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spooky_missBook One Hundred and Eight – Revelation by CJ Sansom
I have only read three of the five Matthew Shardlake books by CJ Sansom, but they are really great, I love them! Its basically a mixture of my two favourite genres – history and crime. In this book Shardlake is investigating a case of a boy who has gone “mad” and continually prays. This was really good as it described how Bedlam was run in the Tudor times and how people were treated there. As well as this he is investigating the death of his friend Roger, who has been killed in an unusual way. This turns out to be related to another death, which was also unusual, and it is believed that this is in some way connected to the King, Henry VIII. The story is set at the time when Henry is trying to get Catherine Parr to marry him, and there is a lot of religious uncertainty, so therefore a lot of suspicion about everyone’s motives for their actions, and why people would want to do certain things. I like these books as they bring in real people – this also has Thomas Seymour, his brother Lord Hertford (Edward Seymour), and Archbishop Cramner in it, to add to the historical accuracy. Shardlake also has his assistant Barak, and his friend Guy, who help him in his investigations. It turns out that the deaths are related to the book of Revelation, and different methods of how people would die which are recorded there. But I won’t give anything more of the story away! I love this series as there is so much detail about Tudor life, and the characters are really well written. I will hopefully (fingers crossed!!) get the new one (Heartstone) for Christmas (although I still haven’t read Sovereign – will have to look out in charity shops for that!) and I have CJ Sansom’s “other” book, Winter In Madrid, which is about the Spanish Civil War, to read, which should be good! I recommend this book to anyone who likes either historical fiction or crime fiction. 9 / 10
Book One Hundred and Nine – The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
I had been looking forward to reading this book for ages – but unfortunately it was quite disappointing. It sounds great – its about the poet John Clare and his time in a mental asylum, and also describes the life of the head doctor at the asylum and his family, and then Tennyson and his brother turn up as well. So it sounds like it would be interesting, and its true that the descriptions of the “mad” people in the asylum are very good. For example how they see the world, how they live their lives, it was written well and you felt you had an insight into their conditions. However, the whole story was a bit meandering and vague, you weren’t quite sure why certain things happened, and it didn’t come to a very good conclusion at all. If it had just been about John Clare, and if he was focused on in more detail that might have been better, but there were lots of other aspects introduced which made it less good. Maybe it would have been better if I didn’t have such high expectations of it…although it is a Booker nominated book, and often they’re rubbish (see the next book review for proof!!) , so I should have known really! 6 / 10
Book One Hundred and Ten – The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
I really should have thought about this book before reading it. Overall, the Booker winning and nominated novels I have read have generally been a bit rubbish (Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi and Possession spring to mind here!) but this one did sound good, so I hoped it would be better. It is about a man named Treslove, and he seemed to have some kind of obsession with being Jewish, and the fact that he wasn’t Jewish. He has a friend named Finkler who he has known from school, and they are both friends with an elderly man named Libor, who Treslove explains his obsession with Jewish-ness to. Treslove seems to go through his life comparing himself to Finkler, who is Jewish, and the book goes on about how Treslove feels that he is somehow missing out on something in his life as he isn’t Jewish. He then gets a Jewish girlfriend, and explains his fears to her. This is probably a terrible description of the book, but it was so boring, and the characters didn’t really have any interesting aspects to them, that I don’t know how I got through it! The only one who has an interesting like is Libor, and I kind of wish this book has just been about him and his life, as that would have been good. This is also a book which all the reviews seem to think is “hilarious”, but I didn’t even smile throughout it – oh apart from at one bit, but I couldn’t tell you now which bit it was! I do find that books described as funny usually aren’t though! (see: Catch 22! Another boring and unfunny book!). I wouldn’t recommend this book – I don’t know why or how it won the Booker Prize! 4 / 10
...and thats my book reviews up to date :) I'm currently reading "Widow for One Year" by John Irving, which is good so far. I've also found a list of my New Years Resolutions from last year, and I noticed that the book one just said "Read more than 100 books", not 120 books as I thought...so I have achieved that, woo! :D
I have only read three of the five Matthew Shardlake books by CJ Sansom, but they are really great, I love them! Its basically a mixture of my two favourite genres – history and crime. In this book Shardlake is investigating a case of a boy who has gone “mad” and continually prays. This was really good as it described how Bedlam was run in the Tudor times and how people were treated there. As well as this he is investigating the death of his friend Roger, who has been killed in an unusual way. This turns out to be related to another death, which was also unusual, and it is believed that this is in some way connected to the King, Henry VIII. The story is set at the time when Henry is trying to get Catherine Parr to marry him, and there is a lot of religious uncertainty, so therefore a lot of suspicion about everyone’s motives for their actions, and why people would want to do certain things. I like these books as they bring in real people – this also has Thomas Seymour, his brother Lord Hertford (Edward Seymour), and Archbishop Cramner in it, to add to the historical accuracy. Shardlake also has his assistant Barak, and his friend Guy, who help him in his investigations. It turns out that the deaths are related to the book of Revelation, and different methods of how people would die which are recorded there. But I won’t give anything more of the story away! I love this series as there is so much detail about Tudor life, and the characters are really well written. I will hopefully (fingers crossed!!) get the new one (Heartstone) for Christmas (although I still haven’t read Sovereign – will have to look out in charity shops for that!) and I have CJ Sansom’s “other” book, Winter In Madrid, which is about the Spanish Civil War, to read, which should be good! I recommend this book to anyone who likes either historical fiction or crime fiction. 9 / 10
Book One Hundred and Nine – The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds
I had been looking forward to reading this book for ages – but unfortunately it was quite disappointing. It sounds great – its about the poet John Clare and his time in a mental asylum, and also describes the life of the head doctor at the asylum and his family, and then Tennyson and his brother turn up as well. So it sounds like it would be interesting, and its true that the descriptions of the “mad” people in the asylum are very good. For example how they see the world, how they live their lives, it was written well and you felt you had an insight into their conditions. However, the whole story was a bit meandering and vague, you weren’t quite sure why certain things happened, and it didn’t come to a very good conclusion at all. If it had just been about John Clare, and if he was focused on in more detail that might have been better, but there were lots of other aspects introduced which made it less good. Maybe it would have been better if I didn’t have such high expectations of it…although it is a Booker nominated book, and often they’re rubbish (see the next book review for proof!!) , so I should have known really! 6 / 10
Book One Hundred and Ten – The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
I really should have thought about this book before reading it. Overall, the Booker winning and nominated novels I have read have generally been a bit rubbish (Cloud Atlas, Life of Pi and Possession spring to mind here!) but this one did sound good, so I hoped it would be better. It is about a man named Treslove, and he seemed to have some kind of obsession with being Jewish, and the fact that he wasn’t Jewish. He has a friend named Finkler who he has known from school, and they are both friends with an elderly man named Libor, who Treslove explains his obsession with Jewish-ness to. Treslove seems to go through his life comparing himself to Finkler, who is Jewish, and the book goes on about how Treslove feels that he is somehow missing out on something in his life as he isn’t Jewish. He then gets a Jewish girlfriend, and explains his fears to her. This is probably a terrible description of the book, but it was so boring, and the characters didn’t really have any interesting aspects to them, that I don’t know how I got through it! The only one who has an interesting like is Libor, and I kind of wish this book has just been about him and his life, as that would have been good. This is also a book which all the reviews seem to think is “hilarious”, but I didn’t even smile throughout it – oh apart from at one bit, but I couldn’t tell you now which bit it was! I do find that books described as funny usually aren’t though! (see: Catch 22! Another boring and unfunny book!). I wouldn’t recommend this book – I don’t know why or how it won the Booker Prize! 4 / 10
...and thats my book reviews up to date :) I'm currently reading "Widow for One Year" by John Irving, which is good so far. I've also found a list of my New Years Resolutions from last year, and I noticed that the book one just said "Read more than 100 books", not 120 books as I thought...so I have achieved that, woo! :D
