46 posts tagged “book review”
The Spook's Battle ~ Joseph Delaney
This is book 4 in the Wardstone Chronicles and continues from where The Spook's Secret left off. I read it directly after finishing the previous book so I was already well into the story.
Spoiler alert - if you've not read this book and you want to, there are some spoilers in the following review.
This book features again the three main characters of the Spook, Tom and Alice, but this time they leave the safety of the Spook's house to go up to Pendle with the intention of finally sorting out the families of witches up there. There are three witch families/clans who are usually at each other's throats but they have now started to join forces with the intention of raising 'the dark made flesh', otherwise known as the Devil himself. As before Joseph Delaney has taken folklore from the area and used it in the book, although on this occasion, it's not so much folklore as actual history. The Pendle area is full of history of witchcraft, so it's a natural place to locate the events of this book. The three families of Malkin, Deane and Mouldheel are fictional, although Malkin Tower did exist.
I've said before about how book #4 in a long series seems to be the one with the Big Battle Where Important Stuff Happens. This was true of both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Sir Thursday from Garth Nix's Keys To The Kingdom series. It is also true of this series too which is a rather strange but interesting occurrence. In this book, Tom and Alice do most of the work, the Spook disappears quite early on and only seems to return towards the end in time for the big battle.
I enjoyed this book as much as I'd enjoyed the others, though I did find some of it a little random. I couldn't quite understand the relevance of some of the events, such as Tom and the priest staying at the manor or why the creature had been created. That section seemed kind of superfluous to the plot somehow. The treasure that was hidden in the trunks was something I had worked out fairly early on so that wasn't much of a surprise but it was still a nice plot point. None of these things really detracted from the story, it was still an engaging read and kept me engrossed.
The ending however was a little disappointing. Tom rushes back to the special room in the house, although he can't rush that fast as he's going by foot. I do find the constant walking a little tiresome (no pun intended). Do they not have horses to ride? Surely that would have been a much better way for Tom to go back and wouldn't have made much difference to the story. Finally, he gets to the house, shuts himself up in the room and .... nothing really happens. He stays in there, time passes, he's visited by a ghost and then he comes out again. Okay, so the world has changed in the time he's been in there but it seemed a bit of a let-down. I was expecting either the battle in Pendle to avert the arrival of the Devil, or for there to be a further battle which gets rid of him but neither of these happen. This ended reminded me rather of the ending to Goblet of Fire where Voldemort is returned to life with a similar ceremony but no one knows and so life goes on. The next book in the series, The Spook's Mistake is already available so hopefully more will be revealed there.
The Spook's Secret ~ Joseph Delaney
I think that one of the main problems with reading the books in a series one after the other, is that they can get a bit samey and you get bored with them after a while. This is the third book in The Wardstone Chronicles series and I've read them all back to back which may not be such a good idea. As well as them getting a bit samey, it's hard to think of new things to say about them!
Spoiler Warning! If you've not read this book, then there are spoilers ahead!
This books takes the Spook and his apprentice to their winter house at Anglezarke where a hard winter is threatened. At the winter house, Tom meets Meg, one of the Spook's previous loves and her surprising secret is revealed. Except that it's not really, because it's made blatantly obvious in the previous book that she's a lamia witch. What is surprising is that she can't tell that Tom also has that in his background. Although it's not specifically said, I have no doubt that Mam is also a lamia witch and as such has passed some of her qualities on to Tom. Surely Meg should be able to recognise that?
There's also the introduction of Morgan, one of the Spook's previous apprentices who didn't make the grade. Morgan is labouring under the delusion that the Spook is his father, although why he thinks this is not made clear. He's supposed to be intelligent and also has the power to speak to the dead, so why he doesn't just ask his now deceased mother the truth of his father's identity is beyond me. Maybe logic doesn't make for interesting reading! Morgan wants to raise Golgoth, an old god of winter, in order to become very powerful. I'm not sure if Golgoth is based on an actual local legend, it doesn't sound at all familiar to me in that respect; however, the idea of having someone who creates an eternal winter is very familiar to anyone who has read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
I think I would have to say that this book is not as good as the previous one in my opinion. The characters haven't grown much and the plot is rather thin and drawn out for far too long. The fourth book is set in Pendle and deals with the witches up there, so that might be interesting reading.
This is the second book in the Wardstone Chronicles series which started with The Spook's Apprentice. The book continues the story of Thomas J. Ward's apprenticeship under the Spook and what experiences he has. In this book, the Spook and Tom travel to Priesttown to attend a funeral and end up fighting an evil force there called the Bane with the help of Alice.
As before, the locations in the book are based on actual locations from Lancashire. Here, Priesttown is based on Preston and uses its previous name. There are several locations from the town which are mentioned, such as streets and some of the pubs which I found quite amusing as I know Preston reasonably well. Again, it's obvious that the author knows the area and is able to drop in street names and describe them in such a way as to make them recognisable. It's almost like being privy to an inside joke or secret which is quite nice. There are other places such as Heysham which are mentioned without having their names changed and I'm not sure why this is, unless it's because some places names have changed and so the author is using the name appropriate for the time period.
I found this book much more enjoyable than the previous one and read it in a matter of hours. It's nowhere near as gruesome as the previous book which may have been one reason why I enjoyed it so much. The characters are pretty similar to the first book, the Spook is as crotchety as ever and Alice as annoying though Tom maybe getting a little better as he doesn't seem to be quite as stupid as before which is a nice improvement. Tom's mother becomes more of an important character in this book and there is some mystery surrounding her and her abilities. I'm pretty sure that there are also lots of clues as to her origins which aren't that difficult to work out but I get the feeling that this will be revealed at a later date when it is more pertinent to the plot. I think she is the one sympathetic character and possibly one of the more intriguing ones so I hope that the plot does her justice. There are also several mentions of the increasing dark which I'm guessing means that the series will climax in a final big showdown between Tom and whatever form the dark takes.
All in all, a good book which is possibly unusual in being better than the first. Hopefully the series will continue in this manner!
I heard about this series quite some time ago but I never got around to reading them till recently. I was in the library looking for some other books and noticed that they had the first four books of this series so I thought I should take advantage of that and took the lot. I was quite looking forward to reading them because they're set in Lancashire - although it's just called the County in the books - and it can be really nice to read something that's set in the place where you live.
The main plot of this first book is that a young lad by the name of Thomas J. Ward is being apprenticed to the local Spook. This is a job which involves ridding the County of all manner of dark beings such as ghosts, ghasts, boggarts and witches. This being Lancashire, there are plenty of them to deal with. Especially witches. There does seem to be much use made of local folklore and legends such as boggarts and the Pendle witches who are referred to several times. Old Mother Malkin is presumably named for Malkin Tower where the main Pendle witches lived.
The book is quite well written and it's obvious that the author not only knows Lancashire very well but loves it too. The descriptions of the scenery and natural features of the county are very well done and this helps to not only set the scene but also adds to the story itself. The landscape - and weather - are almost a character in its own right. The towns and villages mentioned are certainly renamed versions of actual places. Chipenden where the Spook has his summer house is probably Chipping and Caster is almost certainly Lancaster. Some other places are referred to by their normal names such as Anglezarke but then again, that's such an usual name that it almost sounds made up anyway!
The actual characters in the book are fairly numerous but there are 3 or 4 main ones. Tom as the apprentice is the story teller, the book is written from his point of view and so we learn what's going on as he does. He can be really really stupid and seems to spend the first half of the book doing all the things he's been explicitly told not to do and making really daft decisions which made me want to shake him. The Spook is a very mysterious character who doesn't give a lot away and expects that Tom will do exactly what he's told without question. There's more to him than meets the eye certainly, but I presume that his past is going to be spread over the course of the series. The third main character is Alice, a young girl who is caught in between being good and being bad. It's hard to tell what is going on in her head and she's constantly taking Tom - and therefore the reader - by surprise by doing something contrary to what he expected. The characterisation is quite good although there were times that they annoyed me by doing something that was blatantly stupid. I also found Alice's dialect to be rather confusing. I'm not sure where she was supposed to be from but she seemed to talk more like a Cockney than a Lancashire lass. There is some use of dialect in the book, such as referring to willow trees as withy trees, but it would have been nice to have a bit more indication of that in their speech.
Although the book is written for older children, I found it to be a little spinechilling and certainly gruesome. The tale of the previous apprentice who had his fingers eaten by a boggart and died from shock and loss of blood is certainly not something I wanted to read before bed, neither is the incident earlier on of the haunted house where Tom is forced to spend the night. People who are particularly sensitive or imaginative may find that some aspects of this book are a little intense for them, I know that it made me feel a little uneasy even though I made sure to read it during the day.
My only real complaint is with regards to the Spook's attitude to women and girls. Several times throughout the book, he tells Tom that they are not to be trusted because they are flighty and will trick him in an attempt to get him to do their bidding. The comment about not trusting girls in pointy shoes because they are witches is just ridiculous. I know that the book is probably set in an unenlightened period in history, but even so, these are not the kind of opinions that should be given to young people. Despite this, it is a good book and one that I would recommend, especially to other Lancashire people.
I happened to see this in the library and as it's not a Doctor Who novelisation that I already have or have read, I decided to pick it up. My only misgiving was that it's from the last series so the companion is Donna and I can't stand her.
The book actually wasn't too bad and I quite enjoyed it, even with Donna as companion. Thankfully she wasn't in it an awful lot so that helped as did the fact that her annoying personality and voice doesn't translate into text very well.
I thought that the plot was interesting and quite different to the previous novelisations. One of the downsides to the sheer volume of novelisations is the lack of unique ideas, or at least an interesting rehashing of an old idea. So it was refreshing this time to get a new idea and for it to be quite well written. There were several important plot points that I figured out ahead of time, but I have a tendency to do that anyway, so it's not always a failing on the side of the author.
The characterisations weren't too bad. The Doctor was captured quite well which was good because the book was mostly about him. As I've already said, Donna didn't translate to text quite so well. It's hard for me to complain about that because I dislike her so much, but the character felt very flat and insipid. It didn't matter an awful lot because she wasn't in it enough to really make much of an impression. Still, it certainly was one of the better novelisations I've read.
I quite like QI and I'd got some money for Chanuka, so when I saw that this was only £5, I bought it. If you're the sort of person who knows lots of random trivia, or just a generally inquisitive sort, then I think you'll like this book. It's full of facts, but they're the kind of facts that people generally know despite being actually incorrect. That was mainly why it appealed to me, I do like to educate myself.
I found the book quite interesting - like the title says! - and I read through it in a couple of days. It's a very easy read, and although it's not really the kind of thing that you could really read from cover to cover, I found it easy enough to do so. It certainly doesn't patronise or look down on the reader for not knowing these particular facts. If anything, it seems to be happy to inform and pass on the correct information. I liked it and would certainly recommend it to other inquisitive types.
I recently stayed in a B&B outside of Manchester for 4 weeks. As there was no internet connection and very little in the way of entertainment, I was pleased to see that they'd supplied a bookshelf full of Reader's Digest Condensed books. I managed to work my way through several of them and I'm going to review them all in one go.
A Curate For All Seasons ~ Fred Secombe
I had no idea that Harry Secombe had a brother, much less one who was a priest or an author! This book seems to be along the same lines as the James Herriot books, except it's about a new priest in Wales, rather than a vet in Yorkshire. The main focus of the book is the people Fred meets, rather than himself and so it makes for an amusing read. It's certainly enjoyable and mostly lighthearted.
Doctor On Trial ~ Harry Denker
This book is about a female doctor who ends up facing a charge of manslaughter and malpractice. One of the main points of the book is that it's a female doctor and a lot of the characters find this a problem so it's obviously very dated. It's not a bad book, but the archaic attitudes towards the female doctor made it a bit hard to take.
Fatherland ~ Robert Harris
This is a sci fi/fantasy book that is set in a world where Germany won the Second World War. It's obviously a bit of a touchy subject but I was curious to see how it would be dealt with. I was actually quite disappointed, it didn't seem futuristic in any way, it could have just been taken directly from the war years rather than 1964 which was when it was supposed to be set. I found some of the 'history' a bit questionable, but I didn't know if that was because I was reading a condensed version or not. It's stated that the Germans found out that the British had cracked the Enigma Code, but there's no explanation as to how. Although it started out fairly well, the plot seemed to struggle and finally ended up with the entire thing coming down to the Holocaust. Although I should have expected that aspect of the Second World War to come into it somewhere, it seemed to be a cheap shot or a copout for lack of a better idea. It also seemed to be really implausible in this particular world.
The Boy Who Invented The Bubble Gun ~ Paul Gallico
I couldn't tell whether this book was aimed at adults or children. It's about a 9 year old boy and is written in a fairly simplistic style so it's probably aimed more at children. It's a strange story though, about a boy who gets on a bus to Washington by himself to patent his invention. It's very obviously dated because it would never happen in this day and age and it's hard to picture a time when a small boy travelling on his own wouldn't have been questioned. He gets taken advantage of quite badly and the ending made me very confused as well as sad. I'm not sure what a child would get from this book, except maybe not to trust any adult at all.
The Memoirs Of An Invisible Man ~ H. F. Saint
This is not the Invisible Man as written by H.G. Wells, and it's easy to get this book confused with that original. It's still a good book and I enjoyed reading it, although I've not read the original so I don't know how they compare. I did get the feeling once I'd finished it that the ending was extremely familiar but I'm pretty sure I've not read this book before.
The Scofield Diagnosis ~ Henry Denker
This is another medical thriller by the same author as the book above. It's also a very similar sort of story where the main factor is that there's a female doctor and no one trusts her to be any good or as good as the male doctors. There's also a factor of child abuse which may have been a new subject for a novel when it was originally written but these days it's not as cutting edge as it probably was then.
The Tower ~ Richard Martin Stern
When I was reading this, it seemed to be a forerunner of sorts to the events of September 11th. It's only now that I've found out the building in the book was based on the original World Trade Centre tower, and also that the book was then the basis for the film The Towering Inferno. It's not a bad book but I found the reasons for the fire were a little lacking. I also thought that there was more emphasis put on finding out how it started and who did it, than rescueing the people trapped at the top. I wasn't all that bothered about them anyway, they were all a bit bland and annoying.
I've read this book before but not for quite a while, and when I had a sudden desire to read it I thought I might as well. It didn't take me very long at all, just a couple of days. I probably could have read it straight through in one sitting if I'd had the time or the inclination, but it took me longer because I was looking for all the places and artworks on Wikipedia. I actually found that quite helpful and interesting; being able to see a picture of the artwork being discussed or the location added to the reading because I was able to understand the relevance or just picture the scene better. I think a book like this which relies very heavily on knowledge or descriptions of a piece of art, a building or town needs some visuals to help the reader.
This book is the sequel of sorts to the The Da Vinci Code. It's not a complete sequel in that the story doesn't carry on or refer to previous events, it just uses the same main character of Robert Langdon. Knowledge of the previous book isn't necessary at all as Robert Langdon's creditials and background are given early on. The rest of the characters in the book are new. There is an awful lot of them and as the story switches between at least three different settings, it can be fairly tricky to remember who they all are. I know I had to refer back in the book several times to find out which was which. One of the downsides to having so many characters - apart from confusing the reader - is that it's hard to make them all seem well-rounded and solid. I think that most of the characters in this book are insubstantial and it's really hard to care about them. Considering that an awful lot of those characters end up dying, there does need to be some kind of connection to the reader. As for the main character, I've always had trouble picturing him as being in his mid-40s as described. It seems to me that someone who has accomplished as much as he has and to have become such a respected and acclaimed expert, it would seem more plausible for him to be late 50s at the very least. Then again, maybe he needs to be younger to make him more attractive and appealing to the reader.
On top of the issues with the characterisation, this book is quite simply appallingly written. The writing style seems to be dominated by a plethora of really short sentences, which may have been a deliberate attempt to express urgency and speed, but it just irritated me. It is also chock full of errors. Within the first few pages I had already picked up on several glaring ones and I found that the best way to progress through the book was just to suspend all beliefs and prior knowledge. It was really quite irritating to have to gloss over such simple mistakes such as mobile phones have dial tones, CERN invented the internet, Michaelangelo designed the uniforms of the Swiss Guard and Winston Churchill was a Catholic. All of these can be verified with a simple search on Google! I have no idea how much research Dan Brown did in this book, but it seems like he didn't do any, especially if he's making such outlandish statements such as "references to all works of art, tombs, tunnels, and architecture in Rome are entirely factual (as are their exact locations)" which is at the start of the book.
The only reason I ever read this book was because I love the idea of hidden messages and meanings as well as having to solve cryptic puzzles. This is the main plot of the book and I think it's that idea that Dan Brown can do well. His manner of executing it and the extent of his research - and wildly inaccurate claims - however, have made him and his works little more than a laughing stock. If you are able to treat this book as pure fantasy, set in a parallel universe where the signal from a wireless camera can not be found in a matter of minutes, then you may find it an enjoyable read. I would recommend getting it from a library though, don't waste your money on buying it.
I'd heard of this book thanks to the popular musical that it has now been turned into, but I didn't know a great deal of the plot. A friend recommended that I read it and so I did.
My first thought when I started to read it, was that there must be very few books where you know already what the ending is going to be before you even start it. Unless you have not seen or heard anything about the film of The Wizard of Oz, that is, and due to the impact it has had on popular culture, that has to be a very small percentage of people. So you know that the Witch dies in the end. It kind of reminded me in a very strange way of the play Evita; she starts the play off dead, and then you see how she got to that point so it's kind of told in reverse.
This is a very hefty book. It does cover a great deal of ground though; it starts from when the Witch is born right up to her final moments, which is nearly 40 years. Although the original Oz series is written for children, this is very definitely not an children's book. This is made quite clear from the start which includes mention of sex, and uses the words tits and cocks. At first, I wasn't really sure that such language was necessary, it seemed to smack rather of 'this is an adult book, so I'm going to use really base language, just because I can!' Especially when the same chapter had the phrase 'the cloven place' which seems to be an outdated term. It wasn't until later on that I realised the author was probably trying to portray how coarse the midwives were to use such terms in their speech, but I'm not sure it came over very well.
The main theme of the story is very much discussion of evil, what it is and whether it's inherent in our nature. It's also the original obsession of the Witch and so it gets brought up a lot throughout the book. Of course, with a title like Wicked, and the main character being a witch, it was bound to be an important factor, but it did get a bit repetitive though and seemed as though the Witch couldn't think of anything else to talk about.
There are lots of characters in this book. Some appear and reappear through the story, others aren't quite so important. The main character of course is the Witch herself. She has been given the name of Elphaba (pronounced EL-fa-ba) which was created from L. Frank Baum's initial, L-F-B. I thought that was a really nice touch and very clever. It also lead to the amusing short version 'Elphie' which of course, is not the kind of name you imagine a witch to have. Elphie turns out to be a really interesting character and is very well written. I was quite surprised to find myself both identifying and sympathising with her and her life experiences. She's a very well rounded character; she's intelligent, sarcastic but protective to those she loves, idealistic and well aware of her faults. With this being a book, rather than a film, I kept forgetting that she is also green which I think actually works in the book's favour. When we get to know a person, we look beyond their external appearance and I think that's why it helps here. I was surprised that the author had decided that green was not a normal skin colour even in Oz, I was expecting that a place which had talking animals would be a bit less uniform in that area.
I did find the book to be a bit heavy going in places and there were time when I just wasn't sure at all what it was trying to say. There's probably a lot in it that I didn't get, and it left me with lots of questions at the end. I didn't understand why there were all the references to Elphaba being 'a girl by nature, if not by choice' (I can't remember the exact quote) and there didn't seem to be any explanation for it. I also didn't understand why Nessarose had to be born without arms, as it was just completely bizarre. The plan of Madam Morrible which was mentioned twice didn't seem to have any point or resolution that I could see and neither was there any reason for Nessarose and Elphaba to be given the completely inappropriate nickname of 'wicked witch'. I don't know whether any further reads of the book would make these things clearer or not but I'm not sure I would actually want to read it again because it was so confusing and heavy going. It's a shame because it was a good book with some really good characters, but just left me rather bemused at the end.
The
Pig Of Happiness ~ Edward Monkton
Until just now, when I was researching Edward Monkton to write this review, I didn't know anything about the author or the books. I'd previously read one of his books, the one entitled Love and I didn't quite get it because there seemed to be some joke behind it that I was missing. Now that I know the author is actually Giles Andreae, the man behind Purple Ronnie; I can now see the similarity in the drawing style of the two creations, but I think that the ideas behind the two entities are quite different. The only reason I happened to pick up this book because it was a present that my sister had received and I was curious about the contents of a book with such a title. I flipped through the pages and within the space of about five minutes, I had read the entire thing.
The book itself is very short. It consists of 32 pages (according to Amazon) but I think that total probably includes the title page and the other pages that don't actually have any of the story on them. The story itself takes up very few pages at all. It has a crudely drawn cartoon style picture on one side and accompanying text on the other. Think of something like a slightly larger version of a Mr Man book, and you'll be on the right track.
It's hard to really comment on the plot of the story because to summarise the plot would be to tell the entire story - it's just that short! There's probably more words in this review than there is in the entire book! It's pretty much a simple philosophical tale, a modern-day parable if you will. At least that's the description from Amazon. It is a nice little story, with a nice inspirational moral at the end and the kind of thing that you could read whenever you need a lift or a bit of a kick in the arse to get motivated. Personally, that sort of book is not really to my taste, but it was a nice little story all the same.
