spooky_miss | Books 77 and 78

Book 77 – Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

At first, this book starts really weirdly. It is about a man who answers an advert in the newspaper – “teacher, seeks student” – and when he arrives at the address given, he finds a gorilla behind a glass pane. He sits down in front of it and finds that he can somehow talk to him with his mind….and then the book gets into what its actually about and you kind of forget that it’s a man talking to a gorilla! The main point of the story is about the relationship between Man and Earth. The author uses the story of Cain and Abel to illustrate a discussion about whether the world belongs to use to use (takers) or we are part of the earth and should use its resources sparingly. Its quite philosophical, but at the same time quite easy to read, I thought anyway. You can tell that the writer is a Christian, but don’t let that put you off – its just that he knows the Bible well and uses examples from it to illustrate his points. For me personally it was the type of book when I finished it I thought should do something, like change the way I live or something, but I didn’t really know where to start! It is clear that we are taking too much of the Earth’s resources, but its hard to know what to do as individuals, as the way we live our life now (as a race) uses so much, that maybe one person’s actions won’t make much difference…but then again if everyone said that no one would achieve anything or change the world in any way! I think I definitely want to read the sequels – unfortunately as it’s a Christian book they’re unlikely to be in “normal” bookshops, but possibly my dad might be able to get them from his church. Recommended if you have an open mind and want something to think about! 8 / 10

Book 78 – Never Tell by Claire Seeber

This book was a lot better than I thought it would be! This came free with The Times, and I thought it would just be a normal sort of crime novel, but there were bits about it which were really good. Its about a family who live in a nice peaceful village, Rose who is a journalist on the local paper, and James who is a successful nightclub owner. They have recently moved there, and Rose has left her job as an investigative journalist on a national paper, to have a quieter life. However once they’re there one of Rose’s friends asks her to investigate someone who has just moved into the village. There turns out to be a link to a “secret society” that Rose and James joined when they were at University, called “Society X”. This involved a very charismatic young man called Dalziel, who is involved in some serious crimes in his attempts to re-enact the 10 Commandments…breaking them of course. There was a huge scandal which was then all hushed up, and it seems to have come back to haunt them. I won’t say anything else as I don’t want to spoil the book! I liked this as I do like books about secret society type things, and it was a really interesting one! Also a lot of the aspects in the book were all linked together, for example it turned out the people who were hired by the people who have moved into the village had something to do with their past life, which was really good. The only thing that really annoyed me was that Rose had an affair with someone, which I thought was a bit unnecessary, as I thought it didn’t really help the story along. But despite that, it was still good. Recommended if you like interesting crime and secret societies! 7 / 10