Bookclub choice. Sad that I failed to actually make it to bookclub that month, but there you go ( Read more... )

I've just read The Magus and The French Lieutenants Woman in quick succession, which ar ebooks I'd not read since my very early 20s. I know my parents really enjoyed them, so I naturally picked them up and read them and got a fair bit out of them ( Read more... )

I've been meaning to read this for ages, and I can't remember what actually prompted me to add it to my library reservations. Anyway, it came through. It's a collection of Dworkin's speeches on the theme of male violence against women in society, from rape culture through to psychological abuse and denigration ( Read more... )

Ordered this from the library and was pleased from the start. Not overjoyed, but definitely pleased. Well-written Sovietist post-apocalyptic kill-fests do that for me. But it actually grows on you the further you get into it. Layer upon layer of dark dank gloom building into a slow pervasive claustrophobia. Probably not a coincidence that I had a ( Read more... )

Recommended and lent by inulroIt was kind of irritating in places due to a slightly hipstery-Oxbridge nonce ethos. But it was eclectic and beautifully written and namechecked Roger Deakin so I fell in love with its beautiful descriptive detail of different landscapes. It left me with a longing for Dorset and an urge to re-visit Scotland and just re- ( Read more... )

This was good. Margaret Atwood is always good. But I like her so much better when she's funny than when she's mainly worthy.

Picked it up because it was about Buenos Aires society, and I'd been talking about Buenos Aires with someone the day before. You know how it goes ( Read more... )

Cool book. Won't review it in too much detail as it's on the Bibgoths long list. It was a kind of engrossing world for me - loved the biotech stuff, and watching humans being just as frail and crappy even when they've achieved a semblance of immortality. Good ending as well - mostly sci-fi books jsut seem to collapse into a finale that makes me ( Read more... )

Got this book on an interlibrary loan. God bless the libraries, and use them all you can. It's actually quite awesome. I do like Nick cave's books, and this one is less fundamentally depressing than the last. Actually it's probably about as fundamentally depressing, but in a different way. I guess I just find dysfunctionality, mental chaos and ( Read more... )

Bibgoth read. I didn't like it when I was young, mostly because I was a Roald Dahl kid, so this seemed unbearably twee. Liked it a bit better now - there's some dry humour and puns in there that I didn't really appreciate when I was young - but I still don't really like it. I think there's some mileage in the idea that it's probably a written ( Read more... )