Hayley

Heroes of Welsh History by David Oates 2/5 - It was okay I found this book on a market stall in Hay-on-Wye, I loved the cover and I know there are some great Welsh myths and legends, so I had to get it. It's really not what I expected at all though, which I suppose isn't really the books fault. Essentially it is a book that was printed for school age children to learn about the history of Wales. This edition was printed in June 1928 and the age definitely shows. The heroes are all considered notable for battles, or at least the way they influenced battles (some of which just seemed like they were a bit petty all round and could have been avoided - but they're presented as heroic anyway). There are no women, only as briefly mentioned wives, or Ceridwen, who is mentioned in the only story to feature anything magical or mythological at all, but only because she's necessary to the beginning of the story of Taliesin. I'm not sure how accurate the overall history was either, the sources being a bit sketchy to say the least. There are a lot of heartfelt comments about the spirit of liberty and the final chapter finishes with 'the last hero of Welsh independence.' I found this unusual, but interesting (probably the most interesting thing about the book, actually). There's a definite sense of loss, even though Wales had been part of the UK for a very long time before this book was published, and I wouldn't have expected that from a text book. So, overall, from a historical point of view, it had some interesting features, but it wasn't actually a great book to read and I did struggle through it. The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden 4.5/5 - I loved it I'm only taking 0.5 points away from this book because I loved the first one just a tiny bit more. Being the second book in a trilogy, this one did feel a bit like an in-between, like it was setting up what's to come in the final book (exciting things, by the sound of it!). I just love the mix of folklore, magic and medieval Russia in these books. I love discovering new features of folklore and fairytale as they appear in the world, never seeming out of place despite the otherwise realistic settings. Vasya is a great character, with the right balance of fierceness and vulnerability to make her relatable but heroic. In the same way, although there's a powerful message about fighting against expectations, the book has a realistic approach to the consequences of choosing to fight back. The world is a harsh place, and things don't just fall into place in a fairy-tale way. Also, look how pretty the cover is! It's just a beautiful book, inside and out.

I've never read anything by Philip K. Dick but feel like I really need to. Do you think Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? would be a good place to start? You've given me new motivation to pick up Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, great review

That's exactly the same thing I was most surprised about! I thought it made the book feel very different in the end too.

Great reviews Gaia! The second book is definitely better visually, even the front cover looks a lot more appealing. I'm glad you enjoyed them Regarding your 'black and white thinking' question, I've never heard it used in terms of the mind before, but it's a common expression in the UK to say 'it's not black and white' when talking about a problem. Like you said, it's about extremes, so it's meant to mean essentially the same thing as 'it's not one extreme or the other.' I don't think this is in any way a comment on race as it's not referring to skin colour, but to the literal extremes of the colour spectrum, neither of which could be skin colours. I do understand why the phrase made you feel uncomfortable though, and I think maybe it's because it was being applied to people, or at least to people's thoughts, and when we think of black and white in terms of people we do associate it with skin colour, even if that's not what the author meant. And if we think of the term 'black and white thinking' in terms of race, it would become awful and definitely racist. On a non-book related note, your dog is gorgeous and I love your 'chemistry is awesome' top

How are you finding The Way We Live Now? It's a book that's been on my to-read list for quite a while.

I agree completely with your Frost Fair review. I've read some of Marston's 'Railway Detective' books since I read Frost Fair and they're quite similar, good mysteries, fun to read but don't have a great deal of depth. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was surprised to learn that there are actually two Little Women books, both of which are included in the film version. I think the book is worth reading, because it's interesting in its historical context (when Jo actually seems a lot more rebellious) but I agree it is painfully twee by modern standards.

Hi, good to see you back! 1 ‘loved it’ and 3 ‘liked it’ books isn’t a bad start to the year. It’s a shame about Cuckoo though, it must have been really bad for you not to even give it an ‘it was okay!’ Life’s Library sounds interesting, I hope you get some good books from it!

It's a comedy!? I mainly remember the 'pound of flesh' parts and that wasn't what I'd call comedic!

I can't wait to read The Winter of the Witch but I also don't want the trilogy to be over! I haven't read Where the Crawdad's Sing yet either. I'm planning to try to get The Winter of the Witch from Waterstones on Sunday, so I'll see if they have Where the Crawdad's Sing while I'm there

I would say that perhaps the only difference between Burns' detachment from the personal and your own example is that the first represents a detached perspective of the public world, while the latter is a detached perspective of the private and individual life. Interesting from a psychological point of view in both cases though. Does detachment help us to see things more clearly, with less distraction, or is it a coping mechanism in the face of complex and potentially painful issues? It could be both, I suppose. I like your poem, it has a really satisfying rhythm that helps give a real sense of movement, and a great representation of texture and sound

February already! And with February comes the next supporter giveaway. This month, with great thanks once again to www.thestorygift.co.uk , we have a brilliantly bookish set of 'storyteller' pencils (featuring famous first lines) and a retro library card notebook! As always, you'll be automatically entered into the giveaway if you support the forum on patreon, or if your pre-patreon membership is still active. If you want to be involved in the giveaway but don't currently support, you can join the patreon at any point in February here: www.patreon.com/bookclubforum .

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with the Harry Potter books, I forgot about those. The hot buttered toast at breakfast always sounded particularly good for some reason! @Chrissy I'm going to have to google making your own butterbeer now! The corn, under the butter, was healthy I didn't think of illustrations, that's another good point. I do remember reading a book as a child that always made me want to eat jam tarts, because there was a picture of them laid out on a table. I think it was one of the Spot books by Eric Hill but I have no idea which one. I like that the Geronimo Stilton books even have recipes!

That's really interesting! I was looking at Milkman on Goodreads after reading your review and noticed a discussion about none of the characters having names, only descriptions ("third brother in law," for example). Do you think that might be partly why it didn't feel emotional? Do the characters feel like they have individual identities, even without names?

The book I'm reading at the moment has a lot of food descriptions that make me feel hungry just reading them, which made me think about food in books generally and how the descriptions make us want to eat certain things. So, are there any books that make you feel hungry? Here's mine: 'We shuffled along the food queue and picked out some corn on the cob that oozed butter, then helped ourselves to rice and chicken' then 'After the jam roly-poly, apple crumble and bread-and-butter pudding had been consumed with about two gallons of custard […]' (Jasper Fforde - Early Riser) Mmmm, buttery corn on the cob and jam roly-poly with custard

Wow, you both did really well! Especially considering you weren't feeling well @Athena! I'm glad you enjoyed The Passage @karen.d, it's a bitter sweet feeling when you finish a really great book isn't it? At least it's a series though! I had a lot of distractions over the weekend, so I didn't get anywhere near as much reading done as I hoped, just 69 pages of Early Riser. On the positive side though it is a really good book so far! I'm looking forward to the March read-a-thon

Milkman sounds like it's probably quite a difficult, likely very sad, book to read. Was it very emotional? I'd be interested to see how the simple, informal language works when dealing with such a large and difficult topic. I think the simplicity of the narrative voice is what makes To Kill a Mockingbird as heartbreaking as it is so I imagine it works in a similar way, although obviously not using the simplicity of childhood. I really want to read Adam Bede too so I'm looking forward to hearing what you think!

I really am so glad you love the prize! Since the winner's completely random (I use an online name picker) it did cross my mind that it would be awful if the winner hated Sherlock Holmes 'The Memory Game' sounds really interesting, I like the idea of it being more psychological than the usual thriller. I've never heard of Nicci French before so I'll have to look at what other books they have too!

What a shame about It's A State of Mind, it's frustrating when you feel like a book should have been so much better than it was and it sounds like it should have been good. It wouldn't have been hard for them to make the online worksheets available either, even if they directed you to the author's own website to download them, the book isn't that old. At least Leaving Berlin was good though. Have you read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré?

I'm already four books behind with my reviews so just a couple of quick ones to catch up... Lies Sleeping by Ben Aaronovitch 5/5 - I loved it I just really love this series. It's exciting to discover the magic, rules and various creatures as Peter (the main character) does. In this book particularly it's also really interesting to read various true things about the history of London, you can tell that a lot of research went into the plot of this one. Just as in all the previous books there's real tension and emotion but there's also humour and that combination provides an atmosphere that's so easy to get lost in and just read for hours (it's a bit dangerous, really). There are various factors (that I can't really mention because they'd all be spoilers) that make this book a really tantalising precursor to the next. The next one is definitely going to be interesting! And just a mini one... my edition of Lies Sleeping included the short story Favourite Uncle. For the first page, I wondered what on earth was going on, I just didn't understand it. Then I realised that, although I'd been reading it as though the narrator was Peter (which it usually is) it's actually written from Abigail's point of view! Suddenly it made a lot more sense . It was an interesting little story that gave a small insight into what Abigail gets up to when she's on her own, although I got the impression that the author wasn't quite as comfortable writing in Abigail's voice. I don't know whether it's a hint that Abigail is going to become a more important character in future books but I don't think that would be a bad thing! Showboat World by Jack Vance 4/5 - I really liked it Vance just has a completely crazy but brilliant imagination. Showboats are vessels that sail the stretches of water across Big Planet (a lawless planet that has basically attracted all the misfits of the universe, who now live variously in guarded cities or tribes) just entertaining people. The showboats are as individual as their owners, preferring certain types of entertainment (drama, magic, comedy, burlesque, practically everything you can think of). The book focuses on the owner of one of these showboats, Apollon Zamp. He's definitely not the most likeable character (practically everyone on Big Planet has a very self centred, cut-throat attitude) but somehow, when everything starts going wrong for him, you have moments where you feel sorry for him anyway. Luckily for Zamp, he's actually quite clever (maybe cunning is a better word) and it's compelling to see how he works his way around the various scrapes he gets into on his way to compete in a Showboat competition with an incredible prize. The one downside to the story, in my opinion, was a side character. It's probably quite telling that I can't remember her name at all. The book's blurb simply describes her as 'a mysterious blonde beauty' and that's basically all she is. When she enters the story she's really intriguing. She obviously has an important secret and is desperate to travel with the Showboats to the competition. After this original intrigue, she just becomes a bit annoying and insipid, just a distraction for the male characters who desperately (and a bit creepily) keep trying to persuade her to marry them. And, in the end, her great secret just falls a bit flat and is no more interesting than any of the other issues Zamp faces throughout the book. It was a disappointment, after building up this secret from nearly the start of the book, and I actually think the book would have been better without this character. Even so, this crazy world of criminals and Showboats is well worth a read, I don't think there can be anything else quite like it!

This is something a little bit different and, I believe, the first time we've had a publisher interview so do let me know what you think (either here or via a direct message) and whether you'd be interested in similar interviews in the future. Mortons are a printers and independent publishers with a fascinating history going back to the 19th century (seriously, it even involves shipwreck! You can read their full history on their website https://www.mortons.co.uk/dates.html ). Now they're looking for authors. I spoke to Steven O'Hara about their exciting new project... So, I understand that Morton's long history has involved a range of newspaper, magazine and bookazine publishing. Now, for the first time, the company will be branching out into book publishing... Where did this decision come from? We have built up a significant archive of content and have lots of exceptional Authors that we work with. So it was a natural progression from our magazines to bookazines and now into the world of books. What types of books are you hoping to publish? We are not restricting the areas that we plan to operate in, but starting where we are strong in non-fiction. Could you tell us a little bit about the publishing process? Say a book comes in that's just what you're looking for, what happens next? Once we have a good idea to work with, the team here will work with the Author to polish the idea. Once we are happy that we have a good chance of success we will agree timings and commercials. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors? We really want to work with you so get in touch, you have the ideas and the creatives to bring your passions to life. We want to help find a commercial route for you. What's the best way for readers to support independent publishers like yourselves? It’s so important that we know what readers like, this will ensure that we can offer new books to the right people. I know there are some wonderfully talented people on the forum, so if you have an idea, or even a book in progress, you can email Steve directly at SOHara@Mortons.co.uk. They plan to review and respond to every idea sent to them so hopefully we'll be seeing some interesting new books from Mortons!

And the winner of the January giveaway is... @~Andrea~ ! Congratulations

It’s only a short story but I think Virginia Woolf’s Kew Gardens is really good. It’s very visual and not like anything else I’ve read.

Hi Ian, welcome to the forum! Do you have any particular favourite books or authors?

I will be but I’ll be off to a slow start, I’m not at my own house at the moment (dog sitting) and I forgot to bring a book! I’ll be going past my house tomorrow morning though so I think I’m going to grab Jasper Fforde’s ‘Early Riser’ and maybe ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.’ Do you have books planned @Athena?

What a great map for reading the Discworld books! It's interesting to see how they connect visually like that. I was looking at Midnight's Children recently, it's a shame you found it underwhelming, it sounded really promising!