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Loading... Dayby A. L. Kennedy
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I read this because it was named Cosyta Book of hte Year for 2008. It was big disappointment. The author insists on grating the reader with at least a thousand uses of the f-word, as well as having her central character an adulterer and murderer. I found the book an awful bore and was glad when I was finished. Fiction about a bomber crew can be very exciting--see, e.g., Twelve O'Clock High--but this book was a chore to read (  ) Schmerguls | Apr 27, 2009 |  Reading the cover, and seeing the recommendations in various books sections of newspapers, this suggested an interesting, imaginative and perhaps sad book set against the background of the second world war. Day is a deeply disturbed man, not surprising considering his background and being a tailgunner in a WW2 bomber. A disturbing, sad, uplifting and, in places odd, book. At times my concentration wondered as the book did, but ultimately it is worth reading and does make you think. The fact that the author A L Day is a young woman makes this an amazing insight (  ) PIER50 | Feb 20, 2009 | Alison Louise Kennedy was born in Dundee, Scotland on 22 October 1965. What a tour de force then to write such an intimate novel about a WWII Brummie gunner named Alf Day. This is not writing what-you-know-about, it is an astonishing feat of sustained imagination. A deserved prizewinner for fiction; one would have imagined it was semi-autobiographical. ( ) dylanwolf | Aug 2, 2008 | This was not the easiest book to read. A L Kennedy's fragmented style gives the reader a stream of consciousness jumping between Alfred, the hero's, childhood, later relations with his parents, RAF training, bombing missions, wartime love affair, post-war work in a bookshop and POW camp life, both real and, later, re-enacted. It is sometimes difficult to keep pace with the jumps, particularly when the explanation of his capture and imprisonment is left so late in the book. The author creates a good picture of a man far from being at peace with himself. He was already damaged by his childhood so his war experience cannot take all the blame for this. He starts to learn to take risks with relationships and his tentative integration with his bomber crew is well worked. His love affair was less convincing - perhaps in this rather than the other masculine aspects of his life does the gender of the author become more evident. I was puzzled by the bookshop: who is Ivor, the rather solitary owner, and, more, why is he there? Alfred's interactions with him added little to the story for me. The book seeks to be redemptive but the ending is a little neat and tidy - well, OK, with ragged edges - and, as such, left me unconvinced. Overall, I think this is a worthwhile read, particularly for anyone interested in Bomber Command in WW2: the flying descriptions are evidently well researched. (  )1  abbottthomas | Jul 7, 2008 | Although this was a Costa prize winner this book just would not keep my attention. Shame as it felt like it had real potential. (  ) beetrootrabbit | Mar 31, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0307266834, Hardcover)The New York Times has called her “a world-class fiction writer.” One of Britain’s most iconoclastic and highly acclaimed young writers (“If you are at all interested in contemporary fiction, this is work you must not miss”—Richard Ford)—twice selected as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, the Encore Award and the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award—A. L. Kennedy now gives us a brilliant new novel about war for which she is receiving the strongest reviews of her career. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:13 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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