From the perils of crush loading on the Tokyo metro to road rage in the United States, ‘Rush Hour: How 500 million commuters survive the daily journey to work’ by Iain Gately examines the past, present and future of travelling to and from work. Commuting is an activity which takes up a significant part of everyday life for people across the world. This book outlines how it has developed and, in an era of advanced communication methods, why we still do it. Continue reading
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Rush Hour by Iain Gately
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This Boy by Alan Johnson
‘This Boy’ is Alan Johnson’s memoir of his childhood growing up in poverty in North Kensington during the 1950s and early 1960s. His womanising father Steve was mostly absent and his mother Lily struggled to provide a better life for her children whilst suffering from a chronic heart condition. After she died at the age of forty-two when Johnson was thirteen, his sixteen-year-old sister Linda fought for them to stay together in their own council flat despite their young age. Continue reading
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Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer
I consider myself to be a pretty fast reader but it is rare even for me to race through a whole book in one Sunday as I did with ‘Rubbernecker’ by Belinda Bauer which won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival’s Novel of the Year award in 2014. The story begins with an account of how Sam Galen ended up in a coma following a car accident and his experiences in a high-dependency neurological ward in the care of Tracy Evans, a selfish nurse attempting to charm the wealthy husband of one of the other patients. Meanwhile, Patrick Fort, an anatomy student at Cardiff University, discovers that the body he is dissecting didn’t expire from the causes officially stated on the death certificate. Gradually, these different plot lines become more closely entwined with each other. Continue reading
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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Hyped as this year’s ‘Gone Girl‘, ‘The Girl on the Train’ by Paula Hawkins tells the story of Rachel Watson, who takes the same commuter train every day to London. The train always stops at a red signal where she observes a seemingly perfect couple who she names Jess and Jason in their house which is coincidentally a few doors down from where she used to live with her ex-husband, Tom. Except one day, Rachel sees something shocking from the train and becomes more closely entwined with their lives when “Jess” suddenly disappears.
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One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
Happy new year to you all! I have been continuing my recent spell of non-fiction reading over the Christmas holidays with Bill Bryson’s latest book ‘One Summer: America, 1927’, whose title is about as self-explanatory as it gets. As you might expect, it is indeed about the people and events which dominated the summer of 1927 in the United States of America. While it isn’t perhaps the most recognisably significant year in modern history in the same way that 1945 and 1989 are etched in the collective memory as turning points in the twentieth century, Bryson shows that this particular summer was a very important one in the social and economic history of the United States.
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The 2014 End of Year Book Survey
I do this survey every year so here it is again….
1. Best book you read in 2014? (You can break it down by genre if you want) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt was a great start to the year and The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber was another highlight. For non-fiction, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald really stood out for its original blend of memoir, biography and nature writing.
2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn’t? As with The Rehearsal, the overly complex structure of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton prevented me from enjoying it as much as I had hoped.
3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2014? It’s a very intense read but The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud was a pleasant surprise as I didn’t really get on with The Last Life at all last year. Continue reading
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9 Books I Read in 2014 But Didn’t Review
I review the majority of the books I read. However, mostly due to lack of time, I don’t blog about all of them. Here are my thoughts about nine other books I read in 2014 but didn’t review earlier in the year.
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Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John Mandel is a post-apocalyptic novel which opens with the sudden death of Arthur Leander, a Hollywood actor starring in a theatre production of ‘King Lear’. He collapses on stage and succumbs to the Georgia Flu, a pandemic which virtually wipes out the human race in a matter of days. The survivors form the Travelling Symphony, a troupe of actors and musicians moving across territories performing classical theatre and concerts, including Kirsten, a child actress who was with Arthur when he died. Continue reading
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Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Set in small town Ohio in 1977, ‘Everything I Never Told You’ by Celeste Ng tells the story of sixteen year old Lydia Lee who is found dead at the bottom of a nearby lake in a suspected suicide. Her Chinese-American father James and her Caucasian mother Marilyn are completely distraught as are her older brother Nathan and her younger sister Hannah. However, one of them may know more than they are letting on about what really happened to Lydia before she died. Continue reading
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Decoded by Mai Jia
There is a wide range of Japanese fiction available in English thanks to the popularity of authors such as Haruki Murakami, Shuichi Yoshida, Hiromi Kawakami and many more. However, contemporary Chinese fiction translated into English is somewhat less prominent, so I was pretty surprised to come across a brand new copy of ‘Decoded’ by Mai Jia in a National Trust secondhand bookshop recently. Continue reading
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Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
As I read and enjoyed ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘The Blind Assassin’ and ‘Cat’s Eye’ before I started writing this blog, I thought it was high time I read more of Margaret Atwood’s work. ‘Oryx and Crake’ is the first book in Atwood’s critically acclaimed dystopian MaddAddam trilogy of novels and tells the story of Snowman – also known as Jimmy – who is believed to be the only human survivor left in a post-apocalyptic world along with genetically modified creatures called Crakers. As Snowman makes a journey back to the place where the destruction occurred which wiped out the human population, we learn through flashbacks how the world came to be almost destroyed and what happened to his friend Crake and the mysterious Oryx. Continue reading
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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
I enjoyed ‘The Circle‘ by Dave Eggers earlier this year but it has to be said that the core message about the evils of the Internet was pretty overdone. However, what Eggers lacks in subtlety, he makes up for in irony and it’s therefore unsurprising that he gave his memoir the title ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’. First published in 2000, this was Eggers’ first book which is a loose account of his life following the deaths of his parents from cancer in the early 1990s within six weeks of each other. At the age of twenty-one, Eggers found himself to be the unofficial guardian of his eight-year-old brother Christopher known as Toph. They moved from the suburbs of Chicago to California where Eggers later co-founded the satirical magazine ‘Might’. Continue reading
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The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel
Following the Man Booker Prize-winning ‘Wolf Hall‘ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies‘, the final part of Mantel’s acclaimed trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell, ‘The Mirror and the Light’ isn’t due to be published until the end of next year at the very earliest. Presumably brought out to keep Mantel’s fans satisfied in the meantime, ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ is a collection of ten short stories, her second collection after ‘Learning to Talk’ was published in 2003. Having read three of Mantel’s novels and her memoir, I was keen to see how her shorter works of fiction compared.
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Misery by Stephen King
When I read ‘Carrie‘ and ‘11.22.63‘ a couple of years ago, I said I would like to read more of Stephen King’s other fiction in between his first novel and what was his most recent novel at the time. Originally published in 1987, ‘Misery’ tells the story of Paul Sheldon, a writer who is attempting to move away from his popular series of historical romances featuring Misery Chastain towards serious literary fiction. After being badly injured in a car accident, Paul is “rescued” by Annie Wilkes, a nurse who also happens to be his “Number One Fan”. However, Annie is devastated to learn that Paul will be killing off her favourite character and forces him to write a new novel where Misery is brought back to life. Or else. Continue reading
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Us by David Nicholls
‘Us’ by David Nicholls tells the story of Douglas Petersen, a middle-aged biochemist whose wife, Connie, suddenly announces that she thinks their marriage of twenty years has “run its course” and that she wants to leave him. Despite their problems, the couple set off on their long-planned family holiday touring western Europe with their teenage son, Albie, before he leaves home to study at university. However, Douglas hopes the trip will help him win Connie back and convince her to save their marriage. Continue reading
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The Children Act by Ian McEwan
‘The Children Act’ by Ian McEwan tells the story of Fiona Maye, a High Court judge in the Family Division who presides over cases involving the welfare of children. One particular case involves Adam Henry, a seventeen year old Jehovah’s Witness whose devoutly religious parents reject a lifesaving blood transfusion to treat his leukaemia. Meanwhile, Fiona is also facing a crisis in her personal life as her husband, Jack, announces that he is leaving her for another woman. Continue reading
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Film Review: Gone Girl
Following the success of Gillian Flynn’s third novel published in 2012, the film adaptation of ‘Gone Girl‘ was released in cinemas this week. Directed by David Fincher with a screenplay written by Flynn, the film has garnered positive reviews in the press and is already being tipped to win Oscars next year. There’s no doubt the film will be talked about as much as the bestselling novel, but is it worth the hype? Continue reading
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Irène and Alex by Pierre Lemaitre
‘Irène’ and ‘Alex’ are the first two books in Pierre Lemaitre’s series of crime novels set in Paris and featuring Commandant Camille Verhoeven. ‘Irène’ was the first novel in the series originally published in France in 2006 but was the second to be translated into English following the success of its sequel ‘Alex’ which won the CWA International Dagger for best translated crime novel of the year in 2013. Continue reading
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The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
I was lucky enough to receive an advance review copy of Michel Faber’s new novel ‘The Book of Strange New Things’ which is due to be published in the UK this month. It tells the story of Peter Leigh, a Christian minister who is chosen by a mysterious corporation called USIC to embark on an out-of-this-world mission to a planet called Oasis in a far-away galaxy. Expecting a hostile reception from the native population, Peter is surprised to find the Oasans are keen to learn from the Bible which they refer to as The Book of Strange New Things and discovers that he isn’t the first pastor to visit them. However, Peter’s pregnant wife, Bea, is struggling to survive as various apocalyptic events unfold back on Earth which is putting a strain on their extremely long-distance relationship. Continue reading
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The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
I feel very spoilt having two of my favourite authors publish new books this summer. First, ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage‘ by Haruki Murakami and now ‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters. Set in London shortly after the First World War, unmarried Frances Wray and her widowed mother have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out rooms at their home in Camberwell. Frances becomes increasingly close to their young and modern “paying guests”, Leonard and Lilian Barbour. However, her relationship with Lilian soon triggers an unexpected and violent chain of events. Continue reading
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