Read: On the way to and back from my weekend trip to Cambridge at the start of October half term
Review: At first I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book. The young protagonist failed to engage me; I'm not sure if it was because I was in a grumpy mood, but I was starting to think that, were "Anne with an e" present in reality, she would soon become exceedingly irritating. However, just like Marilla Cuthbert, I warmed to her as the book went along, and by the end of it I'd have said she was quite a likeable character. On the whole I enjoyed this harmless, fun tale of childish exploits in a very proper village in rural Canada.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Book 83: I'm the King of the Castle, by Susan Hill
Read: Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th October.
Review: The only book this really reminded me of was Lord of the Flies. It's that kind of book. It deals with deep, dark, tormented childhood and adolescence, and the complete inability of some adults to understand that. It's hard to review this book because it deals with something so completely beyond my experience: two very different boys, growing up in parallel situations, one motherless, one fatherless, and both lacking anybody to love and understand them. When they are thrown together, completely against their will, and obliged to live in the same house, the tension and cruelty is unbearable. It's a bleak book! And I'm scared to admit that it may be an accurate portrayal of some people's childhoods.
Review: The only book this really reminded me of was Lord of the Flies. It's that kind of book. It deals with deep, dark, tormented childhood and adolescence, and the complete inability of some adults to understand that. It's hard to review this book because it deals with something so completely beyond my experience: two very different boys, growing up in parallel situations, one motherless, one fatherless, and both lacking anybody to love and understand them. When they are thrown together, completely against their will, and obliged to live in the same house, the tension and cruelty is unbearable. It's a bleak book! And I'm scared to admit that it may be an accurate portrayal of some people's childhoods.
Book 82: A Traveller in Time, by Alison Uttley
Read: I finished it on Friday, I think. Read this one in bed mostly, a little bit at a time.
Review: Penelope, the quiet youngest sister, is different from her siblings in that she sees people from the past. Not ghosts; rather, she is prone to unexpected transfers between her own time and another. Penelope's mother suspects that, like her grandmother, she may have "second sight". The logical way to deal with this is of course for her to be packed off to Thackers, the ancestral home where the family has lived for generations. Nobody ever finds out about Penelope's forays into the past; they are tinged with sadness as she becomes close to those she visits, yet with a lingering sensation of missing her family of her own time. The book is an interesting comparison between past and present - although 'present' seems to be some time in the 1800s - in fact one of my favourite aspects of the book was the way that the descriptions of contemporary life were decidedly archaic and some of the vocabulary even obscure.
Review: Penelope, the quiet youngest sister, is different from her siblings in that she sees people from the past. Not ghosts; rather, she is prone to unexpected transfers between her own time and another. Penelope's mother suspects that, like her grandmother, she may have "second sight". The logical way to deal with this is of course for her to be packed off to Thackers, the ancestral home where the family has lived for generations. Nobody ever finds out about Penelope's forays into the past; they are tinged with sadness as she becomes close to those she visits, yet with a lingering sensation of missing her family of her own time. The book is an interesting comparison between past and present - although 'present' seems to be some time in the 1800s - in fact one of my favourite aspects of the book was the way that the descriptions of contemporary life were decidedly archaic and some of the vocabulary even obscure.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Book 81: The Book of Dead Days, by Marcus Sedgwick
Read: Sunday 10th October, after church and a sunny stroll into town to have lunch with Noah.
Review: A dark tale, with its events mostly taking place at night, in graveyards and tunnels and small cramped spaces. A tale of desperate measures as Valerian, the apparently heartless and certainly troubled illusionist, seeks to avoid the mysterious dark fate he refuses to explain to his ill-treated famulus, known only as Boy. Full of clues and hints, and involving a definite change in the protagonist's character, I would rate this book as average-to-good. Certainly good enough to keep reading for a whole afternoon!
Time: About five hours, I guess. But I also made shortbread and did some work in that time. And spent ages frustrating at the internet because it wouldn't let me find out about eBook readers.
Review: A dark tale, with its events mostly taking place at night, in graveyards and tunnels and small cramped spaces. A tale of desperate measures as Valerian, the apparently heartless and certainly troubled illusionist, seeks to avoid the mysterious dark fate he refuses to explain to his ill-treated famulus, known only as Boy. Full of clues and hints, and involving a definite change in the protagonist's character, I would rate this book as average-to-good. Certainly good enough to keep reading for a whole afternoon!
Time: About five hours, I guess. But I also made shortbread and did some work in that time. And spent ages frustrating at the internet because it wouldn't let me find out about eBook readers.
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Book 80: Uncle, by J. P. Martin
Read: Between August and October, in amongst lots of other books. It's a lovely edition, which Claire and Matthew presented to me on the occasion of their getting married (and on account of my being a bridesmaid), and which was very much appreciated.
Review: This is one of those books where the author sets up a fantastically rich background - a wonderful world full of bizarre and interesting characters - but then sadly fails to do anything interesting with the setting. I understand that these were tales told to Martin's own children, and written down later in life. As such they make perfect sense: an ever-ready background for small-scale telling tales about Uncle, the distinguished elephant in the purple dressing gown, and his altercations with the crowd of miscreants living across the way at Badfort. Uncle's own residence, Homeward, is full of towers, oil lakes, underground railways and farms in unexpected places. I enjoyed the world Martin created, but be aware that this really is a selection of made up bedtime stories melded together into a sort of book. Light hearted and enjoyable, but you sort of feel like it's the kind of joke where you had to be there.
Review: This is one of those books where the author sets up a fantastically rich background - a wonderful world full of bizarre and interesting characters - but then sadly fails to do anything interesting with the setting. I understand that these were tales told to Martin's own children, and written down later in life. As such they make perfect sense: an ever-ready background for small-scale telling tales about Uncle, the distinguished elephant in the purple dressing gown, and his altercations with the crowd of miscreants living across the way at Badfort. Uncle's own residence, Homeward, is full of towers, oil lakes, underground railways and farms in unexpected places. I enjoyed the world Martin created, but be aware that this really is a selection of made up bedtime stories melded together into a sort of book. Light hearted and enjoyable, but you sort of feel like it's the kind of joke where you had to be there.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Book 79: My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell
Read: Another one that spanned a little while (though not quite as long as 17 years). I began this one shortly before leaving Scarborough, but then put it down for ages and only picked it up again once I'd taken up residence in the fine town of St Albans. Finished it last night!
Review: A pleasant mixture of natural history and family anecdotes, one or two of which had me laughing out loud for quite some time. I enjoyed this book - it felt warm and friendly to read and I was slightly disappointed when I finished it. Because it's a collection of anecdotes, this is the kind of book which you can easily put down for a week (or more) and then return to for another dose of gentle amusement. We hear of the lives of various members of the Durrell family as they depart England for the sunny climes of Corfu, where an exciting range of faunae - and an eclectic array of inhabitants - await their arrival. Most enjoyable. The kind of book one feels ought to be accompanied by a cup of tea and a slice of home-made cake.
Time: Who knows? I seem to have given up on this whole timing-myself-reading thing - probably because I no longer have enough spare minutes to spend reading books in a matter of hours. Alas.
Review: A pleasant mixture of natural history and family anecdotes, one or two of which had me laughing out loud for quite some time. I enjoyed this book - it felt warm and friendly to read and I was slightly disappointed when I finished it. Because it's a collection of anecdotes, this is the kind of book which you can easily put down for a week (or more) and then return to for another dose of gentle amusement. We hear of the lives of various members of the Durrell family as they depart England for the sunny climes of Corfu, where an exciting range of faunae - and an eclectic array of inhabitants - await their arrival. Most enjoyable. The kind of book one feels ought to be accompanied by a cup of tea and a slice of home-made cake.
Time: Who knows? I seem to have given up on this whole timing-myself-reading thing - probably because I no longer have enough spare minutes to spend reading books in a matter of hours. Alas.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Book 78: The Children of Green Knowe, by Lucy M Boston
Read: I'll come to that later. But I did actually finish it a week or so ago - I apologise, Noah, for not posting the review sooner. It won't happen again! (Well, at least, I hope it won't; I blame too many episodes of The Office).
Review: I enjoyed this. I always enjoy books about children, but this one seemed to have a particularly good level of magic, innocence and uncertainty about reality in it. At one level it's a scary book - it is about ghosts - but at another level it's about how we form relationships. (Gosh I feel pretentious - I don't think I'm very good at reviewing books!) Anyway the story is of a seven year old boy named Tolly, left behind in England by father and stepmother, and going to spend Christmas in a huge old empty house with a great grandmother he has never seen before. His arrival - by boat, through a flooded garden - emphasises the strangeness of these new experiences, but Tolly soon becomes more familiar with the house and with its mysterious inhabitants.
Time: I think this has got to be the longest time it's ever taken me to read a book. I started it one evening when I was nine, but the description at the beginning of Feste, the ghost-horse, scared me so much that I hardly slept that night. I remember it quite vividly - everything was strange and black and yellow and I had to go in and wake up my mum and dad. The next morning when I woke up I was really poorly with hepatitis and stayed off school for nearly a month. And... I finished it some time last week. I'm glad to say that this time around I got away with just a cold, and haven't had to miss any days of school so far.
In total, then, I guess this one took me 17 years! (I did re-start it, though, and it only lasted me a few days - it was very good, and quite short).
Review: I enjoyed this. I always enjoy books about children, but this one seemed to have a particularly good level of magic, innocence and uncertainty about reality in it. At one level it's a scary book - it is about ghosts - but at another level it's about how we form relationships. (Gosh I feel pretentious - I don't think I'm very good at reviewing books!) Anyway the story is of a seven year old boy named Tolly, left behind in England by father and stepmother, and going to spend Christmas in a huge old empty house with a great grandmother he has never seen before. His arrival - by boat, through a flooded garden - emphasises the strangeness of these new experiences, but Tolly soon becomes more familiar with the house and with its mysterious inhabitants.
Time: I think this has got to be the longest time it's ever taken me to read a book. I started it one evening when I was nine, but the description at the beginning of Feste, the ghost-horse, scared me so much that I hardly slept that night. I remember it quite vividly - everything was strange and black and yellow and I had to go in and wake up my mum and dad. The next morning when I woke up I was really poorly with hepatitis and stayed off school for nearly a month. And... I finished it some time last week. I'm glad to say that this time around I got away with just a cold, and haven't had to miss any days of school so far.
In total, then, I guess this one took me 17 years! (I did re-start it, though, and it only lasted me a few days - it was very good, and quite short).
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