7 Book reviews
Book #2-8: 12 January, 2009 to 3 February, 2009
I recently stayed in a B&B outside of Manchester for 4 weeks. As there was no internet connection and very little in the way of entertainment, I was pleased to see that they'd supplied a bookshelf full of Reader's Digest Condensed books. I managed to work my way through several of them and I'm going to review them all in one go.
A Curate For All Seasons ~ Fred Secombe
I had no idea that Harry Secombe had a brother, much less one who was a priest or an author! This book seems to be along the same lines as the James Herriot books, except it's about a new priest in Wales, rather than a vet in Yorkshire. The main focus of the book is the people Fred meets, rather than himself and so it makes for an amusing read. It's certainly enjoyable and mostly light-hearted.
Doctor On Trial ~ Harry Denker
This book is about a female doctor who ends up facing a charge of manslaughter and malpractice. One of the main points of the book is that it's a female doctor and a lot of the characters find this a problem so it's obviously very dated. It's not a bad book, but the archaic attitudes towards the female doctor made it a bit hard to take.
Fatherland ~ Robert Harris
This is a sci fi/fantasy book that is set in a world where Germany won the Second World War. It's obviously a bit of a touchy subject but I was curious to see how it would be dealt with. I was actually quite disappointed, it didn't seem futuristic in any way, it could have just been taken directly from the war years rather than 1964 which was when it was supposed to be set. I found some of the 'history' a bit questionable, but I didn't know if that was because I was reading a condensed version or not. It's stated that the Germans found out that the British had cracked the Enigma Code, but there's no explanation as to how. Although it started out fairly well, the plot seemed to struggle and finally ended up with the entire thing coming down to the Holocaust. Although I should have expected that aspect of the Second World War to come into it somewhere, it seemed to be a cheap shot or a cop-out for lack of a better idea. It also seemed to be really implausible in this particular world.
The Boy Who Invented The Bubble Gun ~ Paul Gallico
I couldn't tell whether this book was aimed at adults or children. It's about a 9 year old boy and is written in a fairly simplistic style so it's probably aimed more at children. It's a strange story though, about a boy who gets on a bus to Washington by himself to patent his invention. It's very obviously dated because it would never happen in this day and age and it's hard to picture a time when a small boy travelling on his own wouldn't have been questioned. He gets taken advantage of quite badly and the ending made me very confused as well as sad. I'm not sure what a child would get from this book, except maybe not to trust any adult at all.
The Memoirs Of An Invisible Man ~ H. F. Saint
This is not The Invisible Man as written by H.G. Wells, and it's easy to get this book confused with that original. It's still a good book and I enjoyed reading it, although I've not read the original so I don't know how they compare. I did get the feeling once I'd finished it that the ending was extremely familiar but I'm pretty sure I've not read this book before.
The Scofield Diagnosis ~ Henry Denker
This is another medical thriller by the same author as the book above. It's also a very similar sort of story where the main factor is that there's a female doctor and no one trusts her to be any good or as good as the male doctors. There's also a factor of child abuse which may have been a new subject for a novel when it was originally written but these days it's not as cutting edge as it probably was then.
The Tower ~ Richard Martin Stern
When I was reading this, it seemed to be a forerunner of sorts to the events of September 11th. It's only now that I've found out the building in the book was based on the original World Trade Centre tower, and also that the book was then the basis for the film The Towering Inferno. It's not a bad book but I found the reasons for the fire were a little lacking. I also thought that there was more emphasis put on finding out how it started and who did it, than rescuing the people trapped at the top. I wasn't all that bothered about them anyway, they were all a bit bland and annoying.
I recently stayed in a B&B outside of Manchester for 4 weeks. As there was no internet connection and very little in the way of entertainment, I was pleased to see that they'd supplied a bookshelf full of Reader's Digest Condensed books. I managed to work my way through several of them and I'm going to review them all in one go.
A Curate For All Seasons ~ Fred Secombe
I had no idea that Harry Secombe had a brother, much less one who was a priest or an author! This book seems to be along the same lines as the James Herriot books, except it's about a new priest in Wales, rather than a vet in Yorkshire. The main focus of the book is the people Fred meets, rather than himself and so it makes for an amusing read. It's certainly enjoyable and mostly light-hearted.
Doctor On Trial ~ Harry Denker
This book is about a female doctor who ends up facing a charge of manslaughter and malpractice. One of the main points of the book is that it's a female doctor and a lot of the characters find this a problem so it's obviously very dated. It's not a bad book, but the archaic attitudes towards the female doctor made it a bit hard to take.
Fatherland ~ Robert Harris
This is a sci fi/fantasy book that is set in a world where Germany won the Second World War. It's obviously a bit of a touchy subject but I was curious to see how it would be dealt with. I was actually quite disappointed, it didn't seem futuristic in any way, it could have just been taken directly from the war years rather than 1964 which was when it was supposed to be set. I found some of the 'history' a bit questionable, but I didn't know if that was because I was reading a condensed version or not. It's stated that the Germans found out that the British had cracked the Enigma Code, but there's no explanation as to how. Although it started out fairly well, the plot seemed to struggle and finally ended up with the entire thing coming down to the Holocaust. Although I should have expected that aspect of the Second World War to come into it somewhere, it seemed to be a cheap shot or a cop-out for lack of a better idea. It also seemed to be really implausible in this particular world.
The Boy Who Invented The Bubble Gun ~ Paul Gallico
I couldn't tell whether this book was aimed at adults or children. It's about a 9 year old boy and is written in a fairly simplistic style so it's probably aimed more at children. It's a strange story though, about a boy who gets on a bus to Washington by himself to patent his invention. It's very obviously dated because it would never happen in this day and age and it's hard to picture a time when a small boy travelling on his own wouldn't have been questioned. He gets taken advantage of quite badly and the ending made me very confused as well as sad. I'm not sure what a child would get from this book, except maybe not to trust any adult at all.
The Memoirs Of An Invisible Man ~ H. F. Saint
This is not The Invisible Man as written by H.G. Wells, and it's easy to get this book confused with that original. It's still a good book and I enjoyed reading it, although I've not read the original so I don't know how they compare. I did get the feeling once I'd finished it that the ending was extremely familiar but I'm pretty sure I've not read this book before.
The Scofield Diagnosis ~ Henry Denker
This is another medical thriller by the same author as the book above. It's also a very similar sort of story where the main factor is that there's a female doctor and no one trusts her to be any good or as good as the male doctors. There's also a factor of child abuse which may have been a new subject for a novel when it was originally written but these days it's not as cutting edge as it probably was then.
The Tower ~ Richard Martin Stern
When I was reading this, it seemed to be a forerunner of sorts to the events of September 11th. It's only now that I've found out the building in the book was based on the original World Trade Centre tower, and also that the book was then the basis for the film The Towering Inferno. It's not a bad book but I found the reasons for the fire were a little lacking. I also thought that there was more emphasis put on finding out how it started and who did it, than rescuing the people trapped at the top. I wasn't all that bothered about them anyway, they were all a bit bland and annoying.