Books - first half
Jun. 30th, 2014 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rich_jackoI started 2014 with a resolution to get through my reading pile of 20 books. Halfway through the year and my reading pile is... 23 books. But mostly different ones! In the last six months I've read this little lot:
Discworld: Jingo through to Thief of Time (Terry Pratchett) - Having zipped through a whole half of Discworld last year, I've slowed down a bit. They are starting to get a bit samey, and something of a mixed bag. Jingo and Thief of Time were both superb, the latter being particularly inventive. Carpe Juggulum and The Truth were both merely very good, while The Last Continent and The Fifth Elephant were both distinctly meh. 14 more to go!
Little Star / Let The Old Dreams Die (John Ajvide Lindqvist) - John Lindqvist, you are a strange and twisted person, but you don't half write creepy characters well. Little Star is kind of a re-tread of Let The Right One In, only with Abba instead of vampirism. Um, yeah. Not quite up there with Lindqvist's debut novel, but still an engrossing portrait of two lost souls, and with one hell of a finale. Let The Old Dreams Die is a collection of short stories, most (but not all) of which are very good. The title story is of coursethe next line in the song a sequel, which stands on it's own but also offers a brief glimpse of what happened to Oskar and Eli after they got off that train...
Watching The English (Kate Fox)
The Environmental Revolution (HRH Prince Philip)
Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense (Edward Lear)
Puck of Pook's Hill (Rudyard Kipling)
An eclectic mix, these are the last few I had to read of the massive bundle I picked up from Barter Books last summer. Watching the English is a book I've had recommended to me and been meaning to read for years. I wasn't disappointed. Kate Fox's observations are spot-on. She also manages to balance scientific objectivity with self-deprecating humour (How wonderfully English!). The Environmental Revolution is a bit more dry, being a collection of published speeches. It was, however, still interesting not only because of the author/speaker, but also to see how environmental awareness and thinking has developed over the last few decades. Complete nonsense does what it says on the tin, and I mainly bought it for the gloriously silly illustrations which accompany the verse. Puck of Pook's Hill is a Kipling book I was unaware of, in which Puck gives a potted English history to two children by conjuring up various historical figures. Okay, but not a patch on his more famous works.
The Lies of Locke Lamora / Red Seas Under Red Skies (Scott Lynch) - Another series I've had recommended to me by several people. Locke Lamora and his gang of Gentlemen Bastards are an irreverent, anarchic, and most of all fun bunch of anti-heroes, whose best-laid villainous plans always seem to go astray when they run into bigger and badder villains than themselves. Set in a psuedo-steampunk swords-and-sorcery fantasy world, this is pulp fiction at it's finest. The first book is a fun romp, the second - well, everything's better with pirates ;o) Now I just need to wait for the third to come out in paperback...
The Gone-Away World (Nick Harkaway) - Having read Angelmaker last year, I've now gone back and read Harkaway's debut novel. It's every bit as bonkers. It's nicely told too, starting out in a very strange post-apocalyptic wasteland and gradually revealing how the world, and the characters, got there. Along the way are insurgents, doomsday weapons, pirates, truckers, mimes, ninjas, and one mother of a plot twist.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman) - I picked this up in St Pancras and finished it in two days. Partly because it's a quick read, but also because it's unputdownable. A dark fairy tale reminiscent of Coraline, it's a childhood story featuring a wicked stepmother, ancient guardians, and a magical world beyond the garden gate. It is written for grown-ups (or at least, older kids) though!
Doctor Who: The Vault - Treasures from the first 50 years (Marcus Hearn) / Doctor Who: A History of the Universe in 100 Objects (James Goss / Steve Tribe) - Two Doctor Who encyclopediae, one charting the (real-world) history of the show for the first 50 years, the other charting the (fictional) history of the Whoniverse over 100 trillion years. Both are packed with facts and photos, and I've been dipping into them until I've read the lot. This has the 'unfortunate' effect of making me want to watch a whole load of episodes again... ;o)
Broken Homes (Ben Aaronovitch) - The fourth in the Peter Grant series. (The fifth is now imminent - Blimey, he's churning these out quickly!) This one feels more like a continuation rather than a standalone story, as Peter, Lesley and Inspector Nightingale continue to hunt down their mysterious arch-foe, the Faceless Man. There's a couple of great set-pieces - notably Nightingale finally kicking some serious arse - and a seriously WTF? ending. The Waterstones edition also includes a fun little short story set in, er, Waterstones :o)
Discworld: Jingo through to Thief of Time (Terry Pratchett) - Having zipped through a whole half of Discworld last year, I've slowed down a bit. They are starting to get a bit samey, and something of a mixed bag. Jingo and Thief of Time were both superb, the latter being particularly inventive. Carpe Juggulum and The Truth were both merely very good, while The Last Continent and The Fifth Elephant were both distinctly meh. 14 more to go!
Little Star / Let The Old Dreams Die (John Ajvide Lindqvist) - John Lindqvist, you are a strange and twisted person, but you don't half write creepy characters well. Little Star is kind of a re-tread of Let The Right One In, only with Abba instead of vampirism. Um, yeah. Not quite up there with Lindqvist's debut novel, but still an engrossing portrait of two lost souls, and with one hell of a finale. Let The Old Dreams Die is a collection of short stories, most (but not all) of which are very good. The title story is of course
Watching The English (Kate Fox)
The Environmental Revolution (HRH Prince Philip)
Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense (Edward Lear)
Puck of Pook's Hill (Rudyard Kipling)
An eclectic mix, these are the last few I had to read of the massive bundle I picked up from Barter Books last summer. Watching the English is a book I've had recommended to me and been meaning to read for years. I wasn't disappointed. Kate Fox's observations are spot-on. She also manages to balance scientific objectivity with self-deprecating humour (How wonderfully English!). The Environmental Revolution is a bit more dry, being a collection of published speeches. It was, however, still interesting not only because of the author/speaker, but also to see how environmental awareness and thinking has developed over the last few decades. Complete nonsense does what it says on the tin, and I mainly bought it for the gloriously silly illustrations which accompany the verse. Puck of Pook's Hill is a Kipling book I was unaware of, in which Puck gives a potted English history to two children by conjuring up various historical figures. Okay, but not a patch on his more famous works.
The Lies of Locke Lamora / Red Seas Under Red Skies (Scott Lynch) - Another series I've had recommended to me by several people. Locke Lamora and his gang of Gentlemen Bastards are an irreverent, anarchic, and most of all fun bunch of anti-heroes, whose best-laid villainous plans always seem to go astray when they run into bigger and badder villains than themselves. Set in a psuedo-steampunk swords-and-sorcery fantasy world, this is pulp fiction at it's finest. The first book is a fun romp, the second - well, everything's better with pirates ;o) Now I just need to wait for the third to come out in paperback...
The Gone-Away World (Nick Harkaway) - Having read Angelmaker last year, I've now gone back and read Harkaway's debut novel. It's every bit as bonkers. It's nicely told too, starting out in a very strange post-apocalyptic wasteland and gradually revealing how the world, and the characters, got there. Along the way are insurgents, doomsday weapons, pirates, truckers, mimes, ninjas, and one mother of a plot twist.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman) - I picked this up in St Pancras and finished it in two days. Partly because it's a quick read, but also because it's unputdownable. A dark fairy tale reminiscent of Coraline, it's a childhood story featuring a wicked stepmother, ancient guardians, and a magical world beyond the garden gate. It is written for grown-ups (or at least, older kids) though!
Doctor Who: The Vault - Treasures from the first 50 years (Marcus Hearn) / Doctor Who: A History of the Universe in 100 Objects (James Goss / Steve Tribe) - Two Doctor Who encyclopediae, one charting the (real-world) history of the show for the first 50 years, the other charting the (fictional) history of the Whoniverse over 100 trillion years. Both are packed with facts and photos, and I've been dipping into them until I've read the lot. This has the 'unfortunate' effect of making me want to watch a whole load of episodes again... ;o)
Broken Homes (Ben Aaronovitch) - The fourth in the Peter Grant series. (The fifth is now imminent - Blimey, he's churning these out quickly!) This one feels more like a continuation rather than a standalone story, as Peter, Lesley and Inspector Nightingale continue to hunt down their mysterious arch-foe, the Faceless Man. There's a couple of great set-pieces - notably Nightingale finally kicking some serious arse - and a seriously WTF? ending. The Waterstones edition also includes a fun little short story set in, er, Waterstones :o)
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Date: 2014-07-01 08:25 am (UTC)