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Kafka on the Shore
Once again I find myself incredibly moved by Murakami. This is the fourth of his novels I've read and I've enjoyed all of them immensely.
I listened to the Audible version of Kafka on the Shore and the reading really brought it to life. As with 1Q84, the producers used different voice actors. The voice of Mr Nakata was just right.
I finished the book whilst standing on the shore watching the tide come in and it was a spiritual moment for me. The book really got under my skin and I would find myself thinking about it as I went about my day, looking forward to the next time I'd get the chance to put on my headphones and listen to some more.
It does leave some questions unanswered, but it answers all the right ones and leaves the unanswered ones for the reader to think about. What really happened on the hill that day with the school kids? Just who was Johnny Walker? Colonel Sanders? It would be a perfect book for a book club I would think. I'd love to sit down with some other people who've read the book, make some good coffee and chat about it.
One of my best friends bought this book for me and, as you know, when someone buys you a book, it's kind of a recommendation, so I began. Let me start off by saying that February was a very wet and windy month. I had some quiet time at home for a couple of nights when the entire family had flu, which I somehow managed to avoid, so I took advantage of the quiet time, with the wind howling and the rain battering the windows. And that's when I got into this book. There was something quite magical about it, and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself drawn right in to the characters and their relationships.
The stories all have in common the idea of the passage of time and looking back at stories of love and broken relationships with hindsight. I think I'm at the right age for that kind of story as I find myself looking back at my own timeline often and wondering how my kids will look back on the the here-and-now when they're my age.
So, thank you for a great book Maria Cristina!
I picked this up from the Incomparable podcast's winter reading list episode over on 5by5 – recommended by David J. Loehr on Episode 171. I enjoyed it absolutely and am looking forward to the following books in the trilogy. The writing style reminded me a little of one of my favourites, John Irving, and the production of the audiobook version on Audible was top drawer. I shall forever recall the two-hour listening session as I got lost in the woods in the rain on Sunday morning just past whilst walking the dogs.
From the hype I expected more of this book. I did like it, but found it rather pulpy and unmemorable. I mean who would write letters as long and chatty as Rook Thomas wrote to herself? That was the most grating thing about it. The story itself was fun, but not earth-shattering in the ‘this is the best book of 2013' that I got from the panelists on the Incomparable podcast.
I read this after following a lead on Olivia Coleman when we finished watching Broadchurch. I saw that she was to be in a televised version with Vanessa Redgrave. The story sounded intriguing so I downloaded the Audible version and made it my penultimate book for the 25-book challenge on Goodreads.
It started out very well indeed. In fact, rarely am I ever drawn into an audiobook quite so quickly. It was read by Jenny Agutter and she did a marvellous job of hooking me right away. As the tale progressed however, I found myself becoming less and less enchanted, so it gradually went down from five to four and ended up with three stars. It seemed to be trying hard to be literature in the style of Daphne du Maurier, and while it got close, the plot had too flimsy of an ending.
The TV adaptation was on the same day that I finished the book, but I didn't know until half an hour after it had started, so we saved it to watch on new year's eve. It was reasonably entertaining, but I feel that the two great performers weren't given the space to show us what they can really do. Shame.
This was recommended to me by a photographer whose work I follow and whom I met through the On Taking Pictures podcast. I know of Chris Orwig through his Lightroom tutorials on Lynda.com. I took his Lightroom course for Lightroom 1.0 and have stuck with that software and what I learned from Chris ever since.
I read this book over a couple of days in peace and tranquillity and Chris's words really hit home. A lot of it reads like cliché, but, in the peace and quiet, I'm reminded that clichés become so because they are essentially true. Follow your dreams, be creative above all, all that sort of thing. He writes in a style that is accessible and uses a lot of well-known quotations that illustrate his points. This works well. I only wish that the Kindle version had bigger images. I read it on my iPad and the images illustrating his points are thumbnails.
There is a wealth of follow-up material that I haven't checked out, but hope to when time permits. I can see that the assignments could make me a better photographer too.
I got this as a Christmas present in 2008 and it's taken me that long to get through it. That's not because the book is boring or rubbish, but because it's a dip-in-and-out kind of book. Some of it really knocked my socks off, to discover certain things that I've always thought about were actually philosophy! It's a good primer and the interpretations of the quotes are well written and clear.
Poetry isn't something I read a lot of. I heard about this one through the podcast that Donna co-hosts with Iain Broome, Write for your Life.
And know what? I really enjoyed this collection. Some of it got through to me right away and some of it after a second reading. And yet more of it hasn't got through to me at all yet.
Something that stands out in this collection is how much of herself Donna puts into these poems. They make me wonder what inspired them, where she was, what age she was, that sort of thing.
Having read the collection and enjoyed it, I plan to read it again and mark favourites and underline words and passages. I believe poetry is like music and song and rewards repeated consumption!
I'm off to look up Staward on the map now.
Thanks Donna and Iain for pushing this collection on the podcast.
I finished it! I'm glad I started the series when I did, i.e. after they'd all been written. I wish I could say the same of the Song of Ice and Fire!
To be honest, I found this a bit of a slog in parts, particularly the bit about the breakers. But some of it was sublime. Stephen King was very humble and to read him writing of his own accident and making it a plot feature was pure brilliance. And the idea of ka's being a wheel I loved too. I was moved at one point to type out the enormous turtle rhyme.
Overall, not the best series I've read, but I'm glad I did. I have a feeling that it'll be something I think about from time to time and may one day get the urge to read it again.
This is the second time I've been through this book. It contains a wealth of information and it's delivered in an over-the-top friendly American style, which I find rather grating I have to say. The content's good though. The only thing is that, for this Bear of Little Brain, I have terrible trouble getting it to stick. I don't know why that is. I don't think it's a reflection on the book, rather the reader.
It has some good examples of songs and tunes, using Christmas carols to demonstrate some of the theory because, well, they're pretty well known. I'm looking forward to volume 2, which I believe will coincide quite nicely with the Kirk Lorange's PlaneTalk book, which I also have and intend to go through.
The book itself has a spiral binding, which is incredibly helpful. I wish my Noad Solo Guitar book had that!
I'm giving it four stars because the content is king and it's easy to follow and understand, which goes some way to mitigating the so-called humour.
I tried twice with the audiobook version of this book and maybe got one third of the way into it before quitting. It was brought to me by the Verge bookclub, so I thought I'd persevere with it, and bought the Kindle version. That's when it began to make sense. I guess some books just aren't suited to the audiobook format for me.
As with Les Misérables last year, which I gave up on twice, this has become the book of the year for me. This is no throwaway pulpy book. The language itself is utterly gorgeous. It kind of has a Python-esque wit and humour to it, intelligent and dense, while seeming somehow shallow. It's difficult to explain. I found myself highlighting phrase after phrase in the Kindle app and laughing out loud in parts. It's the sort of writing that makes you want to share the phrases with loved ones. If only I could read this in a group and talk about it like we used to talk about Spitting Image on a Monday morning in the playground.
Again, as with Les Misérables, this is a book I would dearly like to return to and to have a nice printed copy of. It's the kind of book that, having read it through once, it would be useful to have in a Kindle app to dip in and out of in a waiting room or at a bus stop. The language is that good.
I loved every bit of it. The message to take away from this is that, more often than not, classics become so for a very good reason and that perseverance really can pay off!
I watched the Iron Lady this week and it got me thinking about growing up during the Thatcher years and how I was completely unaware of what was going on around me. I mean, I remember that the Falklands happened; I remember the poll tax riots and the miners' strike, but it was just ‘the news', when my dad would make us all be quiet so he could listen to it and I'd resent it and go and play Spectrum games in my room.
This is a whirlwind tour of a period spanning 20 years. There is very little depth at all - just the basic facts, can you show me where it hurts? But it has whetted my appetite to read Maggie's memoirs and try and understand just what was going on at the time. I've never really been very politically minded, even though in later years I have tried to be more so. This episode of the great Sceptred Isle series was very good at giving an overview of the time and was very easy to listen to. I should try more of them!
I watched the Iron Lady this week and it got me thinking about growing up during the Thatcher years and how I was completely unaware of what was going on around me. I mean, I remember that the Falklands happened; I remember the poll tax riots and the miners' strike, but it was just ‘the news', when my dad would make us all be quiet so he could listen to it and I'd resent it and go and play Spectrum games in my room.
This is a whirlwind tour of a period spanning 20 years. There is very little depth at all - just the basic facts, can you show me where it hurts? But it has whetted my appetite to read Maggie's memoirs and try and understand just what was going on at the time. I've never really been very politically minded, even though in later years I have tried to be more so. This episode of the great Sceptred Isle series was very good at giving an overview of the time and was very easy to listen to. I should try more of them!
Not the best book ever, but not the worst either. The audiobook held my attention well enough for me to want to get to the end, but it was pulpy enough for me to zone out when concentrating on say reading ingredients labels in the supermarket and not have to skip back to catch up on what I'd missed. If you've read Dan Brown's novels before, you know what to expect, and it delivers. The interesting twist that makes this different from the others is Langon's amnesia, and so he's solving a puzzle that he's already solved! It's also, as always with Dan Brown, very well researched and informative. I knew nothing of Dante or his Inferno. Now I know a little.
The third of the trilogy, but really it's the Jedi of the trilogy in that the second and third books are two volumes in the same story. I found the plot of this one getting rather thin, reminding me somewhat of Robert Ludlum with the spy organisations within spy organisations, but it still held my attention well enough for me to ditch my podcasts for a few days to get through the final eight hours of audiobook.
The showdown in the brick factory at the end was pretty good, but the end of the book seemed to come with the court case that we were waiting for for the whole book. I couldn't believe that there were still two hours of audio to go after the end of the court case. But there were some loose ends to be sure.
I think my favourite part of the book was when Erika Berger had a showdown with the news editor at SMP. I wish the author had made a bit more of that!
All in all, an average book with three stars. Not even a 3.5 for me!
I enjoyed this book very much. Once again, I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Saul Reichlin. He does a brilliant job with the Swedish names and voices for characters. His high-pitched voice for the blond giant was great!
And so to the book. I don't know why I left a gap of years between the first and second books of the trilogy. But enough of the first tale was related to in the second that it wasn't long before I had the plot of the first back in my head again. I suppose that's a job that the author has to see for those such as I with poor memories. I don't intend to leave a gap between two and three though, mainly because two doesn't really end as such. It wraps up the whodunnit nicely but leaves it wide open for the third book. It reminded me of Empire Strikes Back, of which, incidentally, it also reminded fellow goodreader, Steve Betz!
The timeline and pace of the book are just right. We get Salander's visiting Svensson and Johannson's flat* and then she's not in the book for ages after that while the tale of her suspected guilt is built up. Brilliant!
It reads like a book written by a master of his craft. It reminded me a little of the early Jason Bourne books in the suspense and twists and turns. It made me want to walk the dogs more than usual and delete a few podcasts from my queue, so it certainly deserves four stars for that reason.
In terms of literary weight, I'd mark it down to three, so I guess overall it should get 7/10. Four seems a little too high and three a little too low.
*Forgive my spelling if it's not quite right; I had the audiobook!
This was a fun, easy read. It was recommended by a friend and it made a perfect audiobook for walking the dogs; it didn't require too much concentration and was engaging enough to make me want to extend the walks. So, the dogs were happy and I got more exercise!
I'll most definitely keep going with the series.
This had a strong beginning, but the repetition became a bit tedious, especially for a series that spanned fewer than three hours. It was interesting to hear some academic talk about linguistics and state that something was ‘absolutely unique'.
I did find it interesting though and it may just help me become a descriptive linguist rather than a prescriptive one. The piece about apostrophes was quite eye-opening. I've been entrenched in my battle against misused apostrophes, but I know that ultimately it's a losing battle and I ought to let it go. I can't win and the affect it has on my serenity is ultimately a matter of choice: I either LET it bother me, or I let it go. Sounds easy, but, up until now, it hasn't been.
But seriously, I could listen to this sort of thing all day long, which is why I've just started Bill Bryson's other book on the subject, The Mother Tongue
I started this in audiobook format in 2010 and, for some reason, gave up on it. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that some books are actually better in written form than audio. That said, my second and successful attempt were also with the audiobook and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I would like to return to it in written form some day, because the language is so good. This here is no pulp fiction, this is literature, baby!
As many others have stated in their reviews, what is so striking about this dystopian science-fiction story is its plausibility. We're kind of half way there already with genetic engineering and gene splicing. It's like the Frankenstein conundrum, but in the modern age. just because we can doesn't mean we should.
I see from the header on Goodreads that this is the first of a trilogy. I'll have to look into that, although I did think the ending of the story was just right. I could imagine high-school and university students discussing the ending in tutorials and essays. Brilliant!