It being March, the CILIP Carnegie Medal Shortlist has been announced and I'm embarking on the ritual of trying to read them. This year, the list is:
Category: Fantasy
Catch Up
For various reasons - Ofsted, toddler, family visits - I've not been able to add reviews recently and am about to try to catch-up. Once again. As an aide memoir to myself, to you - and a short cut to adding photos later, the books I'm yet to review are: Autumn by Ali Smith: gorgeous,… Continue reading Catch Up
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The Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch
It's a funny thing about series. What is original and unique can become familiar and even - dare I say it? - stale as a series goes on. They become perhaps over-thought or overworked like a piece of dough that's had the life kneaded out of it. I wonder whether that's what has happened with… Continue reading The Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch
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Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
It's a Dresden File. It's Harry Dresden; it's Jim Butcher. Even after reading only the previous two novels, I already know what to expect. It's also a step up from the previous two novels in the series: the prose is still very, well, prosaic; Dresden is still a wise cracking hard boiled detective with magic;… Continue reading Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
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The Trees, Ali Shaw
This book might win the most striking cover award this year: the stunning autumnal russets and reds are gorgeous! But you know what they say about judging books by their covers? As a parent and as a teacher, we trot out that truism time and again but on what else are you going to judge… Continue reading The Trees, Ali Shaw
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The Voyage Of The Basilisk, Marie Brennan
Still trying to catch up on my reviews which have been delayed thanks to writing a whole bunch of schemes of learning for work and a delightfully full-on three year old daughter, I realised I'd missed this one. The third installment of the Lady Trent memoirs - set in a fictional but faintly vwiled and… Continue reading The Voyage Of The Basilisk, Marie Brennan
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Fool Moon, Jim Butcher
Book Two of the Dresden Files. Pretty similar to book one, really! Special Investigations, Karrin Murphy, Bob the Skull, potions brewed, magic used. This time around, we have werewolves! Seriously, there's not much more to say: it's smart and sassy, it's got magic and werewolves. It is not high literature! It's a decently written, fast… Continue reading Fool Moon, Jim Butcher
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The Bands of Mourning, Brandon Sanderson
I tend to have three books on the go simultaneously most of the time: an audiobook for the drive to and from work; a thoughtful, dare I say literary, book for when I'm at home; and a just-entertain-me book for when I don't actually want to think too much. We all need a just-entertain-me book… Continue reading The Bands of Mourning, Brandon Sanderson
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The Lie Tree, Francis Hardinge
I am coming to adore Frances Hardinge! I've only read this and Cuckoo Song to be fair, but there's something about her imagination and her writing which chimes with me: dark, intensely personal, yet somehow mythic at the same time. She captures a sense of wonder, of terror, of awe which is simultaneously so childlike… Continue reading The Lie Tree, Francis Hardinge
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Library Of Souls, Ransom Riggs
I'm not going to dwell long on this review: it concludes the story begun in Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children and continues in Hollow City from which this book continues directly. It is also my last book of 2015, and Miss Peregrine was my first book of 2015 so it gives my year a… Continue reading Library Of Souls, Ransom Riggs
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Hollow City, Ransom Riggs
Okay. I confess. I only read this and the next book (Library Of Souls) to complete a trilogy for my 2015 Reading Challenge. And because I was running out of time. I did complete them by 31st December... just a little slow blogging about them. Due in part to a busy Christmas and also to… Continue reading Hollow City, Ransom Riggs
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Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson
Opening with a murderous rampage at a party held by a corrupt politician, once again, Sanderson plumbs the possibilities of his Mistborn universe in Scadriel extending the reach of the characters Waxillium Ladrian, Wayne and Marasi, whom he had introduced in The Alloy Of Law. The feel of this novel is distinctly Industrial Revolutionary with… Continue reading Shadows of Self, Brandon Sanderson
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Storm Front, Jim Butcher
literary lineage going back to Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade and Philips Marlowe. Dresden is in that line of hardboiled detectives; however, Butcher is not a writer of the same calibre as Hammett, Chandler or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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The Collectors, Phillip Pullman
This is an absolute gem of a read - or more likely a listen, as Pullman wrote it for Audible as a free giveaway at some point. That's how I collected it - see what I did there? - and it's been lurking in my library ever since and today I thought I may… Continue reading The Collectors, Phillip Pullman
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The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett
My first Discworld novel was Carpe Jugulum which is still my favourite, so it seems very fitting for me that my last (new) Discworld novel takes me back to Lancre, the redoubtable Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Tiffany Aching. Pratchett never finished this novel - not the half-dozen other novels which he appears to… Continue reading The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett
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The Rest Of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness
Ahhh... a new Patrick Ness publication is like a new China Miéville publication: an event to be savoured. Chaos Walking. A Monster Calls. More Than This. He writes science fiction, fantasy, dystopian fictions with drama, true emotion, real depth so well! So it's difficult with this book. It's fabulous. It really is. But it's… Continue reading The Rest Of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness
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Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
The second Thursday Next book picks up immediately after the end of The Eyre Affair and is a fun and joyful thing! A bit of lovely fluff: light, quick and just fun. It does perhaps suffer from its role in the series: The Eyre Affair was pretty self-contained; it has spawned a series of - I… Continue reading Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
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Three Moments Of An Explosion, China Miéville
Okay, so short stories. Part of me loves short stories. The precision, the concision, the economy of language within them - read The Dead by James Joyce. Part of me, however, longs for the lengthy, relaxed familiarity you get with the characters in a novel, even in the best of the genre. In the worst collections… Continue reading Three Moments Of An Explosion, China Miéville
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The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
Oh I'm in two minds about this book. I so wanted to like it. A alternate history world in which the borders between reality and books is flexible and malleable. Who would love to pop to Wuthering Heights for a cup of tea with Nelly Dean? Or stroll through the 100 Acre Wood? Or play hide-and-seek… Continue reading The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
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Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan
Again, a gorgeous cover here and a decent read. This is the second in Marie Brennan's Lady Trent trilogy and it continues the adventures of Mrs Isabella Camherst - still to meet Lord Trent or to be named a lady - from the first book, A Natural History Of Dragons. Much of what I praised in… Continue reading Tropic of Serpents, Marie Brennan
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A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
This was a pleasant enough way to round of my half term: decently written in the engaging and practical voice of Lady Trent, this book conjures up a Regency style world with echoes of Austen. With dragons. The opening sections of the novel are the most Austenesque - if that's even a word. Isabella… Continue reading A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
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The World of Poo, Terry Pratchett
This tale has its origins in the novel Snuff: it is the bedtime story that Sam Vimes' son requires every night. It is utterly silly, amusing and delightful. How charming can a book about poo be? This is the most charming book about poo I have ever read! Does it have a plot? Of course:… Continue reading The World of Poo, Terry Pratchett
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The Girl With All The Gifts, M. R. Carey
Oh dear. I fear I'm going to be unpopular here because I've heard so much good about this book. People have raved about it. A friend, whose book recommendations I've often been steered well by, re-reads it. Monthly. So I apologise in advance. I found it to be... okay. It was standard zombie post-apocalyptic horror fare… Continue reading The Girl With All The Gifts, M. R. Carey
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The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, Mark Hodder
Okay. I'm going to 'fess up here. This is no great work of fiction. This is not a literary masterpiece. It is neither lyrical, resonant or thought-provoking - those three adjectives appearing more and more regularly on my blog as praise-words for novels. It does not sparkle with intriguing new metaphors; its prose does… Continue reading The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, Mark Hodder
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The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
When I was an impressionable teenager, which feels a long time ago now, I imbibed a lot of Arthurian legends. Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Gawaine, Bedivere, Ector, Cai, Pelias, The Fisher King, Tristran, Iseult, Mordred, Morgana La Fey. And from there, at University, a unit on Medieval Literature reunited me with Gawain in Sir Gawain and The… Continue reading The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro
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