The Reader's Room

Mar 18

Non 1001 Book Review: The Widow Fiona Barton

The Widow by Fiona Barton
Published in: February 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: The Widow

This ARC was provided by Random House UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis from Goodreads: For fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, an electrifying thriller that will take you into the dark spaces that exist between a husband and a wife.

When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman. One who enabled her and her husband to carry on, when more bad things began to happen…

But that woman’s husband died last week. And Jean doesn’t have to be her anymore.

There’s a lot Jean hasn’t said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment.

Now there’s no reason to stay quiet. There are people who want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them that there were secrets. There always are in a marriage.

The truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything…

Book Worm’s Thoughts: This is an interesting character study of one woman, Jean Taylor, and how she stands by her husband when he is accused of a terrible crime. Years later, her husband dies and Jean finds her ordered world falling apart. She is once again the centre of attention and this time she has no one to protect and no reason not to talk.

The novel has multiple narrators and shifts in time from the present to the past. We get to see events from Jean’s point of view, her husband’s point of view, a reporter’s point of view, a victim’s point of view, and the police point of view. Each new chapter gives a new perspective on events and piece by piece they come together to build up a cohesive story.

I liked the shift in narratives and timeframes and how the story was built up slowly as links were revealed. My problem with the book was that I didn’t find Jean convincing as a real person and as she is the central character, that was a real issue for me.

I would also say the comparison with Gone Girl is wrong. This is a much slower narrative and one with very few real plot twists.

So who would like this? I think those who enjoy crime fiction and those who like fiction about relationships with hidden secrets will be drawn to this book. Content warning: This book features child abduction and abuse and although it is never actually explicitly described. However, those who are uncomfortable with these themes should probably avoid this book.

Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here.

We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think? Does it sound like a book you would want to read? Which are your favorite crime fiction writers and/or novels?

Mar 17

9 Comments

Last few hours to sign up!

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Last chance to sign up for our book bracket challenge (full rules here)! I’ve created a pool over at CBS for anyone who wants to play along. You can find that here. Password is: book madness. Brackets lock around noon today so make your picks this morning or you will be shut out. Please note that only about half of our participants have created CBS brackets (some have emailed their spreadsheets directly to me) so the list of participants over at CBS represents about half of the entries.

The grand prize requires that you read books you pick from your bracket but one prize involves predictions only with no reading.

When you are picking your brackets, please note that Basketball teams are paired with books in the following way:

South (non-fiction)
1. Between the World and Me = Kansas
2. The Boys in the Boat = Villanova
3. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale = Miami
4. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks = California
5. H is for Hawk = Maryland
6. Into Thin Air = Arizona
7. The Warmth of Other Suns = Iowa
8. The Hot Zone = Colorado
9. The Year of Magical Thinking = UConn
10. The Snow Leopard = Temple
11. See you Made an Effort = Wichita St
12. In Other Words = South Dakota State
13. Dark Money = Hawai’i
14. = Charles Bukowski = Buffalo
15. Archive Fever = UNC Asheville
16. The Great Spring = Austin Peay

East (fiction non-U.S.)
1. The Noise of Time = North Carolina
2. Half of a Yellow Sun = Xavier
3. Rebecca = West Virginia
4. Room = Kentucky
5. A God in Ruins = Indiana
6. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki = Notre Dame
7. I Capture the Castle = Wisconsin
8. The High Mountains of Portugal = USC
9. The Illegal = Providence
10. Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend = Pittsburgh
11. Snow = Michigan
12. The Heather Blazing = Chattanooga
13. Shylock is my Name = Stony Brook
14. Bone and Bread = Stephen F. Austin
15. Minister without Portfolio = Weber State
16. What Lies Between us = FGCU

West (science fiction/fantasy)
1. The Martian = Oregon
2. The Lions of Al-Rassan = Oklahoma
3. Neverwhere = Texas A&M
4. The Fifth Season = Duke
5. Station Elevan = Baylor
6. Never Let me Go = Texas
7. The Dispossessed = Oregon State
8. Hild = Saint Joseph’s
9. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams = Cincinnati
10. Ancillary Sword = VCU
11. The Library at Mount Char = Northern Iowa
12. New World Fairy Tales = Yale
13. All the Birds = UNC Wilmington
14. Uprooted = Green Bay
15. The Beautiful Bureaucrat = Cal St Bakersfield
16. The Traitor Baru Comorant = Holy Cross

Midwest (Fiction U.S.) ranks
1. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena = Virginia
2. Epitaph = Michigan State
3. Night Film = Utah
4. City on Fire = Iowa State
5. All the Light We Cannot See = Purdue
6. Lonesome Dove = Seton Hall
7. The Queen of the Night = Dayton
8. We Are Water = Texas Tech
9. Did you Ever have a Family? = Butler
10. Turner House = Syracuse
11. Euphoria = Gonzaga
12. Fates and Furies = Little Rock
13. Infinite Jest = Iona
14. The Edge of Lost = Fresno State
15. The Sellout = Middle Tennessee
16. Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist = Hampton

Mar 16

10 Comments

Featured Author: Ian McEwan

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This month’s featured author is an author who has 8 books on the 1001 list (across all editions): Ian McEwan. Keep reading to see our thoughts and let us know which are your favorite McEwan novels.

McEwan was born in 1948 in England to Scottish parents. His father worked his way up the army to rank of major and as such Ian and his family lived all over the world including East Asia, Germany, and North Africa. McEwan’s early works were characterized by their dark quality and as a result he was given the nickname Ian Macabre. The British Literature Council had this to say about his early works:

McEwan’s early pieces were notorious for their dark themes and perverse, even gothic, material. Controversy surrounding the extreme subject matter of the first four works, which are concerned with paedophilia, murder, incest and violence, was exacerbated by their troubling narrative framework, the way in which conventional moral perspectives are disrupted or overturned, the reader frequently drawn into prurient involvement with the characters. McEwan’s perpetrator-narrators draw us into complicity with their crimes, whilst his victims seem strangely collusive in their own exploitation and destruction.

His later works are considered to be considerably less dark but many explore the impact of extraordinary events in the lives of ordinary people.

His novels have received much critical acclaim. The Times featured him as one of the top 50 British authors since 1954 and he has won more awards that can fit in this brief bio. His books have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize six times, wining the prize in 1998 for his novel Amsterdam. The Comfort of Strangers, Black Dogs, Chesil Beach, and Atonement were all shortlisted for the Man Booker Award and Saturday was longlisted for the award.

You can read more about him on his website and in this Paris Review article.

List of published novels (as of March 9, 2016):
First Love, Last Rites (1975)
In Between the Sheets (1978)
The Cement Garden (1978)
The Comfort of Strangers (1981)
The Imitation Game (1981)
Or Shall we Die? (1983)
The Ploughman’s Lunch (1985)
The Child in Time (1987)
Sour Sweet (1988)
The Innocent (1990)
Black Dogs (1992)
The Daydreamer (1994)
Enduring Love (1997)
Amsterdam (1998)
Atonement (2001)
Saturday (2005)
On Chesil Beach (2007)
For You: The Libretto (2008)
Solar: (2010)
Sweet Tooth (2012)
The Children’s Act (2014)

Jen’s Thoughts: I have only read two books by McEwan: Atonement and Saturday. I had been wary of his books precisely because I don’t love the macabre and I was turned off by some of the reviews I’d seen of books like The Cement Garden. However, I loved Atonement. In fact, I was the love it reviewer for a love it or hate it feature that we did on this book about a year ago. Unfortunately, I did not love Saturday. While brilliantly written and an excellent concept for a book, I personally found it somewhat dull. There were moments that were great but my main reaction to the book was one of boredom. Since I have only read two of his books, I don’t feel overly qualified to guide you through which books to read. So I will leave it to Book Worm to be your guide.

Book Worm’s Thoughts: I have read 6 books by McEwan and I can honestly say they have all been completely different from each other in terms of style and content. That is the sign of a gifted writer. Of the 6 I have read, my favourites were Atonement (just thinking about that ending still brings a tear to my eyes) and Enduring Love closely followed by The Child in Time and Amsterdam. Unlike Jen I actually enjoyed Saturday yes some sections dragged (how many pages do you need to devote to a game of squash) but overall I liked the concept of following a person for 24 hours to see what happened to them and how they reacted to it. My least favourite book is On Chesil Beach. I found the storyline to be slightly weird, the relationship to be unbelievable, and the ending just miserable. This is not one I would recommend.

McEwan has a real gift for storytelling and for capturing all the different aspects of a character and what it is that drives them and makes them who they are. He is also happy writing from multiple perspectives including different sexes and social backgrounds as well as different points in time.

As each of the books I have read are so different to the each other my advice to readers would be if you have read 1 McEwan book and not liked it try another one as you might love it.

We want to hear from you! Which books of his have you read? Which were your favorites and least favorites?

Mar 15

12 Comments

A Fine Balance

It’s been a while since both Book Worm and I have given the same book 5 stars. We are both fairly stingy with our 5-star ratings. So when a book comes along that gets 5 stars from both of us, we get very excited to share it with you. See why we thought it was so good and let us know if you loved it too! Read more

Mar 13

5 Comments

March Book Madness Challenge: Final Reminder and Prizes!

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The list of basketball teams have been released so now we know which books and teams are matched together. It is the perfect time to join our challenge! See the challenge page for more details. Find out what prizes we will be offering and scroll to the bottom to see how teams and books are paired up. Read more

Mar 11

7 Comments

1001 Book Review: Solaris Stanislaw Lem

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Published in: 1961
Reviewed by: Book Worm and Jen
Rating: ★★★★
Find it here: Solaris

Synopsis from Goodreads: A classic work of science fiction by renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.

When Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds a painful, hitherto unconscious memory embodied in the living physical likeness of a long-dead lover. Others examining the planet, Kelvin learns, are plagued with their own repressed and newly corporeal memories. The Solaris ocean may be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, though its purpose in doing so is unknown, forcing the scientists to shift the focus of their quest and wonder if they can truly understand the universe without first understanding what lies within their hearts.

Book Worm’s Thoughts: 4 stars. I read this book after having watched the George Clooney film and I have to say the book is 10 times better. It is a deeper, more philosophical exploration about what it means to be human.

While the book is classed as a sci-fi classic, it reads equally as well as a study of guilt, obsession and sacrifice. That is not to say there is no science in it, there is, a lot. Some readers may be put off by the detailed description of the ocean and the way it behaves especially the long detailed descriptions of the kind of structures it makes. This wasn’t a problem for me as I enjoyed seeing what the author imagined an alien mind could come up with.

The first person narrative gives the story a creepy, edgy kind of feel, it also means that everything we are told comes from one source which means that source can be questionable. This technique works well to convey the isolation of the space station, the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in one place with no communication with the outside world it also suggests the way the mind can play tricks on you.

I would recommend this to those who enjoy sci-fi and weirdly those who like a good romance.

Jen’s Thoughts: 4 stars. I have often made the claim on this blog that I generally dislike science fiction but perhaps that is because I have read the wrong books (I often wonder if Robert Heinlein has biased me against all science fiction). I really enjoyed Solaris for many of the reasons Book Worm mentioned above. I actually liked the movie which I had seen prior to reading the book although admittedly my tolerance for bad quality movies is quite high. While I may be a snob when it comes to books, I will pretty much watch and enjoy all movies. Yet as Book Worm writes above, the book was superior in all ways to the movie.

Solaris was a very engaging, intelligent, and well-written book. It is described by many as philosophical science fiction and it raises issues about what makes us who we are. It is a book that blur the lines between reality and hallucination bring us to question the very nature of our perception. Maybe it’s no wonder that I liked the book despite it being in the science fiction genre. Lem was never really part of the science fiction establishment. Philp K. Dick accused him of being a communist agent and he was booted out of the Science Fiction Writers Association (Wired magazine, 2002). Lem himself wrote that science fiction was a “whore, prostituting itself with discomfort, disgust, and contrary to its dreams and hopes.”

As Book Worm has warned above, the book is filled to the brim with scientific digressions that at times can be quite dry. These digressions serve a purpose in building the backdrop to the book but they are fairly extensive and may be off-putting to those who don’t like this element in their science fiction books. That said, I enjoyed the book and found it quite thought-provoking. It was a creepy read.

Want to try it for yourself? You can find a copy here: Solaris

We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think?

Mar 10

2 Comments

Non 1001 Book Review: At the Edge of the Orchard Tracy Chevalier

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
Release date: March 15 2016
Reviewed by: Book Worm
Rating: ★★★
Find it here: At the Edge of the Orchard

This ARC was provided by Penguin Group Viking (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis from Goodreads: From internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier, a riveting drama of a pioneer family on the American frontier

1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck – in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life. Read more

Mar 9

2 Comments

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell
Published: March 1, 2016
Rating: 3 stars
Reviewed by Jen
Find it here:The Madwoman Upstairs: A Novel

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley and Simon and Shuster in exchange for an honest review.

The Madwoman Upstairs is Catherine Lowell’s debut novel and was released on March 1st by Simon and Shuster. It has been described as “a modern-day literary scavenger hunt” and centers on clues related to the Bröntes.

When Samantha Whipple’s father dies, she becomes the sole living relation of the Bröntes. Rumors surround Samantha about a mysterious Bronte estate. Many scholars speculated that her father had hidden away a vast fortune of unpublished works and Bronte memorabilia. Five years after her father’s death, Samantha travels to Oxford to study literature. She is housed in an old tower and when copies of her father’s old books (books she had presumed destroyed in the fire that killed her father) start appearing in her room, she starts to wonder if there is any truth to rumors of vast estate. What ensues is a sort of literary scavenger hunt where Samantha uncovers clues to her father’s life and a potential literary treasure. Read more

Mar 8

12 Comments

2016 Bailey’s Prize Longlist

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This morning the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist was announced. The Bailey’s Women’s Prize is one of the United Kingdom’s most prestigious literary prizes. It is annually awarded to a female author for the best original novel written in English and published in the U.K. in the preceding year. The award in 1992 began after a group of journalists, reviewers, agents, publishers, and booksellers realized that the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist did not include any female writers despite the availability of talented women writers. By 1992 only 10 percent of novelists shortslisted for the Booker Prize were women despite the ratio of books published by men to women being 60/40. The Bailey’s Women’s prize was a way of bring “outstanding writers to the attention of readers.”

Previous 10 winners:

2015: Ali Smith for How to be Both
2014: Eimear McBride for A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
2013: A.M. Homes for May we be Forgiven
2012: Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles
2011: Téa Obreht for The Tiger’s Wife
2010: Barbara Kingsolver for The Lacuna
2009: Marilynne Robinson for Home
2008: Rose Tremain for The Road Home
2007: Chimamanda Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun
2006: Zadie Smith for On Beauty

Find out who made the first cut for this year’s prize. Read more

Mar 7

4 Comments

Read Around the World: Egypt

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Our next stop in our world tour of literature is Egypt. Join us as we explore some of what Egypt has to offer in terms of literature and find out which book we selected. We hope you help us to add to the list of recommended reading for Egypt!