Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman

 

I'm not the greatest fan of short stories but Neil Gaiman is one of the few writers whose shorts I'm interested in. Feel free to make your own jokes. As with any collection, enjoyment varies: I'm not a big fan of the prose poems and I skipped through a couple of stories towards the end because I'm not in the mood for reading sex scenes right now (the last few have them, most don't). However, when Gaiman gets it right, he gets it right. It's bookended by its best. The first, Chivalry, is a perfect and hillarious tale about a little old lady finding the holy grail in a charity shop; the last, Snow, Glass, Apples is a retelling of Snow White. 

 

Overall, it's a good collection - and make sure you read the introduction because there's an excellent story in that as well - so I'm going to give it 3.5 stars. Well worth picking up if you like Gaiman's writing.

 

Florence and Giles - John Harding

 

This one a reread for me and the reveiwers quote on the front says it better than I could: The Turn of the Screw as done by Edgar Allen Poe. I liked it, although a little less than I did the first time around. I originally gave it 4 stars, the reread was 3.5.

 

 

 

 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

 

Another reread. I liked it because I like things which are entirely of themselves, which this is. I also appreciated the fact that it was trying to be written as a series of letters, and was actually written like a series of letters. It's the type of book which is going to be important to people because they read it at the right time in their life, the way Catcher in The Rye was for me (and I know what a cliche that is, but middle-class angst, poor-little-rich-boy stuff was news; it legitimised me). 

 

I didn't care for the "revelation" near the end - it felt a bit tacked on and, to be honest, the benefit of knowing it didn't make a difference to the reread. 3.5 stars.

 

Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

 

A fascinating and supremely accessible (and funny) book about the way PR has taken over science and controls our understanding of it. Everybody needs to read this, if only for the quantification of homeopathy. 4 stars.

 

 

Raising Steam - Terry Pratchett

 

A huge improvement on the last couple of novels, if not quite up there with the ones before those. At times it suffers from stilted dialogue and the characterisation isn't always quite there, but it's an impressive balance of fan service and story. 

 

On a more personal note, I'm not a wild fan of where the series is going, although it is interesting certainly. I always loved things like Vimes' Gooseberry 2000, and with the introduction of steam to the Disc, we're moving further away from that playfulness. *sadface* Anyway, 3.5 stars.

 

 

This was brilliant, really funny and absolutely heartbreaking. A highly original book.

La prima reazione appena finito il libro è stata: "MAH". La seconda pure.credo che John Harding abbia le idee un tantino confuse, perché sinceramente non saprei come definire il romanzo: narrativa? (no, ci sono elementi paranormali); paranormale? (no, sono elementi troppo deboli e mal sviluppati); giallo? (nì, ma anche qui è piuttosto debole).Insomma, un gran miscuglio di tanti elementi ma sviluppati in maniera veramente carente.. Ad un certo punto non sapevo più dove volesse andare a parare! Tralaltro mi ha tratto in inganno il titolo (strano..): la biblioteca e i libri proibiti compaiono sì e no nelle prime venti pagine (e infatti mi domandavo come potesse sviluppare una storia decente in altre 240 pagine con attinenza all'argomento.. Semplice, non lo ha fatto!).. Ma mantenere il titolo straniero è chiedere troppo?! Florence e Giles infatti, pur non brillando di originalità, avrebbe avuto più senso, visto che sono i nomi dei due protagonisti..Ma passiamo alla storia: dunque Florence e Giles sono due fratellastri che vivono in una villa sperduta con la governante e la servitù; lo zio, figura altamente ambigua, vive a New York per fatti suoi amareggiati perché la moglie lo ha letteralmente accanato dopo che è diventata una donna istruita. Viene chiamata un'insegnante per Giles (ma non per Florence, perché secondo lo zio le donne devono rimanere ignoranti come zucche, visto il destino della sua sposa..) e dapprima è una ragazza che muore in circostanze misteriose (mai chiarite, tralaltro) poi l'altrettanto ambigua Miss Non.mi.ricordo.come.si.chiama.ma.non.è.importante.. E qui dovrebbe cominciare il presunto mistero e le atmosfere, ehm, ricche di pathos. Mi sembra inutile dire che io queste non le ho viste nemmeno di striscio!Ah, il ruolo della biblioteca? Florence aggira il divieto di non leggere e impara da sola, a otto anni. Realistico, no? A 12, al momento della narrazione, ecco come se ne esce: "Cominciai ad imparare dal sola le lingue e ad acquisire una conoscenza passabile del francese, dell'italiano, del latino e del greco". Naturale, no?! E chi diamine sei, McGywer???!Che poi sul serio, la faccenda ritorna alla presenza dell'istitutrice perché la ricatta: niente indagini sul suo passato e in cambio lei può leggere ciò che le aggrata..Vabbé, comunque c'è pure il povero Theo, vicino di Florence e compagnia bella che non va a scuola per l'asma.. Ecco che diventano amici e il povero disgraziato viene messo in messo alla follia di Florence.. La sua fine mi ha lasciata sgomenta, giuro!Non c'è niente che stia in piedi a dirla tutta e si arriva alla fine con un grande senso di disagio e di rammarico per aver speso tempo a leggere questo orrore; Spiegazioni dei fatti buttati lì per caso? E perché mai! Ora io PRETENDO di avere queste spiegazioni e vedere come il cervello di Harding ha lavorato ed elaborato la storia. Del genere: "Ma la povera prima governante che c'entra nella storia?" " Chi era in realtà Miss Non.mi.ricordo.come.si.chiama.ma.non.è.importante?" "Perché il suo interesse per Giles?" "Che ruolo ha lo zio?" "Come si spiegano tutte le cose sovrannaturali che vengono citate e poi dimenticate?"

I was excited when I read the blurb of this book, it sounded exactly like the kind of book I would love to read. Sadly.. I didn't really like the book.

It wasn't the setting, I really loved that, it felt like you where there in the house with her, or on the grounds.
The old words used were something I really liked too. Though I had to search for some of them on the internet because I never heard about them.
I didn't like the characters, especially Florence. At first I thought she was just a lovely little girl, trapped in a big house with a bunch of servants and in the first part with her brother Giles.
Sadly while reading the book I began to doubt the girl. The first governess dies while she is there, then a new governess comes and the girl starts to doubt that one. Eventually killing her. In the end she does nothing for Theo and lets him die and even thinking oh hey this wasn't part of the plan.
I am not sure what part of the book is real and what is just the fantasy of a girl who really hates her perfect little world being invaded.

Maybe the second governess was really a witch, an evil being, maybe even Whitaker.. But again, Florence is the only one who ever sees everything that is wrong. And after the suspicious death of the first governess, I am not sure what to believe.
There are signs that point to the evilness of the woman, but again, who says mrs Grouse didn't just fall down because she was on the first step.

I would have loved a bit more story with the first governess, she only gets like what 2 pages and she is killed off. After that a time skip.

Also what bothered me was the language used by Florence. Her nouns to verbs/verbs to nouns. It distracted me from the story, I had to double or even triple read the sentence before I finally thought ah that is what she meant. And I can tell you that is highly annoying, especially with the rare good parts in the book.

I had expected a lovely ghost/horror story. Instead I got a little girl desperate to keep her perfect little world consisting of her, her brother and her library in perfect shape without any disturbance.
I feel sorry for the next governess (if she ever comes), after all we have seen what Florence will do for the perfect world.

And lastly, poor Theo. Sure I didn't always like him, but I found his adoration for Florence cute, and I had actually hoped they would become real friends. I didn't expect him to be killed of like that.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. It is a nice story at times, but most of the times it was boring and in the end I was glad it was done. It will go in the box with books I won't read again.

An effective gothic pastiche of one of my favourite novels M.R James 'Turn of the Screw' but I am really frustrated that I did not enjoy it as much as everyone else seemed to.

I loved the story and the mystery surrounding the characters, the strangeness of the children's lives and the sinister witch-like governess. In this game of cat and mouse things aren't quite what they seem, with twists and turns and draughty corridors, flickery candles and black crows in the snow. Wonderfully gothic, and eerily creepy, you get the feeling everything is there to be discovered and you know more than the narrator (who is very unreliable) but only if you can put it all together.

However…

I seem to be one of the very few people on the planet that found Florence's narrative 'verbing' style grating and distracting. Now this may be because I listened to it as an audio book and seemed to be anticipating the reinventions. But how can "commenced to restlessing" be an improvement on "became restless"? But it got to the point when I felt that it was becoming forced.

Maybe it makes for a better readery than a listenery :D