Tag Archives: book

2010 In Books

Posted on by
3

And once again a list of all the books that I read in the last year. Some people enjoy these, I hear. It’s sorted alphabetically by author, because I’ll be buggered if I can remember the order that I read them in.

The list would be a lot longer if cookbooks counted, but alas, I have decided that they don’t. I fear “place noodles in boiling salt water and cook until al dente” doesn’t count as enough of a narrative to constitute a novel. Wish I had read more. Sigh.

2010 was the year that saw my novel finished and also the year in which I wrote a very nice short story that I hope will get published soon. It was the year in which Jonas sold his first flash game and his first articles, and when I say this it is not with envy, but with pride (and a little envy). I made graphics for Jonas’s next game and did a lot of culinary experimentation. A good year, yes, but creatively speaking still a bit of a disappointment. I could and should have done so much more. I hope that’s all going to change next year. I’ll start with this blog. More updates, more reviews and the two final installments in the Twilight Experiment. 2011 will be a creative year. And in a few months it will also stop feeling weird to type that number.

Before They Are Hanged – Joe Abercrombie
Last Argument Of Kings – Joe Abercrombie
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed – Alan Alda
Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself – Alan Alda
Consider Phlebas – Iain Banks
The Player Of Games – Iain Banks
Use Of Weapons – Iain Banks
Two Hearts – Peter S. Beagle
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
The Death Of Bunny Munroe – Nick Cave
Last Chance To See – Mark Carwardine
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon
King Of The Murgos – David Eddings
Demon Lord Of Karanda – David Eddings
Sorceress Of Darshiva – David Eddings
The Seeress Of Kell – David Eddings
Belgarath the Sorcerer – David & Leigh Eddings
Polgara the Sorceress – David & Leigh Eddings
Shades of Grey – Jasper Fforde
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Seth Grahame-Smith
Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby
A Prayer For Owen Meany – John Irving
The Summer Tree – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Wandering Fire – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Darkest Road – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Shining – Stephen King
Under The Dome – Stephen King
Twilight  – Stephenie Meyer
New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer
Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas – Judy Parkinson
I Shall Wear Midnight – Terry Pratchett
The Wilt Alternative – Tom Sharpe
Wilt On High – Tom Sharpe
Wilt In Nowhere – Tom Sharpe
Star Maker – Olaf Stapledon

The Twilight Experiment: Day 1

Posted on by
7

I slide the book over the counter, cover down, and look at the cashier. A middle-aged woman – very short red hair, glasses, and the distinct air of a book-snob about her – looks back at me. My ruse hasn’t worked. She knows immediately what I’m buying. My mind is racing, imagining that the only thing that’s keeping her from saying something is the fact that the copy of Twilight that I’m about to buy is in English while she is German. I want to blurt out that I’m buying this thing, this literary abomination, for the sake of an experiment. For the sake of science, so to speak. Really quite self-sacrificial of me. But in the end I don’t say anything, not even hello/thank you/goodbye. Better to let her think I don’t speak German.

Outside of the bookstore I don’t have much time to look at the slim paperback that I just bought. I need to meet someone and I’m in a hurry. Also I’m not that keen on actually starting this little experiment of mine. Someone could get hurt.

My brain, for example.

Rewind… I’d seen Twilight: New Moon a while ago and thought that it had possibly set a new record for storyline-atrocity. But only just possibly, there’s always Bloom. Looked good though, can’t deny that. And then there was the thing with the other readers, sane people one and all, people whose judgement I trust, people who seem to have taste (you know who you are). And they had read Twilight. And New Moon. And the rest. Not only had they survived the experience, they had also said things like “reads well” or “it’s sort of fun, in a guilty pleasure kind of way”. And that planted the seed of doubt. Twilight, scourge of high fantasy, read by millions upon millions of teenagers. Was it really that bad? Did I have a right to participate in the ongoing Twilight discussion trashing without having read a single word of it? Does Bella Swan have a single redeeming feature? I don’t believe in guilty pleasure, at least not very much. If someone says something is a guilty pleasure he or she usually means that it is good, but doesn’t want to admit to thinking that in the company of others. Here in Germany Harry Potter is a guilty pleasure, see?

We have a saying in Germany which roughly translates as “eat shit, millions of flies can’t be wrong”. It doesn’t translate very well, but still serves to illustrate what is at the core of this little experiment: What if millions of flies aren’t wrong?

Back to Day 1: I meet the person I was going to meet and get a very disapproving frown when I mention what I have just done. Twilight, well actually fantasy literature as a whole, has a bad standing in Germany. Escapism, nonsense, childishness, these words are spoken much quicker and with less kindness here in the country of sheep. Intellectual people read suspense novels, because when the gardener kills Lord Adolfstein by shoving him into the paper shredder that’s, like, real, you know.

I’ve heard all of it before and gotten inured to the attacks of the literary elite by now. Still I try to explain. “It’s because I finally want to have an informed opinion. I don’t want to be talking out of my arse all the time.” Only three days later I will be ready to launch into a well-rehearsed speech on the subject of why reading Twilight was such a spiffing idea.

In the train on the way home, I open the book for the first time. I keep it on my lap, bending over in order to still be able to read. The cover of the German edition is identical to the English one; if I hold the book up like I normally would, people might notice what I’m reading.

I only skim the acknowledgements. Usually not my style, I tend to assume that authors have put some thought into whom they thank, but Stephenie Meyers’ acknowledgements are longer than some books I’ve read. It takes Jonas to point out that she thanks her “online family” at fansofrealitytv.com. That explains so much.

“I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.”

It’s not the first sentence of the book, that honour goes to something bland and incredibly convoluted, but if it were it would easily win the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, probably for several years in a row. It’s just that kind of sentence. I can’t even begin to describe what is wrong with it, there’s just too much, although the part about “pleasantly looking back” certainly makes up a good deal of the overall horribleness.

Two paragraphs down, 434 pages to go. Suddenly I’m not sure if I can do this. Yet I turn the page and read on. Once I’m in the flow it isn’t too bad. The atrocities keep coming, but they somehow get drowned out by all the filler. And there’s a lot of that. Mostly descriptions of how Bella hates the world in general and human beings specifically. Such a charming, vivacious personality! I already want to adopt her. Still, the filler isn’t thick enough to submerge the very, very frequent descriptions of Edward’s attractive voice. And his attractive skin. And attractive hair. He probably also has attractive shoelaces, but before I get to that part I need to stop reading in order to get off the train. I’m glad to stop – this book is so full of attractiveness that it makes my brain ache.

I have done my scientific duty for today. It doesn’t make me feel great, but at least I don’t feel too dirty.

The Book. The Book!

Posted on by
5

I finished my novel yesterday. This is the main reason for the lack of updates to this blog, for which I apologize, but I really needed to take the time to sit down and do this.

Still not sending it to the agents, but that will come… soon.

For now just a short update on the technical specifications of Mind the Gap:

Chapters: 49 + Prologue

Total Word Count: 133694

We celebrated by ordering pizza with everything and I am still riding on a high of adrenaline and euphoria. I can not put into words how good it feels to be done with that part of the work. We both got a really good feeling about this book.

Anyway: I promise to keep you posted on the progress from now on. Expect to hear more soon.

Juliet, Naked

Posted on by
3

Nick Hornby is one of my favourite authors. That’s mostly due to his 2005 novel A Long Way Down, which should be compulsory reading for everyone who’s ever considered suicide, even as the remotest of all possible possibilities. And his other books aren’t too shabby either. (With the exception of Fever Pitch, which is non-fiction anyway and of which I never managed to read more than two pages. Football… what more need I say?)

Now: Juliet, Naked.

The story revolves around three characters: Duncan, a teacher in his early forties obsessed with Tucker Crowe, an 80′s singer/songwriter; Annie, Duncan’s girlfriend of fifteen years; and finally Tucker Crowe himself, now no longer a musician but a recluse and father of five. Fairly in the beginning of the book we realize that Duncan knows more about Tucker than is good for him and that, mostly because of the Tucker issue, his relationship with Annie had a definite expiry date. I’m not spoiling much when I say that the two will break up fairly early in the book and that Annie will get to know Tucker Crowe. And that’s all I’ll say about the plot, for despite all the criticism that I’ll heap upon the book in just a minute, it’s still a very good book and you might do well to consider giving it a read.

Now. If Juliet, Naked is such a jolly good read, why do I speak of criticism?

For one thing, because of bad marketing. Just like Shyamalan’s The Village got sold as an all-out horror movie (which it isn’t), this book gets sold as … ehm… something that it is not. Okay, maybe I’m being a bit too hard on Hornby and the marketing department of Penguin/Viking here. I thought, from the jacket text, that the book would be about Tucker and Annie, not necessarily in a romantic sense, but in a talking-with-each-other sense. And it is, but only on the last hundred pages or so. Before that, it’s mostly either Annie or Duncan or Tucker sitting in a corner and being miserable. Erm… I’m being unfair again, they’re not miserable, which seems to me to imply postmodern yack about how incomprehensible and unfair the world is. The protagonists are sarcastic, doubtful, often witty as they wonder about their lives and where they would be today if things had gone a little differently for them.

This is not a bad thing, per se. If I could change only one thing about the book I would tone Annie’s incessant whining about her state of childlessness down a bit. That’s about it.

If I could change two things I’d have her meet Tucker sooner. Because Tucker is the most fun character in the book, but he needs a conversational counterpart to realise his true potential for awesomeness. The clashing of rock-star and museum curator, of British middle-class and American wash-out, that’s where the book gets really brilliant. And there’s not enough of that.

I read Juliet, Naked in two sittings and after finishing the first at page 154 I wasn’t sure if I liked the book. Then I read the second part and I loved it. That’s just a warning. Give it some time.

One review I read basically said that the book was okay, only Tucker wasn’t a very interesting character and why didn’t Nick Hornby try to be a bit more mysterious and twisty. I think that woman needs her head examined.

Lately I’m reading and hearing a lot of reviews that essentially demand that every book read like an episode of Lost. Now, twists are all good and fine in their right place. I’m sure crime fiction would be poorer if every novel told you who dunnit in the very first paragraph. (Some do, and are better for it. The attraction of rare things, I assume.) But the attraction in novels like Juliet, Naked doesn’t lie in the answer to the question of who will sleep with whom because of what. Novels like this one are beautiful because we get to examine the motivations behind what the characters do, in seeing their journey, their evolution. And that is made all the sweeter if you can see all the elements from the very start. This is not a flaw, Miss Myerson, it’s perfection.

Happy Second Week Of The New Year!

Posted on by
Reply

Okay. So I’ve been off the radar for a while. But I did a lot of good work in the last three weeks, so I’m not too sad about that. But 2010 is going to find me a changed woman, yes it will. Here’s what I’ll do:

New Year Resolutions (Excerpt)

1) Sell Book

2) Write A Lot More Books

3) Update Blog More Often (Now, away from the 56k modems of Greece and with our home internet connection working once more, than might actually work out. Maybe I should add another one 4) Don’t Make Empty Promises.)

That’s it for now, back to typing my handwritten manuscript and playing Borderlands. Expect to hear from me soon.

A Book A Day Keeps The Doctor Away

Posted on by
Reply

Well, sort of. My flu is gone and I managed to get a whole lot of books read while lying on the couch and getting pampered. I can think of worse ways to spend the time. Okay, I could have done without the blinding headaches, but apart from that…

Two of the books I read were Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure, both by Tom Sharpe.

Like Wilt, by the same author, I had read both of them a while ago, back in the regrettable time when I still thought that reading translated books was a good idea.

So?

Yeah. Good. Both of them. Although reading the books back to back makes you realize that they have been written fourteen years apart. The author’s style has changed ever so slightly and a few things don’t quite fit. Nothing major, nothing that would ruin the books, but enough to notice. But don’t let that distract you from the fact that together these books represent 700 pages of the finest, wittiest writing to come out of Britain in a long time.

All in all, Tom Sharpe’s books are just outrageously hilarious. Exhumed sex dolls, exploding ostriches, penile injections, elephant guns, old ladies with rubber fetishes. If it’s lewd and strange, it’s in there. And that is a good thing. I have never, ever in my life read books that are more crazy, and I find that I like it.

So get yourself to a bookshop or internet retailer of your choice and buy some Tom Sharpe. You won’t regret it.

P.S.: And you gotta love the dedication:

For all those members of the South African Police Force whose lives are dedicated to the preservation of Western Civilization in Southern Africa

Lustrum

Posted on by
3

LustrumI have half a dozen book reviews I still want to write, but I wanted to get this one out of my mind as long as the memory is still fresh.

Two days ago I finished reading Lustrum, by Robert Harris. I am saddened to say that the book was good, so this review isn’t bound to be very funny.

Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum, Naples, Capri. Places I’ve been to personally, places that I love. They all have one thing in common: almost two thousand years ago they were thriving, buzzing parts of the Roman Empire.

Rome has held its sway over me for about fifteen years now. It started out as a sort of extra-curricular school trip that sounded like fun and has since then bloomed into a deep and long-lasting fascination with all things Roman (ancient Greek will do at a pinch, I’m not picky). I will, one day, write my own epic set in ancient Rome, but until then I’ll have to make do with the works of others on the subject.

In light of this passion of mine  it was only logical for me to read devour Robert Harris’s book Pompeii (okay, I’ll admit it, it was a gift from Jonas, it was he who pointed Mr. Harris’s work out to me first) and after that the first book of his trilogy on the life and works of the famous Roman politician and orator Cicero.

Marcus Tullius Cicero is a fascinating figure. Lauded by his contemporaries and later generations of historians as one of the most versatile minds of his time, he was a lawyer, translator, politician, orator, philosopher and linguist. What makes him even more interesting as a protagonist for a book is the fact that he was a contemporary of all the great names that one will associate with Rome at fist glance: Caesar, Pompey Magnus, Brutus, Lucullus, Crassus and many others.

While the first book, Imperium, chronicles Cicero’s rise to power through hard work and cunning, told through the eyes of his faithful slave (and friend) Tiro, the second book finds him at the height of his career. Newly elected consul, Cicero has to use all his wit to fight against his political enemies and smite down a conspiracy that might well mean the end of the Roman Republic. To say more would unfortunately contain many spoilers, so let it suffice to say that the problems only begin there.

I mention Tiro in the above paragraph, and in that character lies the book’s main weakness. It is a small flaw, one that barely merits pointing out, but I shall still mention it. Tiro, or Marcus Tullius Tiro as he became known after being freed by his master, is a real, historical character. Little is known of his origins, but what is known is that he was (among) the first to ever record a session of the Roman senate in shorthand and that this shorthand system, which was invented by him, gives us many useful words that survive to this day, most notably the ever-popular “etc.” In the book Tiro functions as the narrator, writing down the life history of Marcus Tullius Cicero many years after his death (history tells us that Tiro lived to a ripe age of 99 and died 39 years after his former master). And here lies my principal problem with the book (there is one other one, also connected to Tiro, but I’ll let that slip): our narrator, busily scribbling away at his former master’s biography before he himself croaks of old age, is a bit too intent on pointing out to us that he is writing this many years after the actual events have taken place. A few mentions less of “here my notes record” or “now I myself am old and feeble”, “if only he had known what I know today” etc., would have done the book a great service. Tiro seems to strive above all to destroy our immersion with his constant comments.

Don’t think that the book is bad now, it’s still plenty good. I just was annoyed by Tiro to a certain degree. I also think it gets better as the book progresses.

Back to the book:

Lustrum is, as I already knew, Latin for… well… a whorehouse. What I didn’t know is that is also means “a period of four years”. The book, as you may have guessed, easily accounts for both meanings of the title, and we see a lot more of Cicero than just what happened to him during the twelve months of his consulship.

Although the second part of the book suffers from certain structural issues (which are almost unavoidable since Cicero was, politically speaking, on a decaying orbit after his consulship and is thus demoted from active schemer to passive watcher), the book still manages to go out with  a bang. A bang that left me wishing that Robert Harris would hurry up and write the last part of his Cicero trilogy as quickly as possible.

Lustrum is to a large degree based on the actual historical events and Harris claims that he has taken excerpts from actual speeches by Cicero and his contemporaries as often as possible. I have no reason to doubt him. The book feels authentic and for anyone who shares my passion for Rome and her people it will be a joy to read. I can only recommend the book, but bear in mind that the enjoyment will be all the greater if you also read Imperium, with which Lustrum forms an almost seamless unit.

Softspoken

Posted on by
Reply

g

My motto for our Dominican Republic experience seems to have been been “a book a day.”  I read five books all in all, and that is counting two bloody thick novels by Stephen King.

Amongst others I read Softspoken, a novella by Lucius Shepard.

Now, I recently had my say about what I think of Mr. Lucius Shepard, and I still hold to it. The man and I will never be on the same page when it comes to literature or movies. But he sure can write.

Softspoken is a ghost story set in the deep South, and the heat, the moisture, and the thick accents seem to drip from the pages. Reading this book in the Dominican Republic helped, I think. The air must be similar.

Sanie Bullard (spellcheck just offered me Dullard as an alternative; not unfitting, I have to admit) has recently moved to South Carolina with her husband, to give him the peace and quiet to study for the bar. They live in his ancestral homestead with his hick brother and overly timid sister. At first Sanie is bored. Slowly a mystery arises, showing a way out of the boredom – and then there is also the handsome Frank Dean, for whom her husband has nothing but contempt. But all too soon feelings like boredom, curiosity and maybe love are swept away by the horrible secret that the old Bullard Mansion holds.

Softspoken may be a bit of a non-story (as Jonas pointed out to me), but I don’t mind that. It may be over before it begins, and I fear the ending is as solid as an elephant statue made from jelly, but what I’ve always loved about Shepard is there. The superb writing. The atmosphere. The beautiful sentences. I enjoyed Softspoken, despite the occasional stab at Stephen King and other popular writers. Oh do I wish Lucius Shepard were less of a snob.

A few notes on the visuals of the book: the cover art, which is terrible, was done by a man named J. K. Potter, a funny name given the author’s dislike of Rowling’s writing. Also, it would have been nice if someone had taken the time to proofread Softspoken. I find it hard to notice typos, both in my own writing as well in works by others. (That’s what Jonas is there for.) I am the anti-proofreader, so to speak, but in Softspoken even I caught plenty of errors. And don’t get me, started on the, punctuation?

The bottom line is that unfortunately Softspoken has more flaws than are good for it, on a writing level as well as in its physical appearance. It is not one of Shepard’s better works. Yet I still liked it. Why?

Mostly because, although I have never been to the South, I still feel that Softspoken captures the feeling of that region, the slowness and the heat, rather well. Shepard just has a knack for setting the mood. You gotta give him that.

Cell

Posted on by
Reply

rgg

My relationship with King started out badly, back when I was fifteen. Already a voracious reader, I was invited to the birthday of a classmate of mine by the name of Christine. Her last name shall remain shrouded in obscurity. Not the brightest cookie in the jar, one might say. And Christine showed me her bookshelf. Twelve books. Every single one by Stephen King. “And I read all of them!” Christine proudly proclaims, as if she has just come up with the square root of pi…

Well, anyway. That was then. I apologize for any bad thoughts that I have had about Mr. King in the years to follow. First impressions can be deceiving. The Dark Tower and It have taught me otherwise in the meantime.

And now Cell. After the long intro I have to admit that Cell doesn’t need a very long review. The novel is above all solid. It has solid characters. King seems to have a knack for those. The plot is solid too, except for the slightly abrupt ending, but I shall refrain from going into detail here. Cell concentrates on the characters, their fears, hopes and needs and still doesn’t fail to be, well, epic. That’s what I call a good book.

And that’s all I need to say.