Alexander's Reading 2014

[bobblybear]

Glad you enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife.   I really liked it too, and intend on reading it again (except that I think my sister-in-law has borrowed it!). Have you read any others by Audrey Niffenegger?

[Chrissy]

 When I first read that you wanted recommendations I thought I couldn't do it, as 'mind-blowing' is such a personal thing isn't it? Then I thought I would just go for it, and throw a few titles at you that I found generated a really strong reaction in me. Here goes (eyes closed and fingers crossed);

 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - A tale that takes the reader into the under London places and the people that inhabit that world.

 

Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek - A creeping and creepy thriller that keeps you edge of the seat from beginning to end.

 

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt - A quirky story that links the strange houseguest of a lonely woman with Winston Churchill.

 

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist -. Uncomfortable reading at times, but a darkly compelling story.

 

If you try them and hate them we will always have TTTW as a shared book love!

[Athena]

Great review ! The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my favourite books. I have read one other book by her, My Fearful Symmetry, which I quite enjoyed.

[Alexander the Great]

 

Great review  ! The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my favourite books. I have read one other book by her, My Fearful Symmetry, which I quite enjoyed.

 

Glad you enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife.    I really liked it too, and intend on reading it again (except that I think my sister-in-law has borrowed it!). Have you read any others by Audrey Niffenegger?

 

This was my first novel by Audrey Niffenegger. I've been looking for her other works, but I can't find them in English in my local library or in the nearest bigger city. I will definitely look out for them, though - and read them in translation if I have to. Thanks for the suggestions, both of you

 

 

 When I first read that you wanted recommendations I thought I couldn't do it, as 'mind-blowing' is such a personal thing isn't it? Then I thought I would just go for it, and throw a few titles at you that I found generated a really strong reaction in me. Here goes (eyes closed and fingers crossed);

 

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - A tale that takes the reader into the under London places and the people that inhabit that world.

 

Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek - A creeping and creepy thriller that keeps you edge of the seat from beginning to end.

 

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt - A quirky story that links the strange houseguest of a lonely woman with Winston Churchill.

 

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist -. Uncomfortable reading at times, but a darkly compelling story.

 

If you try them and hate them we will always have TTTW as a shared book love! 

 

Thank you for this list, I always like to see recommendations from others. I've been looking for 'Neverwhere' but can't seem to find it, so I'll probably be getting it as an e-book. I'm ashamed to say that even though Neil Gaiman has been on my 'radar' for a long time, I've never read anything by him and only seen the movie 'Coraline' based on his novel. I happen to love London and reading about it and am also a fan of fantasy (not the really heavy stuff though), si I'll be giving this a go. I'll also put the others on my list.

 

The Accidental Billionaires review

 

I chose to read this novel after The Time Traveler's Wife because I needed something lighter that I knew wouldn't live up to it. Call it a literary rebound. Sadly, even with my expectations as low as they were, I still didn't enjoy this. The author attempts to reconstruct the beginning of Facebook, but Mark Zuckerberg didn't wish to cooperate. I'd think that if the founder, the main man, didn't want to participate, as an author I'd go "ah, well, no book then". Not this author. Instead, he conducts some research, but obviously all he'll get is accounts from people who were involved, each with their own agenda.

 

So we get this weird focus on Eduardo Saverin - more than his role in Facebook really calls for - and then excerpts full of "We can assume", "He might be thinking", "It's likely that". Then we also get bits and pieces from the point of view of the Winklevoss twins, but they don't serve that much purpose either.

 

With the limited information he had, I feel like maybe the author shouldn't have tried to write about Facebook, but rather should have written his own story inspired by it.

 

Preferably without the excessive use of the word 'kid', because really, to have it twice in every sentence? Jesus, it got on my nerves so badly I had to put the book aside at times. I also felt that as the story progressed, some sentences were literally repeated on the same page. Entire paragraphs are just repeated, sometimes a bit rephrased. As if he had to fill pages. Unbelievable. I won't be reading this again, or recommending it to anyone.

 

Taal is zeg maar echt mijn ding & En dan nog iets review

 

Both books are a collection of columns written by Paulien Cornelisse, all of them about language and its quirks. I'd honestly expected more from this. Of course there's the fact that this is a Dutch writer, from The Netherlands, so obviously there will be things in there that I don't recognise at all, or that are weird to her but not to me. But nevertheless, as I read on, the quirks got so personal I found it hard to believe most Dutch people would read it and identify.

 

I did laugh at times, though, and it definitely wasn't bad. I do feel like in the second book, there were some things I'd already read in the first.

 

It's a nice read, the snippets and columns are super short, but it's probably not meant to read in one go. These probably servs better as books to pick up and read in for a minute, then put away again. Only, I'm not that kind of reader. 

[Athena]

Nice reviews ! I have the two books by Paulien Cornelisse, but I haven't read them yet. I'm Dutch so it'll be interesting to see how much I recognise. I can imagine I'll understand a lot of the things she talks about but I might not be as bothered about them. I'm not that kind of reader either.

[bobblybear]

Nice reviews. The Accidental Billionaires sounds like one to miss, then! It doesn't have very positive reviews on Amazon.

[frankie]

 

 

Thank you I'll be curious to re-read at some point, but I'm also scared. As a teenager, I had this book I loved so much on the first read and I kept putting it there as one of my favorite books. I re-read it when I was 22 and it was just awful and I didn't get what I liked about it the first time at all. I don't want that to happen again. But somehow I don't think it will with The Secret History. Thanks for the link as well!

 

It's such a huge disappointment to re-read something you absolutely loved the first time around and then disliked. If it's any consolation, I think that one's reading taste changes immensely from teenage years to one's twentysomethings, so maybe you won't be in for as many disappointments later on, having put the intense teenage years well behind  

[Alexander the Great]

frankie - You're probably right about reading taste changing from when you're a teenager to when you're in your twenties. The funny thing is that it doesn't happen to me with music at all - I still like the same music I liked then, or "new" music of the same style. But then I also have to admit that I tend to like music I know already more and am a bit hesitant to really get to know new music - even new albums from bands I love - and with books, I rarely re-read, eager to find new books or styles.

 

Annabel review

 

It's been over a month since I finished this. There aren't many novels with the concept of an intersexed person, and this was definitely an atypical take on it - the main character was born in Labrador, Canada in the 1960s. I liked the part where Wayne/Annabel was at home more than I did the part where he lived alone. Jacintha, Wayne/Annabel's mother was a very interesting character I'd have liked to read more of. It's a hard book to say much about. I'd recommend it, I liked reading it, but at the same time I'm left with the feeling that I'd expected more.

 

The Little Friend review

 

It took me a very long time to finish this - started on November 8, finished on December 19. It hardly ever takes me this long to finish a book (I think it's been since Emma Donoghue's Hood). This review on Goodreads describes my experience rather well. I'll link it because it contains spoilers for those of you who haven't read it yet.

 

A Masculine Ending review

 

I enjoyed this a lot. 

 

This novel was published in 1987 and I read it in 2014. Clearly, it's a bit outdated by now, but it's certainly interesting to kind of get back into that mindset. This novel, if written today, would have to be written completely differently. It was fun reading about someone attempting to solve a crime without any access to modern devices, like mobile phones or the Internet.

 

Other than that, I liked the pace. Nothing is rushed, we get clues and new characters in a well-paced manner, and a satisfying ending. This was a quick read over the weekend, perfectly enjoyable on a rainy day.

 

Being a huge Virginia Woolf enthusiast, I liked the shoutouts, by the way.

Leslie's review of The Little Friend on Goodreads

Edited December 21, 2014 by Alexander the Great

[Alexander the Great]

A Far Cry from Kensington review

 

I picked this book up in the library because it is set in 1950s London. The blurb seemed interesting enough to me to take it home.

 

I liked the novel itself, but it feels as though it had much more potential. I think as a reader, you are supposed to like the protagonist, Mrs. Hawkins. I did, at first. But then she claimed that in order to lose weight, you just have to eat and drink half of everything - and well, to me it went downhill from there. It's just not that simple.

 

I feel like the novel had an interesting premise and story, but the focus was too much on Mrs. Hawkins. Everybody likes her or at least takes to her, but I found her too annoying for that to be credible. If we'd had read more of the other characters and Mrs. Hawkins wasn't such a present narrator, this would have been a lot better. The reveal of the mystery is almost an afterthought, something Mrs. Hawkins has a theory about but isn't quite sure of either. That was a bit of a letdown.

 

A quick read, but it could have been more.

 

Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem review

 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this Victorian mystery. A very special mood cloaked this novel and makes it a very distinct read. 

 

The author uses different narrative styles, different voices, yet each one is unique. A change in point of view or time is not announced, and it's not necessary either. I figured out the mystery pretty quickly, but that didn't take away any of the joy of reading. 

 

I hope to read more of Peter Ackroyd soon. This book was truly, as the jacket says, unputdownable.

 

NW review

 

As with "White Teeth", I had to get used to Smith's writing style - but once I was, what a joy to read. Interesting characters, quite the meandering story, but an excellent portrait of modern London life. Especially interesting after having read a novel set in Victorian London and one in 1950s London.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Alexander the Great