My Thoughts: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

I know that I'm probably one of the few people never to have read Neverwhere, but it was worth the wait. I'm definately having a bit of a Neil Gaiman year, seeming to be reading his books all over the place.

For anyone in the dark, like I was, Neverwhere is a novel set in London Below. Richard is a typical middle class office worker in London, he gets up, goes to a boring job, and sees his boring girlfriend and then does exactly the same thing the next day. That is till one evening an injured girl literally falls at his feet. His life changes in moments, leaving him dumped, invisible to everyone arouund him and able to talk to rats.

The injured girl, Door, leads him to a life under the normal London, filled with the people who just 'fell through the gaps'. The train stations act like portals, and more than live up to their names and his life is at risk with every step he takes.

I absolutely loved this novel. The inverted world of London, the fantasy creatures and the pace with which the story unfolds. For years I shrugged away from fantasy literature, and I seem to have discovered it through children's literature and its opened up a new world of books. If anyone has any great recommendations for more books from this genre please share them with me :-)

Each of the Gaiman books I have read so far have been bookrings, so I'm planning on asking for some for Xmas, all with the gorgeous black and white covers.

Challenge:

20th Century Reads Project (1996)

Classics Challenge (Fantasy Classic) Book 6 of 6

Other Reviews

Eye on Everything

Raidergirl3

Bart's Books

Stephanie's Confessions of a book-a-holic

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Sunday Salon: A Review - Ruby Red by Linzi Glass

Well, in my earlier post I claimed I would be spending the afternoon starting Gut Symmetries, I had a killer headache but attempted to start it and quickly put it down, it seemed very sci-fi and like it needed a lot of concentration, which wasn't something I could give it this afternoon. So I picked up the next Carnegie short-listed book that I had on the pile, Ruby Red.
I'd picked this book up from the library ages ago and had forgotten what it was supposed to be about, I took a quick glance at the cover and thought it would be something light-hearted. I was definately to be proven wrong. Ruby is a girl living in South Africa during apartheid, her parents are wealthy, white and opposed to the forced division and inequality between the races. Her father is a lawyer, who works to protect Black people who have been treated unfairly as well as a member of the underground political group looking to change the views of society. Her mother owns an art gallery, in which any art, if it is good, is displayed and sold, the colour of the artists skin is not judged just the work they produce.
Ruby, attends a private school and has to keep her home life and school life completely seperate, no friends can come over for tea, no sleep overs etc, it is far to dangerous to let people know about her parents politics.
Two boys enter Ruby's life who affect it forever. The young black artist Julian, who has to move from the black township to live secretly inside her house, and her new boyfriend an Affrikans white boy, whose family believe deeply in the segregation of the two races.
Ruby gains love, understanding and identity but loses friends, her education and a whole lot more.
This YA novel is very thoughtful and well written, the politics surrounding apartheid are shown clearly for a young audience who grew up after it had finished, and who probably have very little knowledge of it aside from Nelson Mandela. Ruby is believable, the only part I felt that could have been stronger was the depiction of her private school, it seemed too cliched.

Challenges:
Unread Authors 5 of 6
YA Challenge Book 8 of 12

If you have read this book please leave a link to your review here and I'll add it too my post.

Sunday Salon: A Review - Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi

A fairly good reading week for me, I managed to finish 4 books: A Woman of My Age by Nina Bawden, Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey, Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips and Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi - all of the good reads but nothing to rave about unfortunately. I only have two weeks left of the summer holidays and really need to start preparing for the classes I will be teaching when I get back, so I'm not sure I'll be reading so many books next week. I am hoping to finish Eldest, which I'm loving. I have Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson to start this afternoon, and I hope to read In Cold Blood and possibly start Pawn of Prophecy if all goes well.

Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi

Years ago I read Kureishi's novels The Buddha of Suburbia and The Black Album, and earlier this year I read Gabriel's Gift all of which I really enjoyed. So I picked up Intimacy and expected to enjoy it, I guess I also expected to read a book written in a similar style as those books of his which I had read before, but this wasn't so.
Intimacy is a first person narrative of a man who is leaving his wife and two small children. The novella is based on his thoughts the evening before he leaves, we see him playing with his kids, remembering elements of his marriage, remembering the affairs he has had, in particular the mistress he fell in love with.
I'm not sure if we are meant to feel for him or not, personally I ended up hating him. He claims to love and adore his children, yet he is leaving without letting anyone know, let alone giving an explanation. He talks about his wife as if he never loved her, she is just someone he seems to leave fairly regularly. And he talks about his countless affairs as if he is entitled to them. He lives a very good life, working only in the mornings and obviously having a fair amount of money and luxury around him, yet he just whinges about everything. He seems pretentious, selfish and shallow, so I came to the end of the novel thinking it would be better for the wife if he did leave and she could meet a nice bloke instead.

Challenge:
1001 BYMRBYD

Other Reviews:
Over-exposed Image for a more positive impression.

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link and I'll pop it in.

My Thoughts: Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

'What if God was one of us?' A famous line from a pop song, but it looks like Marie Phillips took this idea that Gods could live among us and transfered if into a funny, light-hearted novel. In Gods Behaving Badly, Greek gods are forced to live in London, in a cumbling terrace house, and forced to have jobs as well as perform their powers to keep Earth working. Aphrodite is a sex line worker, Artemis and dog walker, Appollo a T.V presenter and Dionysis runs a nightclub. The Gods power is fading, they are bored with their lives and live in a continual motion of repeating things they have already done again and again and again.

Then enter into their lives Alice, the timid cleaner and Neil, the equally timid engineer. The pair seem to belong to some quaint English soap opera, they are bright but lack much of a life. But once they have entered the lives of the Gods they are quickly thrown into a variety of strange situations, including death, conversations with Hades and a mass gathering on the streets of London.

The book is funny, very adult, and full of swearing. Its the type of book I can imagine many people won't like, especially really religious people, but its also a fun read.

Challenge:

Unread Authors Challenge 4 of 6

Other Reviews:

Becky's Book Reviews

Raidergirl3

Eclectic Closet

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My Thoughts: Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey

Peter Carey seems to be one of those authors I just never have got into, I read Oscar and Lucinda for a reading group and I thought it was great in parts but struggled to get through it. I have a few of his other novels, and once even started one but then something happened it got put to one side and never went back to. I got Theft: A Love Story as a bookring, and it still took me a few weeks to pick it up.

The book is set in the art world (something I know only a tine little bit about), on of the main characters is an modern artist, Micheal 'Butcher' Boone. Once Australia's top artist, things got a bit shakey with his career and his personal life. He moves to a small town to live with his brother, Hugh 'Slow Bones' Boone. Hugh has emotional and social difficulties, which require him to recieve constant care from his brother.

The novel tells the story of Butcher's struggle to deal with life out of the limelight, estranged from his wife and son and struggling to look after his brother. One flooded evening a gorgeous American turns up, an art dealer and relation of the artist whose work had inspired Butcher as a teenager. This woman turns his life upside down, getting his work presented in Japan and involving him in the murkier side of the arts world.

The novel is constructed through the voices of the brothers, in alternating chapters. Butcher is fully in love with the American, and fails to see and judge the things happening around him. Meanwhile, Hugh, has far more insight into people and the situations around him.

Carey plays with language and creates an individual voice for each of the brothers. Hugh's chapters are littered with words and phrases which are all capilatilised, I'm not sure if it's just my eyes but I find it harder to read capitalised words, especially when they just randomly appear, they slow me down slightly.

Have you reviewed this book? If so leave a link in the comments and I'll add them into the review

My Thoughts: A Woman of My Age by Nina Bawden (incl spoilers)

This is going to be a very short reveiw. I'm participating in an African Bookbox (I get sent a bunch of African books in a box, take out how many boxs I want, replace thm with that many books set in Africa, then post them to the next person), and I needed another book. This book is set in Morocco so this book got picked. Now this isn't a typical African novel, but I'm hoping that it will be a good thing to have something a little different from whats expected in the box.

This novel is about an English couple, in their early 40s, they take a holiday away to Morocco. They have a fairly loveless marriage, which the woman tries to sort out in her head whilst on this holiday. She thinks back over the past and the present situation (she catches her husband with another woman, then she sleeps with a much older man), she tries to work out whether she should stay with him or leave.

It's a fairly basic plot, and a very easy read. It was interesting to read a book about marriage in the 1960s, its shocking that it wasn't that long ago that women accepted being hit, or their husband having an affair.

Challenges:

Reading Around the World

20th Century Project (1967) Book 11 of 100

Sunday Salon: My Thoughts on Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor and Challenge Round Up

This is one of those novels that I've always been aware of but somehow never got around to reading it. I picked it up in a second-hand sale the other day and realised that it would be perfect as the last book for the Southern Challenge.

The novel is about the Logan family, living in Mississippi in the 193o's. Times are hard because of the forthcoming depression, and because of the continuing tension between the black and white communities. The Logan families are one of the few black families with their own land, this is resented by both the black and white families.

The story is centred aroud the four Logan children, having being brought up by indepent parents, who believe evryone should be equal, they have a hard time understanding the unequal society that they are living in. As the novel progresses more and more problems arise between the two communities.

This novel deals with the racism alive in that society, as well as they way the law and politics was shaped to benefit white people.

Obviously as a kids book this was a fairly easy read, and a easy way to spend a windy Sunday afternoon. I'm now of for lasagne, a couple of episodes of 24 and maybe a film for the evening. This week I'm going to finish Theft: A Love Story, Bellefleur and hopefully start Frankie and Stankie. What have you be reading today?

Challenges:

Southern Reading Challenge Book 3 of 3!

Young Adult Reading Challenge Book 7 of 12

Classics Challenge (Kids classic) Book 5 of 6

Unread Authors Challenge Book 3 of 6

20th Century Project (1976) Book 10 of 100

Reading Around the World

If you have read this book, please leave a link to your review, or your comments, I will link in any reviews added.

The Southern Challenge Round-Up

I finished it with 5 days to go, which seemed unlikely this time last week. My intentions (Gone with the Wind, The Awakening, Cold Moutain and The Sound and the Fury), seemed to go amiss during the last few month, with me only managing to read one from the original list. I think I ended up with a good mix though, one classic, one contemporary fiction and a YA classic book (The Secrets We Keep, Gone With the Wind, and Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry). While I enjoyed all of them in their own way Gone With the Wind was by far the best, and a book I definately plan to go back and read again.

Looking forward to next years selection, Maggie!