Aya Vandenbussche

Much like the spaceships on the planet Karn, this book was crumbling in my hands as I read it. I think the novelisation is somewhat better than the TV story, which is amongst my favourite from Tom Baker. The opening description of the alien trying to escape the ruins and getting caught by Condo is chilling. Sarah's blindness feels like it lasts longer and is quite disturbing. The battle between the Doctor and the Morbious monster reads a lot more challenging and difficult than on TV and the Doctor's interaction with the Sisterhood, which comes across as incredibly sinister in the book, is better, more complex and interesting. Also, the characters of Sarah and the Doctor read better, and some of the things that annoy me on the TV show do not stand out as much in the book.

I have minor irritations with the fact that Sarah just falls asleep suddenly in the middle of the action. This could have been actually quite funny, in a Harpo Marx kinda way, but alas it is not written like that, instead she comes across as someone who can't handle things and is a bit useless and therfore benched. I'm also not a great fan of this Doctor's constant joking about and his being somewhat disrespectful, an attitude that often characterises Tom Baker's Doctor, but admittedly is relatively mild in this novelisation and is less irritating as a one off story. I would have also liked more description and world building of the ruined Karn to give it more of an atmosphere. But these are all minor things, and the book is a great little gem.

It has taken me a very long time to read this book and I did not enjoy reading it. It is an interesting book and the writing is effective, I have cried a lot, like everyone else, but there has come a point where I was just crying becuase of the manipulation of the writing and not because I have felt anything for anyone anymore.
I understand that the characters are pushed into extremes of misery, and the contrast between their highly successful lives and frankly quite annoying ammounts of money they all have, which reads particularly jarring in these days of economical misery. I guess the point is that money does not resolve all the problem, but it feels so simplistic and a bit patronising and annoying when people are struggling to pay energy bills.
I think the question of suicide also interesting and is dealt with quite well. It gives a voice to those who are left behind as well as those who are forced to continue living for their sake, and there is no right or wrong there. It is difficult and it is painful.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that I found myself disliking Jude and feeling bad for it. On the one hand I am forced to feel bad for the guy who has been trhough incomprehensible and repeated traumas. It is almost as if becuase of his multiple horrific traumas, has made him immune to anger from his surrounding, even when he is being infuriating. His inner voice and throught did not help, and made him more frustrating. Also, I don't think he is a good man, he is perhpas not a bad man like those who tormented him, but he puts all the people around him through a hell of a lot of misery, he brutal and heartless in the court and he hates himself, which does not make him likeable to me. Maybe I am being harsh on him, but I feel like I am being manipulated to feel bad and/or sorry for him. He does not change or make an effort to change. I am not sure why I should like him.
I am not very knowledgable about this topic, but I couldn't help wonder if this book, apart form anything else, is somewhat ableist, I would be interested to know is anyoen else felt this way.
AT the end of the day, I get that Yanagihara wanted to push her characters and perhaps her readers to extreme, but I am not sure to what end.

I can see that this book is a turning point for Discworld. I have a genuine fondness for the previous two books, and I love following the writing development, but this book goes beyond the parody and offers the unique and beautiful Pratchett commentary and touch that I have come to love.
The character of Esk reminds me of Pullman's Lyra, simply because I have read Pullman first, I assume it is probably the other way around. Curious, stubborn and smart. I like them a lot.
It's a great book and a recommended introduction to Pratchett to those who prefer to get to the good stuff first.

I was listening to Nigel Planer reading along my own reading and it was all kinds of perfect.
This one hit me right the emotional gut with the Golem. How very Blade Runner 💔
And Sam Vimes is everything! His development is a work of art. He dislikes indiscriminately and his moral compass and logic are sexy as hell!
I do think the watchmen are in my heart now.

I don't think I will cause much gasping or outrage if I declare this the best novel in the English language, and I say this despite the unlikelihood of me reading all the novels in the English language. Also, after reading Dickens, I don't think I have his mastery of language, to find enough words to express the array of emotions and feelings I have gone through reading this book. To call it a masterpiece feels almost meaningless.
I have read and heard most divide this book into two narratives, obvious ones, which become intertwined and connected. However, I would argue, or politely suggest that Bleak House has a lot more narratives than the two. Nearly every character in this book has a narrative and together these narratives create a beautiful tapestry that left me gasping and pulsating. It is a picture of England, or maybe Britain, please don't write in. The true protagonist of this book is England/Britain, aka Bleak House.
It is funny and sad and beautiful and ugly, chilling and warming and it is poignant, accurate, painful, wonderful, but never dull. I guess it is the War and Peace of Britain. Bleak House made me think of Kafka, for obvious reasons, and of Vasili Grossman's Life and Fate, for its mosaic structure, but also for its overpowering humanity. Both Kafka and Grossman wrote in the 20th century, I am sure they have read Dickens. Terry Pratchett of course, also came to mind, for the language and the world-building.
The book has had a great emotional impact on me and the beauty is that it wasn't so much because of the characters or their actions, it was more to do with the humanity or lack of humanity of the situation.
While reading the book I was listening to Mirian Margolyes reading it on audible. I cannot recommend it enough. Reading this book aloud can't be easy, I think it is highly demanding, but she gets it right, she read it magnificently.
When I finished the book I was elated and filled with a desire to do nothing but read and write. I think, like Don Quixote, this will be a book I will return to again.

I forgot some of the great stuff about this one. I love that superman/Clark is vegetarian. I really love the big Lex background story and Superman's search for identity.
Retreading this has revealed some excellent new ideas about wording and representation.

I'm relatively new to Pratchett. I started at the beginning and despite all the warning and instructions I did really enjoy the first two books that everyone dismiss. I love following the process, the development and world building from book to book.

I had to deviate from the order for my studies and I'm currently focusing on City Watch books.

There's so much I can write and that has probably been written about Guards! Guards! So I will just say how beautiful and exciting a book it is. Beautiful because there is poetics to his prose, I love the ‘dragon of the mind'. Idea. Exciting because his language and his writing makes my heart soar. I love every clever word play, the many allusions to so many works, the vast knowledge behind it is awe inspiring. The deeper you go the more there is to unravel and I really like that. I'm really enjoying my Pratchett journey and looking forward to get to know Sam Vime and the City Watch better.

Reading this a second time, I have noticed more the importance of word and wordplay for Terry Pratchett, which is one of my favourite things about his writing. In the audible, there's an afterwords by Joan Harris. She beautifully discusses the transformative power of words and how Wyrd gives way to words, for words are magic. They really are in Pratchett's hands. It is his basic words, his playfulness, and his wordy craft that inspire me. It makes me not just want to be a writer. Pratchett makes me want to be a good one. He makes me want to learn more, so I would know more and write better!

It has taken me a long time to write a review for this book that I have finished reading a while ago. I should point out that I listened to the audiobook and I admit it has left me somewhat stumped. But perhaps not quite as stumped as I felt after reading some of the reviews on here and coming face to face with some of the ignorance regarding Harris and the subject matter.

It is true that Joel Chandler Harris had a significant role in the documentation of the Afro-American folktales and putting them into writing. His books, for good or bad, have brought attention to these tales. His use of what he thought was ‘authentic' dialect and slang in his writing is definitely interesting if not somewhat problematic. Whether these stories would have been lost without him, I cannot say other than looking into this I am not convinced they would have. It is not a far stretch to think that we should be grateful for slavery for creating those folktales.

It is important to note that Harris was a problematic figure and a supporter of slavery, even if it was a ‘liberal' kind of slavery. He romanticised the South and its values, which included slavery. He is considered to be a prominent spokesman of the ‘uncle Ben and aunt Jemima' type of view of slaves. He ignored, most likely on purpose, the contradiction between the extreme violence and insanity of the stories, attributing them to ‘the roaring wild nature of the animal kingdom' and his romantic view of the South and slavery.

Furthermore, he was highly misguided and quite single-minded. He was convinced he had a ‘hotline' to the life of the Afro-American folktale and that his and his alone were the ‘authentic' and true stories. Despite researcher, even in his time, pointed out that some of the stories he documented, most notably the famous Tar Baby story, did not and could not have originated in Africa, but rather in India, possibly America, or Europe. There is some mistral aspect to Harris too, he prided himself on his ability to speak in the same accent and dialect as the African-Americans and often spoke in this way in real life. He wanted to be identified as uncle Ramous and often sign his letters as him. Most importantly perhaps, Harris has taken what were meant to be adult stories, for Black people and turned them into children's stories for white children. It is this, I think, that brought Alice Walker, author of The Colour Purple, to accuse him of stealing her heritage.

Many of the reviews on here consider these stories a piece of history, which I think is as misguided as Harris himself was. This is not a history, this is a point of view about a history. I would not recommend reading these stories out of context, or without background. The language and dialect are difficult and to modern ears could sound even offensive. After listening to this book that has left me confused and uncomfortable, I was loaned another book Annotated African American Tales. This book is an in-depth overview of African-American folktales. This book has a clear distinction between folktales that originated in Africa and those that were told by the African-American slaves. It gives a lot of background to the legends and has a whole section about Joel Chandler Harris, it includes his notable stories. It is thanks to this book that I learned, for example, that there were hundreds of Tar Baby stories, only one version is told by Harris. The Annotated African American is a better book, better researched and really interesting. Thankfully, we live in a time where we don't have to and we shouldn't rely on Joel Joseph Harris and his worldview to get to know these interesting stories. I would recommend reading those books instead.

A little note about the stories themselves, despite Harris' best effort to make them seem like they are for kids, they are not. They are extremely violent and brutal. It is part of what is interesting about them. But while the Annotated book provides context to this extreme and often seemingly unjustified brutality (the rabbit attacks innocent animals as well as those who are trying to kill it), the Uncle Remus books do not.

I remember that even when I read it as a youth, I wasn't convinced by the romance between Spade and Brigid, which is why the conclusion had little emotional impact on me.
I do love Sam Spade, it's such a great character and so iconic. I love how the ‘detective' part of this is not that important, it's not so much about the mystery, it's about the character. Unlike Sherlock, who is all about the method.
There is, of course, a lot to be said about the politics, and/or morality of this book and whether this has aged well or not. Sam Spade does not belong in the present, he is the past, but it's an interesting past, it's complex, it sets a certain tone and I think it is interesting.

From what I have read so far of Pratchett I can see how he improves with each book. His writing makes me want to write. If I have any issues with this book, it's only very minor, but the book was very engaging and the writing infuriatingly clever and nourish. I can't wait to read more.

I just couldn't get into this book.
It is possible that the politics and background of it, which are probably quite interesting, have gone completely over my head. Unfortunately, the book didn't really make me interested in the history and the politics of it, it was sadly mind-numbing, which is sad because I am sure there is a lot to know and learn.

There are glimpses of beauty in this story, I found interesting parallels between Kim and Lyra, mainly in how they make stories up and lie. I am sure Pullman was inspired/influenced by it. However, those wonderful moments are buried in such a convoluted and exhausting plot full of social and political details that I found myself struggling to understand or care about, the result was that I honestly didn't really care about Kim, whereas Lyra, I was emotionally attached to.

Perhaps this is the biggest problem of the book, it does not draw you in emotionally, or the emotion remains hidden inside all the convoluted story. At some point The spy element of this story went completely over my head, I had no idea what was going on. I think the story is at its best when it focuses on Kim and the lama ‘against the world' though I liked the character of Mahmud as well, I struggled to care every time he went away and came back. I leave this book confused and frustrated.

I would like to add that the afterward of this edition, by David Stuart Davis is infuriatingly apologetic, and diplomatic. The critique against this book as well as the problems with Kipling being an imperialist and white supremacist are legitimate issues and should be addressed. It is stupid to be apologetic on his behalf, he wouldn't, or to try and explain that he was writing at different times, there are plenty of incredibly political and radical writers from his time and earlier, and it is patronising towards the reader. It is OK to think he was a brilliant writer, but also held some very troubling views.

I acknowledge that this book has merits and like I said above, glimpses of beauty, but the experience of reading it was not particularly enjoyable.

I did like the book, but there have been a few issues that in my view didn't age very well. I think the intentions were good, but there have been a few things that jarred me as I read it.

First, the glorification of prostitution and the idea that they are all independent intellectual women. I understand the thought behind this and I appreciate it, but I found it quite uncomfortable. It might be that I'm looking at it with current eyes, or it might be that I am square, but I find it hard to accept this idea that prostitution is all so glamourous, the women are in control and it provides them with independence, especially in those days. I can't help feel that this is something we would tell ourselves to convince ourselves that sex workers do it because they enjoy it, and really they live a great life.

Second, the character of Samuel, who is someone who was treated badly by another vampire, Elenor, and then abandoned by all the other vampires, who claim to be a family and take care of each other. They have not treated Elenor, who seems to have behaved quite badly and broken a lot of rules, in the same way. While I understand not wanting to associate with evil killers, there is nothing to suggest that Samuel ever killed anyone, whereas Elenor on the other hand has caused others to kill for her, and while she was always accepted by the other vampires, they seem to have given up on Samuel quite quickly. Moreover, they seem to dislike and be ashamed of him. If they are a family like they claim to be, they should not have given up on him so quickly, they should have dealt with both Samuel and Elenor better. I am particularly disappointed in Gilda who experienced Elenor's influence first hand. I can't help wonder if Elenor gets forgiven for being a woman and Samuel is looked upon as a nuisance for being a man. Samuel, in fact, becomes a tragic character to me.

Finally, the most disturbing part of the book for me was what was referred to as ‘the exchange' the idea that in return for the blood the vampires are taking, they implant positive thoughts in people's minds. Again, I understand the thought behind it and I understand the attempt to make the vampires seem noble and good, this is an original idea, however, effectively this is brainwashing and rape. The ‘exchange' is not consensual, and it's not mutual either. This is not an exchange of ideas as done in conversation, this is an extremely invasive process in which the vampire accesses a person's mind and intimate thoughts, they do not share their mind and thoughts. When the Vulcans mind-melded, the good ones always asked permission first. This process of ‘exchange' is inappropriate and troubling. I think this is not intentional, I think there were genuinely good intentions and an attempt to be positive, unfortunately, it doesn't work and has made me cringe.

That said, I did like reading the book and there were really interesting concepts to it, I quite liked the futuristic part, when the vampires are hunted, not for killing them, but for using them. It is an interesting turn of events I thought. Some really good interesting characters and Gilda herself is actually great, never a victim always confident. I quite liked her.

An excellent and quite riveting read. I love the complexity of the two point of views and the unfolding of the story through them. It's very crafty and I love a good craft.
I follow the TV series as well and while it's quite different it's also very true to the book. The book's Miller feels a bit more sad and heartbreaking.
This book successfully touches on ideas that can easily be really cheesy, especially things like ‘the power of love' etc, but it handles it with sensitivity and without falling into kitsch and banality.
I particularly like Fred's epilogue and politics' need to simplify things into slogans and symbols. It was painful.
I noticed that in the acknowledgements he thanks Futurama, mostly for keeping the kids entertained, but I can see the complexity was influenced by the thinking behind Futurama.

What a journey is this poem. I don't pretend to know much about poetry, I have read very little of it and have enjoyed most of it (William Blake's Milton was the exception, which I didn't really like). The little poetry I have read has impressed me in one way or another and it is no doubt a unique form of writing. That said, reading Don Juan, my first ever Byron, had knocked me sideways, and many other ways. The poetry reads so flowing and natural. It is both hysterically funny, I laughed out loud, and grim. The craft of this poem is just beautiful. His command of language is inspiring. I admit I had no idea.
I guess I heard so much about Byron and he's become a bit of an icon, which can sometimes be tiresome. And yes he's over dramatic and a bad boy, and emotionally messed up and I'm sure everything has been said about the man, but damn he can write and it's magnificent.
The humour, especially that of the narrator, reminds me of Don Quixote, which makes me love it even more.
I must mention Jonathan Keeble who read the audible version of Don Juan. His voice is excellent and his acting adds so much to this poem. When it comes to poetry, I think I like listening to it being read while I follow with a book. Keeble made this journey exciting and wonderful.

Weird, funny and clever. The odd turn that the book makes about two thirds is the only thing that makes this book unique, it actually offers a really good and interesting take on classic women heroines in the history of literature.
A book that celebrates spinsterhood in such a wonderfully jovial way is quite rare.
I do feel that a minor compromise was made at the end, I might be a bit harsh though, but it's really quite minor and doesn't take too much of the joy of this book.

Technically I still have to read the notes, but I think I'll do that as I write my essay.
I don't think there's much I can add to what has been said about Milton's epic. I like that his God is a real Machiavellian dickhead, and I have an interesting theory about Eve being Milton's own voice at some point, but I think I'm going to keep it for my essay.
Anyway, it's all quite wonderfully dramatic as well as philosophical. I can see why Pullman was so inspired. I almost felt like with this poem Milton invented Christianity.

A very enjoyable first novel from Osman, perhaps a tad overindulgent and maybe mmm... too English=y? But still very enjoyable. I think I enjoyed the characters, the side stories and the fun writing, more than the mystery plot itself. I guess I wasn't that invested in the murders and there was no sense of risk at least not to anyone important.
That said, though I haven't read that many, this novel had an instant Agatha Christie=esque feel to it and I quite liked it. Also, I liked that there wasn't one solution and that murders were quite unrelated. I like that random coincidence of it all.
It was entertaining fun escapism, which is important.

This book had taken me by surprise. I picked it for book club thinking it'll be heavy and depressing. It is a tough book, but it is powerful and surprisingly there was something quite, I use the word cautiously, optimistic about it. There are glimpses positivity in all the darkness of this book.
Corregidora is the blues, it is women's blues in the form of a novel. It's accurate, it's sharp, it's painful and it's beautiful.

I absolutely loved this book! It took me a little while to get into it, but once I did, I felt really immersed in it.
This is not the first time I felt a certain kinship (pun only partially intended 😁) between Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, but here the similarity of ideas about planet building really makes me wonder if there was some kind of discussion between them.
Personally I feel more drawn to Pratchett than Adams, not that I don't like Douglas Adams, before anyone starts crying blasphemy, I do, but I relate more deeply to Pratchett's ideas. I feel like his stories, especially this one, are often about creating stories and I really like that a lot. Adams makes me chuckle and think he's clever and crafty with language, Pratchett makes me want to write all the time and never stop.

I found this book less flowing than Foe, but quite powerful in places.
I think the Vietnam part is more effective, at least towards the end of it, than the Boers part. However, it is possible that my ignorance of this history factored in.
If nothing else, it made me want to learn a bit more about this history of South Africa. Without reading Heart of Darkness, I can see that they are connected.
It is a particularly interesting read in conjunction with my audio book, Homegoing.

Reading Foe after reading Robinson Crusoe was like a sigh of relief.
Right from the start Foe undermines Defoe's ‘classic' (personally I don't think RC is a classic), but then continues to undermine its own story as well.
It raises intelligent questions about storytelling, point of views, what is true and whether that even matters. At first it felt like a clever essay about Robinson Crusoe, but really this is a book that muses about being a writer and a storyteller. It reads flowingly and a lot easier than RC.
The only negatives about this book stem from the problems that can sometimes arise from a men writing in a woman's voice, this is not too bad and I also get that the woman's voice is an artistic and critical choice, which is relevant to the bigger picture rather than a feminist agenda in this case, so it's mostly forgivable.
My other issue is the somewhat bizarre ending, that I'm not sure works. Nevertheless, this book is effective without the ending.

Where do I begin?
I have had to read this book for university and I have come to resent it.
It is hard for me to agree with the sentiment that this book is ‘of its time' especially since in this book's time there were authors like Cervantes, who was politically miles ahead, funnier and far more intelligent, as well as Shakespeare, who even if I may not always agree with his world views, still offered brilliant prose and poetic and incredible insight into the human condition that still rings true. Moreover, why should I make do with an author ‘of its time' when Cervantes and Shakespeare were ahead of theirs? I have noticed that people who use this ‘of its time' nonsense are quick to get furious at the woman in the attic, or a slave trade profits hinted at in Charlotte Bronte, who was also, if you ask me, ahead of her time.
Now for the book. What pisses me off about this idea of British Christian colonialist tale, is that it's all so polite and civil, a gentlemen fighting to survive in the wilderness and maintain his gentlemanly ideals. This is so abhorrent to me and continues in the form of white washing, holocaust denial and 0ther forms of civilised racism, which can be worse because it is harder to find beneath all that politeness and harder to fight. I won't bore with how Robinson Crusoe dismisses the native guy's beliefs and ‘shows him the light' or with his raving mad assertion that it is his island and he's the king, I am sure enough people have written about that. I will only say that pretending the man has been alone on the island for so long that he has become a lunatic and all of this story actually happens in his head, has helped deal with a lot of that.
But say I am willing to accept racism and colonialism as ‘of its time' which I don't, and make some concessions for this book, I cannot. I do not see it's prose, its insight, or any literary value to this book. I cannot of the top of my head remember a main character in a book I disliked as much as I despised Robinson Crusoe. This book could have done with a bit of self-awareness and maybe dare I say, a sense of humour. Instead it suffer from the worst thing a book can suffer from, it is boring.
I read this book because I had to for my MA in English literature, I do not feel that I have learned anything about English or literature from this book. at least not anything good. I have if anything, lost a lot of valuable time in which I could have read some good books.
Finally, I decided to give this book one star after contemplating not giving it any, simply because I did, to begin with, enjoy how useless Crusoe is, how is not really good at anything in particular, until he becomes good at colonialism, and how much hard work it is for him to just survive. It is slightly undermined when he start attributing all his successes to god and not his hard work, but as I said, he's clearly insane. I would have also liked to have known how a British gentlemen like him went to the loo and cleaned his bum. But that would suggest a sense of humour this book lacks.

Reading this play was a bit of a roller coaster of emotions. It is quite funny and cynical in the best possible way. Gunter Grass, taking a dig at Bertolt Brecht kinda failed attempt to adapt Shakespeare. “We can't change Shakespeare unless we change ourselves” the Boss, who is not so thinly vailed Brecht character.
However, there is more to this play, and the historical context to Brecht attempted adaptation, given at the end of the book, suggest Grass' heart breaking disappointment of his predecessor, Brecht, who failed when his politics was tested. It makes Grass' play poignant.
There is a sober cynicism to it.
At times it feels like he is overselling his point perhaps and loosing the edge he gained with a great premise and backdrop, but that is perhaps to be expected from Grass' first full length play.
I did feel that in the end, despite the history, Grass tried to give Brecht the benefit of the doubt, but in a way it just makes the reality a bit more crushing.
I take one star off because I am not sure whether this play is as effective out of context.
I recommend this read very much, but it is worth reading definitely the Shakespeare source and I would say the Brecht one as well, though it is out of print.

It wasn't an easy read, and I admit it didn't always grab me, but it would be fair to say that the problem is me. I found it hard to follow the voice/s of the book and the characters, what was happening and when, but as I continued reading, I realised it was part of the experience.
As a white westerner reader, I also can't help feel that part of the attraction of this book has to do with an element of exoticism, or fascination with the other, and I am not sure how I feel about it.

That said, the book is filled with some beautiful observations and point of views. I loved the idea that white people are the product of witchery, it was clever and wonderful There was fluidity of in the writing and passion. Despite the confusion it caused, the dipping in and out of point of views, times and different characters that suddenly appear, works quite well for this story. It reads almost like a diary perhaps.