Author: Margaret

I love reading and write about the books I’ve been reading and those I’m considering reading on my blog, BooksPlease at https://booksplease.org/

The Uncertain Midnight by Edmund Cooper

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Cath’s list of her favourite books of 2013 included Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke, which reminded me that we have a copy of that book and I haven’t read it. It was up in the loft in a box of sci-fi books we’ve owned for years and I decided to get it down from the loft and read it. However, when I opened the box, Edmund Cooper’s The Uncertain Midnight looked more enticing and so I read that book – Rendezvous with Rama will have to wait a bit longer before I get round to it.

D and I aren’t sure how long we’ve had this book. He read it years ago at a time when he was reading lots of sci-fi books. It was first published in 1958 and our copy is a 1971 edition, so we’ve probably had it since the early 70s!

In the Foreword Cooper wrote that it was his first novel, which was published in America as Deadly Image, but he preferred his original title. In 1971 Cooper acknowledged that he wrote it a long time ago:

It was before the Space Age, before the development of lasers, before it was possible to give a man a new heart.

I like it because of that; it’s low on technology and high on philosophy. It’s not set in outer space, but firmly on Earth  – but Earth in the 22nd century, a world run by machines, androids, who have taken over the burdens of work and responsibility, a world where the humans are required to spend their lives in leisure pursuits, but are subject to ‘Analysis’ (brain-washing) if the androids think they are maladjusted .

John Markham emerges in 2113 after spending 146 years in suspended animation, frozen deep under ground after an atomic holocaust had devastated his world. In 2113 not all humans were happy to leave everything to the androids. Known as Runners these humans believed in ‘human dignity, freedom of action and the right to work’. Markham struggles to adapt and this raises the question of whether the androids could be said to be alive – leading to discussions about the definition of life, the difference between determinism and free will, and eventually leading to war between the androids and the Runners.

I thought it was fascinating.

Cloud Atlas: The Book and The Movie

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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell:

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified ‘dinery server’ on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation €” the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. (Copied from David Mitchell’s website.)

Over the Christmas period we watched the movie, Cloud Atlas and I was surprised at how good I thought it was. In the past I have not appreciated movies based on books, but as I hadn’t read the book (despite beginning it several times) I wasn’t influenced by it and could watch the movie with a completely open mind. It is fantastic – a kaleidoscope of visual delights, the scenery, the settings and the costumes are blazes of colour and drama. It made me want to read the book because some of the dialogue was difficult to follow – words spoken quickly and not clearly and in a sort of abbreviated English (we put the subtitles on!) and there are many changes of scene and storylines as the movie switches backwards and forwards between the six stories, sometimes only showing short scenes.

So after watching the movie I read the book.  Cloud Atlas covers a time period from the 19th century to a post apocalyptic future. It is an amazing creation (‘amazing‘ is a very overused word, but in this instance very apt), at times confusing and at times brilliant. I think seeing the movie first was for me the best way to enjoy it. Where the dialogue and plot were confusing in the movie they were clearer in the book – where each separate story is dealt with in much more detail and I could read the dialogue in the post-apocalyptic episodes slowly and take it in more easily.

But the movie really brought the whole thing alive for me and captured my imagination. I think the book is over-long, at times I began to count the pages of each section wanting it to finish – it’s not a book to read quickly; it requires patience, but on the whole I enjoyed it. I liked the change in style, suited to each time period, moving between straight narrative and letters and journal entries, encompassing historical fiction, thriller and sci-fi.

The main difference between the book and the movie is the structure – the book sets out each story in some detail, whereas the movie streamlines each one and moves quickly between them at times overlapping the dialogue. The beginning and the ending are different, with scenes in the movie that are not in the book. The actors play several roles, which actually helps identify their characters and some of the characters in the book don’t appear in the movie. So, really the book and the movie are two different creations – that complement each other.

Cloud Atlas is about good and evil, about truth and greed – for power and money – and love; it’s about freedom and slavery, about the value of the individual; and about morality and evolution, civilisation and savagery. It’s a powerful book and if it wasn’t so long I’d read it again!

Read Scotland 2014

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This year I’m taking part in Peggy Ann’s Read Scotland 2014 challenge. She has compiled this helpful list of writers:

As I’m trying to read mainly from my own books this year I’ve searched my shelves and found I already have books by these authors to fit the bill of books written by a Scottish author (by birth or immigration) or about or set in Scotland. These are a mix of fiction and non-fiction writers. I have a feeling this is not an exhaustive list. I may have more, as I hadn’t realised the Scottish connections until I started looking – I don’t usually take any notice of an author’s nationality etc when deciding what to read!

  1. John Allen
  2. Kate Atkinson
  3. R M Ballantyne
  4. Iain Banks
  5. William Barclay
  6. Chris Brookmyre
  7. John Buchan
  8. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  9. A J Cronin
  10. Barbara Erskine
  11. Neil M Gunn
  12. Jane Harris
  13. James Hogg
  14. Michael Innes
  15. Ed James
  16. Philip Kerr
  17. Leanda de Lisle
  18. Alexander McCall Smith
  19. Neil MacGregor
  20. S G MacLean
  21. Sinclair Macleod
  22. Mark MacNicol
  23. Iain Macwhirter
  24. Allan Massie
  25. Neil Oliver
  26. James Oswald
  27. Stef Penney
  28. John Prebble
  29. Ian Rankin
  30. Sir Walter Scott
  31. Tobias Smollett
  32. R L Stevenson
  33. Iain Stewart
  34. Mary Stewart
  35. Dorothy Wordsworth

Tea and Books & This Isn't Fiction Reading Challenges

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These two challenges were hosted in 2013 by Birgit at The Book Garden.

Tea & Books challenge 2013The Tea and Books Challenge was to read Books over 650 pages. I was aiming to read 4 Books for the Berry Tea Devotee Level.

I reached my target and continued to the next level, reading a total of 6 books for the Earl Grey Tea Aficionardo Level.

I read:

  1. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang €“ finished reading 12 January 2013 (720 pages)
  2. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver €“ finished reading 1 February 2013 (670 pages)
  3. The Distant Hours by Kate Morton €“ finished reading 7 April 2013 (670 pages)
  4. Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens €“ finished reading 29 June 2013 (845 pages estimated, as I read an e-book that didn’t have page numbers)
  5. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett €“ finished reading 30 August 2013 (1,076 pages)
  6. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell €“ finished reading 20 November 2013 (959 pages

For the This Isn’t Fiction Reading Challenge (ie reading non fiction) there were four Non Fictionlevels to aim for. I nearly made it to Elementary School:

  • 5 Books – Kindergarden
  • 10 Books – Elementary School
  • 15 Books – High School
  • 20 or more Books – College

Vengeance by Benjamin Black

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The first book I’ve finished this year (I began reading it at the end of last year) is a library book, Vengeance by Benjamin Black. I still have a few library books on loan from last year and I’ll be slotting in them between reading my own unread books.

Vengeance is an interesting book, ostensibly crime fiction, because there are two deaths investigated by Detective Inspector Hackett and his friend, pathologist Doctor Quirke, but it’s more of a character study, with Hackett playing a minor role. It has a slow, steady pace throughout and the mystery is not complex or difficult to solve.

As often happens when I borrow books from the library I have read a book that is one of a series of books – Vengeance is number five in Black’s Quirke Mysteries series (there are currently 6 books in the series). I think it stands well on its own, with enough back story included to keep me happy.

Benjamin Black is a pseudonym used by John Banville (an author whose books I’ve enjoyed before). His Quirke Mysteries are set in Ireland in the 1950s. Vengeance begins with a suicide – Victor Delahaye, a business man who takes his boat out to sea and shoots himself. He had taken his partner’s son, Davy Clancy out to sea with him. The Delahayes and Clancys are interviewed – Mona Delahaye, the dead man’s young and very beautiful wife; James and Jonas Delahaye, his identical twin sons; Marguerite his sister; Jack Clancy, his ambitious, womanizing partner and Sylvia, Jack’s long-suffering wife.

Then there is a second death. Why did Victor kill himself and who is the murderer, wreaking vengeance on the families?

I liked Black’s style of writing – clear and concise, the characters are distinct and the setting is excellent, both in location and time, with the characters wreathed in cigarette smoke, and having to find public telephones for example. At one point a journalist comments on detective stories, comparing them to ‘real life’ investigations:

‘I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes and Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey all rolled into one. I knew I could be. I knew I’d get all the clues and work out who had done it and at the end would get to point my finger at the culprit …

And then I grew up.’ … ‘ Everything doesn’t get explained,’ he said. … ‘You find a few pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, some of them fit together, some of them you just leave lying on the board, by themselves. That was the point of those detective stories I used to read – there was nothing that didn’t mean something, nothing that wasn’t a clue. It’s not like that in real life,’ (pages 213 -214)

A nice touch, I thought.

I liked this book enough to make me want to read the earlier books in the series:

  1. Christine Falls (2006)
  2. The Silver Swan (2007)
  3. Elegy for April (2010)
  4. A Death in Summer (2011)
  5. Vengeance (2012)
  6. Holy Orders (2013)

Happy New Year 2014!

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Happy New Year everyone! I wish you all a very happy, healthy and peaceful 2014 – and one filled with many good books!

So it’s goodbye 2013 – I’ve enjoyed this year of blogging and reading – some excellent books were read.

In total I read 98 books, some very long and some very short. The longest was The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett and the shortest was Short Sentence: 10 stories of dastardly deeds, a collection of crime short stories at the minuscule length of 44 pages, which all goes to show that counting the numbers of books read is not a good guide to how much a person reads in a year. Goodreads tells me I’ve read 31, 432 pages in 2013 – but even that isn’t a true reflection because some of the e-books I read don’t have page numbers.

Most of my reading was fiction with just 9 non-fiction books. And of the fiction nearly half was crime fiction. But I think the best way to sum up my year’s reading is by how much I enjoyed them.

These are my Favourite Books of 2013 (in the order I read them)

2014 bks

These are just the tip of the iceberg – I rated 52 of the 98 books between 4 and 5 stars (using Goodreads’ system of star ratings).

And so on to 2014 – my Reading Resolutions. 

I’ve joined a few challenges this year – all aimed at reducing the numbers of unread books that I own. I actually don’t know how many I have because my record keeping on LibraryThing and Goodreads is not complete – I keep finding books I’ve not added, but know that I’ve owned for longer than a year. And then there are many books on Kindle that I haven’t listed either.

So I’m aiming:

  • To reduce the TBRs on my shelves, both physical and virtual.
  • At the same time to read what I want when I want – which means being very selective about accepting books offered for review.
  • And above all to be relaxed about reading – I’m not setting any targets for numbers of books or the number of pages read, (I usually read the same number of books each year in any case) although I won’t be able to resist checking my progress!