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Book Reviews
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Midnight for Charlie Bone (Children of the Red King)
Jamie Hogarth31 October 2011
Midnight for Charlie Bone is the first book in the Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo.
When Charlie's evil grandma discovers that he can hear voices in photographs, she insists that he is sent to be a weekly boarder at the peculair Bloor's Academy. Although most of the children at Bloors are normal and are there to study art, music or drama, Charlie discovered that there are other children with special powers like him. These endowed children are decendents of the Red King and while some of them are good, others are evil. Charlie discovers that there is something evil and peculiar going on at Bloors, a girl has been trapped in a lengthy sleep so that she doesn't know her real identitiy. With the help of his new friends, Charlie sets out to discover who the girl is and to free her from the unnatural sleep.
Everyone thinks that the Charlie Bone series is inspired by Harry Potter because it involves magic powers and some of the story takes place in a boarding school, but they are actually very different series. The Charlie Bone books may be shorter, but they have a lot more action and excitment than the thicker Harry Potter books. Jenny Nimmo has invented a great range of magic powers and I love the mystery and action in this particular book.
The next book in the Charlie Bone series is Charlie Bone and the Time Twister. -
Claire Milne-Smith31 October 2011
The Partition of India is not something that is often explored in English-language literature. The birth of Pakistan came at a time of tremendous violence in the region, and it is Bapsi Sidhwa's ability to capture this brutality on the page that is so powerful when reading her novel.
Sidhwa has often been heralded as Pakistan's finest novelist, and when reading Cracking India, it is easy to see why. She has a way of pulling you into the story that goes above and beyond the capabilities of most authors. In this novel, we are confronted with the Partition through the eyes of a young girl, Lenny. It is through these eyes that we see the world, and thus through these eyes that we are to understand it.
Yet Sidhwa also infuses our narrator with moments of adult knowledge that bring a startling maturity that really drives home the gradual corruption of Lenny's innocence as she is witness to the destruction of the people and places that she has grown up and fallen in love with. The brutal violence literally arrives upon her doorstep and takes from her her nearest and dearest Ayah, the family childminder, with whom Lenny has developed an almost mother-daughter bond.
Through the early parts of the novel, set in the build-up to Partition, we see Lenny surrounded by adults of different classes, religious beliefs, and nationalities, and they happily and peacefully live amongst each other, discussing the politics of the region more or less in abstractions.
However, these abstractions cannot remain so distant for long, and as Partition comes, the novel instantly takes on an entirely different tone, with a sense of cannibalism quickly entering the text. These people who had once lived so peacefully alongside each other, regardless of class, faith, and nationality, are in an instant transformed into distrusting and fiery souls as a country and its people are torn in two.
The joyful start to the novel, filled with the enjoyable thoughts of a young child going about her daily life, is starkly contrasted with the latter half and the gradual erosion of her innocence by all of the terrible things she bears witness to. Though the novel is indeed fictional, it has its basis in fact, and it is that that makes Cracking India simultaneously an incredibly powerful and at times difficult book to read. It is a topic that few writers, especially in the English language, have approached, but it is one that is certainly important to write about. 'Important' seems like a very appropriate word when describing this novel, for it is an important book; important to write, and important to read. It may well not be the easiest book you will ever read, but it will certainly be one of the finest and most interesting. Few writers hit home as hard as Sidhwa does with this novel, and it is evident throughout how much she deserves her title as Pakistan's finest novelist. -
Jan Kirkpatrick30 October 2011
The Sense of an Ending was my book club choice for September and, as Julian Barnes has since gone on to win the Man Booker Prize for it, it proved to be a good choice. However, awards are necessarily a sign of greatest and so I'm pleased to say that the book does stand on its own merits.
The Sense of an Ending is narrated by Tony Webster, a man who has always been untroubled by the truth (or otherwise) of his own memories. Perhaps in keeping with his lack of interest in the past, Webster has never been a man who strived for success and now, late in life, he has certainly achieved his desired mediocrity. He had a straightforward career followed by a comfortable retirement and an amicable marriage followed by an amicable divorce.
But perhaps not everything in Webster's life has been mediocre. As his thoughts turn to the end of his life, Webster still harbours vivid recollections of his brilliant, tragic school friend Adrian Finn. After receiving a solicitor's letter informing him that he has inherited Adrian's diary, Webster is forced to re-examine everything that he thinks his life has been.
It is this concept of the 'real' past versus the past of memory that causes The Sense of an Ending to be a story in two parts: on one hand there is the tale of Webster's life and relationships that he has told himself and other people, while on the other hand there is the saga of what really went on during his awkward and repressed past.
The Sense of an Ending is a short novel, more of a novella really, but it certainly packs a lot in. The journey through Webster's life is at turns haunting and humorous, delightful and bleak. I have read quite a few of Julian Barnes' novels but I think that this is my favourite. Barnes manages to flesh out the trip through Webster's memory with insight and intelligence so that, ultimately, you do, as Webster himself does, come to understand his tendency to self-redaction. -
Find Your Power: A Toolkit for Resilience and Positive Change
Jon Freeman25 October 2011
This book is an inspiration and a great practical help to anyone who wants positive change in their life, whether they feel change is impossible, inevitable, or necessary but unobtainable.
"Simple to use but powerful in effect, this is a remarkable book" said Dr Kathleen Sullivan, Consultant to The United Nations, New York. She is certainly right.
Chris Johnstone, a medical doctor with years of experience as an addictions specialist and empowerment coach offers lots of very down to earth advice and many useful strategies for understanding where personal power comes from, simple practical exercises to help in the process of personal change and growth.
The chapters break down the big and rather scary sounding subject of "power" into smaller more readily understandable topics. Just to give an idea of the scope of this book chapters include "How to Find Courage" "Bouncing Back from Failure and Crisis", "How to Have Breakthroughs" and "Shifting Stuck Patterns". In each case, underlying psychology of the topic is explained in easy to grasp terminology, and a whole range of exercises provided to work with this area of your own development. Throughout the book clear diagrams illuminate both the theory and the practical self-help work described.
In this book Chris Johnstone has made a wonderful resource and multi purpose toolkit of the heart and mind available to us. I hope you find it as useful as I have. -
Mike Kenny19 October 2011
As much as it pains me to say this, I just don't like this book. I've been a Frank Miller fan since I first got into more serious graphic novels and have read Sin City and 300 numerous times. Both of these titles are rightly considered to be comics classics and I have found that the storylines and art are just as relevant and appealing on fifth read as on first. I truly enjoyed Miller's work on Batman and Daredevil as well. I'm such a big fan in fact that I preordered Holy Terror months before it was actually available but, when it finally arrived, I was seriously disppointed.
At the synopsis level, the story of Holy Terror sounded promising - There's a deadly menace on the loose in Empire City and only the Fixer can stop it and save civilisation as we know it. OK, not the most original sounding hook but it still seemed like my cup of tea and so I was expecting great things. However, when I actually got to read the story in full I soon realised that it was a strangely incoherent mash-up of the superhero genre and blatant propaganda.
Holy Terror begins with the Fixer chasing the Cat Burgler (can you tell that this was originally going to be a Batman story?) across the rooftops of Empire City. Their chase is interupted by a series of explosions which cause devistation across the city. The Fixer and Cat Burgler join forces to round up the culprits - a bunch of al-Qaeda terrorists determined to destroy the city on the stroke of midnight. There's lots of violence, mayhem and torture as the Fixer sets out to foil the terrorists' plot at any costs.
Reading Holy Terror and the way Miller portrayed the religion of Islam actually made me feel uncomfortanle in places. This isn't just a bad story, it's like a spoof of right wing propaganda come to life. Like I said though, even if you could ignore the misplaced preaching, the storyline is just dire. It is easy to see why DC Comics didn't want this to be a Batman book. The similarities to a Batman story actually serve to make the whole book more incongruous and disturbing. Even the art is a mess and nowhere near what fans of Miller will expect.
Not only can I not recommend it, I actually feel that I have to write this review to warn people not to bother buying Holy Terror. Stick to Miller's older books, this one will make you nauseous. -
Lee Rose17 October 2011
He's back in Big Finish's main Doctor Who range, and it's about time.
During the final story of 2009s anthology release, The Company of Friends, a pre Charley, Lucie, et al 8th Doctor first meets the famous (some might say infamous) author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelly, (hereby referred to has 'Mary' for the fictional version, and 'Shelley' for the real historical figure). Of course, she hasn't written it yet - it looks like part of the fun of this arc will be dropping knowing hints to this fictionalised incarnation of Shelley. When she first appeared in the aforementioned one episode tale, there was no indication whether it was just a one off or more adventures were planned. Certainly at the moment two of her print contemporaries from that CD, Fitz and Izzy are still confined to one episode dramatisations. Perhaps it was always planned, or perhaps Julie Cox just shone enough as Mary in that first adventure to make bringing her back a necessity. Either way, one full story in and whatever the reasons, she has a certain magic as a companion that few other audio companions have quite attained so early on. Not wanting to drop too many spoilers, suffice it to say I can't wait to see what further wonders her reticule will bring.
The plot itself is a gothic and chilling one in the tradition of Platt's acclaimed earlier Cyber-script, Spare Parts. But whereas that story had literally a whole population of Cybermen by the end, here we have a sorry pair of spare parts that in some ways could be described as tragic. For part of this story the most compelling aspect is the knowledge that both we as an audience and The Doctor have about the true nature of The Cybermen. Yet as emotional beings, unlike the Cyberman, we travel through Mary's innocent eyes with humanity and actually feel pity for the poor suffering creatures, a pity that they cannot give in return. Humanising the monster was previously handled most notably of a Dalek in Rob Shearman's classic audio drama Jubilee which was also the inspiration for his TV script, Dalek. Well read listeners see that this is far from a recent dramatic device. Indeed didn't Shelley herself use similar methods when writing about Frankenstein's monster? How appropriate.
To those used with the more recent one disc adventures for the 8th Doctor, this release is a certain change of pace. It would be a mistake to label this as slow, but in comparison to the speedier predecessors, more time is taken to explore the characters and little nuances of the piece. For such a carefully structured script, this gives the horror elements plenty of room to breathe. Such an appropriate release for the month of Halloween 2011. -
Jan Kirkpatrick03 October 2011
I've never been a big fan of Westerns so I'm not sure I would have picked up Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers had it not been my book club's selection for August. It's lucky for me then that someone else saw the potential in this book because it has actually turned out to be an excellent read.
The Sisters Brothers is a very character driven story with the unique and often diabolical personalities of the people involved being the key element that draws the reader in and keeps them hooked until the very end. For this reason, it's not the easiest book to precise, but basically: Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters are a notorious pair of hired guns who are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. While they may be a pair of professional killers, this particular job does not prove straightforward. Over the course of their journey south the brothers have a series of unsettling and violent experiences amid the stark landscape of Gold Rush America. Charlie makes money and kills anyone who stands in his way, while Eli falls in love and begins to doubt his murderous profession. When they get to California, Charlie and Eli discover that Hermann Kermit Warm is an inventor whose latest discover could make them all a great deal of money. What happens next for the Sisters brothers is utterly gripping, strange and sad.
While The Sisters Brothers might sound like a standard Western, Patrick deWitt's darkly comic and arresting writing style elevates it above the majority of genre stories. It is certainly an exciting and passionate story of the Wild West, but it also malevolent, unsettling and incredibly revealing as to the perversity of human motivation. It really is a testimony to deWitt's writing skills that he manages to make seemingly merciless psychopaths like Eli and Charlie Sisters seem sympathetic. Given the nature of the brothers' profession as well as the people they encounter on their travels, it should be no surprise that there is a lot of violence in this book. However, while the violence can sometimes be extreme, it is always necessary to the plot and is often, in fact, softened by deWitt's excellent black humour.
This messages and warning in this book have stayed with me since I finished reading. I think I can say that it has had far more of an emotional impact and resonance with me than other books which initially sounded like they were more my kind of thing. I even think the book cover is one of the best designed that I have seen in ages. Given the quality of the writing as well as the power of the storyline, it is easy to see how The Sisters Brothers ended up on the Booker Prize shortlist. The winner of the prize is due to be revealed on the 18th October I think and I've certainly got my fingers crossed for Patrick deWitt. -
ross kerr29 September 2011
this is critical reading for those interested in contemporary urban residential development.
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Complete Sherlock Holmes (Wordsworth Library Collection)
Claire Milne-Smith27 September 2011
Director Guy Ritchie's film adaptation of the most famous detective figure in all of English literature, Sherlock Holmes, sparked something of a resurgence in interest in the character when it was released two years ago, and stands to do the same with its sequel due out at the end of this year.
My own connection to Sherlock Holmes dates back to many years before these films, but watching the first film when it was release in 2009 reminded of just how brilliant a character Holmes is, and how much fun he is to follow in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. And so after watching Guy Ritchie's take on the character, I returned to this collection that I bought a few years ago to reread those old stories that I had always so loved.
Reading and rereading Sherlock Holmes continues to imbue me with a sense of nostalgia, for Conan Doyle's work reminds me of my childhood and adolescence in a way that no other book does. As a child, I would have these stories read to me before bed, and when I was old enough, I would lock myself away and follow Holmes across all of his many mysteries, trying to solve all of the clues just like he did - something I confess I was not quite able to do like he could. And I learned of and thoroughly enjoyed some of the darker Holmes stories that I was not privy to as a child, discovering Holmes' use of drugs as a way of keeping his mind stimulated when a case was not at hand. Whilst of course never sanctioning such an activity, it was incredibly interesting to read about this side of Holmes that is often left unmentioned or unknown in the mainstream view of the character.
What strikes me most interesting about Holmes is, like many others, his incredible skills of deduction. In one particular story, he is able to deduce the most minute of details about his friend, his biographer (and our narrator), and long-term colleague, Dr. Watson, simply by looking at the man's pocket watch. Such a skill was an absolute marvel to me when I was first read this story, and going back and reading it again now that I am older, I still remain in awe of his talents, and cannot but utterly enjoy reading all about him.
I have also always found it very interesting that the stories are not told through either the third or first person, through an external narrator or through Holmes himself, but by Watson, his friend. In this way, we always remain, like Watson, at least one step behind Holmes as he dashes off into the night in one of his many brilliant disguises, already aware of the perpetrator of the crime, and leaving us behind to try and decipher the clues and see where they lead. It amuses me to no end when we find we have ourselves passed by Holmes in one of his disguises in the story without even realising it to be him, so great at the art of disguise is he.
If ever you have been a fan of any of the several Sherlock Holmes adaptations, for television or for film, but have never read any of the original stories by Conan Doyle, I would definitely recommend that now would be a fantastic time to start reading his work. Holmes has been brilliantly captured on the screen, and will be returning again under Ritchie's direction at Christmas, but he of course has his origins in Conan Doyle's original short stories, of which there are dozens and dozens, all neatly contained within this fantastic anthology collection. The more famous stories - The Sign of Four, A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles - all make their appearances in here too, along with the much lesser known stories that are no less prime examples of the writer's genius. It is a terrific collection, and an absolute must-have for any fan of the Sherlock Holmes character. -
The Sound and the Fury (Vintage Classics)
Christopher26 September 2011
British novelist Richard Hughes writes, in his introduction to William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, of the story told of a celebrated Russian dancer who, when asked by someone what she meant by a certain dance, answered, 'If I could say it in so many words, do you think I should take the very great trouble of dancing it?' Hughes repeats the story as an explanation for the validity of obscurity in literary fiction. He writes: 'A method involving apparent obscurity is surely justified when it is the clearest, the simplest, the only method possible of saying what the writer has to say. This is the case with The Sound and the Fury.'
Ever since its initial publication in 1929 Faulkner's novel, like much of his work, has gained a reputation for such obscurity. But, as Richard Hughes suggests, unlike those writers who too often use difficult writing not because of its intrinsic necessity but rather to drape the poverty of the writer, The Sound and the Fury, far from being arduous, is in fact a pleasure to read.
The novel is, put most simply, the story of the gradual disintegration of the Compson family. But to put it simply is to do the novel a disservice, for - through the story of this once august family from the American south - Faulkner reflects on the whole gamut of his thoughts and concerns as a writer, namely the effects of the fast changing social landscape shaping the United States in the post-Civil War era.
The Sound and the Fury begins with an opening section narrated by Benjy Compson, a man of thirty-three whose development has not advanced beyond babyhood. Benjy's thought process, having no sense of time, is purely associative. The past and the present are all one to him, and his stream-of-consciousness narrative becomes an uninterrupted tale spanning many years. Benjy, it is possible to say, is representative of the idiot in the Shakespeare quote from which the novel derives its title: 'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' Yet, however confusing to begin, vague forms of people and events, apparently unrelated, soon begin to emerge from his unconventional narrative which, the reader comes to find, signifies plenty.
With the second section, though no less abstract in form, the vagueness of Benjy's section begins to clarify. The narrative is now lead by Benjy's brother Quentin, one of these vague figures of the earlier section, and portrays the last day in the life of an anguished young man drawn to suicide. With the third and fourth parts the fog rolls away altogether and it is here that Faulkner's early obscurity becomes justified for, as a reader, we find that we have understood more of this sound and fury than initially realised.
The Sound and the Fury is an emotionally powerful and thought-provoking novel, the complexity of which is impossible to do full justice in a short review. It is a book that, to be fully understood, needs to be read and then perhaps read a second time for it is a novel that, like poetry, has the essential quality that upon subsequent readings it shall appear different, revealing things to the reader that at first remained secret - it shall, in short, be a new book.
In all The Sound and the Fury, like other great novels of the modernist movement, rewards the effort of a reader willing the meet the demands of the writer.
