The Universe Versus Alex Woods

Author: Gavin Extence

Published: January 2013

What they say: A rare meteorite struck Alex Woods when he was ten years old, leaving scars and marking him for an extraordinary future. The son of a fortune teller, bookish, and an easy target for bullies, Alex hasn’t had the easiest childhood.

But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend. Someone who teaches him that that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make it count.

So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he’s fairly sure he’s done the right thing …
Introducing a bright young voice destined to charm the world, The Universe Versus Alex Woods is a celebration of curious incidents, astronomy and astrology, the works of Kurt Vonnegut and the unexpected connections that form our world.

What Sheli Says: I’d wanted this book since it was first published and treated myself to a copy in a sale a few months ago. I finally got around to reading it recently.

The book is written in a way that is easy to follow, and as it unfolds we find out more and more about the extraordinary Alex and his relationships with those around him.

The book has a very serious undertone to it, which I found unexpected and only really became apparent to me over halfway in. This turn in the book is heartbreaking when it happens, but is in no way depressing. Extence should be applauded for the handling of such a contentious subject in a factual, yet sensitive way.

I enjoyed this book and would like to read more about how Alex gets on in life. The only downside to this book was that I didn’t feel “gripped” by it in the way I’d hoped that I would have been.

Sheli's rating: 6/10

Transition

Author: Iain Banks

Published: 2009

What They Say: Imagine a world that is one of infinite parallel worlds, that hangs suspended between triumph and catastrophe, the dismantling of the Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, in the shadow of suicide terrorism and global financial collapse. Presiding over this world is the Concern, an all-powerful organisation whose operatives possess extraordinary powers. There is Temudjin Oh, an unlikable assassin who journeys between the high passes of Nepal, a version of Victorian London and a wintry Venice; Adrian Cubbish, restlessly greedy City trader; and the Philosopher, a state-sponsored torturer who moves between the time zones with sinister ease. Transition is a high-definition, hyper-real apocalyptic fable for terrible times.

What Elaine Says:  Wow. Right where does one start with a book like this?  You might want to find a comfortable seat. 

Transition is only the second Iain Banks book I have read (The Wasp Factory being the other) and I’m happy and terrified to say this messed with mind in just the same way.  

As I’m sure most readers of this blog are away, Banks also passed away earlier this month after his battle with cancer.  I was about halfway through this book when I heard and it made reading the last half a rather more touching affair.  It really is a loss to the literary world.  Banks was a phenomenal author.  

Transition is a bit of an oddball in the Banks canon.  It appears that after some debate it was actually released in America under Iain M Banks (Banks’ sci-fi pseudonym).  I’m not sure I’d call it sci-fi but it’s certainly speculative fiction and I can see why the US used the Iain M Banks name to avoid confusion. 

So what’s it all about? Well having read it, it’s still quite difficult to explain.  Transition is set during what is deemed ‘the golden time’ between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the twin towers, a time when we didn’t realise quite how good we had it.  The plot is based on a rather complicated multiverse theory wherein (if I’ve got it remotely right) there are as many versions of Earth as we choose to imagine.  The story unfolds through many different narrators including a self-serving city trader, a state contracted torturer who refers to himself as ‘the philosopher’, and a world hopping assassin.  Following so far?  

The stories do eventually intertwine but for the most part they are fascinating in their own right and that’s even before coming to the overall story arc (a shadowy multiworld organisation known as ‘The Concern’) .  

The sections of the book told from the point of view of ‘The Philosopher’, generally made me retch and I mean that most literally.  Banks is an author that has the power to make me physically react to what’s on the page.  I’m not sure if that’s normal but my goodness is it powerful.  There are moments when I was so uncomfortable with what I was reading I simply couldn’t carry on.  My husband seems to think this is a bad thing and wonders why I persevere reading something like that.  To be honest, I’m not sure why but surely it’s the sign of a truly great author? 

Then we have the sections of book told from Adrian’s point of view (the self-serving city trader).  These made me laugh, a lot, and normally out loud on the bus. 

I was confused, amused, repulsed, but always enthralled by this book.  I have so many questions after reading it I kind of want to read it again but then there’s also a whole host of Banks novels out there that I’ve yet to experience.  If only there was some sort of multiverse whereby I could relive Transition and read the rest of his novels simultaneously.

RIP Iain Banks

    
Elaine's Rating: 9/10

Quotes:

“Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.”

The Radio

Author: M Jonathan Lee

Published: April 2013

What they say:

A comedy so black that you'd have to eat a lot of carrots to know whether George's adventures are actually visible. The Radio centres around the decline of the lovable, yet hapless George Poppleton, a middle-aged, henpecked father and husband who stumbles across an old transistor radio in his loft. His obsession with listening to the radio drives him on an unexpected journey, fuelled by the painful memories of the suicide of his only son many years before. Whilst his only daughter, Sam, and wife, Sheila, plan perhaps the most ill-fated wedding ever conceived, the radio transports George further and further away from reality. When a garlic baguette is used as a lethal weapon and the hogs finally take a stand and turn on the farmer who is about to roast them, nothing is likely to go as smoothly as the family may have hoped. The accidental return of Sam's ex-fiance, David, coupled with the endlessly drunk Auntie Lesley ensures that an almighty farce is just around the corner. The Radio ends with an unimaginable twist, when the family realise that things are not at all how they seemed. It is a story of what it means to be a family, the perception of loving and being loved, and what it means to be sane. It will appeal to anyone who enjoys family-based modern contemporary fiction with both poignancy and humour. Jonathan has been inspired by a number of novels, including Alex Garland's The Beach, and his writing is comparable to Mark Haddon, Nick Hornby and Joseph Connolly.

Show More

Show Less

What Sheli says: I was expecting good things from this book when I started it, but never expected it to be as good as it was!

We meet George who is a loveable father figure who is just a little eccentric, and his wife Shelia and daughter Sam. They are a fairly typical family with their fair share of dysfunctional attributes! George, the downtrodden husband finds an old radio that he starts tinkering around with while his wife and daughter go out and have fun while he looks after his grand daughter. The tinkering becomes a bit more than that when he and the radio become inseparable and it becomes the most important thing in his life.

Some parts of the book had me laughing out loud, most had me chuckling, but some bits were desperately sad. The book was fabulously written and it was a real pleasure to read. It's easy going style and good pace kept me gripped and I finished the whole thing in a day. I'd love to read more about George and his family, and a little birdie had told me that there is more to come.

A fantastic book which is comparable to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Lost and Found. You should all go and buy it now!!

Sheli's rating: 10/10

The Things We Never Said

Author: Susan Elliot Wright

Published: 23 May 2013



Publisher: Simon and Schuster


What They Say: In 1964 Maggie wakes to find herself in a psychiatric ward, not knowing who she is or why she has been committed. She slowly begins to have memories of a storm and of a man called Jack and slowly the pieces of the past begin to come together...In 2008 Jonathan is struggling to put his differences with his parents aside to tell them he and his wife are expecting a baby, when a detective arrives to question him about crimes committed long ago...And as these two tales interweave, the secrets of the past, long kept hidden, start to come to light in unexpected and sometimes startling ways. The Things We Never Said is a powerful novel about fatherhood and motherhood; nature and nurture; cruelty and kindness; and mental breakdown. Written in beautiful, compelling prose, it is by turns revealing, witty and moving.

What Sheli Says: I don't think the cover of this book does it justice as I don't think I would have read it if I hadn't carefully read the blurb for it.

The story follows two main characters, Maggie and Jonathan, 40 years apart and we find how their seemingly separate lives are very much intertwined. The book alternates between 2008 and the 60s and we see Jonathan's life start to fall apart as Maggie has to put together the pieces of hers after waking up in a mental hospital with no idea of why she is there.

The book is really well written and I wanted to know more about the characters all the way through. The story was heartbreaking in parts, and I found that I couldn't put it down. The short chapters helped me to stay up a lot later than planned to read it as I kept thinking "just one more"!

I really enjoyed the book, although I found the ending a little anti-climatic. I think this was because there are some unresolved issues in the book that I wanted to know more about.

I was sent an advance copy of this book for review by Lovereading.

Sheli's Rating: 8/10

Find it on Amazon

Briefs Encountered

Author: Julian Clary

Published: March 2013

What They Say:  A haunting story of love and obsession...

Noel Coward is the toast of twenties society...a brilliant playwright, composer and entertainer whose bon homie, witty songs and pithy lines hide a secret. Goldenhurst, his house in Kent, provides a refuge. A place where he can be himself. And more importantly where he can be with his lover, Jack, without fear of arrest or judgement...

And so it would have remained if their idyll hadn't been ruined by the arrival of Noel's domineering mother, father and aunt...

Flash forward to present day and actor Richard Stent falls in love with the house and buys it from its current owner. But Richard has problems of his own...Goldenhurst is supposed to be a respite from all his worries but this is a house with a very rich, and not always pleasant history.

And more than one thing is about to go bump in the night...

What Elaine Says: Oh dear.  I was actually quite looking forward to this.  A bit of sparkling wit and a few nods to the era of Noel Coward were very appealing in this bleak never ending UK winter.  Unfortunately though this really didn't deliver.

It's clear what Clary is aiming for, a humorous homage to Coward and his like.  However, this ends up far more like a Carry On "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" film than a clever, wry look at society.

It's not all bad.  There were moments that were amusing, but all in all this just didn't work for me.


Elaine's Rating: 3/10

Find it on Amazon 

The Dinner

Author: Herman Koch

Published: August 2012

Publisher: Atlantic Books

What They Say: A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.

Each couple has a fifteen year old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children, and as civility and friendship disintegrates, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

What Sheli Says:The Dinner is full of suspense and kept me gasping all of the way through.

The story is set over the space of a dinner out at a restaurant. We also flashback to different points in the characters lives as we dig further into what seems like a nice civilised dinner, and find out more about the skeletons in their closets.

The story is well paced, although a little slow to start and is well written. I read this book fairly quickly as I really enjoyed it, and my initial worry that it might be another piece of pretentious contemporary fiction was quickly dispelled.

There were a few points in the book where the writer didn’t give detail on something and just brushed it off as “not for here”. I didn’t really like this style and thought that maybe all would be revealed by the end of the book. These things were left unresolved and I felt that the end of the book was a bit of an anticlimax in general.

Overall, a good read and I would definitely recommend it.

I was sent this book for review by Lovereading

Sheli's Rating: 7/10

Find it on Amazon

One Step Too Far

Author:Tina Seskis

Published:15 April 2013 

Publisher:Kirk Parolles 

What They Say: An apparently happy marriage. A beautiful son. A lovely home. So what makes Emily Coleman get up one morning and walk right out of her life to start all over again? Has she had a breakdown? Was it to escape her dysfunctional family - especially her flawed twin sister Caroline who always seemed to hate her? And what is the date that looms, threatening to force her to confront her past? No-one has ever guessed her secret. Will you?

What Sheli Says: Wow, just wow. 

This story is a real keep you on the edge of your seat thriller that is that clever you aren't really sure why you are on the edge of your chair, but just know that something isn't right! It is fast paced, exciting and actually, for most of the story, is the picture of normality, with just a sense of what is to come.

Emily Coleman runs away to London. We don't know why, we just know she does and that she is leaving her family behind. When she gets there, she builds a new life for herself and makes new friends. The main story is intertwined with a number of stories explaining how we got to today, with one large piece missing until the last part of the book.

The book is separated into three parts with short chapters within each part. From about half way through the second part I was frantically trying to stay awake to keep reading because the twists just kept coming.

There is no way that you can guess how it ends. Or for that matter how it begins!

Comparable with S. J. Watson's excellent Before I Go To Sleep.

Sheli's Rating: 9/10

Find it on Amazon

Edward Adrift

Author: Craig Lancaster

Published: 9 April 2013

What They Say: It’s been a year of upheaval for Edward Stanton, a forty-two-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s lost his job. His trusted therapist has retired. His best friends have moved away. And even his nightly ritual of watching Dragnet reruns has been disrupted. All of this change has left Edward, who lives his life on a rigid schedule, completely flummoxed.

But when his friend Donna calls with news that her son Kyle is in trouble, Edward leaves his comfort zone in Billings, Montana, and drives to visit them in Boise, where he discovers Kyle has morphed from a sweet kid into a sullen adolescent. Inspired by dreams of the past, Edward goes against his routine and decides to drive to a small town in Colorado where he once spent a summer with his father—bringing Kyle along as his road trip companion. The two argue about football and music along the way, and amid their misadventures, they meet an eccentric motel owner who just might be the love of Edward’s sheltered life—if only he can let her.

Endearing and laugh-out-loud funny, Edward Adrift is author Craig Lancaster’s sequel to 600 Hours of Edward.

What Sheli Says: I read 600 Hours of Edward last year and fell a little bit in love with Edward and was itching to know more about his life. I was lucky enough to get this next installment from NetGalley pre-publication.

The long and short of it is that I still love Edward. This book follows him as he embarks on some new adventures following a number of events that wreck his routine and really pull the carpet out from under his feet.

We meet some familiar characters as he goes to visit Donna and Kyle at their new house and tries to help Donna get to the bottom of Kyle's uncharacteristic behaviour. We meet a lot of new characters along the way, and also get to see Edward flourish in new situations and with new people. He continues to grow in character from the first book and it was a pleasure to read.

I think that you would definitely have to read the first book before reading this one as there are a lot of references to the first time we met him, but hey, this one hasn't been published yet, so plenty of time to read 600 Hours of Edward first!

I hope that we get to see more of Edward very soon!

Sheli's Rating: 9/10

Find it on Amazon

Frances and Bernard

Author: Carlene Bauer

Published: April 2013

What They Say: In the summer of 1957, Frances and Bernard meet at an artists’ colony. She finds him faintly ridiculous, but talented. He sees her as aloof, but intriguing. Afterward, he writes her a letter. Soon they are immersed in the kind of fast, deep friendship that can take over—and change the course of—our lives.

From points afar, they find their way to New York and, for a few whirling years, each other. The city is a wonderland for young people with dreams: cramped West Village kitchens, rowdy cocktail parties stocked with the sharp-witted and glamorous, taxis that can take you anywhere at all, long talks along the Hudson River as the lights of the Empire State Building blink on above.

Inspired by the lives of Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell, Frances and Bernard imagines, through new characters with charms entirely their own, what else might have happened. It explores the limits of faith, passion, sanity, what it means to be a true friend, and the nature of acceptable sacrifice. In the grandness of the fall, can we love another person so completely that we lose ourselves? How much should we give up for those we love? How do we honor the gifts our loved ones bring and still keep true to our dreams?

In witness to all the wonder of kindred spirits and bittersweet romance, Frances and Bernard is a tribute to the power of friendship and the people who help us discover who we are.


What Elaine Says: A novel, in letter form, that follows the life of two fictitious writers (inspired by the lives of Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell), their love affair with each other and with God. 

Having read Marilynne Robinson's spectacular epistolary novel, "Gilead" last year, I'm afraid I found the religious discussion in this a little flimsy. And while I'm aware that comparing a Pulitzer Prize winning author, Robinson, with a debut novelist, Bauer, is deeply unfair, I'm afraid it was there in my mind.  Moments of theology that could have led to an interesting discussion were touched upon but the novels length (and love story) prevented them from being examined fully.  

The main love story however was very engaging. Bernard, a poet and Frances an aspiring writer, meet at an artists colony.  Drawn to her talent Bernard begins a correspondence with Frances that will last through their lifetime. Through, faith and art they form a love that will either support them or break them.

Touching, and intriguing, I enjoyed the novel and would probably read more from Bauer.

Please note this was an advance review copy 

Elaine's Rating: 7/10

Quotes:

"I can say only this very artless, sweet-hearted thing, which is that you are velvet-skinned and freckled, and I will not be able to sleep tonight because of it."

Find it on Amazon

The Lighthouse

Author: Alison Moore

Published: August 2012

What They Say: The Lighthouse begins on a North Sea ferry, on whose blustery outer deck stands Futh, a middle-aged, recently separated man heading to Germany for a restorative walking holiday.

Spending his first night in Hellhaus at a small, family-run hotel, he finds the landlady hospitable but is troubled by an encounter with an inexplicably hostile barman.

In the morning, Futh puts the episode behind him and sets out on his week-long circular walk along the Rhine. As he travels, he contemplates his childhood; a complicated friendship with the son of a lonely neighbour; his parents’ broken marriage and his own. But the story he keeps coming back to, the person and the event affecting all others, is his mother and her abandonment of him as a boy, which left him with a void to fill, a substitute to find.

What Elaine Says: Oh dear.  This little Booker Prize shortlisted novel really is quite disappointing.  Let's start with the positives though (and it's a biggy).  The writing is brilliant.  Short, sharp and clear.  Moore really is accomplished.  Unfortunately, with this particular story, the style leaves the reader slightly removed and shines a light (no pun intended) on just how dull the main characters are.

I found myself uninterested and even irritated by the main characters, Futh, who is on a walking holiday in Germany and Ester, the hotel owner seeking solace with anyone that passes through her hotel.

Ultimately this is a case of (lack of) substance over style.  As a writer, Moore is one to watch.  As a storyteller? Well, we'll see.
  
Elaine's Rating: 5/10

Quotes:

"In the night, there will be a storm.  It will be brief, if a little violent, and hardly anyone will realise it occurred, although they might hear it raging, thundering, in their dreams.  

 In the morning, by the time people are up and about, the sun will be out again, and the soaked pavements will be dry, and there will be very little evidence of damage."

Find it on Amazon 

Solo Pass

Author: Ronald De Feo

Published: 5 March 2013

What They Say: A dark yet often funny novel narrated by a man who, for the past two months, has been a patient at a New York City mental ward. Having suffered a breakdown—due to his shattered marriage and an irrational fear of fading away as a human—he now finds himself caught between two worlds, neither of which is a place of comfort or fulfillment: the world of the ward, where abnormality and an odd sort of freedom reign, and the outside world, where convention and restrictive behavior rule. Finally on his way to becoming reasonably “normal” again, he requests and is granted a “solo pass,” which allows him to leave the (locked) ward for several hours and visit the city, with the promise that he will return to the hospital by evening.

As he prepares for his excursion, we get a picture of the ward he will temporarily leave behind—the staff and the patients, notably Mandy Reid, a schizophrenic and nymphomaniac who has become his closest friend there. Solo Pass is an unsettling satire that depicts, with inverted logic, the difficulties of madness and normalcy.

What Sheli Says: I requested this book from Netgalley as it seemed to be right up my street. And I was not disappointed.

We follow the main character as he embarks on a days release from the mental ward where he is currently staying following a breakdown. We get to meet a variety of characters on the ward, plan his journey with him and get out onto the mean streets of New York. More importantly, we get to feel his feelings, ride the emotional rollercoaster that he does and understand what caused the breakdown and irrational thoughts.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was sensitively handled without feeling as if it was walking on eggshells and gave a real insight into the irrational thoughts that often accompany a range of mental illnesses. Some parts of the book were really quite funny and others were heartbreakingly sad. The characters were all very human and parts of the storyline kept me guessing.

I will definitely seek out more from this author. 

Sheli's Rating: 9/10

Find it on Amazon

The Rosie Project

Author: Graeme Simsion


Published: 11 April 2013




What They Say: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a story about life, love, and lobster on Tuesdays... Meet Don Tillman. Don is getting married. He just doesn't know who to yet. But he has designed a very detailed questionnaire to help him find the perfect woman. One thing he already knows, though, is that it's not Rosie. Absolutely, completely, definitely not. Telling the story of Rosie and Don, Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project is an international phenomenon, sold in over twenty countries - and counting. Don Tillman is a socially challenged genetics professor who's decided the time has come to find a wife. His questionnaire is intended to weed out anyone who's unsuitable. The trouble is, Don has rather high standards and doesn't really do flexible so, despite lots of takers - he looks like Gregory Peck - he's not having much success in identifying The One. When Rosie Jarman comes to his office, Don assumes it's to apply for the Wife Project - and duly discounts her on the grounds she smokes, drinks, doesn't eat meat, and is incapable of punctuality. However, Rosie has no interest in becoming Mrs Tillman and is actually there to enlist Don's assistance in a professional capacity: to help her find her biological father. Sometimes, though, you don't find love: love finds you...

The Perks of Being a Wallflower for grown-ups, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a truly distinctive debut. With the charm of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the romance of David Nicholls' One Day, it's both funny and endearing - and is set to become the feel-good novel of 2013...

What Sheli Says: Well, what can I say? This book was just great! The characters are brilliant, the story was well paced and engaging and it is a great love story without being cheesy or too soppy.

The story follows Don Tillman on his quest to find his perfect woman and we get to join him on the adventures he has on the journey. He is very set in his ways and finds social situations difficult, but we see him grow both in confidence and as a person throughout this book.

It is both funny and super cute in places. I also liked that this book is set in Australia as I haven't come across many (if any!) books set down under. 

The one criticism I have of the book is that I would have liked to know a little bit more about Don and the reasons he behaved the way he did. Some things are alluded to, but no detail is given and are skimmed over slightly. On the other hand, this is the mark of a good character as I really cared about him and wanted to know a lot more. 

A great book and highly recommended as a well written feel good story.

 
Sheli's Rating: 8/10

Find it on Amazon

Lost and Found

Author: Tom Winter

Published: 21 February 2013


What They Say: It started with a letter...Carol is married to a man she doesn't love and mother to a daughter she doesn't understand. Crippled with guilt, she can't shake the feeling that she has wasted her life. So she puts pen to paper and writes a Letter to the Universe. Albert is a widowed postman, approaching retirement age, and living with his cat, Gloria, for company. Slowly being pushed out at his place of work, he is forced down to the section of the post office where they sort undeliverable mail. When a series of letters turns up with a smiley face drawn in place of an address, he cannot help reading them.


What Sheli Says: After reading The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry last year, I really liked the look of this book and wanted to see whether it measured up.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this book! It is very easy to read with really vivid characters and definitely lives up to the hype. It follows the soon to be intertwined stories of Albert and Carol as they each face their own crises in their own way. When their paths inadvertently crossed, I was just willing them to come face to face and help them through their problems. I was kept riveted to the end and read huge chunks of the book in each sitting.

I think this book stands out on its own in the way it deals with issues such as illness, aging and love and deserves to be recognised for its own merits rather than merely being compared to a similar novel. This book was touching and heartbreaking in parts, but at no point did it feel depressing or melancholy. An excellent debut.

I was sent an advance review copy of this book by Lovereading.

Sheli's Rating: 8/10

 

Find it on Amazon

Intermission

Author: Owen Martell

Published: January 2013 

What They Say: New York, June 1961. The Bill Evans Trio, featuring twenty-five year old Scott LaFaro on bass, play a series of concerts at the Village Vanguard that will go down in musical history. Shortly afterwards, LaFaro is killed in a car accident, and Evans disappears. Intermission tells the story of what happens next.

In measured, evocative prose, Intermission takes a period from the life of one of America's great artists and fashions it into a fiction of extraordinary imaginative skill and ambition. The novel inhabits the lives of four people in orbit around a tragedy, presenting an intense and moving portrait of the burden of grief, and of a man lost to his family and to himself. It is also a conjuring of a pivotal moment in American music and culture, and a unique representation of the jazz scene in the early 1960s.

Intermission is a novel of pure control and power, certain to establish Owen Martell as one of the most promising young writers in Britain today.

What Elaine Says: The only thing I like more than listening to music, is reading about music and musicality, so this, the first English language novel by Welsh writer, Owen Martell, seemed just right for me.  I'm happy to report that it is a beautiful piece of work but it didn't quite deliver the music I was hoping for.

Told from the point of view of four characters we get glimpses and sketches of the story but nothing truly tangible.  This is very purposely and very finely done.  The prose are evocative enough to keep the reader interested and at times, even a little hypnotic.

What was lacking in this for me however, was music.  With such beautiful and often lyrical writing, I was waiting for Martell to conjure up the dark, smoky, undulating, world of the 1960's jazz scene but alas it never came. I have no doubt that Martell is more than capable of delivering the music in writing but he just didn't choose to in this particular story which seems a bit of a shame to me.

Martell's writing really is skilled and very very beautiful.  His style is just spot on for me and I expect great things will come from him in the future.  He has a few other novels, but unfortunately for me, they seem to be written in Welsh.  Maybe our Welsh speaking Sheli will translate them for me!

Elaine's Rating: 7/10

Quotes:

" She thought of the sea and her mind sped her down empty streets, through red lights and stop signs, placing her in wash up to her ankles. Twelve feet high with nothing but a moving blue in her eyes."

Find it on Amazon

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Author: Rachel Joyce

Published: July 2012

What They Say: When Harold Fry nips out one morning to post a letter, leaving his wife hoovering upstairs, he has no idea that he is about to walk from one end of the country to the other. He has no hiking boots or map, let alone a compass, waterproof or mobile phone. All he knows is that he must keep walking. To save someone else's life.

'The odyssey of a simple man, original, subtle and touching'. - Claire Tomalin
 
'From the moment I met Harold Fry, I didn't want to leave him. Impossible to put down.' - Erica Wagner, The Times

What Elaine Says: Charming and heartwarming are probably the two best words to describe this simple story of an elderly gentleman who decides to walk.

After receiving an unexpected letter from an old friend, Harold Fry leaves his house to post a reply only to end up walking the length of England to see her. Harold doesn't intend to do this and when he realises what he is doing, he doesn't know why he's doing it.  As the miles pass however, Harold reflects on his life and comes to understand the importance of what he's doing. He also meets some interesting characters along the way who touch his life in some way.

Another side of the story is told from the point of view of Harold's wife.  She is left behind and understands what he's doing no more than he does.  It's an interesting addition to have this viewpoint and in fact a lot of the emotional weight this book has, comes from having this side of the story included.

It really is just a lovely little novel.  It won't change the world but it will certainly make you think it's a beautiful, if complex, place to live for a little while.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is Rachel Joyce's first novel.  She is currently working on her second novel 'Perfect' and if it's anywhere near as heartwarming as this is, it will be well worth a read. 

Elaine's Rating:  8/10 

What Sheli Says: I really enjoyed this. I found some parts a little slow, but thought it was a heartwarming and lovely story.

There have been a lot of books of this kind around over the last couple of years and I don't really think that this one stands out from the crowd. However, it is enjoyable and well written and well worth reading.

Some parts of the story are really funny and overall it is a real feel-good uplifting type of story that makes you take a different view on human kind.

I received this as an advance review copy from Netgalley. 

Sheli's Rating: 7/10

Quotes:

“He must have driven this way countless times, and yet he had no memory of the scenery. He must have been so caught up in the day's agenda, and arriving punctually at their destination, that the land beyond the car had been no more than a wash of one green, and a backdrop of one hill. Life was very different when you walked through it.” 

“If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope.” 

The Man Who Forgot his Wife

Author: John O’Farrell

Published: March 2012

What They Say: Lots of husbands forget things: they forget that their wife had an important meeting that morning; they forget to pick up the dry cleaning; some of them even forget their wedding anniversary.
But Vaughan has forgotten he even has a wife. Her name, her face, their history together, everything she has ever told him, everything he has said to her - it has all gone, mysteriously wiped in one catastrophic moment of memory loss. And now he has rediscovered her - only to find out that they are getting divorced.
The Man Who Forgot His Wife is the funny, moving and poignant story of a man who has done just that. And who will try anything to turn back the clock and have one last chance to reclaim his life.


What Sheli Says: I have had this book on my TBR pile for a while and finally got around to reading it. I was instantly hooked by the story and really loved the characters. As Vaughan tries to rebuild his life after his memory loss, we learn about him as he learns about himself.

Some parts of the book were really laugh out loud funny and others were really sad, but I just couldn’t stop myself reading on to discover who this man was, and more importantly, who he had become.

Despite the title being very similar to a glut of books that have been published over the last year or so, I think this one really stands out from the crowd as an insight into a mind that may never completely recover former memories, but can remember who was the Christmas number one in 1994.

I would recommend this book as a light read that is built on firmer foundations than a lot of the similar books out there. I must warn you that if you read on public transport, you will laugh out loud at this book!

Sheli's Rating: 9/10

Find it on Amazon