Book Addicts Anonymous

No, I'm not pulling your leg, neither was I pulling the assistant's leg in the bookshop when I ordered it.
I was looking to see what other books Walter Moers had written, and came across this one. It is thought that he might have written it, but to date no-one has claimed author-ship of this novel.

The book is fast paced, made up of short chapters, following the various characters as the plot lines converge. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I wish I knew who the author is. It could be Walter Moers, as it is a humourous as his books.

This is the second book I have read by Walter Moers. The previous one being The 13 and 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear. I bought this one on the strength of my enjoyment of the other.
I wasn't disappointed. Rumo is just as crazy as Captain Bluebear. I pity the poor translator, as the book was originally written in German, it must have been a surreal experience, translating something so humourous, although perhaps that is just my mad tangential thoughts.

Anyway, the bumph from the back of the book;

Oliver bought me this for Yule.
It's hilarious, like the other books of Tom Holt's that I have read.
Random occurrences are drawn together neatly to make a side-splittingly funny book.
I really am going to have to draw up a list of his books that I have read, then try to get hold of the little blighters that I haven't read yet.

Yes, another Tom Holt book.
As I finished this one, I found out he has just published another, so he must have known I'd finished this one.
Barking....hmm...what should I say about it?
There are werewolves, vampire, undead, oh! and lawyers. Think the bumph says something similar as well.
Duncan Hughes is the central character of this book. New, but just as likable, in a useless way as Frank Carpenter in some of the other books. Well, what would be the point of having a life changing "event" happening to a dynamic character, who probably wouldn't notice, or even worse, not like what had happened to them.
I love Tom Holt's "underdog2 characters, and Duncan Hughes turns out to be an "underdog" in more ways than one, but an underdog who is determined to be a lone wolf.
You know what is coming now! Yes, a link to Tom Holt's website;
http://www.tom-holt.com/barking.htm

And this quiz is fun;
http://www.tom-holt.com/quiz/index.htm

This piece Tom Holt wrote for Orbit's website is fun, about time travel;
http://www.orbitbooks.net/2008/05/01/tom-holt-talks-time-travel/

If you read them , and like humour, you'll get just a little taste of Tom Holt's sense of humour, and maybe be looking out eagerly for his next book, just like me.

Written by the same author as "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian", and just as amusing.
Some may find this novel a little difficult to follow, as it is told by several voices, the sections are broken up, and once you realise that is how the novel is narrated, it's much better than having an omniscient narrator. First person narration can be unreliable, but as you get the other characters input this is not a problem. There's a certain "quirk" in this book, that I did wonder about at first, but once I realised what was going on, it makes for light relief at the more tense sections.
The novel tells the story of a group of migrant workers, who as the novel opens are strawberry picking in Kent, and their accommodation is two battered caravans, one for the men, one for the women. After an incident with the farmer and his wife, the workers take the farmer's Land Rover, and one of the caravans, and try to find work elsewhere. This novel gives an insight into the world of migrant workers, and gangmasters, and the organised crime that is springing up around these workers, being run by gangmasters.
The dedication at the start of the book is quite touching, "To the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers". I wish that this had been qualified a little more, I suspect it means the Chinese who lost their lives, back in February 2004, where at least 21 lost their lives by being caught by the notorious tides. But I think the underlying dedication also refers to the language problems encountered by migrant workers. They still use migrants for cockle-picking, as it supposed to be good money, but the cockle beds are closed from time to time.
Back to the novel, none of the characters end up cockle-picking, but they do fish of a pier at one point.
If you read "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" and enjoyed it, this novel will appeal as well, there is even a brief visit to Mr Mayevskyj from "A Short History......", and he provides the same gentle humour.

http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth5689E7F21669e239B0WqN2563FD0
For a little information about the author

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670916375,00.html
For further information about the novel.

I think this was another one of my 3 for the price of 2 buys. However, I wouldn't buy it given the chance again.
No! It's a very readable book, and I couldn't put it down. So, it only took me a day to read, so what I'm saying is, I wish I'd picked it up at the library. That aside, it's humourous, fast paced, and the author makes some very good observations.

Helen, the main character is a downtrodden housewife when we first meet her. She is in the midst of preparing an elaborate dinner party for her husband's boss and wife, and maybe some other guests, they are implied. However, she decides to have a drink of wine, and a relaxing bath. She falls asleep, to be woken by her husband arriving home from work. He berates her for not having everything ready, but she tries to rescue it. The dinner party goes from bad to worse, and he starts to belittle her in front of their guests. (She has never failed to produce beautifully cooked meals in the past.) Then he goes on to complain about some one's driving nearly causing him an accident, Helen merely comments that it is always the other person, never him at fault. Other guests join in the discussion. Helen issues a challenge, which he takes up. The next day he tackles the challenge, but in carrying it out, he is in a freak accident and he ends up dying.
The rest of the story is about how Helen emerges from her cocoon, and starts to enjoy life.

This book is a lovely take on how a downtrodden woman claims back her life. In some places it felt very familiar to me, and probably would to most women who have been the submissive partner in a bullying relationship.

The write up this book had in my book club was encouraging, so I bought it.
The story is all in first person, as if it is Philip's diary, (the main character.) Philip is only 11 year old and the punctuation and some spellings are a little odd. This book however is not a teenage book, as such.
Philip retells the events from the date of his father's death in an accident, to the date of his father's birthday, around two months later. The events are pretty bizarre at times, but the again, Philip is only doing as the ghost asks him.
Throughout, I was questioning myself, is Philip just so upset about his father's death that he imagines his father's ghost? It is never quite resolved, but as he and his father were close before the death, and the death sudden, it is possible, or, I could take the story at face value and believe in the ghost.
It was a very entertaining read, and once I realised it was written in a 11 year old's voice, reading was easy.
The bumph mentions Shakespeare's Hamlet, I have only read a synopsis of Hamlet, but from what I read I think it is right.

I believe that Blue put that I don't like romances, which is true, but this isn't any more a romance than Indiana Jones films are romances.
As with all Tom Holt books, it takes a fairly simple setting, and throws into the mix some totally unexpected events, and you have a really good book as a result. They aren't found with the fantasy books for nothing. Tom Holt stretches your imagination as far as it will go, and then takes off at a tangent, probably why I like his writing.

The bumph on this book only gives you a hint of the flavour of the book, you know the way a cook could tell you one ingredient they will be using is Tabasco sauce, but you have no idea what they are making, but you'd still love the result.

This is another book about the manic way some parents react when trying to obtain a place for their child at the high school of their choice, and is a very well written book, unlike the one that cheesed me off with it's inaccuracies.
O'Farrell has written this book from the viewpoint of the mother, and has done it very well. Whereas the other told the story in typical "chic lit" style, this one is told straight, but is full of "life humour", you know the things parents do for their children, etc.
For those of you who know John O'Farrell as a comedian, and like his style, this book is in that style. [He's regularly on the "Grumpy Old Men" series, making funny, but true observations of life.]
The story has a lovely twist at the end of it, that is much more satisfying than the "chic lit" book I read on the same theme.

Now the bumph,

Alice never imagined that she would end up like this. Is she the only mother who feels so permanently panic-stricken at the terrors of the modern world - or is it normal to sit up in bed all night popping bubble wrap? She worries that too much gluten and dairy may be hindering her children's mental arithmetic. She frets that there are too many cars on the road to let them out of the 4 x 4. Finally she resolves to take control and tackle her biggest worry of all: her daughter is definitely not going to fail that crucial secondary school entrance exam. Because Alice has decided to take the test in her place....

With his trademark comic eye for detail, John O'Farrell has produced a funny and provocative book that will make you laugh, cry and vow never to become that sort of parent. And then you can pass it on to your seven-year-old, because she really ought to be reading grown-up novels by now....

Yes, the bloke who wrote "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time".
Being honest I think this one is more entertaining than the first. (Have also got his poetry book, they are "different", I like them, but I like poetry in it's various forms.)
This story revolves around an "ideal" family of the 70s/80s two kids, nice house, etc. The story is narrated by an omniscient narrator telling each character's view in separate chapters. The father has recently retired and has a minor medical crisis, which he blows out of all proportion in his head, as he's not someone who can discuss what is going on in his life. The mother is having what she thinks is a discrete affair, the daughter is getting married, for a second time, to a man her parents aren't too sure of, and the son is a homosexual, who is trying to keep up heterosexual appearances whilst at home, for his parents sake. The characters are so well developed, and there isn't one you take a dislike to, despite their antics. The chapters are short and to the point, the action and storyline move along nicely, even when the narrator goes over a situation from another character's viewpoint, as he fills in all the gaps that you might find yourself asking, but why did X do Y? A brilliant book.

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. "The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely." Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored.
At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has "strangler hands". Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which gets in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.

The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddon's disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

I do read rubbish books sometimes, but haven't done for a while, the last one that I read that was rubbish gave birth to the post about author's getting it wrong.

No, it isn't all about tractors.
It's a very funny book. I don't often think this, but I really hope someone makes this into a film, it has the potential to be hilarious.
What's it about? Well, there's an elderly gentleman, who falls for a 30 something blond, well endowed Ukrainian. The humour is apparent in some places, in other's,it is very subtle.
The daughters are against this match, and that's when the comedy starts for real. There are some lovely passages where the author uses pathos to contrast with the humorous incidents.
When I first saw the book, I did wonder whether to bother buying it, I'm really glad I did.
Now for the bumph from the jacket back, if I tell you any more I'll be spoiling the novel.

"Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside."

Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from the voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.

But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget....


I will definitely make a point of reading her next book, "Two Caravans"

I love Tom Holt's books, they are classed as comic fantasy, and are funny, if you like that sort of thing. I've read at least 8 more of his books, they appeal to my tangential sense of humour. This one was no different. The start of the book sets the scene for a "fairy tale" type story, but this is an adults book, so you don't expect it to start with a fairy tale. The reader is introduced to "Snow White" except she isn't what the reader expects, neither are the seven dwarves what the reader expects. In fact, the samurai are portrayed as quite cynical, "teaching" the youngest of their number in a rather warped manner, with the Japanese philosophy that it is good for the development of the character to do all the task allotted to you, without questioning. There are also three pigs, valiantly trying to outwit the big bad wolf, who happens to be called Fang. In there too is the wicked queen, then some children come along and mess the whole thing up. Storylines start to runs differently, nothing is predictable any more, and one of the children is somehow trapped in the whole thing. We find out where when we encounter Igor and his master. The three pigs employ a hit man to rid them of the wolf problem, and things just get a little mad, but funny mad.
Anyway, the bumph from the back;

Once upon a time everything was fine. Humpty Dumpty sat on his wall, Jack and Jill went about their lawful business, the Big Bad Wolf did what big bad wolves do, and the Wicked Queen plotted murder most foul.

Then human hackers caused havoc, shutting down the Wicked Queen's system (Mirrors 3.1) and corrupting her database. Suddenly, everything is not fine at all. And if it's not sorted, no one's going to be living happily ever after.

The book is written in accessible language, the only confusing bit is the odd bit of computer language thrown in, but when it is, the reason is to confuse, so it serves it's purpose.

I was recommended to read this author when I asked who wrote in a similar style to Jasper Fforde and Tom Holt.
As I am not a film "buff" I can only guess that many of the allusions in the book are film allusions. I did recognise one or two, and Rankin was quite blatant about them.
This book is a sequel, and I haven't read the previous one, but it made a lot of sense, so I would say it isn't imperative to have read the previous book.
The blurb from the back of the book probably tells you better what the story is about than I can.

Things are not going well in Toy City. There have been outbreaks of STC - Spontaneous Toy Combustion - and strange signs and portents in the Heavens. Many believe the End Times, a Toy City Apocalypse, will soon come to pass. But can this possibly be true, or is there a simpler explanation, - an alien invasion, for instance?
With the body count rising and the forces of law and order baffled, Tot City needs heroes - Eddie Bear, Toy City Private Eye, and his sidekick, Jack.
But their adventure, fraught with thrill, spills, danger, excitement and rather too much alcohol, will take them far from Toy City into a world beyond even their wildest imaginings. This world.

Our courageous twosome face their biggest challenger yet: not only saving toykind, but the world of mankind too.

Which should keep them both out of the pub for a while.

You might wonder why I didn't read the book this is a sequel to first. Simple, this was 99p, special offer, and I didn't notice that it was a sequel. I will probably read some more of Robert Rankin's books, in the future, as it was quite enjoyable, and an easy read.