Month: December 2008

Categories
Booker Prize

G by John Berger

‘G’ won the Booker prize in 1972. It is about the life of a privileged family, living in Italy, at the turn of the century.

The majority of the book was the fairly boring story of ‘G’. I felt very little empathy for his character, and got more disinterested in his life as the book went on.

Very early into the book a few graphic sex scenes are thrown in. I say thrown, as there seems to be no real reason for their presence. They do not add anything to the story line, and seem only to be there to shock the reader. I was not shocked, but this along with the childish drawing of penises make parts of this book feel as though they are written by a teenage boy.

There are a few more sex scenes later on in the book, which at least seem to be part of the story, but again brought the book down to a much lower level. It then deteriorated into inane ramblings by the author, about the quality of sexual experiences.

There were a few interesting historical pieces in the book, but it wasn’t worth having to read the rest of the book, just for these few, short paragraphs.

Overall, the book felt very disjointed. The characters were shallow, and I would only recommend this book to teenage boys in need of a bit of sexual education!

1 star out of 5.

Categories
2000 - 2007 Thriller

The Halo Effect by M.J. Rose

I first heard about M. J. Rose a few weeks ago, when I spotted reviews for her new release The Memorist. It was getting very good reviews, so I decided to try one of her books. ‘The Halo Effect’ also seemed to have good reviews, so I decided to fulfill my desire for a thriller by reading it.

It was a very basic thriller. Characters were two dimensional, and followed typical thiller stereotypes. The plot didn’t seem very realistic, and everything was very formulaic. The murder suspects were described one after the other, so there wasn’t much opportunity to guess who was committing the crimes, as each seemed equally likely to have done it.

It was a light read, so was good for me to read when I couldn’t concentrate fully. It was OK, but but nothing special.

Categories
Orange Prize

The Monsters of Templeton – Lauren Groff

The Monsters of Templeton was short listed for the Orange New Writers Prize in 2008. It tells the story of a young woman in New York State, as she finds out the secrets of her family tree, in order to discover the truth about her own life.

 

There were many things I loved about this book. The photos at the start of each chapter made the characters in the historical sections feel much more real, and the continual updating of the family tree throughout the book helped me to understand what was happening, as sometimes the large family became confusing. Unfortunately, some of the historical writing in the book did not seem true to it’s age, and so didn’t come across as very realistic. The letters weren’t as well written as the rest of the book, and I lost interest in a few of the characters further up the family tree.

 

The modern story in the book was excellent. The main character, Willie, was very well drawn. I loved her, despite her flaws, and really felt for her as she dealt with the problems she was faced with.

 

I loved the way the discovery of a monster in the lake was made to feel realistic. The scientific analysis of it at the end was particularly clever.

 

Overall, the way the story was well plotted, and the ending was very satisfying.

 

Recommended.

 

Categories
Other Uncategorized

Friday Finds

 

Yesterday I came across this list of the top five most reviewed books on Amazon.co.uk:

Five of the Best
The five top-rated Fiction books as reviewed by Amazon.co.uk customers.

  1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – 630 Customer Reviews
  2. Outlander – 341 Customer Reviews
  3. To Kill a Mockingbird – 130 Customer Reviews
  4. Phantom – 107 Customer Reviews
  5. A Fine Balance – 94 Customer Reviews

I wasn’t suprised to see Harry Potter at number one, or To Kill A Mockingbird at number four, and was really happy that my favourite book, A Fine Balance was at number five.

I was suprised that I had never heard of the number two book, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (released as Cross Stich in the UK)

I read some of the reviews, and it did look really interesting, so I’ve ordered a copy. Has anyone else read it? If so, let me know what you thought of it!

Categories
Other Uncategorized

The Pub Reading Challenge

I have decided to take part in the Pub Reading Challenge in 2009 to encourage me to read more recently published books.

The Rules:
Read a minimum of 9 books first published in 2009. You don’t have to buy these. Library books, unabridged audios, or ARCs are all acceptable. To qualify as being first published in 2009, it must be the first time that the book is published in your own country

As a bookseller I have thousands of books in my house, so rarely feel the need to go out to get new ones. I took my son to join the local library last week, so joining this challenge will mean I will encourage me to look for books to read too!

Books read so far:

1. The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters stars4

2. The Thing Around Your Neck – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie    stars4h

Categories
Other Uncategorized

December’s Reading Plan

At the moment I am reading ‘The Monsters of Templeton’, by Lauren Groff, so far I am really enjoying it. As it is a hardback, that is too heavy to read in the bath, I am also reading ‘The Halo Effect’, by M.J. Rose which is doing a great job of fulfilling the need I had for a murder mystery earlier in the week.

 

I then plan to read ‘The Fingersmith’, by Sarah Waters, as this month she is the author celebrated by the Orange Prize project.

 

‘The Fingersmith’ is a very long book, so I’ll take a break in the middle of it to read ‘For One More Day’, by Mitch Albom, which is my reading group’s choice for the month.

 

If I have any time left over Christmas then I’ll probably read one of the books short listed for the Booker Prize in 2007.

 

Happy reading everyone!