Susan Hated Literature

Author: John M. Ford
ISBN:9780575073784 DDC: 813
LibraryThing ; Other reviews

The road the Romans made traversed North Wales a little way inland, between the weather off the Irish Sea and the mountains of Gwynedd and Powys; past the copper and the lead that the travel-hungry Empire craved.

Where to start with this book’s plot summary? Cause there is a whole load going on. From Florence’s Lorenzo de Medici to England’s Richard III and a whole host in between. I suppose you could say it is a look at a Europe that might have been. An alternate Europe with wizards; one where the Byzantine Empire a threat and vampires rule Milan.

Actually that all sounds a bit trashy, but this isn’t a trashy novel at all, not in the least. It has plenty of action and the odd fantasy cliche, but it is very well-written and makes the reader work. I think that might be why it took me so long to get into it. In the beginning it just didn’t grab me and make me keep on reading. But it did more than enough to make me come back to it; so I’m going to complain there.

Course the reason i picked it up in the first place it because of the new cover. Not that one anobii are showing you, but the re-issued Ultimate Fantasy cover. Its got its dragon, but it also that that clean minimalist feel to it. I likes.

Back to the book.

I’m still not sure what to say. I’d recommend it, without a doubt, to any fantasy or historical fan. But there is just so much going on, it is a densely written book, that I think it really does need a reread. There are whole sections the book skips, letting the reader know what happened but never going into huge details. The characters don’t reveal all to us. We are left to speculate and wonder in many instances. That’s not a negative, by the way, it isn’t done in a lazy way, as if the author couldn’t be bothered, it is just that it serves the story better this way.

It probably works a lot better if you know a bit of history, having read Penman’s The Sunne In Splendour helped me a lot with the Richard III storyline. And it helps that, although influenced by Shakespeare, this book is more in Richard’s favour than interested in painting him the villain of the piece. What can I say, I’m loyal to my favourite literary characters, I don’t really care what the history *really* says.

Author: Margo Lanagan
ISBN: 0575077816 DDC: 823.914
A Once Upon A Time reading challenge read.
See also: Margo Lanagan’s blog ; LibraryThing ; Scooter Chronicles ; The Merchant Princes ; The Genre Files ; Emerald City ; Infinity Plus ;

We all went down to the tar-pit, with mats to spread our weight.

This was an impulse purchase; my reason being the cover. It grabbed my eye and passed my usual “read a random sentence or two” test. So I bought it. And I am glad to say that I loved it. It is a collection of short stories, many told in the first person, and as usual with short stories there are some I loved and some I thought were merely okay. None were bad though.

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Author: Haruki Murakami, trans from the Japanese: Philip Gabriel
ISBN: 0099494094
DDC: 895.635
See also: LibraryThing ; Mental mayhem ; Mindspill

“So you’re all set for money, then?” the boy named Crow asks in his characteristic sluggish voice. The kind of voice you have when you’ve just woken up and your mouth still fells heavy and dull. But he’s just pretending. He’s totally awake. As always.

There are two main narrators to this book, one a 15 year old runaway who has taken on the name Kafka, and the other an old man, Nakata, who never recovered from some strange childhood accident, but can talk with cats. I have to say that while both storylines were gripping and intriguing, I never knew what was going on. Or had an idea what would happen next. By the end of the novel I was as in the dark as at the beginning.

I still enjoyed it though.

It isn’t a fast paced book, the characters weren’t particularly gripping, but there is more than enough to keep you entertained and wanting to read on, even if you are scratching your head and wondering about fish falling from the sky, or if Kafka fulfilled his father’s dark prophecy. There is death, and sex, myths, and cats, libraries, and truckers. Of course there is also a lot of unanswered questions at the end, and many, many loose ends. But in a way that doesn’t matter, the open-ended nature of this book isn’t something that bothered me in the slightest.

I’m sure I missed half of what was going on here, what with references to Oedipus and Japanese legends, aliens and creating a magic flute from the souls of murdered cats… But what the hell, it was a wierd and enjoyable book, one that I may have to read again to try and understand a little more.

Author: Graham Joyce
ISBN: 0753818426

I’ve read a few books now by Joyce, and this has to be my favourite so far. Set during, and just after the London Blitz of WWI, this book tells the story of Cassie, her family, and her son Frank.

We first meet Cassie as she is about to give up her child to another family. She has already had a daughter who was taken in by a childless couple. But as she watches the minutes tick by, she decides to keep her son. Arriving home to her family she tells them all she is keeping Frank. Her mother, Martha, decides that maybe there is something special about Frank, so she agrees, provided the six other daughters help out with raising Frank.

As a result we see the lies of this family through Frank’s eyes as he moves from sister to sister, from farmlife to the almost pristine house of his twin aunts, to a commune. It soon becomes clear that Frank has inherited some of his mother’s feyness and some of his grandmother’s ability to talk to the dead.

There is some wonderful writing in this book, when Frank tries to imitate his pregnant Aunt peeing for example. Comic touches can be found everywhere, as can potential threats to Frank and the family.

I really enjoyed this one

Author: Susanna Clarke
ISBN: 0747570558 DDC: 823.923

A fantastic story about the two magicians who returned magic to England, set in the Napoleonic era, this book is written in a wonderfully dry, humourous fashion. Mr. Norrell arrives on the scene first, he is withdrawn, selfish and more than a little unpleasant. Above all, he desires to bring about the return of magic, yet among his first acts in the book is to put a stop to the theoretical magician’s society of York.

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