Book Review: Case Histories

I have just finished reading “Case Histories” by Kate Atkinson. This is one of the books in my pile of World Book Night 2011 books!

It’s really interesting, with its interlinking stories and fascinating characters. We get stories told from the views of different people, with the more vague stories of some characters followed later in the book by the stories of the characters closest to the incidents explored. The incidents involve deaths of characters, and how they affect those left behind.

I love how the stories are all linked somehow, and how each viewpoint drops little clues towards what really happened in each case. At points its easier to guess what happened, and in some cases i never saw it coming!

The characters are all really well described and i felt sorry for some of them, but none of them i hated, although there were a few that i wasnt keen on!

If you like stories with mystery, murder and a range of interesting (if a bit odd) characters, then i recommend this book!

I give it 7/10 because it’s just so well written that it keeps you on your toes with every twist and development!

Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry

Cover of Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel

I have just finished “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger, and have to say it is a great novel!

It starts off with a death, and then the aftermath of this event. We meet the strange but normal world of twins: the young pair Julia and Valentina, and their mum and her dead twin. Julia and Valentina’s lives are transformed when they inherit their unknown dead aunt’s flat in London, and they move from America to live a new life in England, away from their parents.

We see a power struggle between the girls, both wanting different things, but not wanting to leave the other…. but Valentina starts pulling away. They meet two interesting men in London, one lives above their flat, the other lives below. The kind man whom Julia befriends suffers from OCD and never leaves his flat. Julia is a positive influence on him and changes his restricted life forever. Valentina falls for her aunt’s dead lover living downstairs, and this relationship changes everybody’s lives forever.

The story has ghostly elements to it, and a great revelation and twist in the story. It starts out quite sadly with the aunt’s death, then grows lighter with all the possibilities the twin’s new life in London shows them. There is the constant presence of death in the novel, especially with the cemetery next door to the flats.

The story gets rather dark, mysterious and a little morbid towards the end, but i won’t spoil the ending for you, its really fascinating!

The relationships between the characters are really well written, and particularly that of the twins, which is fascinating in itself.

I really recommend this book, as it’s just beautifully written and has such a gripping storyline. It got into my head and haunted me until i’d finished it, and afterwards too! It makes you consider how far people will go for love, and wonder about life after death for both the dead and the living.

I give it 9/10 because i just loved it. I will definitely read this again, and i recommend it highly!

Book Review: Anthropology and a hundred other stories

Cover via Amazon

I have just finished reading Dan Rhodes’ “Anthropology and a hundred other stories”, a collection of 101 short stories about love, relationships, and breakups, published by Canongate.

Each story is about 120 words long, and contains a girlfriend of the narrator, and talks about their relationship, whether it is sad or happy. The girls all have unusual names, and all treat the narrator in different ways, whether nicely or badly.

Some of the stories are quite heartfelt in their description of love and heartbreak, whereas others are quite funny! They are all pretty quirky and interesting accounts of relationships.

The stories are nice to read, and i read the book slowly as i just picked a few to read every now and then. I recommend this book if you like short stories, or tales of love and heartbreak. It has something for everyone, as it has 101 stories of different relationship issues.

I give the book a 6/10 as it is an interesting selection of stories and it’s a nice simple read.

BBC Booklist – have you read them all?

This is really old now, but i thought i’d do this again to see if i’ve read any more on the list since last time i did it, when i got 21!

…..

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (x)
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (x) +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee ( )
6 The Bible – ()
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (x)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell (x)
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman (x)+
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens ()
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott ()
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy ( )
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller ( )
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (x)*
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier ( )
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien ()
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks ()
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger (X)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger ()
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot ()
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell ( )
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald ( )
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens ( )
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy ( )
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams ()
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh ( )
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck ( )
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame (x)
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy ( )
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens ()
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (x)
34 Emma – Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen ()
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (x)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini ( )
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres ( )
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden ()
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell ()*
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown ()
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving ()
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins ( )
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery (x)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy ( )
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (x) +
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding ()
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan (x)
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel ( )
52 Dune – Frank Herbert ( )
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons ( )
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen ()
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth ()
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens ()
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley () *
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon ()*
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck ()
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt ()
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold ( X)
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas ( )
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac ( )
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy ()
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding (x)
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie ()
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville ( )
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens ()
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett ()
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson ()
75 Ulysses – James Joyce ( )
76 The Inferno – Dante ( )
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome (x)
78 Germinal – Emile Zola ( )
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray ( )
80 Possession – AS Byatt ()
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens ()
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell ( )
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker ( )
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert (x )
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry ( )
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White (x)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom ( )
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton (X)
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad ()
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery ()
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks ( )
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams ()
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole ()
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute ( )
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas ()
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare ()
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl (x)
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo ( )
……

I have now read 26 of these books, quite shocking as i studied literature! Some of them i have started but didnt finish because i got bored, and some i really want to read and havent got round to yet!

Where do you write?

Image via Wikipedia

I read an interesting article today about the advantages of writing in bed: The advantages of writing in bed – The Guardian. It describes how authors like George Orwell wrote in bed, and how the bed is the perfect place for reading and writing.

This made me think of where i like writing. The answer to this question: pretty much anywhere i get inspiration.

In the past i have had inspiration and started writing there and then, wherever i am. Of course, i don’t always have pen and paper on me, so occasionally i’ll write it as a note on my mobile phone so i don’t forget and put it down on paper as soon as i get hold of some.

Places:

1. Bed – I too like writing in bed. It’s comfortable and relaxing for long periods of time. I tend to write in bed in the morning or in the evening…. occasionally i’ll wake up in the middle of the night and just write there and then. I also almost always read in bed!
2. Train – A lot of my time is spent on trains so it is no surprise that i get inspiration to write while travelling, and particularly if i’m inspired by the landscape i’m travelling through, or by the music i’m listening to.
3. A viewpoint, ie. on top of a mountain, by the seaside, etc. – Places which have a beautiful view are also great for inspiration. A lot of the time i don’t have paper with me, as it tends to be on walks, so i’ll use my mobile to write small notes for later. Or i take photographs, as i’m usually either carrying a phone/camera or paper.

You may notice that “Desk” isnt on the list: To be fair, i rarely use my desk these days, its currently covered in junk when my laptop isnt sitting on it!

As for reading, i read in bed a lot, i read on trains (not on buses/in cars as i get carsick weirdly!), and sitting outside either on the decking or on the table!

So, where do you all read and write?