I love dystopian fiction and Peter Heller does it so well! Fantastic descriptions of nature, but also physical action, adventure, all wonderfully inteI love dystopian fiction and Peter Heller does it so well! Fantastic descriptions of nature, but also physical action, adventure, all wonderfully interwoven with a backstory that was drip-fed at exactly the right moments. Jess and his best friend Storey are on a hunting trip in Maine, but when they start travelling back home they discover blown up bridges, houses and cars - something has been going on while they were away. They come across Callie, a young girl, who they decide to try to return to her family before returning to their own, and Burn is the story of how they attempt this. There was one thing which didn't work for me: the jeopardy. Maine is involved in a war of secession and Jess and Storey are caught in the crossfire, but aside from this, I didn't feel that they were in enough danger, or not in enough personal danger. And then I had a few quibbles with things like - where were all the bodies at first, and what was that strange inland lobster fishing village? I thought these were going to go somewhere and when they didn't I wondered why they were there. Still, recommended. ...more
I really enjoyed this, more than I thought I would. The unease built and built and it was interesting to see how King did it. The only point where I wI really enjoyed this, more than I thought I would. The unease built and built and it was interesting to see how King did it. The only point where I was actually frightened (I was able to read it late at night before going to sleep without any problem) was when Louis is in his garage, alone, feeling his way forward in the dark and he imagines reaching out and touching someone's hand. Louis moves with his wife Rachel, daughter Ellie and son, Gage to a house in Maine when he gets a new job as a doctor of a nearby college. He befriends his elderly neighbour, Jud, who takes the family to visit the 'pet sematary' in the woods behind their house. When Rachel, Ellie and Gage are visiting Louis' parents-in-law Ellie's beloved cat is run over on the busy road outside their house. Jud lets Louis in on a old country secret, and takes him and the dead cat to another cemetery beyond the one they visited, where things that are dead and buried can come back to life. Rachel could have been more developed, but the section where the family is grieving is exceptionally written. Tell me, should I watch the first film? (I started the second one, but it was too rubbish to continue.)...more
Every so often I pick up another Graham Greene. This hardback was left in my free little library, although it turned out I already had a different verEvery so often I pick up another Graham Greene. This hardback was left in my free little library, although it turned out I already had a different version on my shelf. I read them more for the prose than the stories which often seem to be about middle-aged professional white men, lapsed Catholics and unhappy womanizers who are facing some sort of crisis. This time Querry is a famous architect, running away from work, women, and most especially fame. He takes a boat down a tributary of the Congo as far as it will go and ends up at a Catholic mission and a leper hospital, but fame, or notoriety follows him even here. There is a lot of talk about Catholicism and the difficulty of fame and I wondered how much the latter reflected on how Greene was feeling about his. Enjoyable. ...more
I'm delighted to be quoted on the cover, and I stand by every word: Evocative, haunting, masterful. I loved this book - I read it as a proof and I'm dI'm delighted to be quoted on the cover, and I stand by every word: Evocative, haunting, masterful. I loved this book - I read it as a proof and I'm delighted to dip into it again now (I shall be reading it all again because Judith is coming to my book club). Liv Ferrars, born in England, has lived in a ramshackle house in Upstate New York since the '60s when Birdeye was a thriving commune. Now there is only Liv, her two closest friends Sonny and Mishti, and one of her adult daughters left. And then one April morning a young man turns up unexpectedly. At the same time Sonny and Mishti make an announcement, and shortly after Liv's other daughter arrives from England, and everything that Liv thought was stable and ongoing is upset and unreckonable. Judith is a friend of mine, but I highly recommend Birdeye - for the story and the writing. A contender for my books of the year. Published by Salt in May and available to pre-order now from Waterstones and elsewhere. ...more
Nastassja Martin, a French anthropologist has been studying the Evens, a group of people in Siberia and their belief in animism when she encounters a Nastassja Martin, a French anthropologist has been studying the Evens, a group of people in Siberia and their belief in animism when she encounters a bear which bites her face and takes part of her jaw bone before she can stab its side with a pick axe. This is an account of that attack, the terrible rural Russian hospital she is taken to, and the French hospitals who also don't look after her particularly well. However grisly all that sounds, I would have liked more of it, and more of what life is like for the Evens when she decides to return to confront the bear (I had no clear sense of how and where they live exactly). Clearly she cannot really confront the exact bear who attacks her, but is grappling mentally with the encounter and who she has become, how connected she is now to the bear, what her dreams mean, and so on. Towards the end it becomes rather philosophical without making any strong point, but I still enjoyed it very much. Translated from the French by Sophie R. Lewis....more
This little book - 147 pages - packs such a punch. Still, it took me a little time to get into, but then I was hooked. Quintana has written such complThis little book - 147 pages - packs such a punch. Still, it took me a little time to get into, but then I was hooked. Quintana has written such complex characters, people who seem to utterly change by the end of the book, and then you look back and you see maybe that side of them was there all along. It's set on the pacific coast of Colombia - a wild and dangerous place. The sea is always raging, the rain falling and people are always dying. Damaris lives in a shack next to the jungle with her hard and sometimes cruel fisherman husband. At forty-ish, when she finally acknowledges that she will never have her longed-for child, she adopts a puppy. But perhaps, just like children, when they grow up, they grow up into their own character, and when the puppy becomes a fully-grown bitch it becomes wilful and independent and the other side of Damaris's character shows through. And just as Damaris turns at the end, so does the story. This is not a soft, sweet, doggy story. Thanks to Julie Myserson for the recommendation. ...more
I loved this book. The proof (thanks the publisher) had sat on my shelf for far too long, and when I finally pulled it down, I read it in a day and a I loved this book. The proof (thanks the publisher) had sat on my shelf for far too long, and when I finally pulled it down, I read it in a day and a half, because I couldn't stop. One of those books that I read while walking around the house, attempting to do other things. Published in July.
Every summer Elle goes to 'The Paper Palace' with her family - husband, three children and mother - a series of cabins in the woods on the Cape. She's been going there since she was a child, when she became friends with the neighbours, including Jonas. Elle and Jonas have a complicated history, which we learn in luminous and illuminating flashbacks. The present-day narrative takes place over the course of 24 hours, at the end of which Elle must make the hardest decision of her life.
In rich and sensuous prose, Cowley Heller, cracks open the human heart and exposes her character's choices: the paths not taken and the devastating consequences. I smelled the old cabins and the backwoods, felt the pond water lapping around my ankles, experienced the love and loss of family. A perceptive and powerful story which will stay with me for a long time. ...more
There was lots to enjoy in this spooky mystery. Lauren's mother disappeared when she was a baby and now she lives in an insular Scottish village with There was lots to enjoy in this spooky mystery. Lauren's mother disappeared when she was a baby and now she lives in an insular Scottish village with her alcoholic father Niall. Towards the end of the book, another young woman disappears. The characters were well developed and not fully likeable, and the sense of place both of Lauren and Niall's dirty, mouldy cottage, and the nearby forest that Lauren plays in was great. I also really enjoyed the spookiness when it was subtly done: the constant unexplained dripping from the utility room, the unidentified bad smell that pervades the cottage, and the sightings of a woman in an old white dressing gown, whom people later deny seeing. At the end though the discoveries come a little too thick and fast, sometimes as exposition written as dialogue, and the climax was a bit melodramatic, with the ending tied up a bit too neatly for me. ...more
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