At my mother's knee... and other low joints by Paul O'Grady

At my mother's knee... and other low joints As I have got older I have made some big decisions in my life (education, job, marriage, parenthood etc.) but one of the most important has been that if I don't like something (book, film, music) I just don't finish it. Unfortunately that conclusion has just been reached with this Paul O'Grady autobiography. Don't get me wrong - I love Paul O'Grady's sense of humour and would definitely describe him as seeming to be warm-hearted but this book is just plain boring. I really and truly expected to find myself laughing out loud and not wanting to put the book down but in actual fact I've hardly been able to bring myself to pick it up in the first place. Far too much information about his family and not enough stories about Mr O'Grady himself - I've had it for weeks and have now given up at page 136 - maybe it's fantastic from there on in but I'm never gonna find out...

Click here to reserve a copy

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak a few years back now (and as such the details are slightly hazy) but as this is the first book club blog-type thing I have ever written and it is my favourite book I thought it was still the most appropriate place to begin. Review upon review upon review has been written on it (nearly 900 on Amazon alone when I last looked never mind all the 'professional' ones) so I'm going to keep this one short and personal.

I have to admit that there have been times in my life when I haven't read as much as I should but occasionally you take a punt on a book (I'd actually bought this for my wife) and once you start it is impossible to put it down. This book grabbed me emotionally in a way that I find difficult to describe. Suffice to say that if I had had a daughter I wanted to call her Liesel and that I found it difficult to read the last 40 pages as I was crying so much I could barely see them - I am very affected by acts of courage and loss!

Anyway - what do you think of The Book Thief and while you are thinking about that what other Modern Fiction books do you suggest we might want to discuss?

Click here to reserve a copy

The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory

As part of my duties to a book group that I'm helping out with but don't actually belong to I recently had to read The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory. I have to admit that the idea at first filled me with dread as everything about it "400+ pages of historical fiction set in Tudor times" screamed "this is not my cup of tea and I'm not going to like it and it's going to take forever to read and I'm not going to be able to talk about it without offending the group (6 elderly ladies that I'd never met before)!" However...

I actually thought it was great. Obviously if you know anything about Tudor England (I don't) you would expect this to be a novel that was full of politics, intrigue, plotting, sexual tension, love, murder, executions etc. It is full of all these things plus it cracks on at a great pace - it has very short chapters as the narrative keeps swapping between the 3 main characters - Mary, Queen of Scotts; Bess of Hardwick and her husband the George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and although even I knew how it was all going to end it still keeps you interested right up to the (bloody) end.

Of course I've no idea whether or not it's particularly historically accurate and I'm sure that probably matters to a lot of people (not me though) but it is fiction and from what the author says in the notes at the back it's pretty well researched and nobody is going to know exactly what happened so she is as likely to be right as anyone else from what I can tell.

All in all a big thumbs up for a book I really thought I'd hate. Just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover! Boom Boom...

Click here to reserve a copy

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

An absolutely astonishing book. I loved everything about The Gargoyle - from the appearance of the pages (black to signify that the book has been burned along with the author) to the plot; the use of different timelines; the characters; the short tales told by Marianne Engel within the book. The way everything ties together in life.

I have to admit/warn you that the first few chapters contain some of the most disturbing images that I have had bought to mind by a book and it seemed initially that this was going to be a pretty tough read. Fascinating yes but pretty unpleasant. Due to the vividness of the descriptions you could all but physically feel the pain that the author is going through during the accident and then, even worse, during the treatment. I presume also that the treatments described are all real which gives it all an added edge.

At it's heart though this is actually a story of love and redemption for a modern day self-hating pornographer (we've all been there!!). A man who I have only just realised while writing this is never named (it's amazing how I missed that - guess I was just too engrossed from the outset and then it was never important).

 I would definitely recommend the book but possibly only to a selected audience purely due to the need for a strong stomach at points although if you can get past those there's a lot of heart in there.

Click here to reserve a copy

The World is Burning and I Love You! Dystopian Teen Fiction

The recent onslaught of young adult books set in worlds on the brink of collapse thrills some readers and leaves others cold. What do you think?

Here are some (relatively) recent teen titles:
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
The Forest of Hands and Teeth (and its two sequels) by Carrie Ryan (zombie dystopia!)
The Enemy (and its sequels) by Charlie Higson (zombies in this one too!)
Matched by Ally Condie
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Do you love dystopian novels? Hate them? Which one is your favourite? Do you think their societies are outlandish or totally believable?

Graphic Novels of late 20th Century



A panel from Sandman.

Between the revival of leggings and renewed popularity of 80s and 90s kitsch, you might be inclined to flee as soon as you hear a mention of either decade. Flee not, because when it comes to comics, some of the very best British graphic novels were produced during those very decades, including Alan Moore's infamous Watchmen to Neil Gaiman's much-loved and widely read Sandman series. Sure, sometimes the gorgeous illustrations look dated (a friend of mine recently said of Sandman: "1994 called and said it wants 1994 back"), but the masterful stories and exciting art make it easy to look past these obvious flaws.

Which is your favourite old graphic novel?

Last Man In The Tower by Aravind Adiga

I liked the look of this from the cover. Last Man in the Tower by Aravind Adiga was gentle in its charm but had such an underlying current of deceit, criminality, danger and friendship all in the mix. Set in Mumbai in one of two co-operative buildings whose residents are offered money by a property developer to move out and the winding path it leads them on. Each tower has to agree to all residents moving out to gain the best deal from the developer.

Learning about the different characters who lived in the tower was something I did have to flip back and forwards to often referring to the residents listing in the beginning as I found it a little difficult to keep up at first but then it soon settled into the flow of the story.

This was a really enjoyable book and I loved reading about the individual lives that revolved around the tower and how the money was going to change their lives. The resistance of Masterji as well as his blind friend and her husband and the belief that friendship will overcome all odds. The different caste systems and the poverty and the inherent culture of bribery and corrupt officials, the characters mixing with the wealth of Mumbai to the slums.

This book was a very good read and very enjoyable.

Without giving too much away, the end did shock me.

Click here to reserve a copy