(no subject)
Yesterday was a very good day for reading.
Book 25 of 2010 - Ox-Tales: Earth - Rose Tremain, Jonathan Coe, Marti Leimbach, Kate Atkinson, Ian Rankin, Marina Lewycka, Hanif Kureishi, Jonathan Buckley, Nicholas Shakespeare
25/03/10 - 25/03/10
This is the first of four books produced by Oxfam and was chosen by Jen for this month's HTV book club. I was beginning to wonder if I would actually get to read it before the end of the month, but it turns out that it's a very quick read and I had it finished by mid-afternoon-ish yesterday.
As with short story anthologies, there were some that I wasn't so interested in and others which I absolutely loved. To begin with, as I read the first story in bed yesterday morning, I ended up wondering what I was in for. The first story didn't really grab me. It was about a man in Russia whose house is taken over by a dying Leo Tolstoy and his daughter, doctor and lawyer as he tries to escape from his wife and other children.
But after that, I think I fell in love with the stories. My definitely favourite was Boys In Cars, about a woman and her autistic son. It was a lovely complete little story which I just found myself wanting to go on and on - I know short stories are meant to be short, but I can't help but think that some of the best ones are the ones that you wish were a whole novel. It was a lovely story and I really felt for both the mother and the son. Having worked with autistic children I think Alex was very real as well, I remember having a breakthrough moment with a little girl called Hannah and the way Alex began accepting the idea of going to the birthday party reminded me of that.
Ian Rankin's story was also very good. It worked really well and I'm quite pleased that John's ordered a set of Ian Rankin books from The Book People this month. I feel like I have to wait until he's read them before I do, but I'm quite looking forward to that time (and I might read him the short story by Ian Rankin from this book, just as a taster of what he's got to come).
Kate Atkinson's was the other notable story that really grabbed me. When I read Not The End Of The World last year I started out with a feeling much the same as with this book (what is it about me and books of short stories, this will make the Short Story Tree very interesting), but something about the way that Kate Atkinson writes draws me in. The way that things are so surreal and so ordinary at the same time. I love the whole idea of those sorts of stories, and I've even been inspired to try a couple of my own since first being introduced to Kate Atkinson (I'm also annoyed that I didn't pick up two of her books that I found in a secondhand bookshop on Wednesday, but I'm hoping I'll get a chance to get them next week instead).
The final story, The Death Of Marat, was one which I wasn't sure about in the beginning. I've found with short stories that they usually grab me from the start and I love them, or they don't and I find them a drag, so I was half expecting this to be the latter. But it was a slow burner. Two stories of two different women, gradually coming together. By the time I was halfway through it, I was totally absorbed. I also liked the ambiguous ending. Another case where I wanted the short story to be a novel.
I've got the three other Ox-Tales books to read as well, but I realised how close to the end of Earth I was while I was down the shop - without the next in the series with me. So rather than stop reading it to wait until I got home, I nipped out to the library and picked up the next Lynda La Plante book (seeing as I started that series at the beginning of the month). I'm about halfway through The Red Dahlia now and I'm thinking I'll have to make another trip to the library this afternoon to pick up the next one, Clean Cut I think, to get me through the weekend.
Unfortunately the next one isn't available at the moment as it's out on loan and won't be back in until the beginning of April so I may have to start on the first Harry Potter book while I wait (that's the next on my list to read), unless I get the Book Tree and Poetry Tree books and make them last until then. Ah! Bookish dilemmas!
Book 25 of 2010 - Ox-Tales: Earth - Rose Tremain, Jonathan Coe, Marti Leimbach, Kate Atkinson, Ian Rankin, Marina Lewycka, Hanif Kureishi, Jonathan Buckley, Nicholas Shakespeare
25/03/10 - 25/03/10
This is the first of four books produced by Oxfam and was chosen by Jen for this month's HTV book club. I was beginning to wonder if I would actually get to read it before the end of the month, but it turns out that it's a very quick read and I had it finished by mid-afternoon-ish yesterday.
As with short story anthologies, there were some that I wasn't so interested in and others which I absolutely loved. To begin with, as I read the first story in bed yesterday morning, I ended up wondering what I was in for. The first story didn't really grab me. It was about a man in Russia whose house is taken over by a dying Leo Tolstoy and his daughter, doctor and lawyer as he tries to escape from his wife and other children.
But after that, I think I fell in love with the stories. My definitely favourite was Boys In Cars, about a woman and her autistic son. It was a lovely complete little story which I just found myself wanting to go on and on - I know short stories are meant to be short, but I can't help but think that some of the best ones are the ones that you wish were a whole novel. It was a lovely story and I really felt for both the mother and the son. Having worked with autistic children I think Alex was very real as well, I remember having a breakthrough moment with a little girl called Hannah and the way Alex began accepting the idea of going to the birthday party reminded me of that.
Ian Rankin's story was also very good. It worked really well and I'm quite pleased that John's ordered a set of Ian Rankin books from The Book People this month. I feel like I have to wait until he's read them before I do, but I'm quite looking forward to that time (and I might read him the short story by Ian Rankin from this book, just as a taster of what he's got to come).
Kate Atkinson's was the other notable story that really grabbed me. When I read Not The End Of The World last year I started out with a feeling much the same as with this book (what is it about me and books of short stories, this will make the Short Story Tree very interesting), but something about the way that Kate Atkinson writes draws me in. The way that things are so surreal and so ordinary at the same time. I love the whole idea of those sorts of stories, and I've even been inspired to try a couple of my own since first being introduced to Kate Atkinson (I'm also annoyed that I didn't pick up two of her books that I found in a secondhand bookshop on Wednesday, but I'm hoping I'll get a chance to get them next week instead).
The final story, The Death Of Marat, was one which I wasn't sure about in the beginning. I've found with short stories that they usually grab me from the start and I love them, or they don't and I find them a drag, so I was half expecting this to be the latter. But it was a slow burner. Two stories of two different women, gradually coming together. By the time I was halfway through it, I was totally absorbed. I also liked the ambiguous ending. Another case where I wanted the short story to be a novel.
I've got the three other Ox-Tales books to read as well, but I realised how close to the end of Earth I was while I was down the shop - without the next in the series with me. So rather than stop reading it to wait until I got home, I nipped out to the library and picked up the next Lynda La Plante book (seeing as I started that series at the beginning of the month). I'm about halfway through The Red Dahlia now and I'm thinking I'll have to make another trip to the library this afternoon to pick up the next one, Clean Cut I think, to get me through the weekend.
Unfortunately the next one isn't available at the moment as it's out on loan and won't be back in until the beginning of April so I may have to start on the first Harry Potter book while I wait (that's the next on my list to read), unless I get the Book Tree and Poetry Tree books and make them last until then. Ah! Bookish dilemmas!