2015 Man Booker Longlist: The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan
Next up in attempt to make our way through the 2015 Man Book Longlist books is O’Hagan’s The Illuminations. Keep reading to see if it is a contender for our shortlist. Read more
Posts by imabookwormy
Sep 4
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Aug 28
Man Booker Longlist 2015: A Spool of Blue Thread Anne Tyler
Next up in on our long list reads is Anne Tyler’s A Spool of Blue Thread. Find out what I thought about it and where it ranks. Read more
Aug 19
2015 Man Booker Long List: Satin Island Tom McCarthy
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
Published: Feb, 2015
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Find it here: Satin Island
Synopsis (from Amazon): U., a “corporate anthropologist,” is tasked with writing the Great Report, an all-encompassing ethnographic document that would sum up our era. Yet at every turn, he feels himself overwhelmed by the ubiquity of data, lost in buffer zones, wandering through crowds of apparitions, willing them to coalesce into symbols that can be translated into some kind of account that makes sense. As he begins to wonder if the Great Report might remain a shapeless, oozing plasma, his senses are startled awake by a dream of an apocalyptic cityscape.
In Satin Island, Tom McCarthy captures—as only he can—the way we experience our world, our efforts to find meaning (or just to stay awake) and discern the narratives we think of as our lives.
Book Worm’s Review: The novel is written as a stream of consciousness from the point of view of U, an anthropologist employed to essentially make sense of humanity. As such, there is only really one character and very little character development.
I enjoyed the writing the way every day occurrences can be transformed by viewing at a distance and the poetical descriptions the author uses.The plot is original in the way that it attempts to explain humanity through statistics and in the building of the argument that our lives are predetermined on a global scale by the technology we use everyday.
What I didn’t like was the fact that something suspicious or devious was hinted at but then never developed. I would have liked a deeper mystery element to the plot. I also found the ending disappointing. It just kind of fizzled out like a damp firework.
In terms of originality this would probably make my shortlist, but in terms of enjoyment it may get knocked out. Here is my scoring for this book:
Available in English 1/1
Published in the UK 1/1
Originality 5/8
Character Complexity 2/5
Writing Quality 4/5
Total: 13/20
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Satin Island
Have you this book? What did you think? Should it make the shortlist?
Here is my ranking of long list books so far in descending order of preference:
- Lila (15/20)
- Satin Island (13/20).
Check back this Friday to see what we both thought of Enright’s The Green Road.
Aug 18
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
Published in: 1994
Literary Awards: Finalist for the 1994 National Book Award
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: The Bird Artist: A Novel
Set in Witless Bay in Newfoundland, a remote community, this is the story of how love and passion can end in murder.
Fabian Vas is a bird artist: He draws and paints the birds of Witless Bay, his remote Newfoundland coastal village home. In the first sentence of the novel Fabian confesses to having killed the lighthouse keeper, Botho August. The rest of the narrative works backwards showing what events lead to the murder and how Fabian escaped hanging to tell his story.
The book is studded with detailed descriptions of the bird life in Witless bay and indeed the bay itself is a character, with its isolation allowing certain events to take place and for community justice to take the place of the law.
I gave this book 3 stars because I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. They were all unlikeable in some way and I really find it hard to like a book where you can’t connect with a single character. What I did enjoy were the descriptions of nature, of the bird species, and of the harsh landscape of the island — landscape that made the inhabitants the kind of remote, cold people they were.
After finishing this book I discovered it was the first in a trilogy which seems rather strange to me since this book seemed to provide the complete story of Fabian, albeit it possibly a slightly surface view. This was not a book that ended on a cliffhanger or that left me with any burning unanswered questions. Instead, everything was all tied up nicely and in such a way that I don’t feel compelled to read the next 2 books — which probably says it all.
Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: The Bird Artist: A Novel
We want to hear from you. Have you read this book? What did you think? Do you want to read it?
Aug 12
Man Booker Longlist 2015: Lila by Marilynne Robinson
The Man Booker Longlist was released on July 29th with quite a few surprises on the list. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 15 September 2015 and the winner will be announced on Tuesday 13 October 2015. In the meantime, Jen and I hope to read and review as many of the longlist books as possible. I’ll start us off with our first review.
Aug 7
Book Worm’s Life in Books: Short Stories
Just so you know right from the start, I am not a fan of short stories. In fact, if I was given the choice to read a 10 page short story or a 1000 page novel, I would choose the novel every time. And, if that novel was part of a series, well that’s even better!!
What I love about reading is escaping to another world, following characters as they grow and develop, and being immersed in every aspect of the fictional world. You can’t really find that in a short story.
So having spent most my life avoiding short stories, I am now finding them thrust upon me in the form of the 1001 Books to Read Before you Die. While there have been some gems amongst these the majority have not managed to change my original opinion.
The Good
The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Gilmore Perkings ★★★★★ – Essentially there is one character and only one location in this entire short story. The story shows a woman whose mental state is declining, she spends all her time in a room with yellow wallpaper where she visuals outside forces that are working against her. Seriously everyone should read this story and if you don’t like it well at least its short
The Garden Party ★★★★ Katherine Mansfield – This is the story of how a teenage girl from a privileged background discovers there is more to life that hats and cake.
The Bad (or the at least the not so good)
The Beggar Maid Alice Munro ★★★ – this is a billed as a novel but is actually a collection of short stories about two women Rose and her stepmother Flo.
Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover ★★ Supposedly these stories are new takes on fairy tales but I spent most the book thinking WHAT!!
The Ugly (or at least the bizarre)
Amateurs Donald Barthelme ★★★ – This is a collection of short stories which covers the full range or bizzare, boring, funny and interesting. My favourites were; Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby,The Captured Woman,Porcupines at the University and The New Member.
So how do you feel about short stories?
Aug 5
Book vs Movie: Blade Runner vs Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Welcome to our new recurring post: Book vs. movie! Unlike our other recurring themes, this won’t be scheduled for a set date but rather will be posted when the inspiration strikes. We’re book lovers so chances are we’ll be biased toward the books, but there are several cases we can think off when we’ve preferred the movie to the book. I’ll start us off with our first battle pairing. We hope you chime in with your thoughts!
Jul 31
July Monthly Recap
It’s time for our monthly recap! Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we plan to read the following month. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts from the Month of July and we’ll highlight our upcoming August content. This month, one randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in July and what you look forward to reading in August.
Read more
Bookworm’s Life in Books; Poetry
We haven’t done one of these in a while so for those of you new to our blog… Our Life in Books is a recurring post where we both take you through books and literature that were either meaningful to us or contributed to who we are as readers today. We are starting with our early reading experiences in a range of genres and we’ll move forward in time with each successive post. You can check out our past posts here. BW picks it back up with poetry
Where is there a better source of morbid material than in the world of poems? My favourite poem of all time is the haunting The Listeners by Walter de la Mare.
I was introduced to this poem as 9/10 year old (lets admit it was so long ago I cannot accurately remember) when an enthusiastic teacher read it to the class and then tasked us with writing a back story for the horse man.
Here is the poem and if you are not intrigued and touched by the traveller then you are not human (just kidding):
The Listeners
by Walter De La Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
‘Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
For my back story, I imagined the traveller as a suitor to the lady of the house. Knowing he is not worthy of her, he leaves to make his fortune but promises to come back and claim her as his own. When he returns, she and her entire family have been wiped out by a plague (come on is that not a book you would read?)
The funniest thing I remember about the assignment was the back story invented by a male classmate. He imagined that the traveller was the milkman. Wow that is some dedicated milkman! You don’t get service like that nowadays!
To hear a rendition of this poem, see this youtube clip:
Bookworm preparing tor the apocalypse 2 Babes in the Wood, 1 Bernard and X amount of Listeners at a time.
Jun 30
June Monthly Recap
It’s time for our monthly recap. Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we plan to read the following month. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts from the Month of June and we’ll highlight our upcoming July content. We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in June and what you look forward to reading in July. Read more
jenp27
Nicole Del Sesto
The Reader's Room 