I read most of this book in one day. It seems short though it claims to be 315 pages long.

It starts off well. The subject matter is original; there aren’t many books out there about a child, Daniel, who allegedly murders a child. But the story is that of the accused’s solicitor, Leo Curtice, and the effect that defending Daniel has on his family.

There are some tense parts in the book, like when the car Leo is in gets mobbed or when he and his family are being stalked on a day trip. The dialogue mostly feels very real. But there’s nothing that makes the book any more than just reasonablly well written. The ending felt out of place because most of the book until that point focusses on Leo’s situation and also Daniel’s to a lesser extent but the conclusion – here I don’t want to spoil the ending – doesn’t.

Something that annoyed me at various points in the book is the use of the pronouns he or she without naming the character so that the reader isn’t clear, at least for a short while, who is being written about. Sarah Winman also does it in When God Was a Rabbit. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate or not but I strongly dislike it!

In summary, compared to the other books I’ve read, I’d say that The Child Who is only average.

(32nd in 2012)

This December it will be 20 years since I went to India. The White Tiger brought back many memories from then.

In the book Aravind Adiga tells us the truth about India. About how poverty and ignorance crush most of the poor and corruption ensures most of the rich remain that way. The protagonist – The White Tiger – pulls off a rare trick: he escapes his position as a servant and becomes a master.

There’s nothing that feels fictional about this book. The superstitious beliefs, the mannerisms, the way characters talk and so on…all feel very familiar to me. Yet there is something more that marks this book out as special: it’s very angry but breathtakingly articulate. The sarcasm and wit is dazzling. At other times the book is rather touching and even tragic. It’s quite a journey.

The Guardian interviewed Adiga when The White Tiger won The Booker Prize in 2008.

(31st in 2012)

I bought this book for my Kindle mostly because it only cost 20p but also because I was intrigued that a book by the rapper 50 Cent had such good reviews. It’s a children’s book, or perhaps a teenager’s book given that the protagonist Butterball is thirteen years old.

I enjoyed the language, which reminded me a little of how they talk in The Wire. The prose is very fresh and real; I could hear Butterball talking to me. There is a shock in the book, which perhaps others will see coming a mile off, but it was certainly a jolt for me. I loved the illustrations too. I’m now wondering how much is autobiographical and how much is fiction.

In summary this is a very cool (or should I say tight?) tale which teaches valuable lessons without being preachy. Playground an unusual choice for me, but I was pleasantly surprised.

(30th in 2012)

I had heard about this book on The TV Book Club and thought it sounded intriguing. Mark read it on holiday and reported that it was good.

I loved Parts 1 & 2. They are very unsettling; there is a tension throughout. My imagination ran wild as I read, conjuring all sorts of scenarios for protagonist Christine. I felt as paranoid as she is. The book very successfully puts the reader into her mind. I experienced paranoia, fear, relief and hopelessness numerous times.

Part 3 somehow doesn’t fit in with the previous parts. The plot becomes unfeasible and silly. The other thing that bugged me was Christine’s journal. Not only are the entries incredibly lengthy, they aren’t written in a diary style either.

I have to mention that it reminded me strongly of the film Memento, right down to the note to him/herself that says ‘Don’t trust (insert character’s name)’

But, in spite of the flaws, Before I Go To Sleep is a thoroughly enjoyable, gripping read.

(29th in 2012)

This is this month’s reading group book. It was also featured on The TV Book Club. On the programme there is an interview with the author Clare Morrall. She says that she wanted to explore what would happen if a husband/father suddenly disappeared. In fact I think she covers the thoughts of the wife (Kate) left behind quite well. But it is very introspective and miserable and so it feels like hard work to read. I found the husband’s (Felix) story to be inconsistent and unbelievable at many stages, for example how could a man who was so determined to create a happy family just disappear without even letting them know he was alive?

The one thing I did enjoy was how well the younger children – Millie and Rory – are imagined. Their interactions with other youngsters took me back to my own childhood. I remember admiring older/prettier girls and at school the way Millie does. I remember trying to deal with bullying behaviour the way Rory does: thinking that I could get the perpetrator to be my friend by making them laugh.

Overall I didn’t like this book. The story isn’t convincing and the book drags on and on as there’s nothing of note happening during most of it. The ending is rather an anticlimax. I was relieved that it was over.

(28th in 2012)

I’ve just finished reading this book. I really enjoyed it. It is written in a very clear and approachable style which makes it a perfect holiday read. I identified with the narrator’s situation: a young woman to whom something bad happens in her late teens which results in her living a safe but very limited life into her twenties. The author seems to have done very thorough research on quadriplegia. It’s not a a subject that sit comfortably in chick lit but somehow Jojo Moyes pulls it off.

There were many times when I felt like I was reading a book for teenagers but there are odd passages that are breathtakingly vivid and recognisable. I suppose the writing style is simple and unsophisticated in comparison to the last book I read: The Sense of an Ending. I was found that I was surprised when I came across the occasional perfectly articulated passage. My favourite example is when Lou goes to a classical concert for the first time:

The conductor stepped up, tapped twice on the rostrum, and a great hush descended. I felt the stillness, the auditorium alive, expectant. Then he brought down his baton and suddenly everything was pure sound. I felt the music like a physical thing, it didn’t just sit in my ears, it flowed through me, around me, made my senses vibrate. It made my skin prickle and my palms dampen. Will hadn’t descibed any of it like this.

I found this book took me through a range of emotions. It is what they call a page turner. I didn’t find it funny as apparently others have but parts of it are deeply moving.

SPOILER ALERT –>

I was completely gutted by the ending. It was a good ending but it was very upsetting and not the uplifting conclusion I’d expected. I do respect the author for taking that route though.

(27th in 2012)

This is a very well written book. Lucid and wonderfully perceptive, Barnes’ writing reminds me of McEwan’s.

The theme of the book is memory and how it creates a version of the past that doesn’t match up with other people’s versions or even one’s own version from a different time. That’s before ‘The Truth’ even comes into consideration. The blurb calls it ‘the story of one man coming to terms with the mutable past’.

I found the ending a little odd because some details are missing, leaving the reader to fill in the gaps using their imagination. At first I thought I had missed something but I found discussions about the conclusion on online forums expressing similar opinions to mine. However, I can forgive that since the book is a very good read; I was completely absorbed in the narrator’s journeys through his memories. The book strikes several nerves with me: I am painfully aware that I attempt to rewrite my own history (I suppose to try to save face) and I am always producing justifications for my illogical actions. Perhaps one day I will train myself to be more logical, like Mark is. In the meantime I will be very careful about what I say in all my written communications…

This is my favourite passage:
[Adrian] had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the rest common sense.

Of course it’s deliberate but reading through some bits of the book again, they are chillingly prophetic. This is one of Adrian’s speeches in a History lesson:

‘Indeed, isn’t the whole business of ascribing responsibility a kind of cop-out? We want to blame an individual so that everyone else is exculpated. Or we blame a historical process as a way of exonerating individuals. Or it’s all anarachic chaos, with the same consequence. It seems to me that there is – was – a chain of individual responsibilities, all of which were necessary, but not so long a chain that everybody can simply blame everyone else. But, of course, my desire to ascribe responsibility might be more a reflection of my own cast of mind than a fair analysis of what happened. That’s one of the central problems of history, isn’t it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to now the history of the historian in order to understand the version that is being put in front of us.’

(26th in 2012)

This was my reading group’s book of the month. Again, it’s not one I would have chosen to read myself but that’s one of the reasons I joined a group: to discover new writing.

I found Cranford quite difficult to read; the construction of sentences and vocabulary used are very unfamiliar to me. I also found the first chapter – Our Society – very annoying. All the silly rules they live by and the way everyone colludes to keep up appearances.

As I got used to the style of the writing I was more able to appreciate the humour and poignant moments in the book: the cat swallowing the lace that was soaked in milk, the cow dressed in flannel and Martha nudging a guest when he took too long to help himself to potatoes and the card game where they didn’t want to wake the snoozing Mrs Jamieson but at the same time endeavoured to accommodate Mrs Forrester’s deafness. The funniest was when Lady Glenmire gets engaged while Mrs Jamieson is away: ‘The person whom she had left in charge of her house to keep off followers from her maids to set up a follower of her own!’

There are sad times: the death of Peter’s mother, the death of Miss Deborah Jenkyns. I felt for Miss Matty when she starts to wear a widow’s hood after the death of Mr Holbrook. She is forced to face the loss of her youth, the missed chances of married life and children but she puts a brave face on it, saying how lucky she is to have such good friends.

It is touching that, in the end, friendships do prevail. When Miss Matty become bankrupt her friends club together to anonymously help her financially, when Miss Jessie Brown wants to follow her father’s corpse to the grave, Miss Deborah Jenkyns accompanies her even though women didn’t usually attend funerals ‘in polite society’.

I watched a couple of episodes of the BBC dramatisation of Cranford when I was halfway through the book. It brought the book alive for me. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed the remainder of the book as much if I hadn’t seen the characters and places brought to life on screen; I needed it to fire up my imagination.

Note: If you’re going to read this book for the first time I would recommend the version that the above photo links to (rather than the free Kindle version) as it contains notes, a glossary and interesting appendices.

(25th in 2012)