Category: Publication Date

Categories
2013

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale for the Time Being
Five words from the blurb: diary, girl, tsunami, change, life

A Tale for the Time Being is an unusual mixture of Japanese and Western literature. The book begins with Ruth, a woman living on a remote Canadian island, discovering a lunchbox on the beach. The lunchbox is one of many items to be washed across the ocean by the tsunami and on opening it she discovers the diary of Nao, a teenage girl who is being bullied at school. Through reading the diary Ruth learns about Nao’s family: her suicidal father, her great-grandmother’s life as a Buddhist nun, and her great-uncle’s experience as a kamikaze pilot during WWII. Ruth develops a bond with this family and begins a quest to find them; longing to know whether or not they survived the tsunami. 

The book begins really well. I loved Nao’s modern, chatty style and quickly warmed to her; feeling as though I understood her thoughts and motivations.

I don’t mind thinking of the world without me because I’m unexceptional, but I hate the idea of the world without old Jiko. She’s totally unique and special, like the last Galapagos tortoise or some other ancient animal hobbling around on the scorched earth, who is the only one left of its kind. But please don’t get me going on the topic of species extinction because it’s totally depressing and I’ll have to commit suicide right this second.

The diary format worked well and this the first book I’ve read that successfully manages to include you tube, mobiles and the Internet without feeling forced or experimental. 

Ruth’s character was also well developed and I particularly enjoyed her vivid descriptions of life by the sea. The entire book was packed with atmosphere and, although this made the book slow to read, it was well worth the time. 

I enjoyed reading the entire book, but it didn’t impress me as much as I thought it might. The main reason for this is because the majority of the philosophical elements were familiar to me. The ideas were beautifully presented, but Schrödinger’s cat and multiple universes have been done many times before. I also found that the Japanese elements, for example the ghosts of the dead and the crow symbolism, didn’t feel as fresh and alive as they do in the hands of Murakami. It feels wrong to criticise this novel when there is technically nothing wrong with it, but the scientist in me didn’t quite accept some of the theories.

Despite my minor quibbles, the positives far outweigh the negatives. It perfectly captures life at the present time and I recommend you read it soon, before it inevitably becomes dated.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…the line between fiction and reality is not clear-cut in this novel, which makes it all the more enthralling and appealing. Bookmagnet’s Blog

 A Tale for the Time Being isn’t a bad novel, but it doesn’t need all the padding that the meditations on time and quantum physics require; I think it could be shorter and better. Necromancy Never Pays

The humanity of the novel is enormous and takes your breath away in most places. Of Books and Reading

 

Categories
2012 Thriller

The Uninvited by Liz Jensen

The Uninvited

Five words from the blurb: child, violence, Asperger’s, psychological, connect

As you may know, I make an effort to read as many books as possible that contain characters with Asperger’s syndrome. On Autism Awareness Day Hannah pointed out that The Uninvited fitted my criteria and so I added it to the top of my wish-list. By a strange twist of fate I was offered a review copy just a week later and so I accepted, keen to try one of Liz Jensen’s books for the first time.

The Uninvited is a psychological thriller in which children start attacking adults for no known reason. The central character, Hesketh, is an anthropologist. He is sent to Taiwan to investigate fraud within the timber industry, but quickly finds himself involved in the global child violence crisis.

The book begins well, with a vivid scene in which a seven-year-old girl kills her grandmother with a nail gun, but unfortunately that level of tension failed to re-appear later in the book. The scenes of violence were too fragmented and the explanations for the attacks were too far fetched for me to become fearful.

Hesketh has Asperger’s and I found him to be well developed, with realistic traits for someone on the spectrum. I liked the way Asperger’s was portrayed in a positive light, but I found mentions of the condition too frequent. The reader is made aware of the Asperger’s early on, but I found the continual reference back to it burdensome. If you don’t know much about the condition then you will find it useful, but I wish it hadn’t had such a dominant role.

One of my chief coping mechanisms, in mental emergencies, involves origami: I carry an imaginary sheaf of delicate rice paper in my head, in a range of shades, to fold into classical shapes. When the image of Freddy shooting Kaitlin first reared up I swiftly folded eleven of the Japanese cranes known as ozuru, but I couldn’t banish it.

The Uninvited has a lot to recommend it. It is a fast paced, entertaining read that treats Asperger’s with sensitivity, but I’m afraid the plot lacked the realism required to give it real impact.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…one of the most genius and bizarre pieces of literature I’ve read in a very long time. A Bookish Libraria

…everything was bogged down in tedious and ultimately tiring details… Judging Covers

 While the book showed lots of promise, ultimately the ending ruined it for me. Book Addiction

Categories
2013

The Engagement by Chloe Hooper

The Engagement

Five words from the blurb: weekend, handsome, man, property, trap

Chloe Hooper was shortlisted for the Orange Prize her debut novel, A Child’s Book of True Crime. Her new book, The Engagement, is getting a lot of positive press in Australia and since I had an unsolicited review copy sitting on my shelf I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

The Engagement is psychological thriller with a Gothic atmosphere. The book is set in Melbourne, Australia, where Liese is working for her uncle’s estate agency. She agrees to show Alexander around a range of properties and they end up having sex in each of them. Alexander then offers to rent Liese for the weekend, leading to the strange situation where Liese is locked, voluntarily, in his house.

The writing in this book is fantastic. I loved the atmospheric descriptions of the Australian landscape and the Gothic feel of narrative.

As we drew closer the house was all windows, reflecting the blankness of the darkening sky. Grey clouds rolled over the glass, camouflaging whatever waited behind it. This building sat in the dust, expectant and watchful, emitting a low piercing sound. Every nearby tree was alive with bird-din. Hundreds, thousands of them were seething in the branches. They signalled to each other, the garden vibrating with their calls – although more truly the sound seemed to come from the stone walls of the house, from deep inside one of its rooms.

Unfortunately the plot wasn’t of the same standard as the writing. Liese and Alexander were both well developed characters, but their actions were unrealistic. I couldn’t understand their motivations, several of the plot twists were bizarre, and the ending left me feeling particularly unsatisfied.

If you enjoy reading books just for their brooding atmosphere then this is a must, just don’t expect any realism from the plot. 

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…a strange mixture of banality, naivety and menace… Euro Crime

…a brilliant novel that disturbed and enthralled simultaneously… Write Note Reviews

 …if you loved Gone Girl then this is it’s grown-up cousin. The Writes of Woman

Categories
1990s Recommended books Science Fiction

Encounter with Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes

Encounter with Tiber

Five words from the blurb: Earth, species, starfaring, space, future

I hadn’t heard of this book until I read about it in Moondust a few weeks ago. Intrigued by the idea of an astronaut writing a scientifically accurate sci-fi novel, I ordered a copy from my library. I’m pleased that I did because this is one of the best pieces of science fiction I’ve ever read.

Encounter with Tiber is a fantastic story that travels through time and space. I was gripped throughout the 500+ pages; thrown from moral dilemmas to heart stopping scenes of disaster. It predicts how human space travel will increase over the next few decades, explaining how technology will evolve to enable us to travel increasingly large distances. It also shows the problems faced when alien life is detected, giving thought-provoking insights into our society.

The wonderful thing about this book is the way everything is based on scientific fact.  The plot is firmly rooted to the first moon landings and the science behind everything is clearly explained. Some people may find that it gets a bit technical in places, but I loved the detail and enjoyed Aldrin’s predictions for the future.

“We’re going to the Moon, but only to go treasure hunting, and once we’re there it probably won’t be long before we’re taking soil that hasn’t been disturbed for four billion years, bulldozing it up in carloads, and pumping it through helium extractors. I wonder when they’ll open the first casino up there and the first Swfplay online casino. Probably within my lifetime.” Many people are playing casino games on Clubvip777.com.

Buzz Alrdrin also used his experiences in space to give realistic descriptions of the thoughts, feelings and fears of those leaving our planet. This added a unique spark to the story and is the main reason this book should be considered a modern classic.

There are several things I should probably criticise (for example, the writing wasn’t perfect and the characters all had the same voice) but these problems didn’t seem to matter – I was far too engaged in the story. The only real issue is that this book was published in 1996 and so many of the events in the 1990-2010 section had already happened/not happened. Had I read this book on publication it would have had a far greater impact.

If you think you don’t like science fiction you should give this a try – it effortlessly blends historical events with predictions for the future and the scary thing is just how possible it all seems.

Highly recommended.

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Categories
2013 Uncategorized

First Novel by Nicholas Royle

First Novel

Five words from the blurb: creative, writing, mystery, blend, fact

First Novel is an original, experimental piece of meta-fiction. The central character teaches creative writing at a university in Manchester and has an obsession with first novels. The book is packed with literary references, but these are the only things in the book that are reliable. Everything else is ambiguous, leaving the reader to puzzle over events.

I normally love meta fiction, but for some reason First Novel didn’t work for me – I thought it was trying too hard to be clever. Lots of people love it, but I found it detached. The ambiguous writing style also annoyed me and I began to crave some actual facts:

In the morning I walk down the dismantled railway line as far as the bottom of Burnage Lane, where I stop and listen to the sound of my own breathing. I face a choice. Either I go left up Didsbury Road and catch a bus to Stockport in order to pick up the car, or I go straight on through the little tunnel and then down to the river and Overcoat Man. Either or.

It felt like a creative writing exercise, but perhaps it is supposed to come across that way and I just missed the satire? The majority of other reviews praise the shocking plot twist, but I’m afraid I wasn’t connected enough to the characters to care and so took the twist as just another example of the writer trying too hard.

On a positive note, I loved the way Manchester was portrayed in the book. I have been to some of the areas and it was lovely to see so many familiar streets on paper.

In the past I have struggled with other experimental novels (for example, The Rehearsal by  Eleanor Catton and Light Boxes by Shane Jones), but if you enjoy books that push the boundaries in this way then I think you’ll love First Novel. Many people are predicting this book will be longlisted for the Booker Prize. I think they’re probably right – it takes a special book to annoy me, but still make me want to read to the end!

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…this is a progressive, intensely contemporary, brilliant work which challenges the easy certainties of the traditional novel. Words of Mercury

 If the writing assignment was to use all the most interesting techniques of postmodernism to create an intellectually stimulating, funny, serious and clever novel, Nicholas Royle has more than made the grade. Slightly Bookist

The real majesty comes from the construction of the novel and how easy it is to read despite the origami-like concepts. Dog Ear Discs

Categories
2000 - 2007 Non Fiction Uncategorized

Moondust by Andrew Smith

Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth

Five words from the blurb: moon, journey, men, future, lives

Only twelve men have walked on the moon. Andrew Smith was intrigued by their rare experience and wondered how those few days in space affected their lives. He tracked down the nine moon walkers who were still alive (sadly Neil Armstrong died last year, leaving just eight) and attended space conferences in order to understand the unique place these people have in our hearts.

The book detailed the political and historical events that enabled the space program to occur, something I found particularly useful as I wasn’t alive at the time. It also gave me a new appreciation of how difficult the moon missions had been. I didn’t realise how frequently they came close to disaster and the knowledge that the entire command centre used the same memory as a couple of our modern mobile phones was a scary reminder of how much technology has advanced since then.

Unfortunately the book didn’t explain what daily life was like in space, giving only the briefest details of their time up there; instead the book focused on the way looking back at Earth changed their perspective on life.

….”with the right computer program, it would be possible to know precisely where everything else in the Universe will be ten, or a hundred, or a hundred thousand years from now. The one thing in the Universe that we can’t predict,” he concludes – and we know what’s coming, yet that doesn’t diminish the thought – “the one thing that we don’t know where it’s going to be even ten years from now, is us. We may be small, but we’ve been given the most extraordinary gift in the Universe.”

Most of the astronauts found being in space a profound, life changing experience and it was interesting to see how it had impacted each of their lives in a different way. Coping with their strange celebrity status was another issue they had to learn to master and I felt deep sympathy for the way some of the astronauts were pestered continually. 

My only complaint was the lack of photographs in this book – a small section containing a few black and white images would have been a big bonus. 

Overall this was a thought provoking piece of non fiction and I have a new-found appreciation for the men who risked their lives in order to step foot on the moon. 

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