The Short and Long of It

More like short and long overdue, m’aright? 

Seriously, though, it’s been a week or two since the last update. I’ve been too busy to type things up, but rest assured, I have still been reading! I’m now going to have to recollect exactly what I wanted to talk about for the two books I’ve completed since my last post. The first of these was The Bloody Chamber short story collection by Angela Carter; the other The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (recommended by @littlebentley). 

As the title implies, this was a tale of two books; Carter’s short stories being a mere 126 pages - though packing some of the deepest writing out of anything so far. More so than anything else I’ve read so far this year, I was aware of constant subtext and careful, exacting thought in how a lot of the sentences were constructed, each carefully contributing to the overall ‘feel’ of the stories. I could see that I could have spent a lot longer reading and re-reading this book to really appreciate it further. It’s a book that screams to be studied as well as enjoyed. 

By contrast, Pillars clocks in at 1332 pages (as the iPad flips), but is much more ‘macro’ in every sense - the book spans several decades with its ambitious plot, and you can tell that Follett is a thriller author; the writing is compelling in a very different way,without the same slavish attention to the finer details. What’s enjoyable here is the roaring plot populated with interesting (although largely characateurish or archetypal) characters. You'll laugh, you'll get physically angry with hatred of certain individuals, and you will just keep reading it. 

I'm keeping the update short so that there's a chance I'll actually finish it. I fell a bit behind last week, facing for the first time an urgent desire to catch up with what I do with my downtime/commute normally - catching up with articles, news and podcasts on a whole host of topics. Fortunately, I got a 'free pass' in the form of finishing the audiobook I've had on the go - Steve Jobs. I'll update on that soon (another post I need to do). Suffice to say, while I’ve never been hugely sold on audiobooks in the past, I’m now already into another (though, in my defence, this one is narrated by Wil Wheaton). 

So, another update to follow, much sooner than the last one. Keep on reading!

Week 10

9/52

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman (2006)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (2011)

The Revolution of Saint Jone - Lorna Mitchell (1988)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carré (1974)

I Can Make You Hate - Charlie Brooker (2012)

Looking For Jake and Other Stories - China Miéville (2005)

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (1989)

The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter (1979)

Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2012)

Currently Reading:

The Plague - Albert Camus (1947)

Currently Listening To:

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (2011)

6 Down, 46 To Go

China Mieville is certainly an interesting writer. Looking for Jake and Other Stories is the second short story collection I’ve read this year. It’s definitely a slightly unfair comparison holding this up to Neil Gaiman’s work, given my sheer, unbridled love for Gaiman as an author (I refer you to my gushing here), but Looking for Jake... is a mixed bag. 

The first couple of stories were interesting, but didn’t really grab me. I could see the skill at work and the technical quality of the writing, but it lacked that real ‘hook’ that makes the story dig in your mind and resonate in a memorable way. That said, there were several standouts - The Tain, Reports of Certain Events In London, Details, and Entry Taken From A Medical Encyclopaedia were my particular favorites, intersecting somewhere between Gaiman and Lovecraft. 

Reports of Certain Events In London had a brilliant concept (which I won’t go into here, because: spoilers), and an interesting presentation style - told through a series of partial, recovered ‘documents. Entry Taken From A Medical Encyclopaedia is a fantastic description of a fictional disease - originally published in a collection of such stories, in which a Gaiman story included in Fragile Things was also included (Diseasemaker’s Croup). The Tain is the biggest, most striking set piece of the book.

Mieville (who, I learned, also went to Clare College) groups his work under the category ‘weird fiction’, picking up the thread of Lovecraft, among others, and this is very much evident (and I do love me some good/pulpy Eldritch fiction). The other thing that pervades almost every story is Mieville’s obsession with London (which seems to extend to his other works as well).

I’m currently blasting through another (short) book of short stories - The Bloody Chamber - which I’ll write up in due course. I’ve also set up an account on Goodreads to provide a quick summary of what I’ve read - and I’ll start adding some of my listed recommendations on there as well, to give you a view of what I’ve got coming up. I’ll post the link on Twitter in due course; check out #GRaBaW to find it, if you like.

Week 6

6/52

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman (2006)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (2011)

The Revolution of Saint Jone - Lorna Mitchell (1988)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carré (1974)

I Can Make You Hate - Charlie Brooker (2012)

Looking For Jake and Other Stories - China Miéville (2005)

Currently Reading:

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (1989)

The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter (1979)

Currently Listening To:

Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2012)

I Can Make You Read (Faster)

Confused as to what this is all about? See the first post here.

Another one down (and I promise that not all my posts will be sorry attempts at puns on the book title)! As I mentioned in my last post, I was worrying that getting into one of the longer books was going to put me behind schedule. With just a few days left of the week, I faced either falling behind and having to play catch-up, or switching tracks and powering through something a little more manageable.

Predictably, I plumped for the latter, so to see out the week, I ploughed through Charlie Brooker’s ‘I Can Make You Hate’, a collection of his acerbic columns and occasional TV segments from the last three-or-so years.

The cover alone is worth the price of admission

Got my cheeky personalised copy! I thought he was drawing a toucan. He mocked me when I asked if that's what it was. It was a special moment.

It’s a great read, particularly if you, like me, enjoy listening to (reading) a good, well-constructed, unbridled rant. That said, I don’t think this is really a book that’s intended to be read all in one sitting. The sheer amount of bile that had condensed on my face after powering through such a volume of well-put-together, surreal metaphors or ridiculous put-downs was almost overwhelming. 

For all of his reputation for misanthropy, Charlie Brooker actually comes across as quite a reasonable guy. A middle-aged, slightly bullshit-worn geek with an uncanny talent for putting the stupidity of many aspects of the world into perspective with a clever turn of phrase, in such a way that might be wholly depressing if it weren’t so funny. So there you go, he’s a man who transforms some of the scream-inducing ridiculousness and horror of the world into comedy. Isn’t that hilarious?

If you’ve come across any of Brooker’s other work, you know what to expect. If you haven’t, you really should, and this certainly isn’t a bad place to start. Though if you really want to see arguably the best thing he’s done (in fact, one of the best things on television in 2011), go and watch the first series of Black Mirror. Go on! Now! It’s only three sub-hour episodes - it’s ‘The Twilight Zone’ for the smartphone generation, and is horribly depressing and insightful, in a rather cathartic way. With a new season on the way in the next few weeks, there’s no better time to start. 

Genuinely creepy tube poster, but very excited for series 2.

Enough raving for now! I’m already moving on to the next one, so, more updates on they way!

Another gratuitous picture of me with the author, making it look like I spend a disproportionate amount of time hanging around with writers. If only.

Week 5

5/52

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman (2006)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (2011)

The Revolution of Saint Jone - Lorna Mitchell (1988)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carré (1974)

I Can Make You Hate - Charlie Brooker (2012)

Currently Reading:

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (1989)

Looking For Jake and Other Stories - China Miéville (2005)

Currently Listening To:

Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2012)


Remember you can follow my reading exploits on Twitter on #GRaBaW, where I post slightly more regular updates.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Reader

I’m back! I’ve been wanting to do a write-up on the latest book since I finished it last week, but haven’t been able to find the time. Before we move on to John Le Carré’s spectacular Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, here’s a quick update of where I’m at.  

It’s week five, and I’m currently on schedule, with four books ticked off. I’ve had quite an easy ride so far, with some fairly short books (the longest being The Night Circus, clocking in at almost 500 pages), so I thought I’d use the early lead to try and get further into one of the longer ones, so I’ve been cracking on with Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth (recommended by @littlebentley). I’m enjoying it, but the problem is, with a page count of around 1.5k, combined with the same lack of time that’s lead to me not posting here, I’m not much more than a third of the way through. 

So I’m faced with a choice – either pick a softer (read:short) target for this week to stay on target with my number, or press through with Pillars of the Earth and catch back up. I’m currently favouring the former, but watch this space (and Twitter).

I’ve picked up a lot of little bits about Le Carré’s books over the years. I especially remember badgering my Dad with questions about them on the many occasions he was reading them, but the only thing I really took away was the mysterious figure called ‘Smiley’. I watched The Cambridge Spies, which led me to make a bold start on the 1979 Tinker Tailor… TV series starring Alec Guinness, but (at the time) 

I found it too dry, and gave up quickly.

Launching in earnest into Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I finally got to meet George Smiley for real, and my first impression was that, oddly incongruous with the mysterious spymaster image I had in my head, he came across like a depressed, middle-aged accountant. This actually was part of the pleasure of the book – watching this apparently unassuming figure transform as he is pulled back into his old world of ‘the circus’ (SIS/MI6). 

Much of the story is told through ‘flashbacks’, in the form of Smiley’s memories, combined with going over a series of files. The principal plotline therefore can seem to advance quite slowly, with large sections of the book devoted to the backstory – but it is this that builds the circumstances on which the dramatic conclusion can be reached. 

If you enjoy a ‘proper’ spy thriller (none of this Jack Reacher, superman protagonist, stuff), then definitely pick this up. It forms part of a trilogy (the ‘Karla Trilogy'), which I definitely want to get into further at some point), and Smiley appears in several other books set before the trilogy – so there’s plenty more if you like it!

Having read the frankly ridiculous(ly awesome) cast list for the recent film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I’m really excited to see it, and see how it stacks up against the book. 

So there we go. As I said last time, not a review, just a cluttered collection of thoughts and impressions, but hopefully something to pique your interest. 

Right, back to medieval cathedrals.

Week 5

4/52

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman (2006)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (2011)

The Revolution of Saint Jone - Lorna Mitchell (1988)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carré (1974)

Currently Reading:

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (1989)

I Can Make You Hate - Charlie Brooker (2012)

Currently Listening To:

Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2012)

The Stories So Far...

As promised in my first post, I’m going to share my thoughts on what I’ve read so far. It’s currently week three, and I’m on schedule, with three books down and well into a number more (helped by taking a long flight last week!).

I’m not intending on writing full-blown reviews on every book I read (that would be a whole project in itself, I feel!), but I plan to share some of my thoughts about each one in some form, and hopefully get into some sort of discussion on them, because this is obviously something that makes reading infinitely more interesting. This is doubly important where the books are recommendations. If you’ve got your book onto my list, I want to compare notes and see what made you choose it.

First up to start off the year was Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman (2006). Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself on Twitter) is one of my absolute heroes, and probably my favorite author of all time (you’re certainly going to see more from him on here!). I've always been particularly enamoured of his short stories, which always remind me how great a format that is.

That was a good day...

You find yourself caught up in a story within just a few lines, without the need for lengthy setup or preamble. Almost inevitably, you’re left with questions, or sometimes just a faint sense of confusion - wanting more than just the glimpse into the world you’ve just seen. Often, the shorter the story, the more you'll want to dwell on it.

You can probably tell from my gushing just what I think of Gaiman’s writing in general. Long story short - the book’s subtitle says it all: “Short Fictions and Wonders’. It’s a collection of literary ephemera and oddities, and there should be something for everyone here. (Also check out his earlier short story collection, Smoke and Mirrors). 

Second is The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern (2011). It says a lot about this one that I read all 450ish pages in one non-stop sitting - though this is the book I read on the flight, so you might argue that it just says that I had nothing else to do for 7 hours (not true, by the way). The Night Circus was recommended by Georgia, and I found myself rapidly engrossed (the flight went by VERY quickly). If you enjoy beautifully evocative ‘phantasmagorical fairytales’ (much is made of the senses, and how they can be misdirected and deceived), then definitely pick this up (and don’t plan on putting it down for a while).

The third (and currently final) book is The Revolution of Saint Jone, by Lorna Mitchell (1988). This can best be described as ‘Feminist Science Fiction’. The book is set on a distant future Earth (with still-recognisable place names ‘The Yukeys’, ‘Strylia’) where rational science and mathematics have merged with religion (forming The Church of the Rational Cosmos - the Krischans). The story sets up the contrast between the sanctified 'Krischans', striving for a rational, id-less, emotion-suppressed state of Zen, and the 'Ethnics' who represent a more 'primitive' social group (though one that seems closer to our own than the enlightened Krichans).

This was an interesting read, but one that, if pushed, I’d say I didn’t really like. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy reading it, I’m just not entirely sure what I think of it. I could see that all sorts of analogies were being drawn and points were being made, but I found the setting too 'remote' to be able to grasp and engage with these properly. The sheer number of words and concepts created for the sake of the setting was overly distracting and distancing from what it was trying to convey. 

http://xkcd.com/483/

Right in the last chapter, though, Mitchell really hits the reader over the head with what it’s all about, but it’s all in a very Ayn-Randian way which feels like it would be more suited to a pamphlet essay that a dialogue. If you’re interested in something a bit different, maybe take a look (it’s short!), but otherwise, I’d probably pass.

So, that’s it so far. Next time it will be a little more focussed, as I’ll only be trying to cover one book, not three. I think I’ve had it easy so far, between plane rides, short reads, and favorite authors, so I’ve got some ways to go yet. 

What do you think? Have you read Fragile Things, The Night Circus, or The Revolution of Saint Jone, and want to set me right/agree vociferously? Take it to the comments below (though let’s keep it spoiler-free for those that haven’t read them yet). 

Week 3

3/52

Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman (2006)

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (2011)

The Revolution of Saint Jone - Lorna Mitchell (1988)

Currently Reading:

Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy - John Le Carré (1974)

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (1989)

Currently Listening To:

Jobs - Walter Isaacson (2012)

2013: George Reads a Book a Week (and maybe even blogs about it)

I use Sepia filters to compensate for my poor photography...

So it turns out that I'm terrible at blogging. Seriously. The number of times I've started and stopped at this is slightly unreasonable. I'm hoping that now that I've got a project to loosely hang things around that I'll update this slightly more often - stranger things have happened. Enough self-pitying navel-gazing about an inability to stick with something - on to some sort of point.

This year, I've decided to read more. In the year and a half since I left university, I've accumulated an increasing number of books, many of them gifts, and most of them generating some sort of excitement at the prospect of getting between their covers. The trouble? Despite the best of intentions, I've been terrible at actually getting any reading done, always allowing myself to get distracted by other pursuits. Then, shortly after the new year, after reading on Gizmodo the story of this man, I thought of way to get myself reading a great deal more.

Now, I'm not crazy - I didn't want to put all my other interests on hold for a year by trying to read quite that many books, but it gave me a starting point. My rather more conservative goal is to read a book for every week of the year. Fifty two should actually be totally achievable, so I'd like to push that out a bit further if it goes well.

This wouldn't be a challenge, or very interesting, if I were just picking out short or familiar books - I want to push myself a little more than that. So I thought it would be good to get to know the reading tastes of my friends and family a little better. I've started collecting recommendations from people on the 'one book they think everyone should read'. Most people have responded to this with a tortured look and a list of three or four. If people have been able to narrow it down to just one, I've added it to the list and committed to reading it (not to say I won't pick up any of their others - I just won't commit myself to it!). This should considerably broaden what I'm reading, and lead me to (hopefully) interesting things I would never have selected myself.

Graphic novels, audiobooks, etc. all count. Books I've already read don't, unless I decide it was so long ago that I can't remember it. Note also, I'm not trying to read each one in a week - only to end up with at least 52 at the end - I'm keeping several on the go at once, but I'll try and keep roughly to schedule throughout.

So there it is. It's week three already, and I'm on schedule with three down. If you're interested, I'll be posting updates here with what I'm reading, how it's going, and my thoughts and impressions on each book. I might start posting the ongoing reading list I'm accumulating as well.

No spoilers, please

Right, that's quite enough from me for now - there's reading to do. It would be good to see some engagement in the comments, or on #GRaBaW (George Reads a Book a Week) on Twitter, which might actually give me a reason to keep updating this ;) - follow, share, shout calculated expression of discouragement at me - just show me that someone's reading! I also might move this blog to a new domain at some point, seeing as the title doesn't contain nearly enough puns, but watch this space.

For now - happy reading!

Now I'm using black and white! I'm an arrrrtist!

TWIT on copyright

Just a brief note - I actually want to talk about this in more detail when I have time, but this is the best discussion on the current state of copyright and the web, including SOPA, which I've heard.

Definitely worth a listen, even if only the first 40 minutes of the show.

http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-tech/332