willoyd

One of the Hardys that I haven't read - must give it a go. I think I was lucky, as he never featured on the syllabus whilst I was at school (except for his poetry), so I've been able to ease myself into his work. Must say, I've enjoyed what I've read so far, even if it's a bit melodramatic at times. It helped that I started reading his novels (with The Trumpet Major) whilst working in Osmington, in full view of the settings! (BTW, hate to say it, but neither All Quiet on the Western Front or The Old Man and the Sea did much more for me - nothing much wrong, but nothing really grabbed me).

Great review Poppy - and can only agree with what you say, as I loved reading this back in March: http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/9536-willoyds-reading-log-2012/page__st__40#entry293247 Another book where, unusually, I really enjoyed the humour: not poking fun at anybody (which far too many so-called travel writers do), more enjoying the contrasts and cultural differences.

More than just promising: my second six-star book this year now!

Well, poppy, I'm definitely off to buy this. I may be male, and not normally into 'humour' books usually, but a couple of those spoilers (I read the lot) made me laugh out loud (especially the first one!). I was on the train to Manchester recently, and got chatting to a (female) student opposite me who was reading and chortling all the way through, and she said she was going to give the book to her boyfriend because she did think that men would both find it funny and interesting. I'll let you know! (I know what you mean by the toast too!).

Great review, Steve, even if it convinces me that I definitely don't want to read the book itself! (Actually, that's partially what makes it such a good review).

Dam Busters by James Holland ****** Funny things, books. Just like buses - you wait for a really good one for ages, then suddenly two come along at once. Having waited until halfway through the year for my first six star book (Pure) of 2012, it's immediately followed by another one. And, rather more unusually, it's non-fiction too. I love non-fiction reading, especially history, even though in practice I probably average only about one in three, but whilst quite a high proportion score highly, they rarely hit the very top grade. But there are exceptions, and this is one. The story is well enough known - it's fairly obviously centred on the 1943 raid on the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany, the one for which 617 Squadron was formed, for which Barnes Wallis invented the bouncing bomb, and about which the famous black and white film was made. I read Paul Brickhill's excellent account many years ago as a teenager, but this is a bit different. The raid itself doesn't happen until the final hundred pages, and the book focuses far more on the preparation. That may not sound like the makings of a great book, but what I never realised was quite how close it all came to not happening, and if it hadn't been for Barnes Wallis's vision and drive, it in all likelihood wouldn't have. Certainly the higher echelons of the RAF took some persuading, and it was only because of the intervention of the Chief of Air Staff, Charles Portal, that it ever took off. Even then, the design and engineering work had to be done in what would nowadays be regarded as fantasy time, with the formal design work on the bomb itself only completed ten weeks before the raid, and testing still being carried out 3 days beforehand. As a result, a fair number who flew on the raid had never dropped an Upkeep (the code name for the bouncing bomb) before the raid itself! The date of the raid itself couldn't be delayed, as the bomb needed to be dropped whilst the dams were still full, and after mid-May they started to empty as the summer got under way. So, the story is potentially a good one, but it was also very well told. Holland has obviously drawn heavily on personal interviews (he talked to all four of the surviving raiders plus close relatives) and primary evidence. This means that certain people received more coverage than others. For instance Charlie Williams, the wireless operator in E-Easy, features prominently, not least because of the extensive archive of his papers now available in the Queensland State Library (the operation was marked by the number of Australians, Canadians and Americans involved). it did mean that some barely featured (but then there were over 150 flying, let alone others involved), and there were a few about whom I wished I knew a bit more. But it also means that,in Holland's very capable hands, the human aspect of the operation does shine through, and this is what really makes the book come alive, as he puts real flesh and bones on otherwise just legendary names. I also grew up believing that, whilst the dams raid was a spectacular achievement (if anything involving so much death and destruction can be regarded as such), it didn't actually achieve very much in terms of forwarding the cause of the war. Holland puts that myth very firmly to bed, and argues very effectively that it was exactly the opposite - that it had a profound effect, particularly when one considers how few people were actually involved. Put in that context, one can understand why the loss of almost half the squadron (8 of the 19 crews who flew) could be seen as an acceptable price to pay, even if by peacetime standards it seems horribly high. So what we have is an outstanding story told superbly, with conclusions that make it particularly worth the retelling. I really enjoyed this book, both the story and the quality of the history involved, and already have James Holland's earlier book on the Battle of Britain on the shelves ready to read as a result. It's on occasions like this, when I really wonder why I don't read more non-fiction - with history like this, who needs to resort to fiction?!

A couple to add, missed in my first post in May: I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned Dan Brown. I have to admit, I did try another after the Da Vinci Code (I usually do give authors a second go, as I can't quite believe they are that bad. Sadly, they all too often are!), but it was, if anything, worse. Quite the biggest turn off amongst children's writers is, for me, Jacqueline Wilson, although I've just read Gideon Defoe's The Pirates!, which has to be the biggest load of drivel I've had the misfortune to waste my time reading for an awfully long time (I gather the film is good though). I'd also include a few others, even if not quite as bad: Linwood Barclay, Alice Sebold and Ben Elton.

The Folio Society published a lovely edition of Austen's letters a year or two ago - it sometimes comes up on ebay at quite decent prices (single figure pounds).

I'm like pontalba, as we have a large and growing collection of books, many of which are unread. The way I look at it is that we have a large library from which we can choose what we want to read when we want to read it, whilst enjoying the visual aesthetics of those interesting book shelves! I would find a TBR pile far too restricting and pressured. What I do find nowadays though is that I can go into a bookshop and decide that there's nothing there that I want to read in front of what I've already got - I've been steadily buying less and less in recent months/years.

I agree with Claire - the top level has to be something special. Rather than going for marking out of ten, which I think would give far too narrow bands which would lead to some inconsistency, I prefer to simply have a 6 star system, with the top level reserved for my all-time favourites. These currently number just over a hundred books, 80 or so fiction and 25 or so non-fiction. Just one book of the 26 read so far this year has achieved six stars: Pure by Andrew Miller I do seem to have a higher proportion of five star awards than usual: Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens Tom-All-Alone's - Lynn Shepherd Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert The Waves - Virginia Woolf Cakes and Ale - W. Somerset Maugham Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch No five star plus non-fiction reads yet, but the current one (Dambusters by James Holland) looks promising. BTW, I have been known to revise a five star award up if after a while I find that it has got 'under my skin' as Claire says. Equally, 6-star books have been downgraded if I realise that it isn't quite so memorable as I initially thought. I think Pure might stay as six stars at the moment!

Reading notes for week to July 7th Another not-brilliant reading week, but end of term draws ever nearer, and i plan to let rip when that arrives! In the meantime, I've not completed any books this week, but am thoroughly enjoying James Holland's latest, Dam Busters. It's a rollicking read which comfortably fills up odd moments and brief reads before bed, and keeps me coming back for more - no mean achievement when reading patterns are so disrupted. A couple of acquisitions this week, ready for summer reading: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and 11.23.63 by Stephen King. The latter particularly intrigues me, especially as I have never yet read a Stephen King book (tried a couple but subject material didn't really appeal). This sounds and the blurb reads as if it's significantly different. In the meantime, roll on the summer break - not just for the reading and the rest (including a trip to the Olympics and an extended bike tour), as I've got a ton of stuff I want to get through ready for next year's cohort - something I always enjoy doing (unlike the marking afterwards!).

Pure by Andrew Miller ****** I've not read any Andrew Miller before, but have had my eye on this for a while. Then a parent at school had a bit of a rave about it, so just had to give it a go. The story is set in eighteenth century France, just before the Revolution. The young engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte is given the task of clearing and demolishing the cemetery and church at Les Innocents. It proves to be a huge job, not without incident! The book is dominated by the cemetery itself, its influence, all pervasive and utterly baleful, seeping through the entire neighbourhood, exuded through people's skins, permeating their clothes, food and homes, even manifesting itself in their breath, ultimately altering, undermining, anybody whose character is the slightest bit susceptible, sometimes with dramatic consequences. If Baratte succeeds, it really will be a case of purification, nothing less, but he also needs to ensure that he is not affected, maybe even infected, too. This highlights what was for me one of the strengths of this book: its sense of place; others include the equally important sense of time, and the quality of the characters. To some extent the plot was almost incidental. Indeed, it doesn't surprise me that this was what came in for most criticism from the more antipathetic reviewers on Amazon, but then I think they miss the point: for me this was all about the interaction of place and character, and how the latter developed with the changes to the former, the plot in turn being driven by these changes. I also really enjoyed Andrew Miller's style of writing, building upwards from the little details to create the bigger picture, working the senses and one's inner eye to the full. I never noticed the way he leaves out conjunctions on occasions until I read some of the one star reviews on Amazon, where it seems to have driven some readers demented. When I went back - yes he does, but for me that added to the vividness, piling one element onto another in quick succession, adding to the increased intensity that I had noticed in his descriptions. Overall then, a really satisfying, involving, rewarding read; one to add to the all-time favourites list (the first this year).

Jus finished number three - Whispers Under Ground. If you enjoyed the first two, you'll love this one. Not least because, and it doesn't give one jot away, you will definitely see more of Lesley, and a bit more of the Thames girls (like you, I'd like to see even more of them too!). I still think the first was the best, but I suspect that is as much because it was so new to me - I know a bit more about what to expect now. Even so, these two are worthy successors, and the series remains one of the shrinkingly small number of those where I will buy the new book as soon as it is out in hardback.

I enjoyed this somewhat more than you.... http://www.bookclubf...post__p__298704 ....but I know what you mean by shake, rattle and roll. Definitely didn't do that for me - but it's not that type of book, indeed Maugham isn't that type of writer I suspect, given his style. As I said in my review, halfway through and it was heading for very ordinary rating, but the second half definitely picked up, and it was one of those books that I am glad that persisted with through to the end: it grew insidiously, and had to be read cotinuously (took me two sittings). Even so, if I hadn't been in the right mood for it (and it hadn't been so slim) I wouldn't have seen it through. As it is, I'm now looking forward to the rest of the collection (I got mine as a bundle from The Book People - did you?). I'll be interested in what you make of Carter Beats The Devil. I'm a bit ambivalent personally, but it's definitely a book that has the potential to shake, rattle and roll for the right reader (in the right mood!).

Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch **** This is the third in the series featuring Peter Grant, a detective constable in the Metropolitan Police, who finds that he has a particular sensitivity to the supernatural, gets assigned to The Folly, the branch of the Met dealing with ghosts, ghouls, wizards and their ilk (a branch consisting of one wizard, DCI Nightingale!), and takes off into a London that none of us have really encountered before. And yet we have: Aaronovitch's geography is unnervingly true to life, it's just the supernatural element that changes everything. First warning - one really does need to read this series in order - this would be far harder to make good sense of read out of sequence, and there are too many threads that continue through the series for one to want to do otherwise. Having said that, this episode has its own unique aspects, taking Grant and the rest of the team (it's grown by one now!) into subterranean London - there are some thrilling scenes in the Underground and sewer system. To that end, there are strong elements of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere here, but for some reason I much prefer Aaronovitch's take. I think it's because it feels so much more routed in the 'real world. and in characters who I can relate to. Apart from the Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings, I'm not a great fan of fantasy, but this series manages to sufficiently straddle the real/fantasy borderlines to keep me enthralled, and I completed this book in one weekend (barely two sittings) as a very satisfying break from work. I think it's because Aaronovitch doesn't take the books too seriously - there is a dry, almost cynical, and very British sense of humour about them that marks the series out from the mainstream, and keeps me coming back for more. I also love the way the different supernatural characters (especially the river gods and goddesses, most prominently Lady Ty - goddess of the Tyburn) are so effectively integrated into a London that I can completely relate to - indeed the whole way the magic manifests itself. It just works in a way that hasn't elsewhere (for instance, I can't say I rated Neverwhere particularly highly). The first volume remains my favourite - maybe because it was so different at the time, but the series as a whole is turning into a favourite, one of the very few where I will buy the books as soon as they are published - no waiting for paperback versions!

Reading notes for week to June 23rd June is always a hopeless month for reading, and this year is no exception. School work is simply too frantic: exams to mark, reports to write (I'm taking a brief break from these to write this), shows to prepare, sports day to organise, along with all sorts of other events and activities. Chaos! June is the month of living on adrenaline! So, reading takes a bit of a back seat, or at least sustained reading does. I do try to read a book at this time, but I don't know why, as I can only grab one for a few minutes, usually at the end of the day, and can never do a full book justice. I really must start learning to leave this month to short stories, essays, or books like Granta, or magazines like Slightly Foxed. One day I'll learn! In the meantime, I've been dipping into books. I tried to keep going with Quicksilver, having just bought the Kindle edition, but whilst it looks (reads) very promising, it needs concentration, so have put that on hold again. Roll on the summer holidays. Otherwise, I've read a few chapters of The Plantaganets, which has plenty of them, all short and reasonably self-contained. I've also flicked the pages of this month's only acquisition, the latest Ben Aaronovitch book, Whispers Underground. Looks promising. So that makes two recent publications ready for the holidays, as I'm really looking forward to Bring Up the Bodies. In the meantime, maybe I'll go for something really light. Or maybe some short stories or those essays?

Here's one who doesn't - at least not his travel books - I find his humour very forced. His language and science books are much better - but he's not trying to be funny. OH doesn't rate him either for the same reasons. But have to agree, we don't know many, perhaps any, others!

So did I. Have to say that I came to really like most of my set texts - except The Great Gatsby. I've yet to read that one - but had Middlemarch as my set George Eliot. Again, really emjoyed it.

The Final Act of Mr Shakespeare by Robert Winder **** It is 1613, and Shakespeare has returned to London. He finds himself coerced into writing one final play - Henry VIII - but under cover of supposedly doing this he actually undertakes to write a much more subversive one about Henry VII, gathering together a sympathetic group to help put it together. But will they be able to get away with it in a Jacobean London, where paranoia and semi-tyrannical rule is the order of the day? There are to my mind a number of weaknesses with the basic premise of this book, not least that I was never fully convinced as to why Shakespeare decided to risk so much, nor why the others went along with it. I could see reasons why they might, but whatever the motivation, it never seemed strong enough in the story itself. But I absolutely loved the telling of the story: Winder has not only obviously done his research, but his style of writing gave the narrative a richness that completely consumed me: I really found myself living it. The characters, almost all based on real people, came vividly to life, whilst I felt I could touch, feel, smell seventeenth century London. Fabulous writing. I also really enjoyed how the author, almost as asides, explained away some of the imponderables of Shakespeare's life, such as why he disappeared for some years and why there are no records of his work, as well as some lovely little touches, such as when Shakespeare finds a copy of Edward De Vere's work in a bookshop, and tucks it away out of sight as not being worthy of sitting on the top of other books! Yet, after 300 pages, it all fell apart for me. The story had been steadily building, suspense growing, the whole world of the book developing, when suddenly we are launched into a hundred pages of the playscript for Henry VII. And much as this was no mean achievement, so much of it equally simply repeated what had gone before, and the whole rhythm and flow of the story was put on hold for the next hundred pages. What a let down! Reading the reviews on Amazon, it appears that some thought this the highlight of the book. Not me! I know why it was done: it revealed a secret that the book had been building towards, but what a clumsy, wasteful, tedious way of doing it. So disappointing. Still, the rest was brilliant; so what would otherwise have been a book that I was seriously considering for a maximum rating, still earns a respectable four stars. But if only.....!

I like the Vintage editions too - usually attractive covers and decent sized print. My Canterbury Tales is the Folio Society edition (bought second hand on ebay) with David Wright's translation opposite the original, but if truth be known, I prefer the Coghill translation used in the Penguin Classics edition - it seems to read more clearly and more, well, poetically. It may be daunting to look at, but I found that it was immensely readable (I haven't managed to read it in the original on its own), and some of the stories are very earthy! Anything but daunting in fact! As I said I did, I'd suggest reading it one story at a time - it becomes very manageable then. As for Bleak House - I have mixed views on Dickens, and whilst loving some, have struggled a bit with others. Depends on my mood/frame of mind I suspect, but for me, of the ones I've read, Bleak House stands out as his best. If Ihadn't read him before, I'd suggest possibly reading one or two of his 'easier' ones first to get used to his style (Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Pickwick Papers - but that's very different to the rest of his works), and then go for it!!!

Sorry, but I can't let this pass by! The Canterbury Tales is fabulous!! I read it one story at a time (with a parallel translation on the opposite page), and just loved not just the stories, but the rhythms and the language. Strictly speaking it should be listened to rather than read, but reading is a good substitute. Otherwise, not many I'd disagree with, and some I wouldn't give the time of day to (FWIW!), but please don't dismiss The Woman in White or Bleak House too readily - they are truly great books (that is, unless you really don't like either Victorian fiction or either author individually).

About a hundred pages. And narry a guffaw, not even a titter, I'm afraid. As far as I got, it basically felt to be just one character description after another, and I just gradually lost interest. As you say, must be a certain type of humour. One of my best friends loves it too, and can't understand me either - but we do laugh a lot about similar things! (I do remember enjoying the film, when I saw it many years ago). But sometimes these things do take time..... I agree about Ben's review by the way - great one - that's why I'm encouraged to read again.

I've just given up on Catch-22 for the third time - I really can't get into it (and I'm completely mystified as to what is funny - completely passes me by!). Having read your review, though, I'll give it one more shot come the summer holidays, when I can give it much more concentrated attention. [Have to say that P&P is exactly the opposite - although whether it would get in in front of To Kill A Mockingbird is very debatable (and amongst the Austens, I prefer S&S).. The latter is one we definitely agree on! No such issues with Great Gatsby - I studied it for A-level, and was very glad to leave it behind at the end of the course.]

She is a regular feature of English Lit courses, which is how I came to hear of her, although in actual fact there were quite a number of others around at the same time (e.g. Eliza Haywood, Margaret Cavendish, Delarivier Manley, Mary Pix), even if we've barely heard of many/most/all of them today.

Full Moon by PG Wodehouse *** I used to be an assidous reader of Wodehouse in my teens and early twenties, but it's a long while since I read anything of his, so, needing some light relief, it seemed a good moment to give him another try. And light relief he turned out to be. Light, indeed, almost to the point of view of floating off into the vast blue yonder never to return - there wasn't an ounce of consequence anywhere. Which is possibly no bad thing - after all, I don't think Wodehouse set out to write anything of consequence, but, whilst mildly enjoying the novel, I was still left with a niggling question, what is the point? Whilst Wodehouse no doubt employs a fine turn of phrase and has a good line in one-liners, it all seemed rather, well, trivial. Maybe that is the point - maybe Wodehouse is meant to be fairly pointless and trivial, just a good, funny read. So, was he funny? Hmmmm...I'm probably not the best person to ask, as I've come to the conclusion I don't really do humour in books (with the odd, very rare, exception), but no, for me this wasn't, not even close: mildly amusing are more the words that jump to mind. So, why 3 stars then? Well, in spite of all I've said, I did enjoy the story (the plot, by the way, is neither here nor there, other than a fairly typical story of misunderstandings on the way to a happy ending). There are times when you want something a bit mindless, a bit trivial, gently amusing. And to that extent, Wodehouse fits the bill perfectly. I actually liked the fact that the book was pretty much harmless. So, would I read more? Yes I would and certainly intend to, but with no expectation other than to be midly diverted. After all, it all may grow on me.