The Pearl - John Steinbeck

If you get what you want it may well ruin your life and inevitably lead to despair and misery.  This story is excellent but is pretty depressing.  It is about a poor Mexican fisherman who finds a huge pearl in an oyster and thinks he will be able to sell it and change his life for the better.  As you might expect things do not work out well and everybody and everything turns against him.  You get the feeling that Steinbeck feels that his life may not have got entirely better since his books started selling by the boat load.  Very good  little book.


7/10 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

This book is about running and also about writing.  I used a long time ago to think I could write and more recently I thought that I could run.  This book is on the one hand very inspiring and makes me want to do both of those things but on the other hand makes me realise why I'll never really be able to do either.  Murakami suggests that the key is single minded focus.  I have more of a constantly moving on to new ideas and never really sticking with any of them sort of mind.

This is a really readable and enjoyable little book.

7/10

Coraline - Neil Gaiman

This is a very scary book about facing your fears.  The quote on the first page says something like " Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." and Coraline herself says that " When you're scared but you still do it anyway that's brave."


Coraline, who is small for her age, quiet and used to people getting her name wrong, is lured into a nightmare alternate reality and has to fight her parents and the other children she meets along the way.


This is supposed to be a children's book but really is scary in places, although the author reckons adults see it as horror and children as adventure.  It is really well written and flies by in no time.  Then again I love everything Neil Gaiman writes.


8/10 

Catch Up List

Been a long time since posting so here is a list which I may add to as I remember or review if I feel like but present so I can know:

Paul Auster: Collected Prose  6/10
Zadie Smith:  White Teeth 7/10
Zadie Smith: The Autograph Man 7/10
Jonathan Franzen: Freedom 8/10
Mark Beaumont: The Man Who Cycle The World 9/10
Thor Gotaas: Running: A Global History 6/10
Stefan Block: A Storm At The Door 9/10

Bull Fighting - Roddy Doyle

A really good collection of short stories dealing with coming to terms with reaching later middle agedness.   All these men's children are growing up and there marriages are reaching second or third decades.  And they all read books too.  In the whole all these people feel real and sympathetic.

7/10

Imperial Bedrooms - Bret Easton Ellis

All the characters from Less Than Zero are back again but now its thirty years later.  In the intervening years no one has changed all that much, rather everybody has just got older.  This is written the dead-pan minimalist style that you would expect but the big difference is that there is much more story this time.  Less Than Zero was in effect a series of events to create an atmosphere where as this adds a real page turning story line.  Sometimes there were scenes that felt a little bit forced and reminded me of Inherent Vice  which isn't really a good thing and there are a couple of parts that seem to have no purpose other than to be shocking and maintain the authors american psycho reputation.  On the whole though I enjoyed this book.

7/10

Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis

Loads of rich kids coked out of their minds drifting from party to party to a background of MTV and parents who don't care anymore.  The more shocking the events get and they get pretty bad the more the numbness and disconnect of the narrator becomes clear.  What makes this book work is the overwhelming emotional nothingness that it is built around.

8/10

Invisible - Paul Auster

I enjoyed this book at the time but now 1 week later I remember almost nothing about it.  The story focuses on the friendship and then rivalry between two men over the past 40 years.  And incest is involved too although that may not have really happened.  Paul Auster thinks he keeps it all interesting and clever clever by rotating between 4 narrators and by implying that it could be a true story.  It is sort of pretty successful although as I say it really left no lasting impression.

6/10

Decision Points - George W Bush

Whilst George W was president I don't think that I would have been willing to listen to or believe anything that he had to say.  Having read this book I still feel much the same.  Apparently George gets fed up with being painted as a half wit and being called a megalomaniac warmonger hell bent on world domination.  He also likes god a lot and likes to tell us about this a lot.  Well I don't know obviously he isn't as stupid as many would like us to believe but maybe he isn't as pure as he would like to seem.  The best thing about this book is the behind the scenes look at a Whitehouse under attack and it is all pretty well written and keeps moving along nicely.  How much that has to do with our boy and how much is down to editors and ghost writers again I don't know.

7/10

The Box Man - Kobo Abe

This could be the best book I have ever read, it could just as easily be the worst book I have ever read.  I may have understood exactly what was going on but on the other hand the whole thing may have gone right over my head.  The story is about people who walk around wearing boxes and appears to randomly change perspective and its mind about what is happening.  It is all very strange and probably all very pointless but it is also a very interesting examination on the subject of identity and self or you know maybe it isn't.  Overall really hardwork but worth the effort and would benefit from re-reading and since this one wasn't a library book it may well get re-read one day!

8/10

Life A Users Manual - George Perec

It is fair to say that this book is unlike anything else I have ever read.  Set in a Parisian apartment building it describes room by room exactly what is happening at that moment.  Lots of descriptions and lots of lists of items then but also many many intricate interweaving stories.  Because the whole lot is set right now there is not a lot of narrative movement as such but there is so much history going on that it really doesn't matter.  And then there is all the puzzling and word games and mystery to add in.  The fact that David Bellos has been able to translate this and yet keep so many of the little word plays and games is really amazing.  Oh and then there are the constraints which Perec set himself which really only matter as much as you want them to.  This is one of those books that you could probably read a dozen times and still be discovering more.  Best book I have read in a long time.

9.5/10

Travels In The Scriptorium - Paul Auster

This is a bit more like it.  A man is in an unknown room with no memory and this is about the people who visit him and how he tries to figure out what is going on.  Very self referential, characters turning up from previous books etc.  Kind of clever clever but entertaining none the less.  Not a good starting place if you wanted to start reading Paul Auster.

 7/10

Transition - Iain Banks

This is classic Iain Banks.  The basic premise is that there are many many universes deriving from the same start point but where different things occur in different places.  Some people are able to transition from one universe to another and this story is about the fights they have with one another.  This could easily be an Iain M Banks book and counter acts the impression that his recent mainstream books have been just too mainstream.  I really liked this book not quite a Whit or a Use Of Weapons but definitely not a Steep Approach to Garbadale either.  Also lots of really imaginative ways to torture, kill or have sex with people.  For this reason bizarre unsolved crimes should probably be blamed on Iain B.

8/10

Sunset Park - Paul Auster

One of the reasons I so enjoy Paul Auster is that his style is so readable.  This element is present and correct.  However the twists and wild coincidences that drive the best Auster novels are not really here.  There seem to be too  many points of view and no chance to really get under anybodies skin.  The result is a very readable entertaining enough story that seems to end up not really saying anything.

6/10

The Law At Randado - Elmore Leonard

This story contains zero surprises, no unnecessary descriptions and is pretty good.  I didn't like it as much as The Hunted which actually was pretty much the same story but transposed from the Mexican border to Israel but it did cheer me right up after the boredom of nursing research and the slightly hard slog of The Savage Detectives.

6.5/10

Making Sense Of Research - Gill Hek And Pam Moule

Really I should be happy because I actually read a nursing book but my god is this dull.  It is not really all that informative more of a dictionary of terms used by research theorists rather than a practical guide.  On the plus side I now know what the tenets of feminist research are and hooray some people argue that you needn't be a women to carry out feminist research.  There is a new edition of this book out so someone must like it, probably someone who writes reading lists and hates their students.

3/10

The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano

8/10

Disconnected Kids: The Groundbreaking Brain Balance Program For Children With AHD, Autism, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Conditions - Robert Melillo

The good Doctor Melillo has decided that a whole host of behavioral and learning difficulties are due to an imbalance between the left and the right sides of the brain. He says that by following his simple exercises (spinning on office chair, listening to specially composed music etc) and eating a better diet these can be all but eradicated.  He might be right I don't know but his reluctance to provide any evidence to back up his claims makes me suspect  there isn't too much behind his ideas.  Time and time again studies are said to have proven this and that but without any outlines of the study or even any names of researchers so you have no hope if tracking it down if you are interested.  This is not helped by the writing which can make this blog look impressive!  And it contradicts itself on many occasions.

Basically this book might work but the book itself is terrible.  Dr M's heart might be in the right place since you could pay thousands of dollars to get on his program instead of reading this book but I would not be able to recommend  the brain balance program to anybody on the strength of this book.

3/10

Contented Dementia - Oliver James

This is a very interesting book based on the work of Penny Garner and her SPECAL system of dementia care.  Basically the idea is you don't question the patients reality or impose your reality on them.  I can see these ideas working really well whilst the patient is at home and it could even theoretically working in nursing homes if you could find a home that was willing to follow the ideas, which could be a struggle.  The problems could come in hospital care but again it could work if you gave the staff enough information and they were willing to work with these ideas.

Overall very interesting stuff which could even work if more people knew about the ideas.

8/10

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher or The Murder At Road Hill House - Kate Summerscale

This is a fascinating account of a murder and it's subsequent investigation.  It gives a great insight into life in the 1860's.  In places it does get a little repetitive going over the same event without really revealing anything new, with a little editing I think that this book would have been much better but I am still really glad that I read it.  

7/10

Just After Sunset - Stephen King

I'd not read any Stephan King short stories before and I had no idea what I'd been missing out on.  The best tales here have all the traits of proper Stephen King books.  I was surprised that a fifty page story could be so tense and suspenseful.  Like most short story collections some stories are better than other but the best really hit the spot.  I've been getting much more into short stories recently and reading this has made me want to continue this tradition.

8/10

East Of Eden - John Steinbeck

Epic - despite one dimensional female characters and abundant racial stereotyping this is a really good read.  The main focus of the story is the life of Adam Trask and the many parallels between his life and his biblical namesake's.  The longest book I have read in a long time and I never felt like giving up so this must be pretty good.  It raises lots of things about human nature to think about with out seeming tooooooooo pretentious.

7/10

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

I have no idea why it is taking me so long to get around to reading all of Neil Gaiman's books.  All the ones I have read so far are excellent.  This is quite a different book to American Gods short, light and easy going rather than dark and  claustrophobic.   It is an excellent story set partly in Victorian England and partly in Faerie.  It was a fun book to start off the new year.

9 / 10

The Rational Optimist - Matt Ridley

As everybody knows life was better 50 years ago and I have always suspected that 50 years ago life was said to be even better 50 years before that etc etc.  Matt Ridley disagrees with this.  Cheap power, less people starving, fewer people dying in wars, less air pollution more people getting educated, the internet, warm dry housing are just a few of the reasons that he argues life is getting better and better for more people and further more it will continue to do so.  The reason he thinks that this happens is largely down to trade.  This book is well thought out and argued.  I really enjoyed it especially since he tended to argue the opposite to my instinctive position on most issues.

9/10