Lakis Fourouklas's Blog, page 12

The Arthur C Clarke and Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse awards shortlists

Two major UK book awards shortlists have been announced today; the ones for the Arthur C Clarke and Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prizes. The talking point when it comes to the first is that there are no female authors included in the list, even though four out of the five judges are female, while everyone seems to be happy with the second one. Here are the lists in full:



The Arthur C Clarke Award



Nod by Adrian Barnes
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson



The winner will be announced on the 1st of May.



The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize



Zoo Time by Howard Jacobson
Skios by Michael Frayn
England's Lane by Joseph Connolly
Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach
Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt



The winner will be announced at the end of May, but no date has been set yet.

The Age of the Coupon

The western world is sailing in turbulent economic waters. The salaries are going down, jobs are lost, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are not getting richer as fast as they used to. Sometimes it’s really difficult to make ends meet, not to mention buying something or some things that are necessary for one’s home. And that’s exactly why I’ve decided to title this article The Age of the Coupon.



Coupons of course are nothing new; you could see them around for decades now; on products’ packages, on advertising material, in newspapers and magazines; and they, as much as everything else nowadays, have also taken a fancy to the internet.



At the beginning not many people would feed their buying habits with them. In the old days you could go to a supermarket or a mall, and watch elderly people using them or the very poor, but the middle-class people mostly shied away from them, as if they would get stigmatized if they were seen making a transaction with them. During the last few years though, things have changed dramatically. The recession have bitten people badly and they had to find ways to save money to make their lives a little bit easier; so as unlikely that would seem a few years ago, they started using coupons, if not for any reason because they could find them everywhere.



Now, most coupons have a short life span, but others don’t. In either case, their use is nowadays a must, whether you’re buying in person or through the internet. You know how people say that one should enjoy the finer things in life every now and then? Well, coupons do well when it comes to serving that purpose, whatever your vice may be. If you would like a new gadget or DVD box set, a new mobile phone or a pair of special gloves, a tablet or even a simple cap, coupons can help you realize your dreams without too much economic bleeding.



My own vice is books. I’ve been using Amazon to buy my books for years, especially since there never seemed to be any other alternatives out there, in my part of the world. I remember how I longed for the big packages to be delivered with my books neatly settled inside them; what a joy it was to get a new volume in my hands! But now I, just as much as the times, have changed. I’ve entered the electronic age, and, even though I hate to admit it, I’ve never looked back. The e-books come cheap and fast, and they can find me everywhere. And what’s even better is that they can come in cheaper yet, thanks to the coupons.



But of course the coupons can benefit you just as much, or even more, as they do me. My needs may be very specific but yours could be varied and demand a large amount of money; money that these days is hard to come by. I know people that spend a lot of time in the internet looking for bargains, whether they’re furnishing a home or buying an mp4player, whether they’re movie freaks or pure music fans. These are the people that could benefit the most from the digital coupon explosion. And if they don’t know where to look to find what they need, they should worry no more, since now there are websites created and operated exactly for this purpose. One of the best out there is Promo Code 4 Share which collects, among other things, the best offers that Amazon has to offer and serves them hot on your plate. Thanks to websites like this shopping, despite the economic meltdown, can still be a little bit fun, and interesting as well, since the coupon hunters can find in there, if they search hard enough, products that will surely meet their needs.

Book Review: Inca Trails by Martin Li

Sometimes reading a travel book can be an exhilarating experience; it doesn’t happen very often but when it does it can make your day. I have read many books of this genre in the past, since I’ve been a traveller for more than twenty-five years now, but none gave me such pleasure as Martin Li’s Inca Trails .



What I mostly liked about this book is the fact that it’s not a travel guide, but rather a travelogue. The author set out on a journey across Bolivia and Peru to retrace the ancient paths of the Incas, and during it he came to meet a lot of interesting characters, adopt a mule called Coco, taste the local cuisine, spent the nights out in the open or in dreadful lodges, and find his way across the land on packed-up buses.



Li does not, at any point, try to impress the reader, and he doesn’t seem to care if the people think that he’s brave or a coward; all he cares about is the journey, the stories he learns, and the new memories that form in his head day in day out. The people he meets, we meet as well, as he describes every character that has an important role to play in the narration in detail; the landscapes that capture his gaze, also capture ours, through his words and pictures. His journey is far from easy, but the way he describes it makes it sound so.



If I were a TV producer I’d use this book to film a series of documentaries that talk about the lands the author visited and the people he encountered, and I’d have someone narrate the history lessons he delivers as well, since this is one of those special books that can offer learning, adventure and bits and pieces of fun at the same time. I’d highly recommend it to everyone who’s not only interested in travelling, but also history and ancient civilizations.

The Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

The Women's Prize for Fiction (ex-Orange) longlist has been announced last night. Twenty books will compete for the prize which will be awarded in June. The longlisted titles are:



Kitty Aldridge - A Trick I Learned From Dead Men

Kate Atkinson - Life After Life

Ros Barber - The Marlowe Papers

Shani Boianjiu - The People of Forever are Not Afraid

Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl (Book review here)

Sheila Heti - How Should A Person Be?

AM Homes - May We Be Forgiven

Barbara Kingsolver - Flight Behaviour

Deborah Copaken Kogan - The Red Book

Hilary Mantel - Bring Up the Bodies

Bonnie Nadzam - Lamb

Emily Perkins - The Forrests

Michèle Roberts - Ignorance

Francesca Segal - The Innocents

Maria Semple - Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Elif Shafak - Honour

Zadie Smith - NW

ML Stedman - The Light Between Oceans

Carrie Tiffany - Mateship with Birds

G. Willow Wilson - Alif the Unseen

National Book Critics Circle Award Winners for 2012

The National Book Critics Circle Award Winners have been announced early this morning, and I'm not ashamed to say that I haven't been able to read any of these books yet. However, as I'm an avid fiction reader I'd guess that Ben Fountain and his book will get their chance. Anyway, here's the list of the winners:



Fiction: 



Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Nonfiction: 



Andrew Solomon - Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
 

Autobiography: 



Leanne Shapton - Swimming Studies
 

Criticism: 



Marina Warner - Stranger Magic

Biography: 



Robert Caro - The Passage of Power 


Poetry: 



D.A. Powell - Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys  

Graphic Novel Review: Grimm Fairy Tales Volume 13 by Mark L. Miller

This is the story of Sela Mathers, a woman who’s in jail, though innocent, and who wishes to remain there. Sela is not your usual prisoner or your everyday woman, when it comes to that. She’s special, as she’s gifted; her gift though is a blessing and a curse at the same time, since it was it that landed her in prison in the first place.



This volume (out on March 12) explores Sela’s life in captivity in vivid images and bursts of action. One would think that her life would be boring but it’s anything but. First she has to keep her distance from the others in order not to reveal her enormous powers; then she needs to protect her weak friend-of-sorts, the Princess, and try to keep a nosy lawyer called Deena Durbin from visiting her; and at the same time she has to put up with some supernatural beings that seem to inhabit the very walls of the building.



Sela has a deeply troubled psyche, as her life not too long ago has fallen apart. Her husband had died, her daughter was taken by Venus and she’d been thrown into jail. Could things get any worse? If they couldn’t, there wouldn’t be a need for this volume. Sela, whether she likes it or not, has a gift to use and a future to explore, and no matter how much she thinks about dying, deep inside her she knows that she has to live.



Her mental instability is her worst enemy though. She wants to lay low, but when she tries to do that things don’t go very well. But what can she do? Escape? She could do that, but then what? And for what purpose? She’s lost her daughter, for that she’s certain, so what’s left out there for her to fight for?



The deeper she dives into her personal abyss, the worse things become in the real world, and before too long she comes to the point of no return, where she has to decide whether she’s going to live or die, fight or surrender. It won’t be such an easy decision to make but the path that will lead to it will packed with action, secrets and lies, dilemmas and many layers of multicolored mystery.



This is a good story, enriched by beautiful illustrations that can keep the reader asking for more. Since this is the first volume of the series that I’ve read, I don’t know much about this Grimm universe yet, but I do look forward to finding out more.

Graphic Novel Review: War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay and Daniel LaFrance

This graphic novel is one of those special books that act like a punch-in-the-stomach when it comes to the story that they have to say. And the story at hand is one of war and hatred, ignorance and blind belief, hurt and retribution. There’s so much agony, and so much pain contained in these pages, that can make a tender or simply human soul feel sick.



The subject matter of War Brothers is bleak, as it tackles one of the most important issues of our so-called modern era: child soldiers. As we read, at the moment, there are more than 250,000 of them, fighting and dying in 35 countries around the world, a number that could be far larger, since the cases of children that go missing and end up with arms in hands is not actually too well documented.



Anyway, to come to the story, this book describes the adventures of Jacob Kitino, a member of the Acholi tribe and resident of the city of Gulu in Uganda. Jacob, who comes from a rich family, studies at the local seminary for boys and just loves to play football. The civil war that ravages his country is very distant to him, a reality that only the other people have to live through. His best friend is Tony, a boy with a great sense of humor, who loves football as well. Let’s read what he has to say: “The nuns who are paying for my schooling told me that if I fail it is because I am an ungrateful boy. But if I pass it is God’s work and I should repay God by becoming a priest.”



Becoming a priest is not something he really wants to do, but he doesn’t want to be a soldier either. However, fate has already made its plans for him, as well as for many other the boys, as one day the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels attack the school, and take 38 of them as hostages. They are to become soldiers, or die, unless they can be used otherwise.



So Jacob and Tony, all of a sudden, find themselves marching through the jungle towards a yet unknown destination. The journey is long, and exhausting, their strength, as they are practically famished, seems to slip away from them by the day: “I need to rest, but to rest is to die,” Jacob says.



This long and tiresome journey will change their lives forever, and not for the better. They’ll see heinous crimes committed in the names of country and god, they’ll make friends and create enemies, and they’ll see that their future is something they have to shape themselves. What they don’t know yet is that victims and perpetrators, when it comes to situations like these, are treated by the people in almost the same way; a veil of doubt and suspicion covers them both.



War Brothers is a disturbing story told in a deeply humane manner. The words and the illustrations convey convincingly to the reader all the thoughts and emotions of the main characters, and they bring to life their dreams and fears, their resolutions and failures. I’d highly recommend this exceptionally good graphic novel to simply everyone who gives a dime about the world around him.

Graphic Book Review: War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay and Daniel LaFrance

This graphic novel, that comes out on February 26, is one of those special books that act like a punch-in-the-stomach when it comes to the story that they have to say. And the story at hand is one of war and hatred, ignorance and blind belief, hurt and retribution. There’s so much agony, and so much pain contained in these pages, that can make a tender or simply human soul feel sick.

The subject matter of War Brothers is bleak, as it tackles one of the most important issues of our so-called modern era: child soldiers. As we read, at the moment, there are more than 250,000 of them, fighting and dying in 35 countries around the world, a number that could be far larger, since the cases of children that go missing and end up with arms in hands is not actually too well documented.

Anyway, to come to the story, this book describes the adventures of Jacob Kitino, a member of the Acholi tribe and resident of the city of Gulu in Uganda. Jacob, who comes from a rich family, studies at the local seminary for boys and just loves to play football. The civil war that ravages his country is very distant to him, a reality that only the other people have to live through. His best friend is Tony, a boy with a great sense of humor, who loves football as well. Let’s read what he has to say: “The nuns who are paying for my schooling told me that if I fail it is because I am an ungrateful boy. But if I pass it is God’s work and I should repay God by becoming a priest.”

Becoming a priest is not something he really wants to do, but he doesn’t want to be a soldier either. However, fate has already made its plans for him, as well as for many other the boys, as one day the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels attack the school, and take 38 of them as hostages. They are to become soldiers, or die, unless they can be used otherwise.

So Jacob and Tony, all of a sudden, find themselves marching through the jungle towards a yet unknown destination. The journey is long, and exhausting, their strength, as they are practically famished, seems to slip away from them by the day: “I need to rest, but to rest is to die,” Jacob says.

This long and tiresome journey will change their lives forever, and not for the better. They’ll see heinous crimes committed in the names of country and god, they’ll make friends and create enemies, and they’ll see that their future is something they have to shape themselves. What they don’t know yet is that victims and perpetrators, when it comes to situations like these, are treated by the people in almost the same way; a veil of doubt and suspicion covers them both.

War Brothers is a disturbing story told in a deeply humane manner. The words and the illustrations convey convincingly to the reader all the thoughts and emotions of the main characters, and they bring to life their dreams and fears, their resolutions and failures. I’d highly recommend this exceptionally good graphic novel to simply everyone who gives a dime about the world around him.

Book Review: Cold, Cold Heart by Karin Slaughter

Cold, Cold Heart is an old story that came to life anew thanks to the eBook single format. This is the story of Pam, a lonely woman and a teacher, who’s heading to California from Georgia, to deliver something. But, if you want to know what, and to whom, you’ll have to read the tale.

Pam is one of those unfortunate souls, whose lives look at best cursed. She’s never had enough joy, and she’s never lived up to her potential, and for that she mostly blames, her ex, and now dead husband, John. The latter had a complete control of her life during their twenty years together. He set the rules, and she followed. He ordered, and she obeyed. She was a good woman, and he was a bad man. And yet, he was the one that was destined to live the big life; a life we learn about through her mental journeys down memory lane.

As one would expect Pam feels wronged, and bitter. Everything could be different, better, if she had the courage to stand up to him, to make him realize that he wasn’t the center of her universe, or of any universe when it came to that. But she didn’t, and things just followed a downward spiral for her, an upward for him.

However, right now, and for the first time in ages, she’s in full control of her life. She’s changed, the smiles have returned, and even though she’s over fifty, she feels rejuvenated. What was it that changed everything? A simple act; a spontaneous reaction to some facts which gave her the opportunity to have the last laugh, when it came to her relationship with John.

His cruelty, his superiority, his sarcasm, had followed her for many years, but right now it’s payback time, and whether things go right or wrong, nothing can change that; she’ll have her revenge.

This reads as a quite plain story at first, but as the narration moves on it becomes more and more interesting, and the final twist wraps everything up in a brilliant way, taking the reader by surprise; just the way it should.



Reviews of other books by the same author:



Snatched

Thorn in My Side

Book Review: The Book Thing by Laura Lippman

The Book Thing is yet another eBook short in the Bibliomysteries series; a series that I’ve really come to love. There’s nothing like a good short story, and when its subject matter is books, then it’s even better.



The author tells us the story of a neighborhood children’s bookshop in North Baltimore, where her trademark heroine Tess Monaghan, buys the goods for her daughter, Carla Scout. Tess thinks that it’s great that places like this still exist, and she does everything she possibly can to support it.



However noble her actions may be though, the bookshop is in jeopardy, not only because of the competition from the eBook market, but also because someone is stealing many books every now and then, without ever being caught. Tess decides to work the case pro bono, in order to set things right. So she sets shop in the shop, and lies in wait for the perp to show his face.



She doesn’t spend all her time there though, so while the tale unfolds, we get to follow her to her everyday walks around the neighborhood, we meet someone who’s widely known as the Walking Man, and we learn some things about the pessimist owner and the optimist sales girl of the bookshop.



As the story progresses the plot takes a weird turn that even makes Tess stand still for a moment in utter surprise, as the perp is just someone who’s trying to do something right, the wrong way. And he, just like the heroine, has the love of books as his driving force.



If you expect too much action and a deep-seeded mystery in the book at hand, perhaps you’ll be disappointed. However if you want to read a well-written story about lonely souls, and not so desperate people, who find refuge in the pages of the books, you’ll absolutely love it. This is one of the best volumes in the series.



Reviews of other books in the series:



The Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen

An Acceptable Sacrifice by Jeffery Deaver

The Scroll by Anne Perry