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July 16
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kurr
gave
to:
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (Paperback)
by Jon Kabat-Zinn
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr said:
"Reading this because I gotta learn to deal with the "full catastrophe". I just won't settle for a half-catastrophe life!
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July 15
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kurr
added a quote:
"You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was."
— Irish Proverb
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kurr
gave
to:
Maestro (Paperback)
by Peter Goldsworthy
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my rating:
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kurr said:
"I know nothing of music or pianos. But for the brief 149 pages of this novel, I felt for a moment, as if I was part of that secret society that only musicians get to join.
Goldsworthy does a really stunning job of painting the intersection of two ...more
I know nothing of music or pianos. But for the brief 149 pages of this novel, I felt for a moment, as if I was part of that secret society that only musicians get to join.
Goldsworthy does a really stunning job of painting the intersection of two very different lives. It's all about exile and adolescence. Coming of age and the crucible of experience. It's a mystery and a study in character.
Well worth the read....less
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kurr
is currently reading:
A Covenant of Salt (Paperback)
by Martine Desjardins
bookshelves:
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr
is currently reading:
Lonely Werewolf Girl (Paperback)
by Martin Millar
bookshelves:
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr
marked as to-read:
The Fugitive (Paperback)
by Massimo Carlotto
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr
marked as to-read:
The Lemur: A Novel (Paperback)
by Benjamin Black
bookshelves:
to-read
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr
gave
to:
Wolves Eat Dogs (Paperback)
by Martin Cruz Smith
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr said:
"Cruz Smith has a way with words. A very heady, intoxicating way. As a matter of fact he's having his way with me right now.
I'm reading the gritty yet dream-like Wolves Eat Dogs. It's unlike other crime fiction on the market. Too many books in this ...more
Cruz Smith has a way with words. A very heady, intoxicating way. As a matter of fact he's having his way with me right now.
I'm reading the gritty yet dream-like Wolves Eat Dogs. It's unlike other crime fiction on the market. Too many books in this genre fall prey to "galloping gore". Thrillers that provide a series of ever-escalating shocks all the while ratcheting up the pace. So much rush-rush designed to obscure the truly bad writing. I mostly avoid those shelves at the bookshop.
But I was stuck for several hours in Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport and the lone kiosk appeared to have a boatload of crap for sale. Then I saw, on the bottom shelf, this little gem. Amazon in the US has the cover seen at left. Meh. The UK cover is much better. All dark-grey destroyed-forest realism with a howling wolf at centre stage. Very appropriate to the tale.
Cruz Smith approaches the story slowly. He's more concerned about the characters than is customary. Renko isn't a compilation of over-used stereotypes. The story doesn't unfold so much as slowly unwind. A spiral of revisted scenes, revisited lives. You care as much about the secondary characters as you do about the crime.
He writes economically, smoothly. Nothing grandiose. Nothing over the top. He shocks you with a throw way image. An unexpected revelation that resonates with sensory truths:
"He lifted his ear to the muffled flight of an owl and the soft explosion that marked the likely demise of a mouse. Leaves swirled around the bike. All Chernobyl was reverting to nature. Sometimes it crept in while he watched."
or
"You're sure you latched the cow's stall? She could have been eaten by wolves. The wolves could have gotten her."
Roman acted deaf, while Lydia, the cow, peeked through an open slat of her stall; the two put Arkady in mind of a pair of drunks who remembered nothing.
It's rich and delicious and worth reading slowly.
Take my word for it....less
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kurr
gave
to:
Bones of the Moon (Paperback)
by Jonathan Carroll
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
So, let's start with the good. Jonathan Carroll is a competent writer. His words flow. There's ...more
This is not an endorsement. Let's just get that clear. Cause I'd hate for anyone to buy this book thinking I recommended it's twisted little narrative...
So, let's start with the good. Jonathan Carroll is a competent writer. His words flow. There's coherency. There's consistency.
*taps fingers trying to think of more good stuff*
He evokes an expat view of Italy that I found authentic.
*continues tapping*
The parts of this tale that take place in the real world are OK.
*taps for a very long while and gives up*
Everything else I have to say about this book is profoundly negative and spoiler-laden. Beware!
I buy books by rummaging around the store shelves, collecting an ever-growing armful of possibilities. Then, if it's a decent shop, I sink into a chair and proceed to read the first few pages of each selection. Those first pages make-it or break-it. Bones of the Moon slipped through this first test.
The main character, Cullen, a woman who had broken up with a most unsuitable man, has an abortion and then hooks up with a supremely decent guy and moves to Italy.
That all seemed cool... So I was taken in.
Plus Cullen has dreams. Wild and vivid dreams. Ones that seem more real than reality. Dreams she can pick up and continue night after night.
The capper was the endorsements. It seemed everyone and his dog was raving about Carroll's previous novel The Land of Laughs. They were convincing. I bought it. Hook, line and sinker.
Sinker was the operative word. The story is half dream-fantasy/half real-world=shit. With links between them. Things in her dreams influence her life and vice-versa. She dreams she has special powers and voila, in real life she can zap a overzealous guy across a room.
The dreams are over the top. Out there, in a I-can't-belive-this-crap kind of way. Like a kids book depicting boring things in too-bright colours. As if Carroll tried for simplicity and stumbled into simple instead.
The dream characters are cut outs with an agenda that you quickly discern, and if you're me, detest. Turns out Mr. Carroll really wanted to write a book bashing abortion. Maybe telling a straight anti-choice tale wouldn't sell. Who knows?
All I know is I hate books with a mission. Particularly ones that go out of their way to appear like something they're not. I expected well written speculative fiction. Instead I got a moralistic story cloaked in a poorly developed fantasy/horror shell. Perhaps Carroll hoped to thereby make it more palatable.
I gagged. You might, too.
Consider yourself forewarned....less
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kurr
gave
to:
Battle Royale (Paperback)
by Koushun Takami
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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kurr said:
"Cult novels are hard to resist. Lord of the Flies. Naked Lunch. A Clockwork Orange. Fight Club. Startling. Brutal. Original. Compelling. They frighten me to death, yet I love them. It's that kind of complicated.
I picked up Takami's Battle Royale m...more
Cult novels are hard to resist. Lord of the Flies. Naked Lunch. A Clockwork Orange. Fight Club. Startling. Brutal. Original. Compelling. They frighten me to death, yet I love them. It's that kind of complicated.
I picked up Takami's Battle Royale mainly because the guy in the bookshop opened his mouth and said 'cult novel'. Just two little words and I was immediately consumed with the need to know why.
Wikipedia gives the following plot outline:
"The novel and manga Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline, according to the book's prologue, where Japan is a police state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia. Once a year, randomly selected classes of middle-school students are forced to take arms against one another until only one student in each class remains. The program was created, supposedly, as a form of military research, though the outcome of each battle is publicized on local television. The first battle in the series took place in 1947, and the novel follows a battle that takes place in May 1997.
Under the guise of a 'study trip', the students are corralled onto a bus and gassed, only to awaken on an evacuated island or isolated area with metal collars around their necks. After being briefed about their role in the program, the students are issued bags that carry bread, water, a map, a compass, a flashlight, a watchguns and knives, some students acquire useless items like boomerangs, some common dartboard darts, or a fork. In some cases, instead of a weapon, the student receives a tool; Hiroki SugimuraToshinori Oda receives a bulletproof vest.
To make sure the students obey the rules and kill each other, the metal collars around their necks track their positions, and will explode if they linger in a 'Forbidden Zone' or attempt to remove the collars. The Forbidden Zones are randomly chosen areas of the map that increase in number from hour to hour, re-sculpting and shrinking the battlefield and forcing the students to move around. The collars secretly transmit sound back to the organizers of the game, allowing them to hear the students' conversations, root out escape plans, and log their activities.
The students are also given a time limit. If twenty-four hours pass without someone killing someone, then all of the collars will be detonated simultaneously and there will be no winner."
And as plot intros go, that's a pretty decent one. The scenario is set up in the first 30 pages. The remaining 570 pages are devoted to the "battle".
Let's just say it was a looooonnngggg 570 pages.
Problems?
1. The book is not well written. It feels like a lumbering engine. Doing what it has to do mechanically but without any real finesse. Now maybe that's caused by a less than gifted translation from the original Japanese. I'll give it the benefit of the the doubt...
2. While I was expecting somewhat stereotypical characters, these just seemed soooo tired. So predictable. The dialogue at times had me wincing from the melodrama. Yes, teenagers can be melodramatic. Yes, ninth grade is filled with "roles" that students fill: the loner, the spoiled rich kid, the class clown, etc. But this book did nothing to elevate those truths. It's been a long while since I read Lord of the Flies. Maybe it was equally simplistic. But my gut says, no.
3. The love story that evolved between X and Y. *slaps hand to forehead* Could you get a more traditional piece of dreck? He's the protector, the "strong" one. She's the weak female, needing his protection. Yadda. Yadda. This may be every ninth grade girl's (or hell, every middle aged women's) dream. But I found it tired. I've seen traditional done soooooo much better elsewhere.
4. The "plot twists" were obvious well in advance. There were no shocks. I didn't cling to the book wanting to know what happend next. The ending while perhaps crazy-thrilling and oh-so-amazing to the cultees, seemed painfully apparant by about page 150.
When I compare the truly shocking texts found in Naked Lunch or Fight Club, to the truly sad tale that is Battle Royale, I see no basis for comparison. Battle Royale may be a cult novel but it doesn't measure up in any of the complex ways I expect cult novels to challenge, shock and engage me.
I suspect Battle Royale got its "cult" moniker purely due to two things: it's protagonists are young and it contains plenty of violence. Sadly these two factors do not make it good!
I'm putting my copy in the book recycling.
Yes, it's that bad....less
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