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Claire's Book List 2018


chesilbeach

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I have acquired a whole bunch of new books thanks to my birthday earlier this month - I'm such a lucky girl! :D

 

The lovely Janet gave me a gift card and I got myself a fabulously sparkly hardback of The Wicked Cometh by Laura Carlin, and the lovely Kay gave me Ink by Alice Broadway and Snowdrift and Other Stories by Georgette Heyer.  I got another gift card from one of my other friends, and also bought myself A Black Fox Running by Brian Carter.

 

As my OH doesn't do presents for birthdays, I always go out and buy myself something, so books were the obvious choice (as usual!).  I've been reading the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize books this year, so I bought myself some more of the nominated books - Kid Normal by Greg James and Chris Smith, Trouble Makers by Catherine Barter and The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy, plus the Waterstone's Kid's Book of the Month, Tin by Pádraig Kenny.

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3 hours ago, chesilbeach said:

We didn't do much on Tuesday in the end, but did go and look at new computers for when I get my new laptop, but that was about it.  I did make the most of yesterday though, and got myself a whole bunch of new books, so although I resisted on Monday, I more than made up for it later! :lol: 

New books.  Goodo!  :D

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The books I've read over the last week are mostly from the younger fiction category of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2018.  

 

First up was Nevermore: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend.  This one definitely has a Harry Potter feel to it, with a child taken out of a dour and miserable home into another world with elements of magic and fantasy.  That said, it was a cracking read.  The story is full of life making it an effortless book to read.  

 

Morrigan is a wonderful lead character, and although there are some classic characters and themes you'd expect in this type of story, which although it's not actually set in a school, it's definitely got the flavour of a classic boarding school story.  Designated a "cursed child" at home, she is saved by a mysterious benefactor called Jupiter North who takes her from her grey, drab existence to live in his technicolour hotel, which in itself becomes almost like another character, and she must take part in a series of trials to compete for a place in the Wundrous Society.  I loved it, and as it is clearly going to be a series of books, I'm definitely looking forward to the next instalment.

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I'd almost bought A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan when it was a Waterstones children's book of the month, but I wasn't sure about it and thought I might come back to it another time, and then lo and behold, it appeared on the younger fiction category so I had to pick it up sooner rather than later!

 

It's a bit of an odd story. Violet and her parents move to a new town after her dad is headhunted for his skills as an ophthalmologist.  The town is called Perfect, and all the residents have been struck by an affliction where they go blind, and have to wear special glasses to restore their sight.  Within 24 hour of arriving in the town, exactly this happens to Violet and her mum and dad.  But that's not all that's odd.  Violet soon discovers that the children are all very well behaved, and a little bit odd ... and so are the adults.  It's not long before her mum is also acting like a model wife and citizen, and doesn't seem bothered that her husband has gone missing.  When Violet meets Boy, the two of them set out to try and find her dad and figure out the mysterious goings on in the town of Perfect.

 

This is definitely an original idea!  The thought of going blind terrifies me, despite the fact that spectacles restores the sight of the residents, I found the whole story with elements of the Bodysnatchers and Stepford Wives, a bit creepy.  Initially, I found the dialogue a bit different and I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but when I found out the author was Irish, I could then put the voices in context and it worked much better.  It was an enjoyable read, and there are a couple of storylines that I could predict who people were and how their story would play out, but I suspect that's more because I'm a seasoned reader, and that children probably wouldn't see the same tropes that I could.  Another good read.

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The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson is the only book in the younger fiction category that is a contemporary story with no fantastical elements, and in my opinion was one of the best books on the list.  It follows Matthew, who at twelve years old, has become virtually housebound due to crippling OCD.  He knows the reason for it - he believes he killed his younger brother by passing on his germs - but he's told no-one, and his parents don't understand why it's happened or how to help him.  This has led to him keeping watch on the road where he lives and keeping records of the coming and goings outside his window, so when a toddler goes missing from the garden of the house next door, Matthew may have crucial information to the investigation.

 

The story of Matthew is heartbreaking, especially as he reveals more about the death of his brother throughout the story, and what is even more unexpected, is how all of the other characters are developed from the two-dimensional first impressions from Matthew's observations and records, to have their own stories come to life and become real people.  I'm not ashamed to say I wept at one chapter towards the end, but the ending of the book is completely optimistic without being unbelievable, and it's the first book I've read with a lead character with this sort of illness who is a child, and I thought it dealt with it absolutely brilliantly.  A strong contender for my favourite for this category.

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I decided to listen to the audiobook of Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters from my Round Robin challenge list.  It's been quite a timely listen as it's the 20th anniversary of the book being first published, so I've listened to a feature about it on a radio programme, and read a few articles in newspapers about it too.  I have read The Night Watch by the same author, and have always meant to try more of her books, but this is the first one I've read.

 

Tipping the Velvet was seen as a turning point for lesbian literature, making it into the mainstream of publishing, and was revolutionary in its time.  It follows the story of Nancy, set in the late 19th century from her working class roots through her brief career in the music halls and then her life beyond.  Told in the first person, it makes Nan's story very intimate and while the focus is obviously on her life from discovering her sexuality through the emotional journey of first love before her life takes a very different turn, it also takes us through the seedier side of London.  

 

Waters admits now that the research of the period was not as thorough as it could have been and she's much more careful about that now, but this was her first novel and it certainly made her name and gave her the stepping off point to become an author.  What this means, however, is that this is a very entertaining romp, but it does make you wonder how true this interpretation of Victorian lesbian life really is, and while there are some gritty, nasty moments in there, it does seem a bit of an idealised story. Nan is a fantastic narrator, but at times you do feel she is very selfish and self involved, but she does have a charming epiphany at the end of the book, albeit a bit of a pat resolution of her story. I have to admit that due to my typically British reserved nature, I did find it a bit embarrassing listening to the audio book during some of the graphic sex scenes and I should maybe have read instead of listened at times, but the end result was a sexy, romantic romp, that entertained me enormously.

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Great reviews! I'm glad you really liked The Goldfish Boy. I've heard great things about it and I can't say I've read a children's book before with a main character who has OCD. I have read a couple of Young-Adult books with main characters with OCD. I look forward to reading The Goldfish Boy, I'm happy to hear the book dealt with the OCD in a good way.

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Back to the children's books and it was The Legend of Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood next.  This story in a story, told by a travelling bard who narrates the tale of how Podkin One-Ear becomes the legend of his world.  Podkin is the son of the chieftain who has lives a comfortable (and slightly lazy) life, until the night the Grom warriors arrive and kill his father, so his mother sends him and his siblings away giving Podkin a dagger telling him to keep it hidden.  With his older sister Paz and his younger brother Pook, Podkin embarks on a quest to escape the Grom, and encounters witches, thieves and old soldiers along the way.

 

I'm not the biggest fan of anthropomorphised animal stories, even in children's stories, and I think that affected my enjoyment of this book.  The story feels like a run-of-the-mill fairy tale, and I thought was pretty predictable.  Of course, if you're a child and the books' target audience, then you might not have read one of these type of stories before, and it might be exciting and suspenseful.  It was an easy enough read, and a good story, but it just felt old fashioned and a bit unoriginal for me, and certainly wouldn't stand out as exceptional enough to make it worthy of a place on this awards list, however, I'm obviously in the minority as the book has already garnered other awards.  It's clearly the start of a series of books, but not one I'll be following.

 

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My final read of the younger fiction category was Kid Normal by Greg James and Chris Smith.  Since Murph's parents split up, his mum has had a series of jobs, none of which have lasted a year, meaning Murph has had to move house every year, starting again at a new school and trying to make new friends.  After their latest move, his mum is struggling to find a place for him at a local school, when almost by accident, they come across The School, and when his mum begs the headteacher to accept Murph into the school, a misunderstanding leads to him getting a place.  From the first class, Murph realises there is something different about his new school, and finds it's a school for children with exceptional skills.  How does a normal boy survive in a school where kids can fly or control the weather?

 

The authors of this book are radio presenters in the UK, and I suspect a lot of the press coverage was down to this initially.  The story itself is actually not too bad.  It's a fish out of water story but unusually, it turns the idea of an exceptional child being the novelty in a normal school on its head, and makes the ordinary child the focus.  This is probably the only selling point of the story that makes it different from similar books, but it's well done and the illustrations by Erica Salcedo are brilliant.  It is funny and fast-paced, with a few nice twists, and sets up the characters nicely for a series of future adventures.  On the downside, I thought the jokes were sometimes a bit obvious and maybe will date the book in the future as they are very much pop culture references that won't make sense in years to come, and I did roll my eyes a few times instead of chuckling, but this again, might be my age and the target audience will find them original and funny.  A good story and an entertaining read.

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A little bit late, but here's my February 2018 reading summary:

 

Books read: 17

Pages read: 5698

Authors: Female 11, Male 6

Fiction: 13

Non-fiction: 4

Format: Hardback 3, Paperback 11, Kindle 1, Audiobook 1

Round Robin challenge: 3

Waterstones Children's Book Prize challenge: 5

 

A pretty good month, if you ask me! :D 

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It's been a while since I dipped my toes in to the YA pool, but I decided I would read all the older fiction category of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize again this year, and my first book was Troublemakers by Catherine Barter.  It's narrated by fifteen-year-old Alena, who has been brought up by her older brother and his boyfriend in the east end of London.  There has been a series of attacks by someone the media have named (imaginatively) the East End Bomber.  As the threat hangs over the area, Alena becomes more interested in her past and wants to know more about her mother who was a political activist and died when she was a teenager.  The story follows her discoveries and the secrets that have been kept from her.  When Alena rebels and threatens the stability of her family dynamics, the drama ratchets up and I couldn't put the book down after that.

 

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this.  I don't know whether it's just the YA I've read in the past, but it's not often I've read one set in the UK that isn't dystopian or fantasy, and this was a real breath of fresh air.  All the characters felt like real people living through real situations, and there was no fairy tale ending or pat answers, and I was completely captivated by the story of this teenager.

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I think I was a fan of Carrie Fisher's writing before I became a fan of Star Wars, so I guess I'm probably in the minority there.  The first book my friend told me I had to read was Postcards from the Edge which she published in the late 1980s and that was the start of a beautiful friendship ... not just with the person who was to become a very good friend for the last almost thirty years, but also with me and Carrie's writing!  When my book group had to choose their book for March and we were given a selection of memoirs and biographies, there was no doubt in my mind that I would choose The Princess Diarist and thankfully, it won the vote.

 

In this book, Carrie Fisher publishes the diary she kept during the filming of the original Star Wars film, but the diary is actually more a collection of notes and verses she wrote at the time, so the book starts with her reflecting on that period of her life starting with the audition that got her the role, through the filming in the UK. It is then bookended by the promotional tour with her co-stars and the impact it continued to have on her life until the last series of films were filmed. It caused a small sensation when it was published as she admits the affair she had off-screen with her on-screen partner, Harrison Ford, despite the fact he was married with children at the time.

 

It's a fascinating book to read, and although she was clearly very young at the time the diaries themselves were written, you can see how important writing was to her then, and I can see why she turned to writing later in her life.  I think this book is obviously going to be interesting to the Star Wars fans for completeness, and I did enjoy reading it, but I have to say, I'm more a fan of her fiction than her memoirs.  The memoirs are without a doubt interesting, and if you enjoy them, I'd definitely recommend reading Postcards from the Edge which is semi-autobiographical anyway, but is such an honest but funny novel, it remains one of my favourites.

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As I've mentioned before, I'm trying to read some recently published nature books that have received good reviews throughout the year, in the hope that I might make a head start on the Wainwright Prize longlist for 2018, as it's a struggle to fit in reading 12 books between the nominations and the prize being awarded, and one of the books I'd seen recommended was The Last Wilderness by Neil Ansell.  It follows a series of walks he takes in the Scottish Highlands over the period of a year, where he can be alone and experience nature.  Alongside the changing seasons during his walks over the year, Ansell also talks about how his already impaired hearing following a series of childhood illnesses, is gradually diminishing and as it deteriorates more and more birdsong that he has known and loved all his life, becomes lost to him forever.

 

The book is full of wonderful nature writing.  Throughout his life, Ansell has travelled extensively throughout the world, and also spent a period of time living self-sufficiently alone in a house in the middle of Wales, so is used to being alone.  Although he now lives in the south of England with his two daughters, he felt he needed one more experience of being alone before he loses his hearing completely.  He choses a fairly remote part of Scotland and is able to go on a series of trips over the year to experience the different seasons, and find as close to a wild place as it's possible to find in the world nowadays where humans have so much impact on the natural world.

 

I loved the descriptions of the landscape and the wildlife, although I have to admit, he does ramble a little bit at times, but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment in any way.  I've now ordered his previous book Deep Country from the library.

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A slight diversion for a lighter read took me back to the paranormal Stacy Justice series by Barbra Annino with Phantom Quartz.  I won't go into the plot of the book, as it's definitely one you'd probably need to have read the first five books before the one, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone.  It was exactly what I expected, and a perfect piece of escapism for an entertaining interlude. :D 

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Back to YA next, but this time it was a science fiction story set in a future US where genetic technology is prevalent and a pathogenic virus is causing devastation among humans, in the book This Mortal Coil by Emila Suvada.  Catarina has been living on her own since the Cartaxus corporation took her father, a leading geneticist, to work on a vaccine for the virus decimating the human race.  A soldier from Cartaxus turns up at her cabin and tells her that her father is dead, but that she may be the key to unlocking the encryption on a possible vaccine.

 

While it's fair to say I'm not the biggest science fiction fan, and I had taken a break from the relentless dystopian fiction that seems to dominate YA, I have to say, I thought this story was compelling.  After I finished, I looked up the author and found she studied mathematics and worked as a data scientist, and the scientific knowledge gives the writing in this book the edge over other YA dystopia.  It looks at the possibility of genetic manipulation used technology, and looks at the morality of effectively hacking nature to overcome disease and flaws in human physiognomy.  It's also a thrilling quest, with duplicitous encounters leaving Catarina and the reader wondering who are friends and who are enemies.  I've read it in two days while I've been hiding from the snow outside, and I found it captivating.  Definitely a step up from the usual of these style of books, and the only slight negative for me, was that it does set up a sequel at the end, and I wish it could have been left as a stand alone and not part of a series, but I guess it just means I'll have to read the follow up when it's published later this year!

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Thanks @Samthefootball.  I'm a fairly quick reader and I shoehorn in a reading session whenever I can, so it's not too difficult to rack up the numbers.  Plus, I'm impatient and if a story is good, I want to know how it ends, so I can't put the book down before then! :D  Everyone reads at their own pace, and numbers don't need to come into it, as far as I'm concerned, it's the enjoyment that's the most important thing.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Straight on to another YA from the Waterstones Children's Book Prize with Ink by Alice Broadway.  The book opens just after the death of Leora's father, and in their society his skin will be made into a book of his life, because every important thing that happens to you during your lifetime is tattooed on your body as a symbol of a good life lead.  Leora herself is just finishing school and will now find out what her future career will be, but is hoping that she will become on of the few female inkers, to record other peoples lives on their skin.  But when she is denied access to her father's Skin Book, she begins to wonder if she really knows her parents at all.

 

This story sticks to the style of a lot of modern YA where a teenager finds out her comfortable life is not what it has seemed and must uncover the truth to find out who she is herself.  It's got elements of folklore and mystery, set within the confines of a small town, and a new political leader bringing in tougher rule of law determined to enhance the purity of the inked community, so taps into the current political era of Brexit and Trump.  As I was reading it, I found out it's actually the first of a trilogy and the end of the book definitely isn't the end of the story.  It's a good story and builds Leora's world well, but unlike This Mortal Coil which I read before this, I didn't find it quite as satisfying a read as a single book.  It very much felt like you have to read the whole trilogy to get the full story, and I'm not sure I enjoyed it enough to want to carry on the story by reading two more books.  One the other hand, the cover design is beautiful and I've seen the second books cover and that's just as gorgeous as the first! :D 

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On 3/6/2018 at 5:34 PM, Alexi said:

You're getting on at a great pace, Claire :D Found your review of Carrie Fisher's memoirs very interesting; given I have been dragged through most of Star Wars. 

 

Thanks Alex. :)  I lent it to a colleague at work as he is a Star Wars fan, but hasn't read a single book in a couple of years - gave it to him on Friday and he gave it back on Monday as he'd read the whole thing in a single weekend!

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