‘The Insult’ by Rupert Thomson tells the story of Martin Blom who is shot in the head in a random attack in a supermarket car park after buying groceries on a Thursday evening. When he wakes up in hospital, he is told that his occipital cortex has been irreparably damaged and he will be completely blind for the rest of his life. However, while his doctors tell him that he is likely to experience hallucinations, Martin believes he has regained his vision but only at night time and he later uses this to search for Nina, his lover who has suddenly gone missing. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: May 2014
The Insult by Rupert Thomson
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Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
Set in North London at the height of the heatwave of 1976, ‘Instructions for a Heatwave’ by Maggie O’Farrell tells the story of Gretta Riordan, a devout Irish Catholic whose husband Robert goes out as usual to buy a newspaper one morning except this time he never comes back. Their three grown-up children, Robert, Monica and Aoife return to help their mother but soon discover that Gretta may know more about his whereabouts than she first admits. Continue reading
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#ThisBook
The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction has launched a project to highlight the books written by women which have impacted our lives.
You can nominate your choice using the #ThisBook hashtag on Twitter. The top 20 will be revealed in July. Continue reading
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The Circle by Dave Eggers
After battling my way through ‘The Luminaries‘ by Eleanor Catton recently, I wanted to read something which was the absolute polar opposite of historical fiction and settled on ‘The Circle’ by Dave Eggers. It tells the story of Mae Holland, a twenty-something graduate who starts a new job at The Circle – a social media conglomerate the size and power of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and every other major tech company combined. Although Mae is impressed by what she finds there, the wider implications of how the company is developing soon become apparent.
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The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Whilst wondering last month when I was ever going to read ‘The Luminaries’, a thought suddenly occurred to me: what better time to start reading an 800+ page book than the beginning of up to five days of London Underground strikes? I have an eBook copy of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning epic novel and I tend to use my Kindle when bad weather, industrial action or some other disruption is likely to severely delay my commute to work. An e-reader is easier to hold on a crowded train than a large hardback book and if I get stranded somewhere for a long time and I finish a novel, I have several more to choose from right there and then. Continue reading
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A Little Blog of Books is now on Twitter
So I have caved in and finally set up a Twitter account for my blog…. hopefully it will be a good way of keeping in touch with other book stuff that’s going on as well as sharing links for interesting things I find that I don’t have time to write full length posts about.
My page is looking a bit lonely at the moment but you can follow me by clicking on the link above.
Thanks, as ever, for reading and following my blog 🙂
Filed under Books, Other Stuff
eBooks in Libraries: Worth the Investment?
For the printed book purist, the mere suggestion of libraries lending eBooks conjures up images of empty shelves, redundant librarians and tumbleweeds drifting across abandoned buildings. However, leaving aside sentimental arguments about the superiority or inferiority of the different formats, the reality is that many libraries now offer a selection of eBooks available for download. Although eBook lending is growing, several questions need to be asked about the future development of this new technology. Most importantly, with so many libraries under significant financial pressure, are eBooks actually worth the investment?
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