999 challenge - yosarian

Hello, I am a new member on LibraryThing though I have been reading the chat forums for a long time and enjoying the variety of books read / suggestions for books and authors I had never heard of that I have since discovered.
I am not sure I will be able to make the full 81 books in the year (certainly not by 9/9/09!) but I like the idea of having the different categories to try and break me out of the habit of reading the same types of books over and over again.
I have gone for 9 categories that I hope are vague enough to allow some cross-overs and also to try and get through the different types of books in my library, though of course any suggestions would be great as I alwasy welcome the opportunity to add yet more books to my growing TBR pile! One of the most annoying things I find about books I've read is that often after a few years I can remember no more about them other than I read them so I hope to add mini reviews as I go along this year to remind me of the stories and what I thought of them / the author.
this is my first post on LT so I'm not sure whether it's best to add the categories on here or have seperate posts for the different categories as others have done so I feel there may be a lot of 'editing' and re-working and if the post starts to get too long and convoluted I apologise now.

A. Biographies
1. if this is a man - primo levi
2. how to talk dirty and influence people - lenny bruce
3. memoirs of a seafaring life - william spavens
4. charles bukowski locked in the arms of a crazy life - howard sounes
5. memoirs of a british agent - r.h. bruce lockhart
6. alexander the great - robin lane fox
7. the twelve caesars - suetonius
8. blue note records - richard cook
9. this is the beat generation - james campbell

B. my TBR pile (growing larger every time I log on here & a vague enough category to allow a mixture of books)
1. manslaughter united - chris hulme (finished 10/01/09)
2. the time traveller's wife - audrey niffenegger
3. homage to catalonia - george orwell
4. new york mosaic : three novels - isabel bolton
5. conspiracy of paper - david liss
6. spanish fly - will ferguson
7. a mercy - toni morrison
8. the big con - david w. maurer
9. labyrinths - jorge luis borges

C. History
1 - 5 the birth of the middle ages the crucible of the middles ages the making of the middle ages the high middle ages the waning of the middle ages - a 5 volume set from the Folio Society, various authors, this covers over 1000 years from 400's - 1500's
6. the golden fleece - robert graves
7. the spanish armada - garrett mattingly
8. empire - niall ferguson
9. ten days that shook the world - john reed

D. Great Writer's Collection (a fortnightly collection of various authors I might not have otherwise read)
1. the grapes of wrath - john steinbeck
2. of human bondage - w somerset maugham
3. the comedians - graham greene
4. i claudius - robert graves
5. to the lighthouse - virginia woolf
6. lord jim - joseph conrad
7. vile bodies - evelyn waugh
8. passage to india - e m forster

E. Modern Prize Winners (I'll let you know my definition of "modern" at the end of the year ...)
1. white tiger - aravind adiga (finished 06/01/09)
2. white teeth - zadie smith
3. the curious incident of the dog in the night time - mark haddon
4. a short history of tractors in ukrainian - Marina Lewycka
5. small island - andrea levy
6. ringworld - larry niven
7. blood music - greg bear
8. the blind assassin - margaret atwood

F. Travel
1. the last grain race - eric newby
2. thrilling cities - ian fleming
3. driving over lemons - chris stewart
4. parrot in a pepper tree - chris stewart
5. travels with my aunt - graham greene
6. ghosts of spain - giles tremlett
7. coming into the country - john mcphee
8. baghdad without a map - tony horwitz
9. house of rain - craig childs

G. Banned Books (again another collection from a newspaper where I was able to read authors I might not have otherwise tried)
1. the metamorphosis - franz kafka
2. madame bovary - gustave flaubert
3. slaughterhouse 5 - kurt vonnegut
4. all quiet on the western front - erich maria remarque
5. clockwork orange - anthony burgess
6. lolita - vladimir nabokov
7. brave new world - aldous huxley
8. farenheit 451 - ray bradbury
9. farewell to arms - ernest hemingway

H. Sci-Fi
1. red mars - kim stanley robinson
2. green mars - kim stanley robinson
3. blue mars - kim stanley robinson
4. the demolished man - alfred bester
5. anything by robert heinlein I have heard so many good things about him

I. Crime (I normally stick to reading / enjoy the american pulp crime stories but am trying to branch out and recently read and enjoyed Tiger in the Smoke and franchise Affair so any suggestions would be welcome)
1. grifter's game - lawrence block (finished 06/01/09)
2. moving toyshop - edmund crisp
3 - 6 great stories of crime and detection a 4 volume set of short crime stories from the "beginnings to the present"
7. miss smilla's feeling for snow- peter hoeg

You have a great beginning list! Incidentally, Grapes of Wrath can cross-over into your banned books if you need to. There's an excellent book about its banning called Obscene in the Extreme, which also has a lot about the politics of the day.

I love noirish crime novels and have found that Scandinavians have a dark sensibility that is irresistable. Henning Mankell is the most popular. And I really liked My Dark Places by James Ellroy which is about his mother's murder. Dead Boys is a book of short stories by Richard Lange. They aren't mysteries, but have that hard-boiled LA thing going and are amazing and gritty and tremendously atmospheric.

thanks for the suggestions ridgeway, i have got peter hoeg's miss smilla's feeling for snow to add to my list as well but i'll certainly look out for Henning Mankell, i hadn't heard of him before.
i read ellroy's dudley smith trio omnibus last year and i really enjoyed them, i think he's a great writer and is the sort of crime books i normally read (even started off the year with lawrence block's grifter's game ) so i think My Dark places will make it onto my list too!

i have a feeling LT is going to help the list change quite a bit over the year which is why i've tried to make my categories vague enough for books to be moved around without it feeling like i'm cheating :)

Great lists! My foremost reading love is travel narratives -- in search of food, gardens, natural phenomena and exotic cultures. On another thread I noticed you asked for travel suggestions beyond the living abroad in Europe genre. For something totally different, look to John McPhee's Coming into the Country, about backwoods Alaska, or Tony Horowitz's Baghdad Without a Map recounting his adventures in the Middle East. I'd also recommend Holy Cow which describes the author's exploration of Hindu religious sects while living in India and Kenn Kauffman's Kingbird Highway which is about a diehard birdwatcher's initiation into the hobby back when hitchhiking as safe and there was no internet to broadcast rare bird sightings across the country in an instant. If you are interested in Native American cultures, Gary Paul Nabhan's Coming Home to Eat is a fascinating study of local foodways in the southwest and Craig Child's House of Rain is a look at current interpretations of Ancestral Puebloan civilizations. If you are a gardener, I loved In Search of Lost Roses, a tale of racing around Texas and the South in search of roses languishing in cemeteries and byways. All of these books sample other cultures through first-hand accounts of what the authors experienced.

I also saw your request for travel suggestions and posted on the other thread but will repeat it here - one of the best fiction travel books - Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene. Ghosts of Spain by Giles Tremlett is an interesting book that combines travel around Spain with a look at the legacy of the Spanish Civil War. Paul Theroux's travel books such as The Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express but perhaps they're a bit dated now. Tap Taps to Trinidad by journalist Zenga Longmore is worth looking out for - it's about travelling through the Caribbean.
Now I've seen your lists I can say that I found Chris Stewart's Driving over Lemons really enjoyable. Primo Levi's If this is man is very moving, I read it last year a few weeks before I visited Auschwitz. The Truce tells of the months after liberation of the camps.
Crime - Ian Rankin's Rebus books are great.

I second avatiakh's recommendation of Ian Rankin. I've never been disappointed no matter which book of his I've read. Same with Peter Robinson

thank you very much everyone - that is just what I was after, suggestions of books / authors I've never heard of. avatiakh I will certainly add ghosts of spain to my list, and I'm adding homage to catalonia as well so i think that will make a good contrast, I lived in spain for a couple of years and love the country, i'm also going to find a copy of travels with my aunt . I will keep a space free for the truce but see how if this is a man affects me first, I can't imagine how reading that book then visiting Auschwitz would feel!

I've also added coming into country. baghdad without a map and house of rain, thanks tracyfox, this was one of the main reasons for doing the challenge to try and get some variety into my reading and they sound like exactly the sort of travel books I'm looking for. i do also enjoy gardening and will maybe try to find a space for in search of lost roses if i can later in the year.

and a double recommendation too for ian rankin, what would you suggest as an introduction for him maddieMozelle? is there one stand out book for him?

well I'm off on and running now with reviews for the books I've read now on my profile.
I've been distracted, already, by a friend offering me a book that i enjoyed reading years ago that I thought I'd never see again (I had forgotten the title), so I have just finished fevre dream which I could not fit into any of my categories.
But back to my 999 challenge categories, first off the TBR category;

COMPLETED

1. manslaughter united - chris hulme
2. on her majesty's secret service - ian fleming
3. winesburg ohio - sherwood anderson
4. jonah - james herbert
5. the funhouse - dean koontz
6. the plums of p g wodehouse - p g wodehouse
7. heart shaped box - joe hill
8. piccadilly jim - p g wodehouse
9. fevre dream - george r r martin
10. walkers - graham masterton

Biography Category

1. great grain race - eric newby
2. stone roses and the resurrection of british pop - john robb

History Category (& Historical Fiction)

1. inverting the pyramid - jonathan wilson

okay - I'm maybe pushing the definition here, originally I had intended non-fiction history but ...
2. pillars of the earth - ken follett
3. london - edward rutherfurd

Great Writers Collection

1. lord jim - joseph conrad
2. the lost world - sir arthur conan doyle (a tenuous link ... (but a link all the same), this book is not in the great writer's collection but I'm running out of room in my other categories and the author is in the great writers collection ...)
3. triple echo - h.e. bates

Modern Prize Winners (& some nominees ...)

1. white tiger - aravind adiga
2. the curious incident of the dog at night time - mark haddon
3. the demolished man - alfred bester
4. white teeth - zadie smith
5. the suspicions of mr whicher kate summerscale
6. the little stranger - sarah waters

Travel Category

1. driving over lemons - chris stewart
2. last grain race - eric newby
3. parrot in a pepper tree - chris stewart

Banned Books

1. metamorphosis - franz kafka
2. farenheit 451 - ray bradbury

Sci-fi - COMPLETED

1. red mars - kim stanley robinson
2. idoru - william gibson
3. the butlerian jihad - brian herbert & kevin j anderson
4. the machine crusade - brian herbert & kevin j anderson
5. the battle of corrin - brian herbert & kevin j anderson
6. road to dune - brian herbert
7. house atreides - brian herbert
8. house harkonnen - brian herbert
9.
10. fall of moondust - arthur c. clarke
11. the star's my destination - alfred bester
12. wild space - karen miller
13. outbound flight - timothy zahn

Crime Category - COMPLETED

not on my list but Ive recently listened to / enjoyed these old 50's American detective radio shows old time radio's greatest detectives

1. grifter's game - lawrence block
2. fer de lance - rex stout
3. tequila blue - rolo diez
4. the jewel that was ours - colin dexter
5. Raven Black - ann cleeves
6. burial of ghosts - ann cleeves
7. case histories - kate atkinson
8. mr paradise - elmore leonard
9. crime stories from the strand - geraldine beare

Did you enjoy Fevre Dream? It's the only GRRM book that I've been able to finish. I thought it was very original, I had never read a southern gothic vampire tale before. After that I found Anne Rice's Blackwood Farm and didn't enjoy it at all.

hi victoria, yes I did enjoy it. to be honest it's the only george martin book I've read but I remember reading it years ago and enjoying it so when a friend mentioned he had it I had to borrow it off him and re-read it despite it not being on my challenge list ...
I've not read a lot of vampire books but I too thought it was a really good original idea, mark twain meets bram stoker, and I liked the little touches about the myths surrounding them, the silver / garlic / mirrors etc not working.
I've not been able to get onto LT recently but now I'm back I think I should give it a review, I was planning to review only the challenge books but it seems only fair to include it.
I'd be curious to compare it with a few other vampire novels, I know of Anne Rice and I think i'll start there but are there any other good vampire novelists you know of?

Do you like medieval stories like King Arthur and Robin Hood? If so, you might enjoy The Trouble In the Forest (Two books). It's Robin Hood meets vampires.

I also really enjoyed David Wellington's take on vampires. 99 Coffins has a Civil War angle to it, but you probably want to read 13 bullets first because it's a series.

Knights of the Blood is vampires meet Nazis and the Knights Templar. It's a nice little romp.

Good luck with your challenge!

thanks victoria, I'm certainly going to keep an eye out for those recommendations, as you can probably see from the list of books I have read the list I started with only 6 weeks ago is already starting to change dramatically, I've been off work for a week which has given me plenty of time to do some reading but I only seem to be in the mood for crime books or books I've already read which aren't on my list. I'm slowly getting back on course with the curious incident of the dog at night time, a great book which is not at all what I was expecting, and Metamorphosis.
The question seems to be now not if I can make 81 books in a year but how many of the 81 books will be from my original list! :)

I'm planning to write reviews for all the books I read this year and I'm hoping to catch up and finish off the reviews for the recent books by the end of the week.

well 4 more books have been added to my read list and all but one, again, are not from my planned reading list for the year! I think I'll be able to use the same list I made this year for next years challenge at this rate. I've read 15 books so far, only 8 of them were on the original list, the recent additions are last grain race, a fantastic book that can go into either the travel or biography categories (and might change places to make room for another later) about one of the last great sailing voyages made around the world. tequila blue, demolished man which again as the first hugo award winner can go in my modern prize winners category or sci-fi and was just as great, if not better than Bester's second novel the stars my destination which I read first and which I only got to know about from a recommendation from LT. how can I say I enjoy reading sci-fi and never have read an alfred bester novel before? a truly shocking state of affairs. Finally I have also read winesburg ohio, again not on my list at the start a friend bought this for me and so I have put it in my TBR category and already is a contender for the best book I have read this year. Again until my friend gave me this book I had never heard of sherwood anderson and after reading about him I don't know how this has happened, it is a fantastic collection of short stories and I'll certainly be on the look out for more by him.
as always I'll be adding reviews of these books to my list very soon as I try and build up reviews of books read this year.

i've just recently joined a reading group and although one of the books we read fits into one of my categories it seemed safer to include a new category, Book Club, making it more of a 9 - 10 - 9 challenge :)

1. post birthday world - lionel shriver
2. raven black - ann cleeves
3. this book will save your life - a m homes
4. the great stink - clare clark
5. the suspicions of mr whicher - kate summerscale
6. case histories - kate atkinson
7. fludd - hilary mantel
8. addition - toni jordan
9. secret history - donna tartt
10. panic - jeff abbott

something I have not added to my list but I seem to be using more every day are audio books. I listen to a lot of audio books, on the way to work, if i'm ever in the car, at night etc ... so I'll add these to the list too as I have found this a great way of listening to stories written by authors i might not otherwise have read. I can't remember all the audio books I've listened to this year, but I have tried to add the ones I can remember borrowing from the library, most of the audio books in my own library tend to get listened to again and again anyway so it's a cert they'll all end up on the list again by the end of the year anyway ...
I've also re-discovered the graphic novel section at the library and my childhood ... so I'll add those too.

AUDIO BOOKS & GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. farenheit 451 (unabridged audio book) - ray bradbury
2. night watch (unabridged audio book) - terry pratchett
3. live and let die (unabridged audio book) - ian fleming
4. casino royale (unabridged audio book) - ian fleming
5. paul temple and the vandyke affair (bbc radio series) - francis durbridge
6. the casebook of sherlock holmes (audio book) - sir arthur conan doyle
7. the return of sherlock holmes (audio book) - sir arthur conan doyle
8. tomorrow stories (graphic novel) - alan moore
9. abc warriors of khaos (graphic novel) - pat mills
10. ministry of space (graphic novel) - warren ellis
11. batman: year one (graphic novel) - frank miller
12. superman: red son (graphic novel) - mark millar
13. superman for all seasons (graphic novel) - jeph loeb
14. blackadder collection (unabridged audio versions of the TV show)
15. old time radio's greatest detectives
16. pillars of the earth - ken follett (unabridged audio book listened to / read as part of the group challenge
17. the walking dead (graphic novel) - robert kirkman
18. the walking dead vol 2 (graphic novel) - robert kirkman
19. the walking dead vol 3 (graphic novel) - robert kirkman
20. company - max barry

well I've had to take a little LT break ... work got in the way of reading, how dare it! but I've now got the time to hopefully try and catch up and add some books and, more importantly, some reviews of the books I've read so far this year which was one of the main reasons I started the challenge. So at the end of the year I can see what I have read and remind myself of the stories ... got a memory like a sieve! :)

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill



I don't think I'm giving anything away when I point out that Joe Hill is in fact the son of Stephen King, in fact knowing this when you start the book might help you as you go along put out of your mind the idea that perhaps Stephen is once again writing under a pseudonym. The style is very similar, as well it might be growing up with King's influence, and - don't get me wrong - it's not a bad thing neither. The characters are well rounded, believable (insofar as my knowledge of ageing heavy metal musicians with a penchant for ghostly and grisly memoribilia goes) and it is a well paced book with hardly any pasue in the action to make you question why you picked it up.
The premise is that a fifty-something heavy metal musician (Judas Coyne - in Hill's own words; 'morally adrift') buys a ghost in a haunted suit from the internet and from then on his problems never stop, the ghost has a hidden agenda directed squarely at Judas who has to try to work out not only how to stop it but also what it's grudge against him is. As Judas physically travels across America we journey through his life with him as he recalls all the events that could have caused this. Seeing as he makes Ozzy Osbourne look like a boy scout the list of potential suspects is vast indeed!
I gave this book 3 stars, I enjoyed reading it, I would recommend it but I cannot picture myself re-reading it, so it doesn't get the coveted fourth star .... having said that I have heard that the audio book is very impressive and creepy having won the 'Audie Award' in 2008, so I might have to give that a go ... ( *** )

A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke



One of the books that makes it easy to see why Arthur C Clarke is so highly regarded, it was nominated for a Hugo Award for best sci-fi novel in 1963 being beaten by Philip K Dick's book 'The Man in The High Castle'; one of his I have yet to read ... it must be good to have beaten this!
It's a hard sci-fi book, that is it is puts an emphasis on technical detail and scientific accuracy, so don't expect little green men on the moon or captains of rocket ships beaming down ... The story is of a tourist ship that takes passengers skimming over a dust filled 'sea' on the moon in much the same way as a jet ski would, there's an accident and the ship sinks. The moon tourist board and technicians then have a fixed amount of time to try and rescue the crew and passengers before their oxygen runs out. It reminded me of the film Apollo 13 in that sense and certainly there is a very real sense of pace and urgency fom the technicians as they try to solve the problem of bringing the ship up on the moon's surface despite unhelpful suggestions from members of the public back on Earth watching the tragedy. But there are also some great moments from the passengers as the story shows how they are becoming affected by the situation and especially from the committee set up to organise fun and games to keep morale high.
This book gets 4 stars from me, this means I will certainly re-read it again. (**** )

Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics… by Jonathan Wilson



A truly fantastic book on what could have been - let's face it - a very dry subject. The fact that Jonathan Wilson can make the book not only readable but very enjoyable and absorbing as well should be grounds enough for praise.
A history of footballing tactics, not just in one country, or for one club, or one manager this is a worldwide look at the development of tactics from the 1-2-7 formation England lined up in at the first international to the so-called 'strikerless formations' of some modern teams (if you can picture people lining up on the pitch this is the pyramid that is being inverted). The story though takes us around the world and follows key managers, players and teams in the development of footballing tactics and this gives a very 'human' feel to the book, you can understand the drive behind their decisions to try and make changes, to discover the best formation for their players; it becomes almost a footballing social history.
4 stars - in my rating system - is reserved for books that I would recommend, enjoyed reading and would certainly re-read. Although I don't think I'd re-read this book again in one sitting I'll definitely be dipping back into it (the chapters are very handily divided up into certain teams / countries from a particular era), so it gets 3 and a half stars from me and a hearty recommendation for all fans of our beautiful game. (***.5)

Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse



Now I have to come clean ... I am a big PG Wodehouse fan, as well as his books I also own several audiobooks of his stories or the BBC dramatisation of his stories. And Piccadilly Jim does not disappoint, it's full of the typical 'wodehouse' characters set in the typical 'wodehouse' plot ... which is to say literally anything can (and will!) happen. Kidnapping plots, people assuming false names and identities (in one case one fellow pretending to be someone else pretending to be himself .... picture The Life of Brian with men dressed as women pretending to be men ...), put-upon husbands, pretentious poets, phoney inventors, thiefs and the usual smattering of butlers - some even are who they claim to be.
If all you know about PG Wodehouse is that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie once played Jeeves and Wooster I urge you to read some of his other books, and this one would not be a bad place to start. ( *** )

The Great Stink by Clare Clark



A murder ... in the sewers ... of old London town. Don't rely on the blurb of the back of the book, there is so much more to this book than a simple murder investigation. In fact at one point I wasn't even sure if a murder had taken place! (I've said too much ...)
This was a book club choice and some of the common complaints when we reviewed it were; the pace was too slow, the characters were not believable, it was more of a history book than a novel and (horror of horrors) it could be considerably shortened to get the same effect. I'd disagree (though I concede that there is a lot of history in there, Clare Clark has done a lot of research), the historical aspect of this novel makes it come alive, every detail (and I do mean EVERY detail(!!) - remember this is a book where a lot of the action is set in sewers) is so fully described you feel transported to Victorian London. I also felt the pace to be just right as Clare was concentrating on a small area / number of people within her story, she stayed with them and we build up a wonderful picture of the protagonist William May, a veteran from the Crimean War who escapes to the underground to work (and to cut himself to make himself feel alive again) away from people and the memories of the war. And of 'Long Arm Tom' who makes his living in the sewers collecting rats and ... I'm painting a grim picture here aren't I?
Suffice to say the story builds to the ending with the wrong man imprisoned in a prison barge in scenes very reminiscent of Charles Dickens ... does truth and justice prevail? I'll leave it to you to find out. Fans of historical fiction will love this book about a not widely written about area of London and history. ( *** )

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The first, I think, non-Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle book I have read and I was not disappointed even without Dr Watson narrating the story. It is a fast paced old fashioned ripping yarn of an adventure story of one scientist out to prove to the world that his theories of finding prehistoric animals on a plateau not yet visited by man (or at least western man with cameras and notebooks) are not a load of 'poppycock'.

Full of larger than life characters this book is narrated by the journalist Edward Malone who, to prove his adventurous spirit to the woman he loves, convinces Professor Challenger to take him along on a journey to South America to prove his claims of a 'Lost World' are true. Together with another scientist, Professor Summerlee, and an altogether more-english than English adventurer Lord John Roxton they find the plateau, their proof and trouble as they escape death from dinosaurs, capture, execution and finally escape.

A great story and the start of of a series of books starring the great, intelligent, agressive and short tempered Professor Challenger. I will definitely be looking out for the next books starring him. ( **** )

The Reduced Shakespeare Company Radio Show



Not got time to read all the great novels and plays you really feel you ought to? Have you heard of William Shakespeare but not quite got round to buying his latest top ten bestseller? Well, have no fear, The Reduced Shakespeare Company is here to help.

An impossible-to-describe-unless-you-see-it stage show that was shown at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival and has since toured England (and the world) it was re-worked for a 6 episode BBC radio series and this is the result. All of Shakespeare's plays (known and unkown), a description of his little known about trip to America squeezed in somehow to under 3 hours, alongside a running commentary that will make you question everything you thought you knew about the bard.

Laugh out loud funny, this can be (and is!) listened to over and over again without losing any of its energy or originality. ( **** )

The Demolished Man by Alfred J Bester



The Demolished Man won the first Hugo Award in 1953 and after reading the book I cannot imagine another book beating it. Seen by many as a precursor of the 'cyberpunk' sci-fi novels that followed later in the '80's it certainly has the same style of 'high tech and low life' with large megacorporations running a future society and telepaths (called Espers) are an everyday occurence in all walks of life from business and therapy to the police force.

This is essentially a detective story where one of the owners of a multi-national corporation, Ben Reich, facing bankruptcy attempts to commit the perfect murder of his main rival Craye d'Courtney despite the seemingly insurmountable problem of doing so with Espers and modern police procedure having all but wiped out crime. To help him try to confuse their telepathic abilities he recites over and over a rhyme; "Tenser said the tensor; tension, apprehension and dissension have begun" which is so persistent it prevents the espers 'peeping' into his mind. And from this we follow a wonderful chase across space as the policeman in charge of the investigation, Lincoln Powell, attempts to prove his suspicions.

It is a wonderfully fast paced book full of noir-ish characters in a seedy futuristic underworld but it is the language Alfred Bester uses that really makes this book stand out and the pictures of words he creates on the page when the espers are communicating with sentences seemingly running up, down and diagonally at the same time. It is often criticised for appearing dated but do not let this put you off, this is a wonderful moment from the golden age of sci-fi. ( **** )

Burial of Ghosts by Ann Cleeves



This is a book I read straight after reading the Ann Cleeves crime novel Raven Black. I had not heard of Cleeves before, it was a book chosen by our reading group, but I enjoyed her style in Raven Black so I thought I had to try this one next. It had another attraction in that it is set in Northumberland where I live and I was curious to see how she would treat the area. She described it perfectly. In fact I wish I could remember her descriptions and carry them off as my own!

The story is about Lizzie Bartholomew, an orphan who has grown up in foster homes and, despite a lot of trouble in her youth, she became a social worker hoping to help children who are where she was. However because of a traumatic event, that is slowly revealed through the book, she is now no longer working and, following a strange request from a man she only knew briefly but who has recently died, she is slowly drawn into a murder investigation.

Like Raven Black this book is full of interesting characters who all have secrets to hide, it is up to Lizzie, and the reader if you want to play the 'detective game' along with her, to try to work out which secrets are the red herrings and which will unlock the mystery. At times this is a very dark book but it does draw you in beautifully, it is definitely one to start when you have a whole day ahead of you to do nothing but read ... you won't want to put it down. ( *** )

The Great Stink has a similar setting to The Water Room which I am currently reading. The difference is that this one is set in modern day and not just in the sewers, but in the various underground rivers in London. But your review makes me think that I'd love to compare the two books. I will have to look for that one.

The water room sounds very interesting too cmbohn, I'll have to suggest it to the reading group and see if we can read that soon, thanks for the suggestion.
Like I said it got a very mixed reception but out of all the books so far at the reading group (in the category above *points up*), it's definitely my favourite. Someone from our group had printed off images from google of the buildigns described in the book and it was amazing how well clare clark had described them, we recognised them instantly.
hope you enjoy it if you find a copy :)

Tenser said the Tensor.... ah, I love The Demolished Man. It blew my mind when I first read it. I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! Have you read The Stars My Destination?

edited to add I see that you have read Stars and you enjoyed it. Which did you like more? Have you tried any more of Bester? I tried The Computer Connection and could not get into it at all...

hi victoria, yes I thought they were fantastic books! I'd not heard of Bester until very recently, I heard of him from LT and bought those two books, I read The Stars My Destination first but I think I preferred The Demolished Man a littel bit more just because the ending of 'stars' was a bit confusing I found, plus I thought the esper conversations in 'demolished' were great! whole sentences that could be read forward, backwards, up and down. I've not read anything else by him but I'd quite like to try some of his short stories and I'm looking out for starburst which is a collection of stories written from the same time as 'star' and 'demolished'.
I'd like to read the man in the high castle next though, after reading a fall of moondust and discovering it was shortlisted but didn't win the hugo award for that year I decided I had to read the book that had beaten it! :)

Old Time Radio's Greatest Detective Shows (20-Hour Collections) (20-Hour Collections)… by Radio Spirits



Now I have to start this review by pointing out that not only do I enjoy audio books and listening to stories being read to me (I know that some people do not) but also that I love detective stories from this time period with the language and characters lost forever now.

So you'll realise by now that this will not be an unbiased review, I gave it 4 stars which, for me, means that not only did I enjoy reading / listening to it at the time but I just know that I will be re-reading / listening to it again very soon. Despite one of the discs being a country and western album (something I don't enjoy as much as 50's American detective radio shows) instead of two episodes of The Adventures of Sam Spade I cannot argue or complain about the choices of shows and episodes in this collection, from the more well know characters such as Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Nero Wolfe or The Saint (played here by the excellent Vincent Price) to shows I'd never heard of like Richard Diamond, Nick Carter and Johnny Dollar. And they are the original un-edited radio shows so they include the adverts from the time of the original broadcasting as well as the message from the sponsors which only adds to the authenticity and feeling of these shows, never before have I been so intrigued by a hair tonic and if anyone can suggest to me a place I can still buy Kreml hair oil guaranteed to make my hair silky smooth I will be forever in their debt.

But back to the stories themselves, they are perfect examples of the short story art form and manage to keep the listener on the edge of their seat for the half hour the show is on, the pulse steadily increasing until you sink back at the end releived that everything turned out okay for the good guys but wanting to listen to another one as soon as possible. ( **** )

It's been a long time coming! but I finally have here my latest review. Another crime novel, though this one is factual, we read it for our local book group straight after the great stink, so I now feel an expert on Victorian crime and need a change. I should hopefully finish lord jim and pillars of the earth which I'm reading as part of the group read here soon and have reviews of them as well.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale



An utterly absorbing book using the very famous (at the time) crime at Road Hill House in 1860 as the backdrop of a fascinating study of the development of detective fiction. Winner of the BBC 4 Samuel Johnson Prize when it came out in 2008, the book starts with a very detailed description of the murder of a small child at his house. This itself promises to be an interesting enough idea with all the characters laid out and vividly brought to life with detailed descriptions / layouts of the house and how everything was found to allow us to play detective alongside the police at the time. However I soon found the minute detail and repetition of the scant clues from the initial investigation to the aftermath of how it affected the family to become quite tedious. Though it is extremely well researched (every aspect of every character and every action they took during the time of the trial is there for us to see) and Kate manages to make us feel the tension of the crime and how it affected Victorian England.
And this is where the book really comes alive, in its description of how the murder affected the society at the time, the newspaper reports, contemporary letters written by the public and sent in to editorials and, much more interestingly, how it influenced writers of the time. Kate points out all along her detailed analysis of the crime how it affected detective fiction, how the emerging police at the time were portrayed, how one of the greatest detectives of the time (Mr Whicher, hence the title the Suspicions of Mr Whicher) influenced even the stories we read today and how writers present the evidence to us.
As the trial and public hue and cry continue we can see how the public’s reaction to the crime and the perceived unforgiveable invasion of privacy by the police to this middle class family develop to alter detective fiction and also the language used by detectives. This is a great book for any detective fan as we can see echoes of this crime even nowadays in the books we read, read it and be enlightened. I fully intend to go back through the book making a note of the stories she mentions and to try and read them in chronological order.

Meg by Steve Alten ... because ... sometimes you just want to ...



Meg - a prehistoric shark (Megaladon) over 60 feet long, the most awesome and feared killer and master of the seas. Believed dead for millions of years the species have survived at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest trench in our oceans, unable to rise to the surface ... until now.
While on a dive in the trench Jonas Taylor sees two thought-to-be-extinct 'megs' fighting, a male megaladon and a larger female. The larger female shark is able to swim through the cold layer of water (which has kept them trapped at the bottom) separating the surface from the warmer waters at the bottom of the trench because she is surrounded by the warm blood of the male megaladon she has bested ... Once she reaches the surface it doesn't take her long to pick up where megs left off millions of years ago ruling the oceans and leaving death and destruction in their wake ....
Okay - need I say more? If that sounds like it could be a good read for you then go for it, it is very much a cross between Jaws and Jurassic Park as written by Clive Cussler. I'm not much of a Cussler fan but I have to be honest the premise did intrigue me and I read it and I did enjoy it, but would I recommend it? No. The characters are sacrificed for the plot, which is very much by the numbers; big shark, eating, capture, escape, convoluted ending ... no surprises. I have read that the book is being made into a film and as another reviewer points out it does very much read like a film treatment. There is no real pace to the book, the book just seems to move from one scene to the next as a reason to show the next 'meg attack' and while I am sure it will make a great blockbuster it does not make a great novel.
But, as I said, even though I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone if you did enjoy reading Jaws or Jurassic Park (and I did which is why I read Meg) then tuck in and savour the gory feast.

're-listened' to ... the very excellent;

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke



Magic is back ... and what a magical book it returns in. This was by far my favourite book of 2004, I have enjoyed reading it so much that I have even bought the (unabridged) audio book so that I can have someone else read it to me too! It has been a much talked about and publicised book, I doubt I could add anything else to try and persuade you that;
"yes - it is a good idea for you to beg, borrow, buy (not steal) this book and read it"
except to say that all the hype is true.
The book opens in 1806 in an alternate history to ours where magic was once very much part of the daily life. Now however it is very much theoretical with practising magicians having seemingly disappeared. One man though is determined to bring back practical magic, though he is not anxious for anyone else to know of his magic or how it is performed and finds, buys up and hoards all the books on the subject he can. He is Mr Norrell. Society is now awakened once again to the joys of magic with Mr Norrell helping the English defeat Napoleon (and bringing back to life a young rich lady engaged to a cabinet minister). On the wave of this new found enthusiasm for magic comes Jonathan Strange, seemingly the more 'natural' magician, he cannot find books to study from (because of course Mr Norrell is coveting them) but instead teaches himself and suddenly London has two practising magicians and the country becomes divided between the 'Norrellites' and 'Strangites'. In the background behind all these events and on the edge of every single page like a shadow is the Raven King, the last Magical King of the North.
That, as a synopsis, is merely scratching the surface though. Combining a 19th century writing style with history, alternate history, fantasy, magic, comedy of manners, the gothic tale and a very tongue in cheek, dry wit; (and, also at over 750 pages long or 30 CD discs for the audio book) there is a lot of depth to this book that no one single review could hope to capture. And even if it was tried don't forget to mention the footnotes, over 200 of them, throughout the book adding bits to the narrative, outlining the backstory and breathing life into an entire imagined catalogue of magical books and tales any one of which could have made a convincing story on their own.

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes read by Robert Hardy is an audio book containing only 4 of the 12 stories in the collection of the same name. I have the stories but I have also bought a few of these condensed audio book collections simply because I think Robert Hardy is marvellous at bringing Sherlock Holmes to life. I have a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories on audio (Legends of Radio: The Ultimate Sherlock Holmes Collection - not written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) from America in the 1940's and '50's narrated by such acting luminaries as Orson Welles, Basil Rathbone and Sir John Gielgud but they don't come close to Robert Hardy. If you get a chance to listen to him reading the Sherlock Holmes stories then grab it I say!

The first story in the audio book collection is The Adventures of The Sussex Vampires. Holmes receives a letter from Robert Ferguson who is convinced that his Peruvian wife is sucking the blood of their child like a vampire as the boy has bite marks in his neck and is ill. Of course it turns out there is quite a different and more rationale explanation to what is happening and I love the way in this story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has Holmes solve the case by looking away from the scene of the supposed crime. As always with Sherlock Holmes stories I try and solve the mystery along with Watson by focusing on what Holmes is looking at and imaging the scene. By having Watson note that Holmes spends most of his time looking out the window I was more drawn in to reading the story to find out why … apparently, as always, it’s elementary.

The second story is The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, a lovely mystery for Holmes with a gentleman, Mr Nathan Garrideb (who is a recluse and never leaves his flat), being spun a web of lies about an inheritance being given to an American, Mr John Garrideb, on the proviso that he finds two other gentlemen with his unusual surname. The american Garrideb insists that Nathan accompanies him to Birmingham where he has found a third Garrideb so he can claim his inheritance. This is a more sedate story, I guessed the intention of the American but not the reason, but then so did Watson so I still didn’t feel smug for outscoring Sherlock. It’s a nice character study though and an interesting look into the Victorian mania of collecting that they seemed obsessed with. As always these stories are ‘of a time’ and Conan Doyle manages to bring that time back to life effortlessly.

The third story is The Adventure of the Three Gables opens with some beautifully comic accents from Robert Hardy as Steve Dixie, an ex-boxer, threatens Holmes to stay away from Harrow (where Holmes has just received a letter from a lady in distress requiring his services). Mrs Maberley of Harrow has been offered a sum of money for her house more than it is worth but only if she will sell her house and all of the contents of it, which of course makes her suspicious and her suspicions are compounded by people spying one her. This is more of an action story for our detection duo, Holmes demonstrates that he is not afraid to delve into the seedier side of the underworld and stand up to the criminals. Unlike his brother Mycroft we are reminded here that Holmes does not just sit in his chair and ‘think out the solution’. It also reminds us that Holmes is a private detective and not encumbered by the law as are the regular police, he is able to break and bend the law sometimes for his own ends to act as judge and jury to the guilty parties. Here he blackmails the criminal hounding Mrs Maberley to get compensation for her.

The last story in this audio collection is The Adventure of the Lion's Mane, more famous perhaps for being narrated by Holmes himself and not Dr Watson. Now retired Holmes is enjoying the quiet life and seclusion of Sussex when the local science teacher is killed in mysterious circumstances. In asking about the teacher, Fitzroy McPherson, it seems there are a number of people with reason to hate and possibly kill him. One possible reason that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes narrate the story and not Dr Watson is that the solution to finding the killer hinges on matters of medicine. Presumably had Watson seen the red welts on McPherson's back that led to his death he might have been able to deduce himself what had happened. This is perhaps the weaker of the four stories, it misses the interplay between Holmes and Watson and though the solution is ingenious enough it doesn’t seem as realistic or as likely as the others; almost as if Conan Doyle were trying to hard to come up with a story that didn’t have Watson in it, rather than writing a story and simply omitting Watson from it.

These stories are not perhaps as imaginative or well written as Doyle's earlier Holmes stories but there is still plenty of fun as Holmes explains his "elementary deductions" to Watson and if you do get a chance to hear them read by Robert Hardy I would recommend it.

edited to add touchstones

Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin



I first read this book years ago and it stuck with me, when I got the chance to re-read it I did so almost reluctantly, would it be as good as I first remembered? Thankfully yes, it's everything a vampire story set in 1850's deep south America on a steamboat should be!
Abner Marsh a river boat captain has a failing steamboat business when a stranger, Joshua York (I know - couldn't sound more like a vampire's name if he tried), contacts him offering to be his business partner and save his failing company. Together they build and run the Fevre Dream, one of the biggest, brightest and fastest steamboats on the Mississippi. For Abner it is a chance to live his dream of running the fastest boat on the river, for Joshua it is an opportunity to discover his past, where he came from, who he is and to try and help his lost 'family'.
This is a great historical fantasy novel, the pace of the novel drives you onward, especially the chapters in the book when they are chasing and being chased down the Mississippi. There is not a great deal of depth to the characters, you have met them before but the story and the setting sets this apart from other horror or vampire novels. There is a wonderful sense of Deep South atmosphere throughout the book, you can imagine the accents, the heat, the fashion and architecture and hear the splash of the paddles on the river. It has been described as Mark Twain meets Bram Stoker and I couldn't agree more, fans of vampires will love this book. ( *** )

Jewel That Was Ours by Colin Dexter



My first Inspector Morse book ...! It certainly won't be my last. I normally prefer my crime and detective fiction to be of the 'hardboiled' American type but this was a great change from their frenetic pace with plenty of well rounded, described characters, great dialogue between them and a mystery worthy of Morse's (as one reviewer called it) drink-fuelled brain.
A tour bus full of Americans arrive at Oxford, one of their members is donating a priceless artefact to a local museum, but when she ends up dead, the jewel is stolen and the curator also ends up dead they got more than the travel brochure promised them. Full of red herrings, twists and turns and seemingly endless dead ends (sometimes quite literally) in his investigations it is no wonder Morse can often be found in a pub. ( *** )

Tequila Blue by Rolo Diez



A book that came highly recommended and it started off really well, a dead businessman with a dark secret, police more crooked than the criminals they're trying to protect and a whole series of femme fatales. The narrator, Carlito, guides us through the dark streets and vice and corruption of the seediest sides of Mexico City, but the reader is never sure whether what Carlito is telling us is true or not. This works well at the start of the book, he gives us his opinions on everything which I feel should sometimes be taken very much with a pinch of salt and it helps to add an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust to the whole story as Carlito soon finds himself knee deep in not only investigating a death but also assassinated prostitutes, crooked politicians and a maze of gang wars.
However towards the end it only made things very confusing for me with one imagined dream sequence while in a coma (because of concussion from a "shootout at the ranch") to another. I was not entirely sure what was happening, which means it is only 3 stars from me, I would recommend this book but I hope the next reader can understand the ending better than me. ( *** )

Wild Space (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) by Karen Miller



This was my first 'Star Wars' novel, I'm a fan of the films but had always shied away from the books before. However, I was in my local library, saw it and the cover spoke out to me of action, adventure and battles in a distant galaxy far far away .....
The story continues on from the Clone Wars animated series (which I have not seen) so I was not perhaps familiar with all the events leading directly up to this book but that is not important, all your favourite characters from the films are here and we get to see inside their head to understand their motives and desires a little bit more than we do in the films, we learn a little bit more about their histories. It deals mainly with Obi-Wan Kenobi, he is a victim of a terrorist attack on Coruscant, the planet where the Jedi headquarters is based which shows how far the Separatists influence is spreading. In a desperate attempt to find out more about the attacks and who perpetrated them he follows clues to an obscure planet in the Outer Rim, to the edge of charted space, where the secret he discovers nearly kills him.
I enjoyed the book and although it is part of a massive universe of novels, films and TV shows I never felt I was missing important information needed to understand the plot. It is well written and the story is not just an endless succession of battles with lightsabers and laser guns, there is a secret there that you have to find out once you get into the book. Having said that it is not a sci-fi book that you could pick up and read without knowing at least some of the back story of the Star Wars universe. Is it a book worth watching six films you've so far managed - somehow - to avoid to read? No. Is it worth reading if you have watched the 6 Star Wars films? Yes. ( *** )

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson



A crime novel with all the ingredients of a great crime novel made unique by the fact that it seems to disregard the crime elements as soon as they are introduced. A wonderful book that looks at the effects and consequences of crime in the lives of normal, everyday and - something Kate Atkinson does with such ease - real people.

The book opens with three short chapters introducing us to 3 families each ending with a crime; abduction, murder and mystery. Fast forward through time and we are introduced to Jackson Brodie (a real copper's name!), a cynical, tough, ex-policeman with an estranged wife and child eeking out a living as a private investigator and, when we first meet him, chain smoking and disillusioned. I told you Kate had condensed all the familiar elements of the crime genre. I get the impression this is Kate Atkinson's nod to the crime genre, an inside joke with herself at the reader's expense, as the book goes on Jackson becomes less 'generic' and more real. All of her characters become real people, the book divides between the past and the present and between members from the three families at the start, all connected through Jackson. One of the more memorable lines from the book is Jackson's view of his job, he looks at it as if there are two columns, lost and found, and everyone in the book has lost something or someone. Theo Wyre has lost a daughter and wants to know why, he asks Jackson to find her murderer. Julia and Amelia two sisters have recently lost their father, they find a toy their abducted younger sister used to play with and ask Jackson to try and find out what happened to her. The mysterious blonde hiding a secret (again a cliche of the hardboiled detectives and their femme fatales) asks Jackson to find a long lost relative. Jackson himself we discover has also lost in his past.

But where Kate Atkinson really excels is in not letting all of this darken the mood of the story, it does not become overly gritty nor depressingly 'real' as other crime novels may have tempted to. Her characters are so delightfully written full of human quirks that, although the reader sympathises with them, winces as they suffer, we never give in and neither do they, there is an optimism throughout the book that somehow by the end everything will turn out all right after all. This is not to say that this is not an emotional book, children have been killed and sisters have gone missing and Kate Atkinson writes truthfully about the pain for the parents and family left behind but by the end they and the reader have “closure” as they say in the book. At the end Atkinson even manages to pull out the ‘twist in the tale’ from her bag of ‘crime ingredients’ and it manages to try and balance out some of the evil at the start in the three opening Case Histories. ( **** )

This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes



The protagonist, Richard novak, has seemingly withdrawn from life, the world outside and society in general, very near the beginning we see him try to remember when he last went out and he remembers going to the theatre with friends which, when he checks his diary, was months ago but it seems like a very recent event to him. His days involve nothing more than excercising, eating healthily and buying / selling shares online. It comes as a big shock to him then when he suffers a (possible) heart attack and is forced to leave this safe bubble he has made for himself. From then on he meets a variety of people, from a lady crying in a supermarket to his neighbour, who he hadn't met before, who turns out to be a famous actor. The book shows how he comes into their lives and trys to help them while at the same time they try to help him by bringing him back into social contact.
This book seems to divide people rather like Catch 22 into those who love it and those who hate it and I can quite understand both sides ... I enjoyed reading it, it is well written and it does draw you in in a sort of 'what ridiculous thing is going to happen next' kind of way. He meets an ageing hippy who is friends with Bob Dyland and wrote THE counter culture book of the '60's, goes to a meditation centre to try and 'find himself', saves a horse from a hole and even more bizarrely rescues a woman trapped in the boot of a car. But each new person he meets is so incredibly unbelievable, famous movie stars, hero of the '60's, he even breaks up a meeting with Harrison Ford and American president Ford, that any point to the story is quickly lost. I can't quite believe that any of these people actually needed saving in the first place. ( *** )

The " Stone Roses " and the Resurrection of British Pop… by John Robb



If, like me, you're a 'Roses' fan then you want to know more, you want to know everything, you want to know why ... why after 5 years do we only have 2 albums and a mystique of the "laziest band in showbusiness"? Well here are the answers ... or at least as much of an answer as I think you are likely to get ... for now anyway.
This is not the greatest written biography of a band, there are no interviews with the band members, indeed there are no revelations or explanations, just a heartfelt enthusiasm by John Robb for possibly, arguably, unequivocally the greatest band of the '90's. The band's career is followed and detailed year by year with excerpts from the press, from Robb's own perspective (and he was 'inside', he does have some stories to tell of life on the road and in the studio) and it's great to be reminded of their high and low points.
This is not the best biography of a band but it is the best biography of the Roses and for that I love it ... ( **** )

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson is often credited with writing, in Winesburg Ohio, the first really 'modern' American novel. Or so I've read ... I'm in no position to agree or disagree with that but what I can say is, that despite the age of the book, the short stories even today sound fresh to the ear and still discuss themes and topics contemporary to 'now'.
Set in a fictional mid-west small town the book is a collection of short stories about the inhabitants all (very) loosely held together by a young wannabe reporter George Willard. Not all of the stories flatter the characters and the language used is very vivid, which I understand puts some people off Sherwood, denouncing him as having a 'superior attitude', however there are certainly some stories that inspire as Sherwood seems to get right inside the fictional minds of his characters to draw out their deepest and truest characters. The stories themselves can be read individually and I must admit to having dipped back in to the collection again to re-read a few, particularly my favourite story 'Hands'.
I would heartily recommend this book to anyone and urge you to keep going with it if it does not instantly grab you; it is well worth any effort you have to put in to read. ( **** )

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time… by Mark Haddon



One of the books I have read in my "Modern Winners" category of my 999 challenge and it is quite easy to see why this book did win the Whitbread Book of the Year prize. The idea of having, perhaps the unlikliest person in fiction who fantasies of being the only person left alive and abhors human company and contact, narrate this book seems a bold step but it works and he gives us an insight into human behaviour that no-one else can. This idea of the outsider looking in reminded me of Camus' Mersault in his book The Stranger but whereas perhaps Mersault saw and was only looking for the despair around him the narrator here, Christopher Boone, sees the world and the people around him impassively without any involvement from himself. As he himself says at the start, he cannot tell lies, not because he is a good person but he simply does not know how to lie and so everything that happens to him as he tells it is true without any judgment and this seems to include the police happy to see a 15 stand in a trance for hours at a local railway station, to have no parents accompanying him, though he admits to having his father's cashpoint card and strangers walking off disgusted with him after he has narrowly escaped death on the lines of the underground in London!

The book starts, as it says on the cover, with Christopher investigating the curious incident of the dog at night time. I'm giving nothing away by saying this curious incident is the death of the dog across the street from Christopher, but Mark merely uses this as a starting point, a way of introducing the people and events necessary to send Cristopher, who cannot live and does not want to live in a world full of people, on a journey into the unknown on his own. The story developed in a way I had not expected at all, having red reviews and had friends recommend this to me I was still very surprised by the second half of the novel but when I finished I realised that nothing else could have happened in its place. It's a very fast paced book with short chapters in an almost diary-like fashion and, despite what Christopher says at the start about him not having a sense of humour or knowing any jokes, it is very funny as well.

Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard



Elmore Leonard has been called the 'Dickens of Detroit' because of the way he portrays his characters from that area. On wikipedia there is a quote from Martin Amis claiming that he once told Elmore Leonard his prose "made Raymond Chandler look clumsy". I might not quite agree wholeheartedly with that but Leonard does have an ear for gritty dialogue that Chandler would certainly appreciate.

In this story, again set in Detroit, we have Mr Paradiso, a very wealthy retired no-nonsense lawyer, murdered in his own home watching an American football game with two call girls acting as cheerleaders. One of the cheerleaders is shot dead along with Mr Paradiso but is the other one who they claim to be and which witness is telling the truth as to what happened? Frank Delsa is the detective in charge of the investigation trying to get to the truth and also trying to get the girl ... but is she helping him or herself? In this fast paced and tense novel (all of the action happens in less than one week) no-one is quite what they seem to be!

As with other Elmore Leonard books I have read the emphasis is less on the 'whodunnit' aspect of the investigation and more with the style with which the detective sorts through the clues and lies. This is not a detective story where we watch the hero piece together the story from obscure and seemingly irrelevant clues but a full blooded charge into a very believable look at a world on the wrong side of the tracks with dismembered gang members, guns for hire and lawyers using the system for their own gains. Leonard skilfully guides us around this seedy underbelly with sharp 'gunfire' prose, sharp action and style so sharp you could shave with it. His advice to young writers has always been to try and cut out the parts you think that readers will skip and in this story he's certainly heeded his own advice. if you have not yet read an Elmore Leonard novel I would certainly recommend this book as a starting point and if you have read Elmore Leonard before ... well I'm sure you won't need a recommendation from me to pick this up.

Ministry Of Space by Warren Ellis



Ministry of Space is an engaging story, beautifully illustrated that presents a very believable alternate history where, following the Second World War, British soldiers reach the German rocket scientists before the Russians and Americans and gain a head start on the rest of the world in the race for the stars.

The artwork shows how a British space programme might have developed with some very 'retro technology', planes capable of flying into space looking like something from the Battle of Britain. It reminds me of steampunk imagery, though I'm not too sure whether it can be called that, but it does have that glorious 1950's sci-fi look of handsome rugged Englishmen with (very) stiff upper lips donning rocket packs and to hell with the consequences.

There is though a dark side to the story. Away from the brightly painted and very jingoistic flag waving space pilots and ships there is a secret behind the formation of the British space programme and their Ministry of Space that threatens to destroy all the hard work put in by the protagonist, John Dashwood. The story is told in flashbacks and ends with the Americans trying to blackmail the Ministry of Space into allowing them onto the newly built British space station.

This is a great sci-fi story that won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2005 with believable determined characters trying to push towards the heavens at any cost, even if it means going to hell first. I would recommend this graphic novel not only to comic book fans but also fans of sci-fi, it's a great and adult introduction to the world of graphic novels for people who know nothing of them beyond Superman and Batman. ( **** )

I enjoyed Fevre Dream as well. I only tried it because my DH is a big fan of GRRM.
I've got Case Histories set for next year's challenge.

Thanks for the reviews!

thanks victoria, I've been following your challenge too, but I've had to try and stay away. I've already ordered and am waiting for nightfall and v: second generation (like you I was a big fan when the books first came out) after having read your reviews and have another couple just waiting for payday .... :)

Oh no! Don't tell me that, I can't handle pressure!
I just love LT. The connections we make here are priceless.

no, it's great, they might have completely passed me by, as you say one of the great things about LT is finding out about all these unkown books and authors!
I hope you enjoy case histories next year, it has to be one of the stand out books for me this year, she is another author I had not read before but I already have one good turn ready and waiting in my TBR pile!

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester



This book by Bester was first published in 1956 (and has been called one of the best sci-fi novels of the 1950's and seems perenially to be on everyone's top 100 lists ...) which I didn't realise until about halfway through the book. I was very surprised! This book seems to pre-empt, take into new directions and surpass some many of the themes and ideas in contemporary sci-fi that it is still remains as original today as it no doubt did in 1956.

Set against the backdrop of war against 'inner' and 'outer' planets this book truly has something for every sci-fi fan; teleportation (something that Bester deals with, for me, very intelligently. He doesn't simply say it exists he also demonstrates how society has and has had to change to deal with this), rockets, inter-planetary wars and spies, telepathy, a mysterious (and world-shatteringly) chemical substance, races against both time and enemies, improsement and escape and shady doctors in 'back-alley' surgeries to help with unwanted tatoos (... you'll have to read the book, I don't want to spoil it ...). The hero (if you can call him that) Gully Foyle is abondoned in space, his ship nearly destroyed by an enemy attack, when he sees another spaceship called the Vorga coming he thinks he is saved but when it flies by ignoring his signals his rage transforms him and drives him on to not only survive but to track down the ship and crew of Vorga with only one thing on his mind ... vengeance!
4 stars - a book I look forward to re-reading. ( **** )

Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain by Chris Stewart



This book is subtitled "An Optimist in Andalucia" and that very much sums up this delightful book of a couple moving to southern Spain. There has been a glut recently of people moving abroad, leaving the reality of life in England behind to try and capture that holiday feeling every day in another country (and yes, I'm just as guilty spending a couple of years in Spain myself) and this has led to a lot of books being published as everyone thinks they are the next Peter Mayle and Peter Kerr. But this is a genuine, funny and touching view of life in rural Spain, I loved Chris' writing which captured the countryside, the characters he has met and his adventures in joining the local community.

Without giving anything away Chris moves to a farm in Spain in some sort of "Good Life" self sufficiency experiment that Tom and Barbara would be proud of in Spain and of course not everything goes as it should do. But the eternal optimist Chris never moans about any of this, never tries to blame anyone else but simply always looks to the positive side of things and this despite no access road, electricty or water at one point. His neighbours of course help him out and the interaction between all the people he meets, the local farmers, ex pats, new age travellers and hippies make sure there is never a dull moment.
A great read I would recommend to people who like travel / autobiographies. ( **** )

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet



A historical novel set during the time of civil war in England in the mid 12th century (known as The Anarchy) between the time of the sinking of the White Ship (to all non-historical scholars out there, myself included, the ship and its importance is explained in the book) and the murder of Thomas Beckett. It follows the building of a mighty Cathedral in the fictional town of Knightsbridge, a sort of representation of a typical market town at this time, and the lives of all the people involved and affected by the building. It was also (something I did not find out until after I had finished the book) listed at no. 33 on the BBC's Big Read, a 2003 survey with the goal of finding the "nation's best-loved book".

At this stage of a typical review I would normally give a very brief synopsis without trying to give any of the twists and turns away, mainly to help me remember the story when I come back in a years time and think; “this sounds like a good book, why haven’t I read this before?”. However in this case the story is so expansive that I could either condense it to the unhelpful – ‘people build cathedral’ or elucidate to over 4 pages of the general plot. Somewhere in between those two points I can say that the book opens with Tom Builder and his family looking for work and eventually finding it designing and helping to build the Cathedral in Knightsbridge. We follow Tom, his family, children and grandchildren as the cathedral grows but we also see the development of the town itself, how its economy grows, the political reasons behind this, the fight for power not only for the throne of England but also for the Earldom of Shiring and to be the Prior of the Kingsbridge monastery. The tale takes us through medieval England and Europe as we see the growth of cathedral design in France and also in Spain and takes in some of the various important historical events of the time to give a broad sweeping picture of life in medieval England through the rise and fall of various families … a sort of soap opera meets your vague recollections of history lessons at school.

One of the drawbacks of having so many characters is they do tend to be very black and white with almost pantomime villains and saintly heroes. However it is the story that draws you in and I have already started looking for more factual based accounts of that period as it sounds a fascinating point in English history. For me there were perhaps too many unsavoury moments in the book to recommend it to anyone, there were an awful lot of sadistic scenes of sex that some readers might find offensive and, especially towards the end, I found there were a lot of unnecessary problems for the characters put in by Follett, obstacles for them to overcome that became a bit too repetitious, you started thinking; “well, what’s going to happen to so and so this chapter?”. I am sure life was a lot harder in the 12th century but these people had seemingly endless Herculean labours to overcome that simply beggared belief. If you enjoy historical novels then I am sure you will enjoy this book and although it will draw you in and compel you to keep going, keep turning the page, just one more chapter please remember you will feel as wrung out as the inhabitants in Kingsbridge by some of the scenes. ( *** )

Fer-de-Lance (Crime Line) by Rex Stout



The first Nero Wolfe book that Rex Stout wrote and the first Wolfe book I read, though it certainly won't be the last. I've always loved the hardboiled detectives of America, authors like Chandler, Hammett, Himes and Block but I've recently started reading the more genteel English detective stories and this is a perfect combination of both the styles of detective fiction. The cerebral Nero Wolfe who, being a "mountain of a man" stays at home, refusing to go out but instead pieces the clues together by deduction and the streetwise and 'hardbolied' assistant Archie Goodwin who goes out to interview people, do the leg work and collect the clues necessary for Nero to make his amazing leaps of deduction. As one reviewer called the pairing it is like; "Mycroft Holmes working alongside Sam Spade".
the story Rex introdces the world to Nero Wolfe with doesn't quite have the human complexity of Raymond Chandler but it does have the language and sense of the time in which it was written that he does and it also has a story with enough ingenuity and originality to rival Conan Doyle, Poe's detective Dupin or Agatha Christie with an eloborate murder weapon, some neat twists and turns and enough clues that the reader can look back and exclaim; "of course! how could I not see that?", though of course I don't want to spoil it for any newcomer and reveal any here. It also has that great relationship between the private detective and DA's office that Chandler and Hammett have, the push and pull of them rejecting each others help but needing them and the threats by the DA that Archie neatly sidesteps.
This is a book and, hopefully, series I could happily recommend to fans of detective fiction and I will certainly be re-reading this myself so it gets 4 stars. ( **** )

I had this one in my challenge this year as well as an audiobook. I really enjoyed it. One of the things that struck me was how the characters emerged as real people, right from the first book.

hi cmbohn. Yes, that struck me too. I'm sure I read somewhere that Rex Stout didn't want to have to 'explain' his characters and so, even from the off, he plonked them down fully formed without giving any explanation to them, their role or backstory. Apparently you can read the series in any order without ever feeling lost.
Who read the story in your audiobook? We have a few of the old american Nero Wolfe radio shows where he's played by Sydney Greenstreet and I can never think about Nero Wolfe now without imaging or hearing Sydney Greenstreet!

also recently finished V:Second Generation, lord jim, london, crime stories from the strand and just finishing off little stranger by sarah waters on audiobook. I'm hoping to start getting the reviews out very soon, just had problems with the inetrnet connection again recently which has delayed things ... on the upside without the electronic distractions I've managed to get more reading done :)
starting fludd by hilary mantel soon for the next book club meeting, I've heard good things about it, has anyone else read it recently / enjoyed it?