Ready When You Are, C.B. is hosting the Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge which involves reading a book and then watching the film based upon it.
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I’m going to try to compare 4 books and films in 2010, but I am having difficulty trying to decide which ones to pick. I’d love to watch The Road
Can anyone think of a fantastic book with a great film adaptation?
The Inner Circle is the autobiography of the fictional John Milk, a sex researcher, working alongside the famous Alfred Kinsey. Regular readers of my blog will know that I have recently had problems with a few fictional biographies (Summertime and An Equal Stillness) and so had decided to avoid them for a while, but luckily I had already started The Inner Circle and so didn’t miss out on this fascinating book.
Alfred Kinsey was a zoologist at Indiana University in the 1930s, when he embarked on a study of human sexuality. His controversial research brought many taboo subjects out into the open for the first time and generated a huge amount of public interest.
Publishers are forever using the cliche “eagerly anticipated” to describe ordinary and humdrum volumes of which no one is even remotely aware, but I can say, without doubt, that Sexual Behaviour of the Human Female was the most feverishly awaited and explosive title of the century.
I think the key difference between this book and the two mentioned above, is that this is an autobiography and so all the emotion is there. We are not passively hearing the facts about their lives, but are living inside their head, feeling their emotions.
This book does contain a lot of sex, but it is all scientific, and not in any way titillating. I found the attitudes to sex in the 1930s fascinating. The differences were striking and I don’t think I’d realised how much things had changed until I read this book. Kinsey’s lectures on the basic biology of sex are something we are all used to having at a young age, but in order to get into his class, the University students had to be married, or at least engaged. These young adults were so in the dark about things that they formed phantom engagements just to be able to listen to him and learn the basic facts about the birds and the bees.
It did slightly annoy that I didn’t know how much of this book actually happened, but after finishing, I realise that it didn’t matter – I enjoyed reading the book and learnt a lot about life during the 1930s and 40s.
Recommended to anyone interested in the development of early sexual research.
This is the first T.C. Boyle book that I have read and I was very impressed.
Have you read anything by T.C. Boyle?
Which Boyle book should I read next?
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Translated from the Japanese by Rebecca Copeland
Out is one of my favourite books and so I was very excited about reading Kirino’s second novel, < ?php echo amazon('0099488930','Grotesque’); ?>. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to my expectations.
Grotesque is very different in style to Out. It is slower, less gritty and without the moral dilemmas that made Out so special.
Grotesque centres around the murder of two prostitutes in Tokyo. The unnamed narrator was the sister of one of the victims and the best friend of the other. Her life becomes dominated by their deaths, as it is all anyone wants to talk about with her. We find out who the killer was very early on, so this book isn’t really a thriller, it is more like a character study. It deals with the motivations for prostitution and the process of grief following the murders of people who are close to you.
It sounds like a fascinating book, but unfortunately I found it quite boring. Some people think it is clever that the narrator was unreliable and meandered from one reflection to the next, but I found it very frustrating. There was no plot thread to drive the story forward and the ending was disappointing. I think this quote gives you a good sense of the apathetic attitude present in this book:
You imagine Yuriko’s death shocked me, but it didn’t. Did I hate her murderer? No. Like my father, I didn’t really care about learning the truth.
I felt as though I was wading through depressive thoughts and didn’t see the point of the seemingly random snippets of their childhood lives.
There were several theoretically shocking scenes in this book, but they had no effect on me as I hadn’t bonded with any of the characters.
The writing was of a high quality and I didn’t find any of the jarring Japanese translation problems that I encountered with Out. I also loved the first chapter and her imaginative predictions of what her children would look like if she decided to sleep with various men. There were many other good paragraphs, but I’m afraid that overall the book was disappointing.
If you are interested in reading an investigation into the thoughts of a disturbed young woman then you might enjoy this book, but if you are looking for the best thriller on the planet I suggest you try Out.
Have you read any of Natsuo Kirino’s books?
What do you think of them?
The lists for the best 2009 books are everywhere at the moment, so I thought it would be nice to have a look at some of the books which might make the same lists next year.
– David MitchellI have loved all of David Mitchell’s books, especially Ghostwritten and Black Swan Green. His new book is set on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company’s remotest Japanese trading post in 1799. I am really looking forward to reading it and am hoping it is good enough to win him the Booker Prize, as it would be fantastic to see him win.
– Rose TremainRose Tremain won the Orange prize in 2008 with The Road Home
– Lionel ShriverIf you loved We Need To Talk About Kevin
– Philip PullmanThis promises to be the most controversial release of 2010. I loved the His Dark Materials Trilogy
– Yann MartelA book about a taxidermist, a howler monkey and a donkey called Beatrice doesn’t sound like the best book of the year, but the premise of Life of Pi
– Catherine O’FlynnWhat Was Lost
– Jasper FfordeI loved The Eyre Affair
< ?php echo amazonim('1857989384'); ?>Winner of the Nebula Award 1966
< ?php echo amazon('1857989384','Flowers for Algernon ‘); ?> was originally published as a short story which won the 1960 Hugo Award for best short fiction. It was later expanded to produce this fantastic piece of science fiction.
The book introduces us to Charlie, a 30-year-old man with a very low IQ. He is mocked by society, but his intelligence is such that he is unaware of the cruelty. Charlie yearns to be like everyone else – to able to read and write fluently, and to be successful. One day he is given the chance to make this happen when he is offered a place on a groundbreaking new experiment, which has the potential to turn him into a genius.
The book is written in the form of Charlie’s diary, so we are able to follow the changes in his intelligence by noting the quality of his spelling, grammar and comprehension. I thought that this showed an outstanding quality of writing. I found myself studying the differences in text on neighbouring pages and being very impressed by the subtle changes that were taking place. The personal nature of the diary also meant that it was easy to connect with Charlie – he is such a fantastic character that it was impossible not to fall in love with him
This is an amazing book and I was gripped from beginning to end. It was thought-provoking throughout, covering issues from the importance of intelligence, to what is needed to be happy. There was the odd occasion when I felt the text over-stepped the mark and lectured the reader, telling me things that I should have been shown, but I’m willing to forgive this, as the quality of the rest of the book was so high, and the messages that the text was conveying were very important.
How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes – how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence.
The book takes you on an emotional roller coaster, which left me thinking about it for hours. I am sure that the powerful, original plot will remain with me for many years to come.
If you think that you don’t enjoy science fiction, then I challenge you to read this book and still say that.
Flowers for Algernon has just become one of my all-time favourite reads and I highly recommend it.
I chose this book for our London book group. We all loved it! Savidge Reads, Reading Matters and Novel Insights have also written wonderful reviews.
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Winner of the Orange Award for New Writers, 2009
< ?php echo amazon('0297855492','An Equal Stillness ‘); ?>is the biography of a fictional artist. It is a simple book about the life of a painter, her family and her passion for art.
Unfortunately this book just wasn’t for me – I’m not a big art lover and rarely read biographies. If this had been a real biography then it would have been OK, but I just don’t see the point of a fictional one – I was bored throughout. Very little happened and her life seemed very ordinary to me.
The fact it was written in the style of a biography meant that I was distanced from the character and so failed to develop any emotional connection with her. Any attempt to guess at her feelings just annoyed me, as I don’t think it is really possible to know what someone else is thinking and so I’m afraid this book went further downhill, the more I read.
It was a quick, easy read and the writing was poetic in places, but I’m afraid I just didn’t care.
The final years of Jennet Mallow’s life were fruitful. After the colour blocks she returned to the more nearly monochrome, making seven large pictures which are untitled, but again evocative of air and water.
If you love art and gentle prose then I’m sure you’ll love this book, but it was just too ‘still’ for me.
I have seen lots of positive reviews for this book, so if you’ve read it:
Why did you love it?
Do you enjoy fictional biographies?
