood novel is always an exciting moment, and I was surprised to realise how long it had been since the last one, which was Oryx and Crake in 2003. Oh, she’s published a lot of books since then, but none of them were what you would call a ‘full’ novel. Retellings of ancient myths, poetry, short stories, non-fiction – all fine, but not long-form fiction, which is what I enjoy. I have fond memories of Oryx and Crake, which turn out not to be as precise as I had hoped, so I jumped on this as soon as it arrived. It didn’t hurt that The Year of the Flood is post-apocalyptic fiction, which I enjoy anyway, and which Atwood is very good at. It turns out that this is a sort-of sequel to Oryx, although it took me an awfully long time to work that out. I had thought that my feelings of familiarity were just caused by awareness of Atwood’s other work, her writing style and so on, but it turned out that some characters are shared between the two books. I’d have to go back to the previous novel to really put my finger on the connections, and I would suggest that – unless you have a fantastic memory – it might be worth going back and rereading that novel, if only because I’m sure that I missed some subtleties that may have enhanced the reading experience. So with that caveat in place, and with an attempt not to give away too much of the plot, how does Flood stand up? I have no doubt that Atwood fans will enjoy it – she is on form here – but I suspect the wider reading populace may be left a little cold. In many ways it feels like a (very well done) pastiche of an Atwood novel. That could sound like an insult, but it isn’t meant to be – I’m just trying to get across the fact that this didn’t feel overly new or fresh. Of course, with hindsight that feeling came, at least in part, from the fact that I had encountered this world before, and some of its inhabitants. Setting isn’t everything, naturally, and neither is constant evolution of style – and Atwood has more than proved her ability to flit between genres – but I couldn’t initially shake my slight disappointment. It probably didn’t help that it takes the plot a while to get going, and Atwood has decided on a flashback structure that takes away some of the tension of her situations. We know that two women are going to survive the coming catastrophe, and end up isolated in separate locations. The novel relies on our interest being held by the description of how they end up there, with a vague promise of continuing the narrative once the flashbacks have caught up with the opening chapters. Thankfully (and unsurprisingly) Atwood’s writing is up to the task, and her habit of jumping back and forth between characters and timeframes serves the plot well. It takes a while to fit all of the jigsaw pieces together, to begin to build up an image of the society and culture she has created, but even the blurry picture intrigues. There’s a bit of a mystery rumbling along in the background – what caused the catastrophe? – and even the minor characters are defined with a casual simplicity. Some of the set-pieces are truly exciting or scary, and the sense of a persecuted minority struggling to survive, let alone stay within their self-imposed ecological lifestyles, is well conveyed. So it was enjoyable, but I did find it hard to get truly involved. As the strands of the novel began to come together, however, my attention began to be properly caught. We knew that our two narrators were going to survive the end of the world, holed up in their separate structures, and Atwood’s smattering of chapters set in the aftermath promised some kind of resolution to their stories. Once the flashbacks had been dispensed with (which, to be fair, wasn’t for quite a while) I began to be more excited about the plot of the book, rather than just admiring of the skill with which Atwood was telling her story. There was more of a sense of danger for the main characters – we knew they’d survive the apocalypse, but had no such guarantees now – and more of a feel of narrative possibility. Despite that, I did feel that the ending fizzled out a bit. Hard to put a finger on why, exactly, but perhaps it was the inevitability of things. Once you’ve wiped out most of the human population, there isn’t a lot left to be done. Overall, then, I had mixed feelings about the whole thing (as if I hadn’t made that obvious!). It’s classic Atwood, which can only be a good thing, but there was just a little too much familiarity and security for me to be truly happy with the book. I enjoyed the time I spent with the characters, and there’s no doubt that Atwood has as fertile imagination as ever. Her prose is always good, and there were moments that stood out as funny, scary or clever. The latter sections of the book provide some real suspense, and her ecological warnings are even more relevant than they were with the previous book. The book is well worth reading, but it isn’t her best. I started this early in June, and finished it on holiday, on the 6th June. It comes out in September, ISBN: 0747585164. | | 8:09p |
Tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance
 I was prompted to read this by Subterranean Press’s announcement of a collection of short stories set in the same world, a project which has some great writers contributing. I’d never heard much about the book (or series of books), although I have a vague recollection of reading a Jack Vance or two from the local library when I was a kid (something abut dragons which were a lot like dinosaurs?), and it seemed intruiging, so I begged a copy and took it away on holiday. Also, I didn’t want to spend large amounts of money on a SubPress book about which I knew very little, so it seemed to be a good idea to do some research first… I’m fairly undecided as to whether I’ll order the new collection. I can see why everyone would have been very excited about these books when they were first published – the first volume is clearly doing something interesting and new, and I can see how it influenced lots of later fantasy (and Dungeons & Dragons, and so on). The structure of interlinking short stories felt a little clunky to this modern reader, although it works pretty well, and Vance’s depiction of his setting – the dying husk of Earth, millions of years in the future – is well depicted, albeit largely by allusion and sleight of hand. Overall, though, I was favourably impressed. The second and third volumes were a bit more to my liking – they had a very entertaining central character, and a dry wit and cynicism that I rather enjoyed. It doesn’t hurt that their structure is more polished, although they still betray their origins as indivual stories, and although the various incidents in Cugel’s tale may be a little repetitive, the overall effect breezes along quite happily. I was slightly disappointed that the second of this pair has a nominally happy ending for the roguish main character, but the overwhelming level of disappointment that he had so far suffered perhaps needed a final balancing. The last book was, sadly, the weakest. Three short stories/novellas all concerning the same magician, but with no real feel of connection between them – indeed they make no reference to each other, and occasionally seem to contradict each other (only in minor ways, but still…). The central tale was the strongest, but I’d been left with a bad taste in my mouth from the sheer sexism of the first. Vance doesn’t exactly provide us with many strong female characters in these books, to be honest, but a certain amount of casual treatment of women is somewhat to be expected in books of this age, if not enjoyed. It reaches new levels here, though, and it felt unworthy of the rest of the works. Then again, maybe I’m being unfair, and a powerful woman ruling the world, and turning all the powerful wizards into women, really would have been an utterly dreadful thing. I somehow doubt it, though. Either way, this last set of tales jarred with the rest, and was a disappointing end. If it wasn’t for that, I think I would buy the new short stories – perhaps I’ll have to go back and look at the list of authors again, and see if that convinces me. I read this on holiday, on the 8th of June, and it's been out forever, of course, ISBN: 1857989945. | | 8:10p |
Becoming Queen, by Kate Williams
 A bit of a departure from my normal reading habits – looking back, I think I’ve only really read one history book in the time I’ve been writing these mini-reviews. But we put on an event with Williams at the shop, and she’s a very interesting talker, plus I saw her Timewatch programme covering some of the same ground as this book, so I decided to give it a go. And I’d be in trouble if I didn’t. We sold a lot of these in the shop before Christmas, and the recent release of the Young Victoria film had sparked a fair amount of interest in the paperback, so everywhere I turned I was reminded that I’d decided to try some academic popular history. The book recounts the life of Charlotte, heir to the English throne a generation before Victoria, and then covers the childhood of Victoria herself, and draws some fascinating parallels between the two women’s lives. Obviously, one went on to become monarch and one didn’t, but the links between the two – both familial and biographical – mean that Williams can stitch together a coherent book from two different sources. In general, though, the narrative is fairly linear. There isn’t much attempt to compare the two women side by side, and the writing rarely jumps around chronologically. At first I thought that was a bit of a cheat, as the first third or so of the book was telling me about a woman who I’d never heard of. I’m fairly ignorant about that part of history, obviously. Well, most history, if I’m honest. It didn’t take long for me to get caught up in Charlotte’s short life, however, and Williams pleasingly manages to mix historical detail with a compelling narrative. She’s helped by her subject’s fascinating life, of course, but I had worried that the book would feel very dry, used as I am to fiction. There were a few times when the surfeit of names began to weigh me down a bit – far too many Princes, Ladies and so on for my poor mind to keep track of – but largely I managed to keep everything straight. There is a slight disconnect between the two sides of the book. Williams provides us with a bridging section that skims over the few intervening years, including the birth of Victoria, but the sudden lack of detail felt slightly odd after the well-researched and quote-heavy precedings. Having said that, it doesn’t take long for the book to kick back into gear again. Victoria’s childhood is something I knew nothing about (that’d be the historical ignorance again, then), and it really is a fascinating story. Her mother was hugely domineering, and had a cunning plan to set herself up with power, money and influence. In order for the plan to work, Victoria had to be trained to be utterly subservient to her mother and her mother’s confidantes. Never allowed to be on her own, and dissuaded from making her own decisions, ideally she would have happily given up all of her independence. The society and culture of the time is painstakingly recreated, and I can only assume accurately, but it all seems very very odd to modern eyes, and the way in which children could be treated is jaw-dropping. Again, I had a few moments of confusion over the ever rotating cast, but the narrative thread generally holds together well. Williams relies quite heavily on Victoria’s own personal journals – I was amazed that they largely still exist, and even more amazed that they don’t seem to be available in book form (not even some edited highlights!) – but there’s a fair selection of other sources used. The forty pages of notes and ten pages of bibliography underline the historical chops of the book, and Williams’ success lies in being able to take her serious research and portray it in a well-written, very readable narrative. I now know far much more about Victoria’s childhood than I really need to, not to mention my discovery of an entirely new historical character… I did feel that the ending was a little rushed, which shows how much I was enjoying the book, and a three page epilogue covering the Queen’s later years only serves to highlight the fact that her story was only just beginning. I read this on trains and holiday, 10th or 11th of June, and it's widely available, ISBN: 0099451824. | | 8:16p |
The Stranger, by Max Frei
 The last piece of Russian fantasy fiction I read was Night Watch, which I thought was a half decent idea let down by either a clunky writer or a clunky translator, not to mention a choppy narrative that seemed a bit too willing to skirt around actual coherent plot in favour of exciting ideas and set pieces. In fairness, lots of non-Russian fantasy does exactly the same thing (actually, lots of books do it, not just fantasy) but I have to be honest, having read this book, I begin to wonder if this lack of narrative focus is a typically Russian problem. I know, I know, two books aren’t exactly enough of a sample to make that a fair comment, but no matter how much I enjoyed certain parts of this book, I couldn’t help feeling that I was missing large chunks of exposition. That feeling adds to the occasional dream-like quality of the writing, but I’m not sure it was enough to make me feel that the book worked. Although presented as a novel, there was a definite feeling of short story to the various chapters of the book. There are a few continuing themes and the occasional subplot, but generally each section felt very discrete. I suspect part of my Night Watch feeling came from the similarity in concept – ordinary man finds himself in a world of which he knows nothing, magic and scary and exciting – although Frei’s city of Echo is a far more attractive place than the sub-city of Lukyanenko. In fact, despite the occasional attempt at horror, there isn’t much to be frightened of here. Our hero, Max, is so lucky that nothing ever seems like a real threat to him. Even the other characters in the book comment on his good fortune, and the author’s stabs at tension tend to be a bit undermined by the way in which the villains are defeated within the space of a sentence or two, often without anybody really knowing why they’ve been overcome. The book isn’t entirely without merit, by any means. Frei has some lovely ideas to play with, and the lead character, despite his ability to succeed at everything, often unconsciously, is surprisingly endearing. I would have liked a bit more tension, but when a book starts with the protagonist effectively being acclaimed as the second coming, there isn’t much to play with (I exaggerate a little, but not much). The one element which is left open is Max’s love life, and Frei does wring some mileage out of that, but the book’s sidelining of female characters made it hard for me to really care. There are a few other mysteries – Max’s constantly changing eye-colour, for one, and the backstory of his mentor, for another – but nothing really seems to stick from one chapter to another. The translation is generally quite good, although there are a few sentences and idioms which don’t really work, and some of the supposedly ‘quick-fire’ dialogue seems depressingly stilted. However, it seems churlish to complain about that when the overall effect is so much better than many translations. The whole thing is pacey enough, and some of the situations Max and his colleagues get into are enjoyable to read, but overall I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. I would have liked a bit more tension, a bit more of Max’s life before being magically transported into another world, and a lot more of a reason to care about what might happen to the denizens of another world. Actually, I would have liked a reason to worry about the protagonist as well. The third time he got into some sort of apparent danger by falling asleep and having his dreams taken over/invaded/made real, I was beginning to feel like I was trapped in a loop. Each time he was saved by a power of his own which he knew nothing about, or by the intervention of one of his colleagues, with a power that had never been mentioned before. There’s only so long an author can get away with that in a 600 page novel. Perhaps these would have worked if read as occasional short stories, but for me it was all a bit too much, too repetitive and too unexciting. I can see how the stories might be admired, and there were time when I admired some of the writing, some of the ideas, myself, but it was all a bit too much to put up with in one go. I read this on holiday, 12th June, and the hardback is out now, ISBN: 0575089741. | | 8:19p |
Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
 I asked a colleague for a recommendation to take away on holiday; something I wouldn’t normally read, but something not too heavy. Something to read on a long train journey, effectively, and probably something non-fiction. She suggested I take a Sedaris, possibly motivated by her recent evening selling books at one of his readings, and I decided it was worth a go. He’s always been one of those authors that I know is popular, that people tell me I ought to read, and that I’ve recommended to customers based on my colleagues’ views, but have never quite got around to reading myself. I don’t really know why – perhaps something to do with the fact that I’m not much of a biography reader, or just because nobody thrust him on me, but I was pleased to give him a go. To be honest I didn’t read him on a train, but rather sitting in the glorious sunshine, half dozing, half reading, with a couple of beers and a packet of fags. These may be the perfect conditions under which to read Sedaris. The bite size chapters/essays/articles lend themselves to dipping, and the lack of a book-length narrative meant I could drift away for a bit. At the same time there are some very funny moments in this book which, coupled with the vague progression from childhood through to the author’s current life in Paris, kept my attention focused (to a slightly sleepy, beery extent, anyway). The reader has to be prepared to allow Sedaris to be himself, and to accept that he won’t always behave in the way that we might expect. Obviously, Sedaris is a humourist, and one who searches for absurdities in his own life. However he does so in very casual, open way, and it was only after finishing the book that I realised how much I felt I had got to know the author. References to his drug taking, problems with his family, details of his relationships – these all provide us with an indication of his personality, but it is his willingness to examine himself, his motives and thoughts and dreams, that really connect the author to the reader. This book certainly contains a collection of very funny vignettes, but to allow that to be the only description would be a great disservice to the depths of the book. I’m rather looking forward to reading some more, and I’m very sorry that I didn’t go and see him talk a couple of weeks ago when I had the chance. I read this on holiday, 13th June, and you should be able to find it anywhere, ISBN: 0349113912. | | 8:25p |
Some lovely free comics...
     I do like my free graphic novels. Of this lot, I remember the Dredd ones from when I was a kid, and they're kind of cool, if a lot more gory than I remembered. Ace Trucking is still great fun, and the other three are more recent additions to 2000AD. XTNCT was probably my favourite of the new ones, but both the others were kind of alright. Caballistics Inc was great, but not enough seemed to actually happen - this was more of a setting up volume, which is fine if you haven't paid for it, but would have annoyed me if I had.   For the first time I also got some free Marvel comics, which are something I don't normally read. Of these two I preferred the Wolverine, if only because I know some of his backstory from the X-Men films. Ghost Rider had very pretty art, though. |
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