Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 40
August 9, 2018
“Early Riser” by Jasper Fforde (2018)
[image error] “Mrs Tiffen could play the bouzouki.”
Jasper Fforde has – even by his own admission – been undergoing a creative hiatus these last few years. He doesn’t know what caused it anymore than his readers do, but suffice to say the literary landscape has been missing its shine peculiar to the man for the duration. As one of the finest and funniest writers we have, it was a huge relief that this month finally saw the release of his newest book, almost two years after it was originally announced.
Ffor...
August 4, 2018
“Want You Dead” by Peter James (2014)
[image error] “Karl Murphy was a decent and kind man, a family doctor with two small children whom he was bringing up on his own.”
The Peter James series about Brighton detective Roy Grace rolls on, with Want You Dead being the tenth instalment. In the hands of a lesser author, the series could be getting tired by now, and yet here we are, with me finished and wanting to get hold of the next one. We return to Brighton’s criminal underbelly to meet with an obsessed stalker.
Red Westwood had left a dull rela...
July 31, 2018
Book Chat: Kate Goodbody
[image error]Kate Goodbody is the brain behind the travel blog “More Native Than The Natives”, which explores the world from the points of view of herself and fellow bloggers who have been to the places in question. Several months ago I contributed by pointing out the best places in Brighton to quench your thirst. When not working on this, the 23-year-old travels a lot and is a former resident of Paris. She volunteers in an art gallery and also serves as a tutor for French, English and Maths.
When travell...
July 27, 2018
“Notes On A Nervous Planet” by Matt Haig (2018)
[image error] “I was stressed out.”
The world is moving ever faster and sometimes it feels like a struggle just to hold on. With the constant bombardment of adverts, breaking news, tweets, social media updates and fear-mongering by anyone with Internet access, it’s no wonder that rates of anxiety, depression and mental malaise seem to have risen so sharply. Fortunately, there are people who are trying to make sense of it all and give us a way to speak out about it. Matt Haig is one of the best.
A couple of...
July 24, 2018
“Colour Scheme” by Ngaio Marsh (1943)
[image error] “When Dr James Ackrington limped into the Harpoon Club on the afternoon of Monday, January the thirteenth, he was in a poisonous temper.”
I keep reading reviews that tell me Ngaio Marsh was an even better mystery writer than Agatha Christie. No disrespect meant to Marsh, but she isn’t. She’s good, don’t get me wrong, but her stories lack something that Christie’s had, although I’m not sure I would ever be able to pinpoint exactly what it was. They’re just different, and that’s almost certainl...
July 18, 2018
“The Witches” by Roald Dahl (1983)
[image error] “In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks.”
I’ve been re-reading all of Roald Dahl this year, but most of them I haven’t reviewed as they’re often too short for me to have much to say about them. The Witches, however, I have to talk about. Inexplicably, despite being a Dahl fan throughout my childhood and this battered copy sitting on my shelf for as long as I can remember, I’ve somehow never read it. I don’t really know how it slippe...
July 15, 2018
“Lost Boy” by Christina Henry (2017)
[image error] “Sometimes I dreamed of blood.”
When books enter the public domain, it’s always an interesting moment. People suddenly have the freedom to explore the worlds and add to them, for better or for worse. Many books, will eventually spawn prequels and sequels that probably stray entirely from the plans of the original writer. The Alice in Wonderland books have been explored repeatedly, and there’s always the “companion” books to Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre (Death Comes to Pemberley and Wide...
July 9, 2018
“Kill Your Boss” by Shane Kuhn (2014)
[image error] “If you’re reading this, you’re a new employee at Human Resources, Inc.”
I remember reading once that you’re more likely to die prematurely being a character in a soap opera than you are in a war. In literature, it seems that the odds are stacked even more against you. There are so few books that don’t involve the two constants somewhere in their narrative – love and death. And in literature, we meet not only the victims and those tracking down the killers, but we get to know quite a lot of t...
July 4, 2018
“Bleaker House” by Nell Stevens (2017)
[image error] “This is a landscape an art-therapy patient might paint to represent depression: grey sky and a sweep of featureless peat rising out of the sea.”
I seem to have an unfortunate attraction to books about loneliness. They have in the past caused my own feelings to become exacerbated, but occasionally they do the opposite and make me feel less alone. Bleaker House is definitely one that falls into the latter category.
This book – which I first picked up thinking it was fiction – follows Nell Stev...
June 30, 2018
Book Chat: Ste Sharp
[image error]Ste Sharp is another one of the myriad authors working with Unbound to get his projects off the ground. Earlier this year, he achieved the funding on his debut novel, Darwin’s Soldiers, the first in a trilogy about rapidly evolving warriors. By day, however, you may not suspect him of writing something like this, being a 41-year-old IT developer for a major publisher. After years working on the technical side of book production, he’s decided it’s time to swap sides for a bit.
A family man, he...
