Mystery Manor Adventure Forum

Thought I'd follow Lady K's, Lucien's and Ghostlady's fun example and reserve some space for my books in this cosy library.

I'll be posting my readings in this post, and add some comments later on. Feel free to add comments and literary tips! Still so many books and authors out there that I haven't had the pleasure of reading!

2008
1. Christopher Rice: Light Before Day ***1/2
2. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 ****
3. Bill Bryson: Notes From a Small Island ****
4. Neil Gaiman: Neverwhere ****1/2
5. Stephen Fry: The Stars' Tennis Balls ****
6. Chuck Palahniuk: Survivor ***1/2
7. Kathy Reichs: Fatal Voyage ***
8. Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner *****
9. Kurt Vonnegut: Slapstick or Lonesome No More ****
10. John Irving: The Hotel New Hampshire ***
11. Miranda July: No One Belongs Here More Than You ****
12. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space ****
13. Terry Pratchett: Sourcery ****1/2
14. Bill Bryson: Shakespeare ***1/2
15. William Boyd: Armadillo ***
16. Mo Hayder: The Treatment **
17. Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns ****
18. Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair ****
19. Sue Grafton: A Is for Alibi ***
20. Mark Haddon: A Spot of Bother ****1/2

2009

1. Elizabeth Kostova: The Historian ****1/2
2. Abdellah Taïa: Arabische Melancholie ***1/2
3. Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book ****
4. Ben Okri: Starbook ***1/2
5. Arnon Grunberg: Tirza ****1/2
6. Donna Leon: A Noble Radiance ****
7. Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters ****
8. Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader **
9. David Leavitt: Martin Bauman ***1/2
10. Joanne Harris: Chocolat ****
11. Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ****
12. Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim **
13. Louis Paul Boon: De Kappellekesbaan or Chapel Road ****
14. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell ***
15. Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile ***1/2
16. Kate Mosse: Labyrinth ***1/2
17. Nick Harkaway: The Gone-Away World *****
18. Terry Pratchett: Pyramids ***1/2
19. Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland ****

Reading now:

Aravind Adiga: the White Tiger
Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass
H.G. Wells: The Time Machine

I like your list, Wimli. You have some familiar friends there and some new ones for me. I look forward to your comments.

Thanks! Jasper Fforde is someone I picked up from your list, and I must say, I'm loving every minute of it! I also bought The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova based on some recommendations here, so that one will probably be one of the next books I'll jump into.


Mo Hayder The Treatment

Midsummer, and in an unassuming house on a quiet residential street on the edge of Brockwell Park in south London, a husband and wife are discovered, imprisoned in their own home. Badly dehydrated, they've been bound and beaten, and the husband is close to death. But worse is to come: their young son is missing. When DI Jack Caffery of the Met's AMIT squad is called in to investigate, the similarities to events in his own past make it impossible for him to view this new crime with the necessary detachment. And as Jack digs deeper, as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both the past and the present, the real nightmare begins...Horrifying, unforgettable, intense, The Treatment is a novel that touches the raw nerve of our darkest imaginings.

I must admit that the thriller genre has unfortunately mostly passed me by until now. As I work in a book store, I recently started to read some thrillers, to get a feeling for the genre and broaden my knowledge of its canon. Though I've read some interesting ones, I must say that I was rather disappointed with "The Treatment".

It features a very strong beginning, one that immediately grabs your attention, and a gut wrenching ending that you won't be able to shake off easily, but unfortunately the long road getting from A to B is extremely boring, long winded and will stretch my patience most of the time. Part of it may have something to do with the fact that I haven't read Hayder's first thriller, "Birdman", where the main characters first appear, but even then, there's just too little happening in the long middle part, the few thrills that do occur feel rather cheap, and there's too much repetition of similar dialogs. Seems like I'm the only one with this opinion though, as it got a ton of five star reviews, so don't let this review influence you too much.

Fforde is definitely fun! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've got my nose in my 17th Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times, and am having a great time.

Ah, Pratchett, brilliant isn't it! I'm trying to spread out reading his novels, cause I don't ever want to fall without one! So far I have been able to control myself and have read only one Discworld novel each year. That means another four months before I can dig into number six, Wyrd Sisters!

Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair

Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.

There is another 1985, where London's criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave's Mr Big.

Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.

Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crime against literature isn't easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and find out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.

Perhaps today just isn't going to be Thursday's day...

What a wonderful and fun adventure! Jasper Fforde has created a fantastic main character, a highly original story and world, has a fun filled witty style, keeps the action high paced and delivers an inventive mix of science fiction, detective novels and intertextuality. I'll definitely be back for more Thursday Next adventures!

Great Wimli, more books to look at. I like to see what others are reading.

Some great books among those, thanks Wimli!

CU

danyboy

Thanks guys!

I also started reading in Martin Bauman by David Leavitt in the mean time. Very interesting so far! Its main themes are man's great passion for literature, life during the Reagan era and repressed sexuality.

It's been a while since I last posted an update on my reading activity here, so here goes! Haven't had much time to read between moving house and being ill for some time, but I did get round to finishing these two novels:

Sue Grafton: A Is for Alibi

Kinsey Millhone , a twice- divorced, independent 32- year old private detective, lives and works in southern California. Recently released from an eight- year jail sentence for the murder of her husband, Nikki Fife asks the detective to prove her innocence and find the real murderer.

This novel was on my reading list for a course on American crime writing I followed a few years ago, but for some reason I never got round to finishing it back then. So instead of reading all the recently bought books, I thought I'd pick up this one again. And now I understand why I lost interest in it back then when I had to read so many similar books. Apart from the fact that it was one of the first detective series that featured a female lead character, nothing else about the book really stands out. It's all nice to read, but it never gets to the point where you can't wait to see what happens on the next page, never has the just-one-more-chapter quality I like about the best mysteries. I mean, the novel is only about 200 pages and virtually nothing happened during the first hundred pages.

Has anyone read any more of the Millhone novels? Wondering whether I should read any more. I did like the main character, but there was not enough mystery in this one to keep up my interest.

Mark Haddon: A Spot of Bother

At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in the garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his unpredictable daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the way he cares about her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by the way the wedding planning gets in the way of her affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.

I read Haddon's debut novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time a while ago and was blown away by his ability to put himself into the mind of someone who is autistic, writes from that perspective and offers you a view on the world through his eyes. So I was interested to see what he would do in his follow up novel. With A Spot of Bother Haddon has written a novel that can be best compared to some of the work of John Irving. Both have the ability to describe family life in all its extremes, making it somewhat alienating at first, but turning it into something very recognisable in the end. Haddon switches between the viewpoints of the various characters between chapters and that way creates a well rounded look of each character and each event, while you also become familiar with each character's inner thoughts. When you start the novel you may find most of the characters are rather more pathetic than sympathetic at first, but during the course of the novel you'll come to appreciate and love each and everyone of them. Haddon has written a novel that offers a fresh perspective on family relations, the small and big drama of everyday life, centered around universal themes like love, jealousy, forgiveness, respect and growing as human beings every day. I highly recommend this one!

I'm sorry you haven't been well, Wimli but hope you're better now. How's the new place?

I have read all but the newest of Sue Grafton mysteries, "T" Is for Trespass, and I really like them. I don't remember much about the first book except that it got me reading the series. Kinsey Millhone grew on me as a character, and many of the mysteries, like "S" Is for Silence, were real page turners. I think of Grafton as being on the same level as Sara Paretsky, but the best, in my opinion, is Carol O'Connell.

I've added Haddon to my reading list. Thanks!

Thanks LadyKestrel! I had the flue which just kept returning. Feeling better now luckily! The new place is great! It's closer to work, it's in the middle of my favourite city and it has enough space for all my books and dvds!

Thanks for the comments on Grafton. I might return to the series. Maybe the first one was used to set up the character and not so much about the story. Now that that is out of the way, the mysteries can take central stage. Which reminds me, I should also return to the Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. Loved the ones I already read!

Let me know what you think of Haddon's books!

Another year has gone by, with again not nearly enough time to be able to read everything I wanted to read (that 'to be read' pile keeps getting bigger and bigger! ). Told myself a the beginning of the year that it would be nice to finish about two novels a month. Well, seeing that I finished twenty and am reading in four at the moment, it's not too much of a cheat to say that I made it. All in all, it was a year of pleasant surprises in which I discovered some very interesting new authors and read some more from those I liked already.

Best of the best:

1. The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini: Gripping novel about a man who goes back to his homeland of Afghanistan to rescue the son of his former best friend. Told against the backdrop of conflicting cultures and a war-torn country, it's impossible to forget after finishing. Loved A Thousand Splendid Suns by the same author as well, but it's effect on me was slightly less intense than The Kite Runner had.

2. Neverwhere Neil Gaiman: Second novel of Gaiman I've read, and once again loved every minute of it! The guy is witty, has an unbelievable imagination, writes with great originality and humor and is a brilliant story teller! In this book, one night a man named Richard helps a wounded girl, one who is part of another world that is some sort of alternative, but overlapping reality. Being pulled into her world, Richard will have to survive long enough to get back to his, and our, reality. He's in for the wildest ride of his life!

3. Spot of Bother Mark Haddon: Described it here before, this is an incredible story of a family in the build up to the daughter's second marriage. All the characters are both completely normal but at the same time disfunctional. It's a novel that manages to be both funny and painfully sad and knows how to balance them masterfully.

4. Sourcery Sir (according to Lucien ) Terry Pratchett: What more can be said about the Discworld novels that hasn't been said before? Wickedly funny, crazy, hilarious and simply irresistibly entertaining! I'm reading the novels in order and I think this one is my favourite Discworld novel so far. Can't wait for what else Pratchett has in store in the next novels!

5. The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde: Also already described here above: a high paced, funny and smart novel that every fan of the great art of literature will simply adore!

I ended 2008 with actually starting yet another novel: Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. I was at my parents home one evening and had forgotten all three of the books I was already reading at my apartment, so why not read a chapter or two of this book that I had bought a while ago, and then get back to it when I had finished all those other books. Bad idea, can't put it down now! We'll see what the rest of 2009 brings, but I wouldn't be surprised to see The Historian in my top 5 of 2009 list! Wouldn't have known about this one without this place. Thanks for the tip Manorites!

Great list there Wimli.

Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, so glad you enjoyed Neverwhere.

Have you seen the movie of the Kite Runner. Does it live up to the book?

Gaiman is fastly becoming one of my favourites as well. I started with Stardust a few years ago, Neverwhere last year and now I have American Gods lined up. Must say that the movie version of Stardust was a nice surprise in 2007 too.

Haven't seen the movie Kite Runner yet. It was released here in full Oscar season, and I wanted to see some other movies at the time, like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, which were released around the same time (btw: where is your top 10 movie list this year? Looking forward to it!). I'll probably pick up the dvd in the near future, though I fear that it will idd not live up to the novel.