Category: Recommended books

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Recommended books

Paperchase – Marcel Theroux

 
Books Before Blogging Review
It has been about six months since I finished this book, and to be honest I don’t remember much about it. At the time I was unsure as to whether to award it 5 stars, as I knew that it contained nothing profound or inspiring. I did, however, love every minute of reading it. I couldn’t put it down, and carried it round with me as I did everything, creating extra time for reading so that I could finish it. The writing was simple, but the characters all came to life on the page.

It was a real page turner, with a clever ending. I’m still not sure whether it deserves five stars – I suppose that depends on your rating system. Should a book that grabs (and holds!) your attention completely be knocked down a star or two, just because you don’t remember much about it six months on? Is the point of books to entertain, or must they have such a profound effect on you that the characters are still buzzing round your head years later? In this case, I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and leave it with five stars.

I highly recommend this book, it was one of my favourites of 2008.

Categories
2000 - 2007 Booker Prize Orange Prize Recommended books

Fingersmith – Sarah Waters


This book was one of the oldest, unread residents of my book shelves. Although I wanted to read it, I kept putting it off as I had already seen the excellent BBC adaptation of it, and I don’t normally like reading books when I know the plot. So when the Orange Prize readers Yahoo group announced it was Sarah Waters month , I decided that this was the incentive I needed to finally take it off the shelf.

I’m really glad I did, as it is one of the best books I have ever read. It didn’t matter that I knew what was going to happen, as the writing was so vivid, that it took the story to a whole new level.

The pace was perfect, despite being 550 pages long, my interest was held throughout. I enjoyed reading this book so much that I was torn between the desire to read it, and not wanting it to come to an end.

It completely immerses you in Victorian England. I loved the way the story was told by the two orphan girls. Seeing everything from two different  perspectives was very clever, and added to the suspense.  The intricate details of the plot, and  all the twists and turns make this a very well constructed novel. It’s hard to describe the plot without giving some of it away, so I won’t try to. I just urge you to read it.

Highly recommended.

Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger for Historical Crime Fiction. Short listed for both the Orange and the Booker Prize.

Categories
Recommended books Richard and Judy Book Club

Random Acts of Heroic Love – Danny Scheinmann

Books before blogging review.

It has been almost a year since I finished reading this amazing book, and I can still vividly remember the power of emotion it contained.

From the very first page I was totally hooked. It tells two, interweaved tales . The first is set in 1992, and follows Leo Deakin, who wakes up in a South American hospital to discover that his girlfriend has died in the bus crash he survived. As he begins to remember what happened, he is plagued by the guilt that he was in some way to blame for her death.

The second story is set in 1917, and follows Mortis Daniecki, as he escapes from a POW camp and makes an epic journey across Europe, to return to the love of his life.

The story of Leo, is semi auto-biographical, as the author, Danny Scheinmann, also lost his girlfriend at a young age. Mortis’s story is based on the real events of Danny Scheinmann’s Grandfather’s life, as explained in an epilogue to the book. I think that the fact the author has experienced a lot of the events described in the book really shows. The raw emotion is hard to ignore; it is the small, well observed details that make it all so realistic. I don’t think I have ever read a book which explores the issues of grief and love so well.

I highly recommend this book, it is one of my favourite books of 2008, and will probably be in my all time top ten. It is released in the US and Canada in 2009, so keep an eye out for it!

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Pulitzer Prize Recommended books

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon

 

 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay first entered my reading pile as it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, and I have challenged myself to read all the winners. It quickly got propelled to the top of my reading pile when it came up as a match for A Fine Balance (one of my favourite books) on Storycode (see post below)

 

The book started off really well, and by page 35 I was so fond of the characters that I had tears in my eyes when they had to say goodbye to each other. This is a very rare event for me, as I don’t often cry when reading. There are perhaps five books that have managed to move me to tears in my entire lifetime, so this just goes to show the power of the writing in this book.

 

It continued well, and I loved the detail of the magic tricks, and Joe’s escape from Prague in 1939 to his cousin’s flat in America. Then everything went wrong. There were about 200 pages of boring details about life in a comic book office. I completely lost interest in the book, and at one point I nearly gave up on it. I’m really glad that I didn’t though, as the last third of the book was as good as the beginning. The plot was clever, the vivid characters were back and the ending was very satisfying.   

 

An amazing book, with a long, dull bit in the middle. It could easily have had 9 or 10 stars if the boring bit had been condensed to about 10 pages.

 

Recommended, as long as you are able to get through a long slow section – it is worth it in the end!

 

Also reviewed by Sophisticated Dorkiness

Categories
Recommended books

Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines

‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ is set in 1960s Yorkshire. This book manages to pack a lot of emotion and atmosphere into just 150 pages. It tells the heartbreaking story of Billy Casper, who struggles against poverty, bullying and family breakdown. His only respite from this hardship, is training a young kestrel chick. It doesn’t sound like an exciting idea for a plot, but it is the strength of emotion we feel for Billy that makes this book so good.

Some people may struggle with the Yorkshire accent, but having married a Yorkshire man, I thought it was realistic, and added to the atmosphere of the book.

Highly recommended.

Categories
2000 - 2007 Recommended books

The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

‘The End of Mr Y’ is a very hard book to describe. It has all the adventure, intelligence and religious theology of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, mixed with the suspense and spookiness of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, and the bizarreness of a Haruki Murakami novel. I loved it!

 

It is a real page turner. You are quickly drawn into the world of Ariel, as she finds a copy of a rare, cursed book in a second hand bookshop. Everyone else who has ever read this book has died. Ariel discovers the secret of the cursed book, and sets out on a mission to rescue her University tutor, travelling through the ‘troposphere’ via both time and thoughts.

 

The writing is very vivid. At one point you get a mouse’s perspective of the world, and I think this is one of the best sections of writing I have read this year. I now know exactly what mice are thinking, and have a strange desire to look after them all now!

 

It does get a bit technical in places, and I think that those who do not have a scientific background may struggle to understand some sections. I have a degree in chemistry, but still didn’t manage to follow all the finer details of some of the ‘thought experiments’

 

Overall I found it to be a thought provoking book, with great characters and an intelligent plot.

 

Recommended to anyone who likes a bit of science in their fiction!