Michael J. Ritchie's Blog, page 42

A Short Survey

Hi everyone, Michael here, not with a book review today.

I’ve been running this blog for over five years now and it hasn’t changed much in that time. The number of visitors has steadily increased through which has been thrilling to see, but I’d love to be able to attract more people to the site and help recommend books to even more people! Therefore, if you’ve found yourself here today, would you be willing to give up five minutes of your time to fill in a completely anonymous survey on your...

“So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish” by Douglas Adams (1984)

[image error] “That evening it was dark early, which was normal for the time of year.”

Continuing the oddest trilogy in history, I’ve hitchhiked on a Vogon spaceship, eaten out at the end of the universe, and discovered the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Only one thing left to do – thank everyone for the seafood. Ready? On we go.

By his count, Arthur Dent has lived the last eight years of his life travelling around the galaxy, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a group of insane aliens. It’...

“Mendelssohn Is On The Roof” by Jiří Weil (1960)

[image error] “Antonin Becvar and Josef Stankovsky were on the roof, walking around the statues.”

As a general rule, I try and avoid books that heavily feature the Holocaust and the dark days of the Second World War, but there are exceptions, of course. It’s a part of our history that I simply cannot fathom and I find the whole area so depressing to think about that I decided a while ago to not read fiction about it. Of course it’s an important historical event and I’m not suggesting otherwise, but with so...

“Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach (1979)

[image error] “It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.”

Many books like to show us the world from the point of view of an animal. Obviously there’s Animal Farm, or The Animals of Farthing Wood, The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa that gives a lizard-eye view of the world, or The Last Family in England from Matt Haig which shows us life through the eyes of a pet dog. In this instance, the book appears to have more in common with the likes of Br’er Rabbit...

“Remarkable Creatures” by Tracy Chevalier (2009)

[image error] “Lightning struck me all my life.”

History, as we all know, has given women a rough ride of it. One could read through numerous history books and believe that, aside from the occasional queen or witch, women hadn’t appeared until the 1920s. This inequality is the reason that Watson and Crick are considered the discoverers of DNA leaving out Rosalind Franklin who did most of the preliminary research, or why Charles Babbage is hailed as the first computer scientist, leaving Ada Lovelace often i...

“The Lonely City” by Olivia Laing (2016)

[image error]“Imagine standing by a window at night, on the sixth or seventeenth or forty-third floor of a building.”

Like many readers, I am in many ways an introvert, happy to spend a fair amount of time by myself indulging in particularly solitary activities – reading, writing, watching series on Netflix that no one else wants to. However, while hell may be other people, sometimes they’re necessary and there’s no denying I’m no stranger to loneliness. I often seem to find myself draw to books on the to...

Book Chat: Ben Van der Velde

[image error]Ben Van der Velde is a hard-working stand-up comedian currently flogging his gags across Europe, but is centred mainly in London, where he runs Good Ship Comedy. As if touring and writing his own hilarious material wasn’t enough, he also serves as a Maze Master at the Crystal Maze Experience in London, a job anyone of a certain age would kill for.

I first encountered him thanks to his excellent podcast, Worst Foot Forward, which he co-hosts with friend and actor Barry Brett-McStay. Each week...

“The Invisible Library” by Genevieve Cogman (2015)

[image error] “Irene passed the mop across the stone floor in smooth, careful strokes, idly admiring the gleam of wet flagstones in the lantern-light.”

With a name like Genevieve Cogman, it feels almost inevitable that she penned a novel with a steampunk flavour. Someone, I forget who, had suggested this series to me a long time ago under the logic that my love of books would mean I would adore a story set in an enormous magical library. Indeed, I thought I would adore it too. Here’s the premise.

Irene wor...

“Dead Man’s Time” by Peter James (2013)

[image error] “The boy’s father kissed him goodnight for the last time – although neither of them knew that.”

It’s not been long since my last visit to the criminal underbelly of Brighton, but the next visit is never all that far away. I’m going to crack on, but there may be spoilers here if you’ve not read the rest of the series and are bothered about having aspects of the ongoing plot revealed too soon. If not, press on.

A few weeks after the birth of his son, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace hopes tha...

“Death And The Dancing Footman” by Ngaio Marsh (1942)

[image error]“On the afternoon of a Thursday early in 1940, Jonathan Royal sat in his library at Highfold Manor.”

As the sunshine finally breaks through and the northern half of the planet remembers that spring exists, I instead make my way back to the 1940s to a snowy scene of murder and mystery. Yes, it’s a return to the works of Ngaio Marsh, the woman I’m currently interviewing as a replacement for Agatha Christie. Both women are hugely regarded in their field, and people it seems tend to view one or t...