Book Addicts Anonymous

This lovely novel by Rose tremain explores the interior lives of a choice few inhabitants of a small Suffolk community.  There's Mary, who from the age of six becomes convinced that she is a boy in a girl's body. Mary's Mum, Estelle, with her flights of fancy which take to the local asylum on more than one occasion.  Sonny, Mary's Dad who lives for his farm.  Then there are the Loomis' family and Irene, a single mother, and Harker, a local cricket bat manufacturer of bespoke cricket bats.
The novel follows their lives through 38 years as they grow and change in outlook.  Quite a fascinating story.  I will keep an eye out for other books by this author.

At first the sheer size of this novel put me off, however I started to read it and was immediately pulled into the world of Sherman McCoy, Thomas Killan, and Larry Kramer.
centered around the boomtime of the 80s, this novel explores how a seemingly perfect existence, where a person wants for nothing, and can seem to do nothing wrong, can be brought down around their heads by a freak occurrence. And perhaps the same still applies today, if you play a game of "risk", be prepared to lose everything!
I thought Tom Wolfe's descriptions were brilliant.

The cover of this book gives very little away, and it was refreshing not to be told what happens.
The bumph from the cover is brief and intriguing. And all I will add to it is, the book is very engrossing, and well worth a read.

I finished this just before the winner of the Man Booker prize was announced, and I said to Blue that if Wolf Hall was as good it would win. Don't you ever wish you'd been brave enough to put a bet on?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007157762/ref=cm_rdp_product_img
Will give you a bumph and what other readers think about Beyond Black. I found it another fast paced book, with a great big dollop of "black" humour. The loneliness of Alison's childhood sets her apart from other people and she finds she has a gift ...she's a medium, but not one of the fly-by-night charlatans, she is a genuine medium. Mantell infuses the serious passages with the right amount of humour lifting what could be a very very dark book, as Alison is increasingly visited by the spirits of men from her past.

Another book that has languished on my bookshelf for a long time.
This book, made me laugh, cry, be happy, be sad.
It is a complex story, with no useless information in it. Everything in it is relevant to the plot. So I realised that when Henry tells the reader about his fear of "the cage", sooner or later it would become significant. The last few pages made me cry, so if you like happy endings, don't read this book, but it is a very good book.
I will wait for the DVD to come out to watch the film, and am very interested to see how they will cope with the time travelling.
To me there is a possibility of a sequel, but unless the plot is significantly different, it may just read as part 2.
To find out more, click here. I prefer to used author websites where possible, but in this case Wiki is very thorough.

This novel is narrated by four children....all aged 6 or thereabouts. Each child is trying to make sense of their situation, yet fails, as they are only 6!
The story retreats in time from present day California to Munich during the second world war, with stops on the way.
Each child's voice is pure and confused.
The novel covers things I didn't know happened during the second world war.......and perhaps most people are unaware. The consequences of the actions are in this case far reaching but settled within the novel.
This novel makes the reader think, which is not a bad thing.

Nancy Huston is a French speaking Canadian, this novel was originally written in French. Nancy Huston translates her own books.

Am around a third of the way through this book. I don't normally blog about a book until I have finished it. This book is subtitled, "Notes for a Novel". I know it is a first novel, but after reading as far as I have, I would rather read the novel the notes are for than the book I am reading.
I hope I see this book through to the end, and may be able to add something more positive, but at the moment I keep looking how many more pages there are left .....until I can start something else.
I KNOW that no-one is looking over my shoulder, and I KNOW that I do not have to write an essay focused on this book, but I really just keep hoping it will improve, although 65 pages into a 164/5 page book...I think I might be reading in vain.
I hate giving up on a book, but think I just might with this one, despite it's brevity.

18/7/09
I've read to p 94 now, and am getting heartily fed up with this book. The series of incidents are driving me mad. I'm afraid this book is going to be abandonded, and quite possibly given away.

This book won the Costa First Novel Award.
It drew me in, and just had to keep reading. I felt an empathy with Kate, and the other two main characters also evoke the sympathy of the reader.

When I picked this up I was a little sceptical, as it had a sticker on it saying, "As good as Lovely Bones or your money back."
Am a little wary of claims like that. However, it looked interesting, so I bought it.
Caroline Winters lives in New Orleans, her mother and sister live in New York, not far from where they lived as children.
The story starts with Caroline in New Orleans, she's trying to think how she can turn down the Christmas invitation to New York. However, she goes. An event in Caroline and her family's past comes up for discussion. There was a younger sister, but she disappeared some years previously, aged 5, and there is speculation that she might have been murdered by someone just about to stand trial for another murder, same sort of circumstances. For the man to be charged with Ellie, the missing sister's murder, she has to be declared dead. Both Caroline and her mother can not bring themselves to do this, the other sister Madeline is quite annoyed, and tells them she can declare Ellie dead herself, but she doesn't.
Caroline and her mother discuss Ellie, and her mother shows Caroline a picture that looks as if it could be Ellie. Caroline promises her mother she will look for Ellie. By New Year Caroline has lost her job and her mother. After the funeral she's determined to find Ellie, and goes to where the picture was taken.
Alongside this narrative is the story of how Ellie came to disappear, and how the family coped with it, then there are letters to an Alaskan called Johan, from Agnes.
I won't spoil the end, but it does end well, yet Amanda Eyre Ward leaves a lot for the reader to surmise, she doesn't give you the bare facts.
It was a very interesting book, and I don't want my money back.

This was a difficult book to get my teeth into at first. I kept putting it down, then all of a sudden the plot opened up and swallowed me in. I think the fact the narrative is set in two time frames, Bruno, the main character's present, and his time at boarding school. As a narrator he seems to be brutally frank about himself, but as the narration is first person, there is always a shadow of a doubt as to whether the narrator is reliable or not, I think in this case Bruno is, due to his very frank statements about himself.
The title of the book "Serious Things" seems an odd choice at first, until you realise that Bruno has "Serious Things" on his mind, whilst his old school friend seems to have left one institution for another, [boarding school- university- marriage,] letting other people think for him, despite his apparent confidence with life. Anthony is only as self-important as his "audience" allows him to be, and he chooses carefully.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts on finishing it about the two main characters.

This book was tucked away under my bed. Had been there for some time. I know this, because it was a special offer from Ottakar's, the name of the Waterstones I tend to go to before they were bought out. The jacket is flashed at 99p so it was a bargain. At that price you feel quite happy to dip your toe into the waters of an author unknown to you.

If you follow this link it will tell you about the novel in detail.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will probably be interested in more of Patrick Gale's books. So the 99p taster worked in this case.

At first I found the various characters in Second Glance a little disjointed, but as I have read several of Picoult's books, I stuck with it, and soon enough the seemingly various unrelated characters started to fall into place. By the end of the novel Picoult has tied off all the various strands with her usual adeptness.
What shocked me about this novel was the theme. I am sure I am not the only person who was unaware of a Eugenics programme taking place in USA during the early half of the 1930s.
As usual the novel is very well researched, and characters entirely believable.
Spencer Pike came across as a fanatical control freak, and the final chapter of the book was so gripping I had to just sit and read until I got to the end.

This novel had me in stitches. Helen's lover of four years decides to leave his wife. Great most mistress's would think, but Helen was beginning to wonder if the relationship had run it's course. What she doesn't know is that Matthew is a serial monogamist, who likes to have his next "relationship" lined up, before leaping out of the previous one. The novel tells of Helen's attempts to untangle herself from Matthew, and she just ends up digging herself into more of a tangle. A good light read, with enough to keep your attention.
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141025292,00.html?sym=EXC

This one took me no time at all to read as I really do like Jodi Picoult's writing, and this one didn't disappoint.
Below is a link to Picoult's site, that describes the book very well, with a synopsis and an extract. http://www.jodipicoult.com/
click on books and select "Plain Truth".
I learnt some things about the Amish community in USA, which I will admit I knew nothing about, the closest we have here is "The Brethren" as far as I can see.

This was one of the books, the blurb/bumph made me want to read it. Normally I have little patience with anything remotely "chick-lit-ish", but this isn't really "chick-lit".
Emilia, the main character, is obviously suffering from some recent trauma, and Waldman teases the reader by allowing glimpses of what the cause of Emilia's trauma is, but you are well into the book before you discover exactly what it is.
Emilia has also found her self to be step-mother to William, a very precocious 5 year old, in the way that he is much smarter than the average 5 year-old, but still has some the vulnerabilities 5 year olds have. Jack, Emilia's husband struggles to keep Emilia and William both happy, and his ex wife at arms length.
I won't spoil things by revealing any more of the plot, apart from saying that by the time I finished, I had changed my opinion of the book, and although the cover looks "chick-lit", what is inside definitely isn't.

To find out more, click on the link below;
http://www.ayeletwaldman.com/books_love.html
There is also an option to read an excerpt, click below, if you wish to read further.
http://www.ayeletwaldman.com/books_love_excerpt.html