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
Category: Genre
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 Martian, Andy Weir
This review is going to be controversial. There is a lot of hype about this book with the movie and Matt Damon and the Hollywood machine in overdrive. I didn't like it. Don't get me wrong: I didn't hate it. I just didn't like it. It wasn't well written. Clever, credible and smart, yes;… Continue reading The Martian, Andy Weir
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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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In The Woods, Tana French
This is my second Tana French novel, and it was her debut with the Dublin Murder Squad series. And I do enjoy her writing style. We have here, ostensibly, a crime novel. A twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, is discovered dead on the altar stone at an archeological dig. Detective Rob Ryan and… Continue reading In The Woods, Tana French
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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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Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson is one of those authors who I have been aware of but avoided for a while. I put my hands up, it was and has been deeply unfair of me. Like that chap in the village I grew up in who always crossed the road when he saw my mother to avoid talking… Continue reading Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
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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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The Miniaturist, Jesse Burton
It is Sunday night. Today was warm, sunny, a little humid on the south western coast of England. And yet, standing in that sun, warmed by it, with this book open I am transported to a frozen canal sides of Amsterdam over the winter of 1686. And, as I write this, I'd love an olie-koecken.… Continue reading The Miniaturist, Jesse Burton
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We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Jay Fowler
Why are so few book covers yellow? This looks gorgeous! Like a literary bumblebee. I have to confess, the only reason I picked this up was the cover - despite the advice parents give their children the world over. That and Waterstone's promotions. But I'm really glad I did because it's a powerful, haunting, human… Continue reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Jay Fowler
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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 First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North
"Complexity should be your excuse for inaction." I was born in 1973 in a village in Kent. So far as I know, only once. I have to say, when I die, if I were to be reborn as myself in the same village in 1973 again, I'd be a tad surprised! I mean 1973.… Continue reading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North
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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 Road, Cormac McCarthy
What's the bravest thing you ever did? He spat into the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said. Yup. That is how bleak the world of this book is. Tragically, lyrically and devastatingly bleak, but bleak nonetheless. Nothing grows. Nothing lives. The world contains nothing of beauty or of value and very… Continue reading The Road, Cormac McCarthy
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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 Secret Place, Tana French
I've noticed this book creep into the recommended reads of the local Waterstone's and into the supermarkets. Well... I was reading it first! So, what do we have here? It is a murder set in Dublin, Ireland revolving around the Murder Squad. It's the fifth in French's series which, as I understand from other reviews,… Continue reading The Secret Place, Tana French
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Blood On Snow, Jo Nesbø
This was not what I had expected from Nesbø. And I'm saying that in a good way. Nor is it what the sticker on the front proclaims it to be, "The Brand New Thriller" from the author of The Snowman. Well, it obviously is from the author of The Snowman, which is the only other Nesbø… Continue reading Blood On Snow, Jo Nesbø
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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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All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
I am no historian and my knowledge of World War Two is pretty much skewed by literature as much as my knowledge of World War One is skewed by poetry. But literature of World War Two seems to have waited. Almost as if it were too horrific, too traumatic to digest. Much of the literature… Continue reading All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
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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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