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purplerabbits at 01:19pm on 28/02/2004 under books
purplerabbits at 01:19pm on 28/02/2004 under booksNot a gratuitous icon post in any way whatsoever.
The first twenty books of the year. To be cross posted in 50 book challenge
1. Mischief - Chris Wilson
Charlie Duckworth is the last surviving member of the Xique Xique tribe, and turns out to be a different species of human. He starts off nice and ends up nasty through exposure to Western Civilisation. Like satire but a lot of the time I failed to recognise the British way of life as anything I've encountered. Well written but nasty and without a shred of hope. Avoid.
2. Elementals: Water - Peter Dickinson and Robin Mckinley
A good but slightly patchy set of short stories about mer people and water spirits. Prior to reading this I would have said that Peter Dickinson never wrote a book that wasn't great. Maybe I wasn't quite in the mood for this, but I'd say it's good but not great. The stories don't seem to quite belong in the same universe, but some of them are excellent.
3. The Human Front - Ken Macleod - more of a novella, really, published back to back with number 6, but I decided to treat them as separate books because they're so different. In this one Ken has more to say about Stalin, has a revolutionary war in Scotland and explains the Greys. Again. It was actually a great laugh, and in some ways better than some of his longer work as his obsession with various communist party splits didn't have too many pages to spread out in.
4. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg
A fantastic book full of gorgeous description, a multi layered plot and characters I cared about. It made me go and look up facts about Denmark and Greenland, which shows that it got under my skin. It starts to get surreal about half way through and the ending is a bit open, which some people might not like, but to me it seemed like the right thing to do.
5. The Masks of Time - Robert Silverberg
I can barely remember anything about this, so I guess it was crap.
6. A Writer's Life - Eric Brown
The other half of the Ken MacLeod book. So different that I wonder why they bound them together. Instead of commies and flying saucers you have Victorian writers and Gothic piles and ghosts (Well they start our as ghosts) and mysterious coincidences. I thought it was a great, and the ending was satisfactory, which I hadn't been expecting.
7. Setting Free the Bears - John Irving
Funny and fast paced and surreal and slightly nasty. Typical John Irving, really, but it seems to take too long to finish, which annoyed me.
8. Poor Things - Alasdair Gray
Frankenstein in Glasgow. More satire on the human condition, more recognisable this time and very funny in places.
9. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
The third of the Thursday Next series and still hilarious and surreal. This was a bit of light relief after books 7 and 8. And unlike a lot of light relief I can easily see myself rereading them. If you've ever tried to write a book, lost patience with stylised detective fiction, or wondered how minor characters in fiction are trained, you've love this. It helps if you a know a little bit about classical fiction like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but probably having been subjected to them at school is enough...
10. Falling out of Cars - Jeff Noon
I loved it to bits and it made me feel very weird. All his descriptions of the confusion sickness seem too familiar almost for comfort, but I love his style and would highly recommend it.
11. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
It's a tiny slim book, and I read it on two train journeys, but I found myself going slow to catch the cadences of the writing. There's certainly a lot of subtlety there, and I found myself wishing I had ever been to New York and Long Island so I could envisage the geography. And yes, as John Irving says, it does have one of the best last lines of any novel.
12. Gould's book of fish - Richard Flannagan
This is subtitled A Novel in Twelve Fish, and I found it look me about 12 days to read, as I had to take it one fish at a time. The huge number of reviews quoted at the start were not promising as they seemed to describe a very black book indeed. Which it is, but it's also very very strange and intricately written. It reminds me in some ways of William Burroughs, and does indeed have an insane prison governor addicted to Laudanum.
13. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Early on a character claims that this is a story to make you believe in god, presumably because the alternative is far, far worse. I'm not susceptible to that kind of belief so for me this was a story that starts charmingly and ends up revolting. The first third of the book is beautiful, and it's very well written, but I've given my copy away because I don't want to be subjected to the ending again.
14. The woman and the ape - Peter Hoeg
Another unknown species of ape/human. Another comment on the human condition, but infinitely better than Mischief, with rich Hoeg description and a kind of hope at the end, which makes a change.
15. Valhalla - Tom Holt
I wanted a bit of light reading, but this wasn't it. It's all about how horrible life after death is and how you can never ever escape. And not funny. The ending is too Deus Ex Machina for words.
16. A Gift of Dragons - Anne McCaffery
It wasn't my fault, but my new flatmate has even more McCaffery than me (since I gave up when they got too crap), and it was just sitting there, so I read it. It wasn't too bad, actually. The first story I've read before, but a couple of them were new and interesting. All these stories are designed for sex free adolescents, though - every character who wants a dragon gets one and they all live happily ever after.
17. The Wish List - Eoin Colfer
More about the afterlife, but this is funny, even though it's quite nasty for a kids book (which is often a good thing). A dead teenage criminal has to help an old man do all the things he wishes he'd done before he dies in order to save her soul. Both come out as quite likeable characters, and it's a very good read if you don't let yourself worry about the theology of damning young tearaways who've had a shit life.
18. Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith
I didn't find most of this funny, though it's supposed to be a humorous classic. I did find it interesting in what it told me about Victorian middle class society, but rather than laugh at the characters' pretensions I felt angry for them, which may not have been the original intention.
19. Henry Winstanley and the Eddystone Lighthouse Adam-Hart-Davis and Emily Troscianko
An easy read which digresses all over the place, but I like the Hart Davis style and that comes through nicely.
20. Dragon Kin - Anne and Todd McCaffery
I wish I hadn't. I feel soiled now. Apparently Todd is Anne McCaffery's son and is the inheritor of the world of Pern, which means there's going to be more of this shit. Be Very Afraid.
The first twenty books of the year. To be cross posted in 50 book challenge
1. Mischief - Chris Wilson
Charlie Duckworth is the last surviving member of the Xique Xique tribe, and turns out to be a different species of human. He starts off nice and ends up nasty through exposure to Western Civilisation. Like satire but a lot of the time I failed to recognise the British way of life as anything I've encountered. Well written but nasty and without a shred of hope. Avoid.
2. Elementals: Water - Peter Dickinson and Robin Mckinley
A good but slightly patchy set of short stories about mer people and water spirits. Prior to reading this I would have said that Peter Dickinson never wrote a book that wasn't great. Maybe I wasn't quite in the mood for this, but I'd say it's good but not great. The stories don't seem to quite belong in the same universe, but some of them are excellent.
3. The Human Front - Ken Macleod - more of a novella, really, published back to back with number 6, but I decided to treat them as separate books because they're so different. In this one Ken has more to say about Stalin, has a revolutionary war in Scotland and explains the Greys. Again. It was actually a great laugh, and in some ways better than some of his longer work as his obsession with various communist party splits didn't have too many pages to spread out in.
4. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg
A fantastic book full of gorgeous description, a multi layered plot and characters I cared about. It made me go and look up facts about Denmark and Greenland, which shows that it got under my skin. It starts to get surreal about half way through and the ending is a bit open, which some people might not like, but to me it seemed like the right thing to do.
5. The Masks of Time - Robert Silverberg
I can barely remember anything about this, so I guess it was crap.
6. A Writer's Life - Eric Brown
The other half of the Ken MacLeod book. So different that I wonder why they bound them together. Instead of commies and flying saucers you have Victorian writers and Gothic piles and ghosts (Well they start our as ghosts) and mysterious coincidences. I thought it was a great, and the ending was satisfactory, which I hadn't been expecting.
7. Setting Free the Bears - John Irving
Funny and fast paced and surreal and slightly nasty. Typical John Irving, really, but it seems to take too long to finish, which annoyed me.
8. Poor Things - Alasdair Gray
Frankenstein in Glasgow. More satire on the human condition, more recognisable this time and very funny in places.
9. The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
The third of the Thursday Next series and still hilarious and surreal. This was a bit of light relief after books 7 and 8. And unlike a lot of light relief I can easily see myself rereading them. If you've ever tried to write a book, lost patience with stylised detective fiction, or wondered how minor characters in fiction are trained, you've love this. It helps if you a know a little bit about classical fiction like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, but probably having been subjected to them at school is enough...
10. Falling out of Cars - Jeff Noon
I loved it to bits and it made me feel very weird. All his descriptions of the confusion sickness seem too familiar almost for comfort, but I love his style and would highly recommend it.
11. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
It's a tiny slim book, and I read it on two train journeys, but I found myself going slow to catch the cadences of the writing. There's certainly a lot of subtlety there, and I found myself wishing I had ever been to New York and Long Island so I could envisage the geography. And yes, as John Irving says, it does have one of the best last lines of any novel.
12. Gould's book of fish - Richard Flannagan
This is subtitled A Novel in Twelve Fish, and I found it look me about 12 days to read, as I had to take it one fish at a time. The huge number of reviews quoted at the start were not promising as they seemed to describe a very black book indeed. Which it is, but it's also very very strange and intricately written. It reminds me in some ways of William Burroughs, and does indeed have an insane prison governor addicted to Laudanum.
13. The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Early on a character claims that this is a story to make you believe in god, presumably because the alternative is far, far worse. I'm not susceptible to that kind of belief so for me this was a story that starts charmingly and ends up revolting. The first third of the book is beautiful, and it's very well written, but I've given my copy away because I don't want to be subjected to the ending again.
14. The woman and the ape - Peter Hoeg
Another unknown species of ape/human. Another comment on the human condition, but infinitely better than Mischief, with rich Hoeg description and a kind of hope at the end, which makes a change.
15. Valhalla - Tom Holt
I wanted a bit of light reading, but this wasn't it. It's all about how horrible life after death is and how you can never ever escape. And not funny. The ending is too Deus Ex Machina for words.
16. A Gift of Dragons - Anne McCaffery
It wasn't my fault, but my new flatmate has even more McCaffery than me (since I gave up when they got too crap), and it was just sitting there, so I read it. It wasn't too bad, actually. The first story I've read before, but a couple of them were new and interesting. All these stories are designed for sex free adolescents, though - every character who wants a dragon gets one and they all live happily ever after.
17. The Wish List - Eoin Colfer
More about the afterlife, but this is funny, even though it's quite nasty for a kids book (which is often a good thing). A dead teenage criminal has to help an old man do all the things he wishes he'd done before he dies in order to save her soul. Both come out as quite likeable characters, and it's a very good read if you don't let yourself worry about the theology of damning young tearaways who've had a shit life.
18. Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith
I didn't find most of this funny, though it's supposed to be a humorous classic. I did find it interesting in what it told me about Victorian middle class society, but rather than laugh at the characters' pretensions I felt angry for them, which may not have been the original intention.
19. Henry Winstanley and the Eddystone Lighthouse Adam-Hart-Davis and Emily Troscianko
An easy read which digresses all over the place, but I like the Hart Davis style and that comes through nicely.
20. Dragon Kin - Anne and Todd McCaffery
I wish I hadn't. I feel soiled now. Apparently Todd is Anne McCaffery's son and is the inheritor of the world of Pern, which means there's going to be more of this shit. Be Very Afraid.
chipper
(no subject)
I might have read the Silverberg, but like you I can't remember a thing about it.
Poor Things was the first Alasdair Gray I read, I think.
Diary of a Nobody was amusing rather than funny. I read it recovering from a fever a couple of Christmasses ago.
I tend to buy Noons when I see cheap s/h copies, but only because I know somewhere that will buy them for more. I got along with the style for one book, but not a whole career.