The Girl Who ............. By Stieg Larson

I have just completed the Millenium series. Overall I'd have to say disappointed but the last was probably the best of all. Having read the first I must admit I wouldn't have gone further. But someone in the house wanted the series and once we'd bought them then it was almost inevitable.

The first in the series was, I felt, poorly written although the mystery was good.  Almost a classic whodunit, ut the rather gratuitous sex and violence spoilt it for me.  The second was simply a struggle and too far fetched.  The third then was probably the best of the series.  The writing still not great but at least I wanted to know how it would turn out.  Not too much of a twist though, it became clear where it was heading.  Can't say I'd recommend them, but if you have read one then you may as well read the rest.

More importantly, it was an opportunity to try out the Kindle.  Now the fact that I ended up reading until 0300hrs may give you an idea how I feel about it.  I gree that I kiss the feel of paper.  But it is so comfortable to hold and easy to read.  When you are getting tired if you drop it then you don't lose your place.  You can easily carry it around and read while walking.  It easily slips in pockets.  I thought I would miss proper books, but the sheer simplicity of the thing wins me over.

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

I bought this book simply becasue I had already picked up two with a "3 for 2" sticker so I needed a third. It has sat on my "To Read" shelf for probably 6 months. I took it to Brussels with me on Wednesday because I needed something and the next James Bond book I have is a hardback so not great for travelling. I finished it on the flight back on Thursday. Really wuite a rivetting read.

Hard to describe its genre. Fiction yes. But not humour, not thriller, not horror. A social comment on India, maybe. A commentary on one man dragging himself up from the poor oppressed masses, yes. Strangely it talks about escaping from the rooster coop, this is strange because the Terry Pratchett book I just read has a very similar concept, the crab bucket. Its a comment on how those around you will actively stop you clambering up to escape from the gutter.

The style is strange. The White Tiger is writing to the Premier of China to explain about how entrepreneurship works. The White Tiger sees himself as an entrepreneur. And wants to explain what is good about India. The story develops over about 7 nights of letter writing (I won't say why it is at night that the letters are written). And you are sucked into the life of Munna, later known as The White Tiger, learn more about him, from his childhood in the darkness and how he finds an escape. The style is strange, but it works.

Recommended.

A Partisans Daughter

Well that didn't take long did it. I started reading it last night and I have already finished. Wonderful tale. And strange, because in many ways nothing happens. But gripping. Every page holds you, makes you a part of it all. I do wonder if it is very much a male book, would it speak to a woman in the same way. It might. And I wonder how much it was because it spoke to me, where I am. Someone else may not feel it in the same way. But try it at least.

A Partisan's Daughter - Louis de Bernieres

Just 4 pages in to this book and I have to post in order to tell you, no order you, to read this. Gripping

Matter

I love Iain M Banks as an author. I think he is one of the greats. He has an amazing, if deep and complex, understanding of humanity. And on a lonely night in London I leave you with this from his latest:

"And to be human, to be anything like human, is to know what one lacks, to know what one needs, to know what one must look for to find some semblance of completeness amongst strangers, all alone in the darkness."

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

I hadn't really wanted to read this. I picked it up because of a 3 for 2 offer and I couldn't spot anything else. So somewhat ironic that I couldn't put it down once I started.

At times shocking, if it is anything near an accurate description of the Taliban then this is a very sad world. But in reality it is about a man trying to find redemption, haunted by the ghosts of his past.

The descriptive passages are beautiful and work well to make you feel there. Certainly some of the plot line is a bit predictable, at times Hosseini almost telegraphs what will happen in 5 to 10 pages time. Because some of these things are so sad in some ways it is nice to have prior warning as the shock is less. In fact that may be why he does it. Almost a "brace yourself, bad news coming" approach. So don't even start this book if you are looking for a feelgood factor. It isn't going to raise you up there. But if you appreciate beautiful writing with a well woven storyline then this is for you.

Quotes:
"You're gutless. It's how you were made. And that's not such a bad thing because your saving grace is that you've never lied to yourself about it. Not about that. Nothing wrong with cowardice as long as it comes with prudence. But when a coward stops remembering who he is.. God help him. "

"Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it."

"I piss on the beards of all those self-righteous monkeys. "

Making Money - Terry Pratchett

A second outing for Moist van Lipwig. He goes from running the Post Office to running the bank. Not that he wants to, but the Patrician can be most convincing.

Terrys' style has changed over the years (he's been writing Discworld novels for 25). They are no longer that embarrqassing funny, you know what I mean, the sort that has you laughing out loud on the train so everyone stares at you. The humour is more subtle, but that doesn't make them less enjoyable. And the books are now less about the magic of the world, but more the magic in peoples heads. The first books were setting the scenery, developing a world that followed rules, but rules very different to our own. Now the books are about how people act in that world. And in many ways this makes them more interesting.

As always characters are colourful, in this case right down to the green finger. Of course the wizards make an appearance, and the librarian has a cameo. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is there to sell the sizzle. And all the other names that should be there manage to pass by. But while they are there to make you feel comfortable, let you know you are at home, new characters arrive, for instance the mysterious Mr Bent with no sense of humour. And, as ever, you can never tell when the world is going to let your mind slip on the proverbial banana skin.

May Contain Nuts - John O'Farrell

I found this particularly disappointing. Having been lent it by a friend with good reviews I was expecting to be laughing out loud. Instead I read something that simply tried to play on stereotypes. And in doing so was a grotesque caricature. The idea that public schools are only interested in themselves while comprehensives try to bring out the most in children are completely opposite to my own experiences. It portrays the middle class as striving to achieve more while not looking for the enjoyment in life. I found it directly insulting, not because of the subject but because of the approach.

Now, considering other reviews I have seen, I will probably be accused of being a middle class snob. However I don't push my daughter to do what she doesn't want. I try to give her some "whatever" time (although she is the one always wanting to be on the go). When she wanted to stop ballet then it was her decision. And when it comes to school I want her to have the best education, and when I say best I mean the fullest, including understanding the world around her.

You will laugh if you have an axe to grind, or a chip on your shoulder. But anyone who wants to see the best in peopple and not to pigeon hole them will struggle.

The Testament of Gideon Mack - James Robertson

This was long-listed for the Man Booker prize in 2006. I think I understand why it didn`t get further.

A difficult book to get into at the beginning. The prologue doesn`t help it start (the prologue is there to set the scene). However things improve as you get past the prologue and into the story. Once listening to the main character, Gideon Mack, you are drawn into his rather sad world. Many sons of the manse would probably deny that Gideon is a product of his upbringing, but it can,t go unnoticed. An early failure to understand his father, or for his father to understand him, sets a chain of events in progress and it is almost inevitable that Gideon should follow his father into the Church.

This is definitely the story of someone struggling to understand the world he is in, and never really managing to grasp any meaning. Do the events really happen to hi, or are they the result of a deranged mind. We never get a true answer. In fact, at the end we are presented with further questions. As part of his recounting is finally revealed as a lie, the lie makes it harder to place the other events. The lie told is in an unexpected direction and it is hard to see what purpose it holds in this complicated life.

Despite the slow start, I found myself getting drawn in, trying to understand more. I still don`t understand what the author is trying to tell us, but maybe that doesn`t matter. Do we read to learn about the author, to simply escape for a while, or to learn about ourselves by the questions that are raised.

The Steep Approach To Garbadale - Iain Banks

I am a wee bit late blogging this. I finished reading it a week or so ago. But anyways.....

I can understand why Iain Banks is not everyones cup of tea. In some ways he meanders through a story. It takes you in circles, occasionally down cul-de-sacs, sometimes teases you with a brief glimpse of the motorway. But it is this wandering that I like. I know that the story won't really end, it kind of fades out, and you feel that the characters are off to live more life than you will know about.

Banks understands about people and about what goes on in their brain. And it is the characters that he works on. The story around them merely gives a medium to express their thoughts. Garbadale is no different in this respect. And it is highly enjoyable. You want to be with the lead character as he confronts his inner demons, even more so when you realise that what he is trying to find out could destroy him. You want him to succeed and to grow out of the boy in which he has become stuck.

Moonraker - Ian Flemming

This is so different to the film. And so much better. The Bond of the books is not like the movie Bond. He s more complex and more dark, more lonely. But the fact that he feels more fallible as well makes him a believable character. He gets things wrong, sometimes it is luck rather than judgement that helps him. On the outside he is cold and ruthless, but there is a core which makes him likable. And this book is different from the previous ones because it is less clear who the real enemy is (if you hadn't seen the film then I suspect you wouldn't know for a while). It is not a story packed with action, but a mystery, trying to see what is going on and who to distrust. It progresses and the mystery gradually unfolds, at which point the story gets weaker and is possibly let down by the final 20 pages or so.

Splash

While sure that I was alerted to the existence of I Lick My Cheese" by my friend over here, rather strangely I can't find actually evidence to support this theory. A search on her blog does not show an entry for the book.

Anyway, digressing. So, this is a book about post-it notes that get left by flatmates alerting you to the fact that they found your crusty undies, they threw your joint in the bin or they lick their cheese. Having been a flat-share in my student days I thought I might enjoy.

Well, it is possible that those days are too far away because this book didn't really do much for me. Too shallow, too quick, not enough background, and I didn't appreciate the authors humour. Not my best read.

However, there is another possibility as to why it didn't work. My flat mates were not really note writers. Generally we were rather more direct. Still emblazened on my memory is the Saturday morning when I felt a lie-in was necessary having had a late night tripping the light fantastic in Glasgow. One of my flat mates had other ideas. He felt I should be up revising. He came in and woke me up to tell me so. I simply turned over and tried to go back to sleep, a perfectly sensible option I felt. And I heard him leave the room. Vindicated I thought. Approximately 5 minutes later he came back in. And proceeded to empty a bucket of cold water over me. Direct action you see. A post-it would never have got me out of bed!

The End

Well, it has taken me about 12 years but I have finally finished the Cerebus saga. Now, to be fair, this isn't quite as bad as it sounds. In that it hasn't taken so long because it is difficult to read, rather it has taken so long because it is a graphic novel (OK comic) and has been slowly released in book form over this time. It hasn't always been easy to get the next volume.

Cerebus started as a parody of "Conan the Barbarian" (he even gets to marry Red Sophia). And for a while that is where it stayed. A three foot tall bipedal aardvark who never quite fitted in with the world around him. Guest appearances from other characters began to appear, some real and some not so real, including Groucho Marx and Oscar Wilde. And then it started to evolve. It became a reflection on politics, then on the church. From parody to satire. The Rolling Stones appeared for a while. And then it got weird. Dave Sim, the author, probably does have a screw loose, in all honesty. And as you read the latter books you can understand why feminists hate him. And also religious fanatics. He becomes a fanatic himself and seems, by the end, to think that god has given him guidance that the rest of us have missed.

All the same, allowing for the weirdness, for the appearences of F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway, the Three Stooges and others, he does make good points. I don't say I beleive them, but I think they deserve consideration.

Cerebus is not a lovable character. Selfish, callous, amoral (rather than immoral), and a drunk with a temper. But he is also a character who can absorb you, sometimes the story line moves at lightening speed, sometimes like a glacier. But always, just always, wanting to know what will happen next.

Escape - James Clavell

A disappointment. Not because it isn't a good story, but because it is too much of a rehash of "Whirlwind". I like Clavell, ever since falling in love with "Shogun", still one of the best series to be shown on TV. I was hoping that this would give another angle on those caught up in "Whirlwind", but it is so similar that you could really be reading the same book.

Casino Royale - Ian Flemming

Having found the film particularly bad I wonddered whether Ian Flemming could really have done such a bad job with his first Bond story. So I decided it was time to read my first Bond and see for myself. Now, you have to allow for the fact that I am in the mood for devouring books, having not read a lot recently. Even so, considering all the family things I should be doing, just over 24 hours to read it all would indicate that I had problems putting it down.

Unlike the film there was a good plot-line to the book. The characters draw you in and the atmosphere is palpable. Bond here really doesn't survive by using gadgets, he survives through a mix of some skill and some luck. He only has his wits to pit against the enemy. But the thing is, in the film there was no need to have the poisoning scene, had they stuck to the book it would have been all the more believable.

Politically not correct, it is obviously written in a different age. Bond is cold, he isn't a typical hero, but he is also a marked chauvanist. He admires women as things of beauty, things that can get the heart pumping, but does not respect them and certainly does not understand them. Interestingly he himself does not see his status as one to look up to, "to become a 00 is easy, it simply indicates you can kill in cold blood". And at the end he shows how capable he is of being cold.

Summary - bad film, great book.

The Apple

Although I haven’t been learning my lines as well as I should, I also haven’t been reading. I love reading and I am missing my books this year. With the second degree over I felt I could do a bit of reading for a week. With a trip to Edinburgh for work I decided I could take a book. Only problem being that I thought I only needed to take one book. But, having not read anything for quite a while, I devoured the book. So I was in Scotland for a week but I managed to read my book within the first 24 hours!

And so, to the book - “The Apple” by Michael Faber. A sequel to “The Crimson Petal and The White”. Or a sort of sequel. In fact you could pick it up without having read the first. It was, in essence, a collection of short stories. Trying to give a bit more background to the characters in the novel. Either revealing a bit of their past or their future. Not enough to answer any questions. Readers of “The Crimson Petal” are probably split into two camps - those who love the ending and those that hate it. Because, as an ending, it leaves more unanswered than answered. It is left for the reader to think what might happen to the central figures. “The Apple” does not interfere with your thoughts, it doesn’t steer you to a final point, but it maybe points you in a direction for some, but not all, of the people you have grown to know.

A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka

Although still learning my lines, or at least revising them, for tonights initiation, I made the mistake of picking up this book last week when I was at my parents for the rehearsal. Mistake because, as ever, once I start reading then I don't like to stop. So I may have promised myself a book after the ceremony but ended up reading one before.

I have to say I was disappointed with this book. It has had so many good reviews ("outstanding" from the Mail, "Extremely Funny" from the Telegraph). I did not find it funny and I didn't find it well written. It wasn't funny because the only way that you can find it funny is by laughing at others misfortune. The characters have very sad lives and it takes more shadenfraude than I have within me in order to laugh. The main feeling I get is how wars still have an effect on families 60 years down the line. How the actions of ruthless men can impact on so much that they never even knew would exist. The old father in the book, who is the centre of the plot, acts as he does because of years of oppression by both Russians and Germans. And because that is the reason behind his actions it makes them anything but funny.

Espedair Street - Iain Banks

Banks has a bit of a reputation as a “cult” writer. But those who understand him don’t just like him, they love him. Whether it be straight “Iain Banks” the fiction writer or “Iain M Banks” the sci-fi writer, he has a deep insight into humanity and what drives us that can be, at times, unnerving.
Espedair Street is about a man who has everything and nothing. A man who feels ugly and out of place in a world that has adored and admired him. Banks weaves Dannys’ world together, the past, the future and the present. From the opening line “Two days ago I decided to kill myself” and drowning as “to be spun inside the whirlpool and listen with my water-logged deaf ears to its mile wide voice” you are caught within that whirlpool.
Banks plays with the reader, as ever. Snippets that you hope will later be explained. Elements of humour that make you feel guilty for laughing as a sadness unfolds. But more, you don’t just want to know, you need to know, what is happening. Can he find happiness in oblivion or simply anonymity? Once dreams have been answered can we recognise what resides in our hearts?

Correction

The blog below is very badly written. It really isn't clear what is going on. So a bit of explanation. Thursday 1st March was World Book Day (OK, I am almost a week out of date from the outset). WBD finds the ten books that we can't do without. The Guardian enlarged on this list and made it the top 100 books. That list is recreated below. Then I have indicated which books I have read (in bold), which I have read more than once (in red), and those I have started but not finished (in italics). liz also indicated those on her shelf but not started with a *, but this is a fairly irrelevant category for me as books do not generally hang around for long (except the Bronte books, they have been on my shelf for about 10 years and not started). However I have used a # to indicate which are on my wish list for the future. Hope that explains it all a bit more.

A Slice of Heaven

Thanks to liz for bringing this to my attention. I decided to work through the list and mark them off, although I have used red rather than an underline if I have read it more than once (this is because I am being lazy and there doesn't seem to be an obvious underline button in blogger). I don't think I have done too badly, despite being "beaten" by liz (she has read 60 to my 47). Some are overated in my humble opinion - Harry Potter, Philip Pullman, and Birdsong spring to mind. Some are firm favourites - Prayer to Owen Meaney, Brideshead, Cold Comfort Farm, Dumas, Midnight's Children. Reading is one of my great pleasures, and it is nice to remember the stories as I look through this list. The main problem I have is that I find it hard to get rid of books, they are like friends to me and I love being surrounded by them. It is one of the things I want "A" to learn about and appreciate, so far she is showing good signs.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell

8 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott #

12 Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - William Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier #

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger #

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot #

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy #

25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez #

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker #

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Misérables - Victor Hugo