Bookshelf

Croatian Nights – A Festival of Alternative Literature – Various Authors

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This is a marvellous collection of short stories. Sex and alcohol are mixed in with a splash of violence and a good helping of humour. All this creates a delicious cocktail of weird and wonderful stories set in or about Croatia. A mixture of British and Croatian authors have contributed to this book celebrating alternative literature, many of the Croatian ones being translated for the first time.

I chose this book to take on holiday with me to Croatia and really enjoyed almost every moment. I don’t often read short stories, but found it just right for holiday reading.There is a variety of themes in the collection, including love, the aftermath of war, sexuality and tourism. The British authors mostly write from tourist or ex-pat points of view, with an emphasis on alcohol, sex and Rock and Roll. Continue reading →

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

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Having heard the story of Frankenstein and his monster many, many times, I thought I knew exactly what to expect from Mary Shelley’s novel. I imagined it to be gruesome and frightening. I assumed I would have nightmares and would only be able to read the book during the day, when all was still light. What I was not expecting was for such a tragic, heartbreaking tale.

Everyone knows Frankenstein’s story, of how he created a monster and through years of study, found a way to bring life to the being. As the nameless monster opens his luminous eyes, Frankenstein suddenly realises the horror of what he has done and flees. The newly alive creature, alone and  uncertain struggles through a hard and unloved life. People run from him, he can’t even stand the sight of himself and with a rush of emotion and self pity, he curses his maker and vows to hunt him down and make his life unbearable. Continue reading →

The Boy Who Ate Stars – Kochka

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Boy Who AteThis is a short and deeply moving book, translated from French by Sarah Adams. It is the charming tale of twelve-year-old Lucy, who has recently moved into a new apartment in Paris. She decides to get to know all of the people in the building, but when meeting the extraordinary four-year-old Matthew from upstairs, everything changes. She learns that he is autistic and wants to understand more, so she sets out to learn all about him and his unusual world. Continue reading →

A Year in the Merde – Stephen Clarke

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I read this over a very busy week and it was just what I needed; a quick read that didn’t need much concentration. It’s almost exactly what I was expecting after looking at the front cover and reading the back. Full of clichés,  predictable jokes and lots of sexual innuendos.

Paul West, a young English business man in France, is working on a project to introduce typically English tea rooms across the capital. He works with a small, incompetent team and has a corrupt boss, who of course has a sexy assistant. And that is not the only time a sexy French lady is mentioned. In fact the majority of the book is about Paul goggling at sexy French women and trying to think up ways of negotiating himself into their sexy French knickers. Continue reading →

Right Ho, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse

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Right Ho, Jeeves is the perfect book to read if you are feeling slightly dispirited. It is a rollicking, barrel of laughs from start to finish and is sure to put a smile on your face. If, like me you love the TV series, you’ll find the books just as entertaining.

The book is bursting with farcical situations, foolish schemes and some very amusing dialogue between our two favourite characters Bertram Wooster and his butler, Jeeves. Starting with the simple problem of Gussie Fink-Nottle being too nervous to admit his love for Madeline Bassett, Bertie creates a whole confusing mess of matters and causes chaos at his Aunt’s house. Luckily, Jeeves is always around to save the day with a well thought out plan and knowing smile. Continue reading →

The Promise of Happiness – Justin Cartwright

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I had high hopes for this book and was slightly disappointed. Although it is well written, I found the style at times irritating. The storyline is interesting enough and the characters are realistic, but I simply was not hanging on every word or desperately reading late into the night.

The book revolves around the Judds, a seemingly ordinary family of five. Charles and Daphne have retired to an idyllic Cornish town to live out the rest of their lives walking along the beach, playing golf, arranging flowers and experimenting with fish recipes. However, life for this particular family has been uncertain and on edge since the prodigal daughter, Juilet, or Ju-Ju, was arrested two years earlier. She was then sentenced to prison for art theft which turned their lives upside down. Now, on the day of her release, Ju-Ju’s family are preparing and desperately hoping that the world will now right itself and life will gradually go back to normal. Continue reading →

Brick Lane – Monica Ali

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At first glance, you may think that Brick Lane is full of unsatisfied and unhappy characters. Luckily, the book itself was a far from an unsatisfactory read. In fact, by the end, I was very satisfied indeed. The characters may be frustrated with certain aspects of their lives, but this book shows how people can rise above their disappointments and live their lives to the full.

Our heroine is Nazneen, who grew up in a small village in Bangladesh. After her sister runs away in a ‘love marriage’ and her mother passes away, she is sent to London to marry an older man. She is only eighteen when this life changing decision is made by her father, and nothing will ever be the same again. Continue reading →

Before the Earthquake – Maria Allen

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After reading an interview with the author, I simply had to buy this book. The plot seemed too good to miss out on, and being set in a small village in the the south of Italy, at the turn of the last century, it sounded like my sort of thing. The story is about Concetta, a fifteen year old peasant girl who wakes from a coma after an earthquake, finding herself pregnant and with no memory of how she became that way.

Worried about the scandal it would cause, not to mention ruining the chance of marriage for her two sisters, Concetta is quickly married to a family friend to settle an age old debt. Through the rest of the book, we follow Concetta through her new routines as she tries to get to grips with her new life. Continue reading →

The End of the Affair – Graham Greene

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This is a beautifully written account of the bitter aftermath of a broken love affair. The book is written from the point of view of Maurice Bendrix, an author and rejected lover of Sarah, a married woman living across the common.

He starts his tale with the chance meeting of Sarah’s husband, Henry, walking through the common on a miserable, rainy evening. It is eighteen months since he last saw the married couple and seeing them again reawakens his feelings of hate, which threaten to overflow. He hates Henry, for coming between him and his lover. He hates Sarah for leaving him. But most of all he hates himself for pushing Sarah away with his jealousy and anger. Continue reading →

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson

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Fear and Loathing is everything you would expect from a drug fuelled trip to Las Vegas – and more. Filled with bizarre situations, hilarious dialogue and a unique writing style, this book was enjoyable to read from beginning to end.

Hunter S. Thompson is a brilliant writer who manages to describe his days spent in Las Vegas with a surprising amount of clarity and lots of humour. Set in the post hippie era, this cult hit is loosely based on some of his own actions, mixed in with some imaginative, fabricated events.

The book opens with him and his attorney thundering through the desert on the way to Las Vegas in ‘The Red Shark’. Being a sports journalist, Thompson has been given an assignment to cover a desert motor race in Las Vegas. Instead, he takes the spending money and stocks  a rented red chevy convertible up with every type of drug imaginable, and along with his Samoan friend, goes in search of the American Dream.  Continue reading →