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Poppet

Mar2

Lately the urge to review books has sprung up again. I’ve read some good stuff lately (and some not so good stuff) and I’d like to record it.

So, first up is Poppet by Mo Hayder. I’ve only read one of her books before, Pig Island, and it was ok but not great. What really made me want to read this book was the cover art. I saw a couple of posters on the tube and it stuck in my mind. It is arresting. ImageI love the face of the poppet. It’s creepy but also kind of beautiful. (I’ve just put the picture in the post and I can’t stop looking at it).

Poppet is the seventh of Hayder’s Jack Caffery series. I haven’t read any of the others but it doesn’t matter because Caffery is only one of several POV characters. The main character is AJ, who works in an institution for the criminally insane. Two of the inmates die and some others harm themselves in horrific ways. It is initially set up as a supernatural horror, but then segues into the horror of what other people do to each other. That’s my favourite kind.

To start with the patients are afraid of the ghost of a former matron who punishes the wicked with biblical quotes and does horrible things to them. AJ is annoyed with himself for starting to believe this stuff and decides to get to the bottom of it. His investigation points to one of the inmates, who makes poppets of the inmates and staff, who has horrible personal habits, and who murdered his parents in an especially gruesome manner. This inmate is released and AJ goes to the police, fearing he will try to kill the head of the institution.

Jack Caffery is working on a missing person case that a colleague has covered up and is trying to find a way to give closure to the family whilst protecting his colleague. His boss insists he takes this case but it’s so weird that doesn’t take it as seriously as he should. The actual evil is something else again and Hayder puts in a couple of other plausible red herrings before the big reveal.

I’m so glad I picked it up. This is a better book than Pig Island in terms of characterisation and writing. It is an equally easy read but is more gripping. The twists and turns are exciting and surprising, yet make complete sense in the context of the book. I liked it a lot and will read more of her books.

The oddness of phonetic english

Nov4

Last week someone gave me a really unusual book: Edition 11 of Decimal Clasification and Relativ Index by Melvil Dewey. Which is interesting because it is written in phonetic English.  The library at my employer was having a clear-out and this was one of the books destined for the skip. Or something.

I’m not really an advocate of phonetic English because I think that English spelling is charming. The oddness and inconsistency amuse me.

But language is dynamic and spellings and usage change. That’s how it should be and it happens naturally.

The introduction is written with as many changes as could be and the rest of the book with more minor changes. According to the introduction this is to ease the changes in gently so they would be more readily adopted by the general public. But I guess it never really took off.

Matterhorn

Sep20

September’s book club book was Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes which is a novel set during the Vietnam War.

I can’t really say what the book is about without cheating and looking at wikipedia because I only made it through the first hundred pages (of six hundred).

In those first one hundred pages nothing happens. There is a lot of scene setting and a lot of clumsily incorporated detail. The main character comes across as quite whiny and none of the characters are sympathetically drawn.

I was just bored. Which was disappointing because this could have been fascinating, had it been told differently. I’d really wanted to read it. I felt like another couple of rewrites could have made it a much better book.

A Great and Terrible King

Sep17

I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction lately. Sometimes I don’t notice until I write my reviews. A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain by Marc Morris is an historical biography of Edward I, king of England 1272 – 1307.

Historical biographies are as much about the social and political landscape of the times as they are about the person at the centre of the story. Which is why I will read historical biographies but have very little patience with contemporary ones. But give me a bit of medieval history and I’m happy.

Given that Edward didn’t become King until he was thirty-three and the book starts with his birth, it also covers the second half of his father’s reign. Henry III, by contrast, came to the throne at the age of nine. The two men were of very different character, which provides a nice ‘compare and contrast’ element to the story.

What comes across was that Edward I was an effective king. Many of the things he did were questionable by modern standards, such as his treatment of the Jews or of the conquered Welsh, but he wouldn’t have been judged as harshly by his contemporaries. There is some interesting discussion on the changes in the moral climate and I liked that Morris didn’t excuse or gloss over anything while at the same time put his actions in context. It’s a fine line to walk.

The book also highlights how hard it is to judge an entire life. Edward I did more than any other medieval English king to create the modern kingdoms that form Britain. And we still live with the legacy of that today. He was an action-hero figure of a king, constantly on the move and almost permanently at war.  His expertise at diplomacy was a bit patchier; sometimes he seemed to have a golden touch and at others everything went to pieces.

There is much more to Edward I than being the villain of Braveheart. This was a fascinating read, I learnt a lot, and I really enjoyed it.

The Dead of Winter

Sep6

I picked up The Dead of Winter by Christopher Priestley in the 99p kindle sale. Priestley has a column in the British Fantasy Society magazine and I was interested to read his work.

This is a classic style ghost story. A young boy, Michael, is orphaned and sent to live with a mysterious benefactor in a creepy, isolated house in the fens.

Michael’s benefactor is a sickly man whose wife died and who now lives there with his brittle sister, and some humble and friendly servants. From the start, Michael sees things that can’t be explained, scary things that others don’t see.

As he tries to work out what is going on, he unravels the terrible secret at the heart of the house.

I found this novel short and not very scary. It was ok, but very much a Victorian ghost story which isn’t really my thing. When I went looking for the picture for this post I stumbled across another review that said the book was aimed at children, specifically eight to ten year olds. Seriously, these things should have some sort of label on them. But, with that perspective, the things I didn’t like about the book make a bit more sense. If you know someone with pre-teens who like a bit of horror, this would be very suitable.

Dune

Sep3

I’m supposed to like this, right? It’s a classic. And I remember I liked the film a lot when I was younger. Maybe that was just because Sting was in it. Dune by Frank Herbert has been sitting on my shelf for a good five years since it was bought for me by a friend in a ‘You haven’t read Dune?!’ moment of horror.

I got over three hundred pages in before I finally gave up. I just wasn’t enjoying myself and then I questioned why I was putting myself through the tedium of trying to finish it. There is a question over a cat that has to be milked and the mouse duct-taped to it. The question is WHY? Answers in the comments please.

I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with the book. It didn’t really seem to get going and I felt I was waiting for it to start for the first two hundred pages. The stuff about the mental powers and reading body language and other clues didn’t come across that well. I don’t know how you could really show that working though. It’s ambitious and isn’t quite pulled off. There were parts of the book that were entirely dialogue for pages and pages. That was quite interesting from a writing technique perspective. It worked. A touch more action and description would have grounded it a little more, but it would have taken very little.

If you haven’t read Dune already, you can probably live without it. This picture of a cat is way more entertaining.

The Gift of Fear

Aug30

I never really struggle to find books to read. There are loads of them and I’ve read hardly any. For me, it’s more about not buying all the books I see that I think I’d like to read. Sometimes I try to resist. Honestly. Then a book will come into my awareness and I’ll think I should read that, but I manage to exercise some self-control and don’t buy it. But it will keep popping up in articles that I’m reading or people around me will talk about it, and if that book keeps making its presence known, I’ll think I am meant to read it. The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker is one of those books.

de Becker works with a wide range of people and organizations to predict when someone will become violent. He discusses all sorts of situations including dates that turn into stalking, the fired employee who won’t let go, assassination threats against public figures, helpful strangers who are really predators, and people obsessed with a single issue. In many cases these situations won’t become violent, but sometimes they will and this book explores how to determine the ones that will.

Violence is predictable. And many of us know when it’s going to happen. We tell ourselves not to listen to our intuition. We don’t want to say no, or to risk offending someone, or to be melodramatic, so we ignore the signs that our subconscious has picked up. Much of the advice in this book is based around listening to yourself and taking notice of what we’re feeling.

Some of the advice is about how to respond so as to shut down potentially violent situations. For example, how to say no. Women particularly, although not exclusively, are socialized to believe that saying no makes them a bad person, or even that saying no will invite an aggressive response. In fact, not saying no communicates that you can’t say no and are an easy target. Another example is not responding. We’re tempted to think that if we just explain clearly, once and for all, the reasons why the person can’t have their job back, or that their accusations are unfounded, then they will respond like a rational person and back off. If you’ve done that once already and it didn’t work, then it’s not going to. Because that person is not rational and all you do is show them they can get a response. Also, we probably need to let go of having the last word.

There is a list of warning signs that tell you when someone is not safe. These are:

  • Forced Teaming. This is when a person tries to pretend that he has something in common with a person and that they are in the same predicament when that isn’t really true.
  • Charm and Niceness. This is being polite and friendly to a person in order to manipulate him or her.
  • Too many details. If a person is lying they will add excessive details to make themselves sound more credible.
  • Typecasting. An insult to get a person who would otherwise ignore one to talk to one. For example: “Oh, I bet you’re too stuck-up to talk to a guy like me.”
  • Loan Sharking. Giving unsolicited help and expecting favors in return.
  • The Unsolicited Promise. A promise to do (or not do) something when no such promise is asked for; this usually means that such a promise will be broken. For example: an unsolicited, “I promise I’ll leave you alone after this,” usually means you will not be left alone. Similarly, an unsolicited “I promise I won’t hurt you” usually means the person intends to hurt you.
  • Discounting the Word “No”. Refusing to accept rejection.

I’m really, really glad I read this book. I can look back on a lot of times when I thought someone or something was iffy and I acted on that, and then felt guilty for being rude, not giving someone a chance, or unwilling to accept help. In most of those cases at least one of the indicators of violence was present. Knowing that I know what to look out for and that I can trust my instincts is empowering. Unlike many things you read, this book is meant to help you be less afraid because your intuition can’t help you if you’re afraid of everything. It’s amazing and everyone should read it.

Seven Viking Romances

Aug27

I’ve had this book on my shelf for a long time, wanting to read it but thinking it might be hard work. Seven Viking Romances, translated by Hermann Pálsson and Paul Edwards, is a collection of Viking adventure stories.

 

These tales are less serious than the Icelandic Sagas and have many more fantastical elements. There are seven stories, drawn from several centuries, with a common theme of raiding, pillaging and  theft.

This book was an easier read than I thought it would be, in large part because the stories are meant to be entertaining and funny. They are essentially episodes of sailing around the world looking for notable warriors to kill and treasure to steal. For dramatic effect, once or twice the protagonists of the stories fail to kill the notable warrior. When that happens they either join forces with him or run away and come back later.

I was wrong to think that this would be heavy-going. It’s actually delightful and there were parts that made me laugh out loud. These stories don’t explore the ideas of right and wrong or offer a deep psychological insight into the motivations of the characters, or try to educate the listener/reader about the world. They are just entertaining tales from another time and place.

Periodic Tales

Aug23

Take the periodic table and make a book full of interesting facts and factoids about each of the elements. What a brilliant idea. How could that not be a great idea? I was so full of hope about Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersley-Williams. The concept seemed to be all things I love; random useless nuggets of information, vaguely science-y but mostly history and culture, and a general attitude of ‘stuff is brilliant‘. I so wanted to like this book.

I didn’t even get past the first chapter. It is dull and leaden. At the point where I realised I wasn’t enjoying myself, and I was far enough past the introductory parts that I should be, I started trying to work out whether I was bored by what I was being told or by the way in which it was conveyed. The passage I was reading was about gold and its cultural value, its rarity, and its usefulness. This was followed by how platinum is only considered more valuable than gold because of marketing. This stuff should be fascinating.

As I’m writing this now, I find I really want to give the book another chance because these are things I want to read about, things I think are inherently interesting. And somehow, the author managed to tell these stories in a way that sucked all the life out of them. It’s definitely about the writing. Maybe there were too many nuggets so that none of them could be explored in sufficient depth or maybe it’s because the storytelling got lost in favour of a list of facts.

If anyone knows of another book that tells really good stories about the elements, please let me know.

Half the Sky

Aug20

Sometimes there are books that really make an impression, that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn is a book like that.

It covers the experience of many women in the developing world, including sex trafficking, honour killings, lack of access to education, inadequate healthcare, maternal mortality, genital mutilation, the use of rape to control, and domestic violence. It relies on anecdote and stories to make its points, and in some places those stories are harrowing.

Nothing in this book should really come as a surprise. It’s not like these things haven’t been happening for a very long time. It is useful to be reminded once in while, but tragic that we need reminding.

There’s a lot missing from Half the Sky. There’s no real acknowledgement that these things happen in the developed world too, and the discussion of the impact of poverty is reduced to suggestions about where best to put your charity. Many of the experiences of women in this book are entrenched systemically and no amount of charity and micro-finance are going to change a global system that relies on most people being poor so that a few can be rich. And there’s very little discussion of how this inequality supports the developed world; perhaps because that might get in the way of persuading us that we can do something.

And that’s why this book is having so much impact; (not just on me, the internetz is mad for it) because it makes the reader feel like they can do something to help, something to change things. I’ve joined Kiva as a result of reading this book. I have mixed feelings about charity (it’s paternalistic, corrupt, can entrench harmful cultural attitudes) as I think it acts as a sticking plaster on wound but fails to remove the thing that cut you, but the stories in this book show how it can be positive. Change only happens in tiny steps that build up into something much bigger and this book shows what a difference the tiny steps make. What it doesn’t address is just how hard it is to build up enough tiny steps to achieve real change and that can be demoralising if you haven’t made your peace with that to start with. The thing that you do may only be a drop in the ocean, but if there were no drops there’d be no oceans.

Still, being difficult to the point of near impossibility is no reason not to do something. So, go read the book, be reminded how much there is to change and see if you’re motivated to act.