PREMISE: Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor August,” she says. “I need to send a message.” This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.
Claire North is a genius in my eyes. Not only is she a fantastic writer and storyteller but she comes up with just the best story ideas; a man who lives multiple lives, a person who can move between bodies just by touching them, a girl who nobody can remember, the Harbinger of Death. She also has such a ‘smooth’ way of writing, which I realise is just a fancy way of saying that she’s a really good writer. I mentioned it in a previous post; some writers words you can just swallow like soup whereas others might contain a few small croutons or large chunks of Ryvita. Ultimately tasty but might take a bit of work to get there. Claire North to me is the Heinz Oxtail of writers. Gloriously good.
PREMISE: When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.
Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.
What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
The Exalted Bellendage of Goodreads once again delivers for The Circle. Some great 1-star reviews (which, as we know, are rarely accompanied by anything objective and, when we’re lucky, contain some fantastic bile and profanities). Brad wrote 1400 words (broken down into 8 subsections) on how much he disliked it and then at the end provided a link to his review of the sequel! Jarrod simply stated “The worst handjob I’ve ever had” (his accompanying picture suggests a person who gives himself shit handjobs on a nightly basis). Kate goes with the one-word, one-emoji “Frown 😦 “. Useful. Sera stated “I didn’t feel satisfied when the book ends”, presumably writing this while she was driving her DeLorean. Nick just went with “Sucked buttfarts” (made me laugh) and Juliette H weighed in with “Wat een kut boek”, helping me learn the Dutch word for ‘shitty’. There’s also an alarming amount of people mentioning 50 Shades Of Grey in their review, which probably says a lot.
Is it the best book in the world? No, not at all. But it’s an intriguing story, definitely an interesting subject and it’s well-written and entertaining. That’s good enough for me.
PREMISE: Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.
This book blew me away (so much so that it’s my Portland Award winner for 2020). Sooooo (the more O’s, the bigger the emphasis) beautifully written and a really unique premise and story. It stayed with me for ages afterwards too, floating around the largely blank space of my mind and coming to the forefront every so often. It’s one of the few books that I know I will find time to read again at some point when all this ‘new novels’ malarkey calms down and there’s no new releases for a year or two. Bound to happen at some point, surely.
PREMISE: The Six Stories series by Matt Wesolowski is a collection of interconnected thriller novels that focus on true crime investigations, often with a dark, folkloric or supernatural edge. Each book follows a central case where six individuals connected to the event share their accounts via interviews on a podcast hosted by journalist Scott King.
In my blog manifesto (copies available by request) I state that I don’t write anything negative on here. Not because I’m a good person or that I’m trying to attract sponsorship from the Church (the constant swearing may have put paid to that) but mainly due to the fact that who am I to judge someone’s work? All book reviews (you’ll find none here) are completely subjective and ultimately one person’s view on whether they liked the book or not. One man’s Dr. Zhivago is another man’s Dr. Shipman. Or something.
Anyway, with all that said…sometimes to explain how good something is you have to compare it to something shit. And there are two authors I’ve previously read who are insanely popular but whom I will likely never read again who could benefit from reading Matt Wesolowski’s books and see how proper plotting and pacing, twists and reveals, suspense and pure page-turning addictiveness is done. All six of these babies are top notch.
PREMISE: a novel that follows the interconnected lives of nine individuals, all deeply connected to trees, as they grapple with the destruction of forests and the impact on the environment. The story unfolds through multiple generations, exploring themes of environmental activism, the interconnectedness of living things, and humanity’s relationship with nature.
I would like to refer to my blog Home Page here; there’s a good reason why I’ve got that disclaimer in early about not reviewing books. How does a simpleton like me review a Richard Powers book? To me, his books are half fiction, half non-fiction due to the sheer amount of stuff I learn while reading them. In a way, Richard Powers is the world’s finest writer; he takes hefty subjects and weaves them into stories that are equal parts intelligent and beautifully written. I actually feel grateful that I discovered his books and I still have a few of his back-catalogue to read.
Right, enough of the Powers-noshing. This book is fantastic and you should read it.
PREMISE: In June 2021, a senseless event upends the lives of hundreds of men and women, all passengers on a flight from Paris to New York. Among them: Blake, a respectable family man, though he works as a contract killer; Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star tired of living a lie; Joanna, a formidable lawyer whose flaws have caught up with her; and Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet commercially unsuccessful writer who suddenly becomes a cult hit. All of them believed they had double lives. None imagined just how true that was.
Or: A plane lands once, and then the exact same plane lands again 3 months later.
Yesss. Novels like this are right up my particular alley, tickle my particular sweet spot, caress my metaphorical love handles. I was going to say that I’m amazed nobody has come up with this premise before, but someone probably has. My level of research for this blog doesn’t go that far. I’m just going to assume that it’s never been done until someone tells me otherwise. This book was fascinating and thought-provoking, along with it being a cracking read. Which, for my money, ticks all the boxes.
PREMISE: Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients’ accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
I had no idea what this book was about going into it. I read it because I’ve read Station Eleven and Sea Of Tranquility and I adore those books. Like listening to Led Zeppelin II because you’ve previously heard IV and Physical Graffiti.
To keep the musical analogy going, some writers are like Michael Bublé’s vocals; silkily smooth, it all just works effortlessly. And then others are like that guy in the B52’s. ESJM’s writing is Bublé-smooth…SO good…
PREMISE: Who is Yahya Bas? Revolutionary poet, notorious jihadist, misbegotten son, self-styled idiot-boy. When the enigmatic Yahya finds himself languishing in a detention center after fleeing the conflict in Syria, he has many questions to face.
What was he doing in the desert? Why did he betray his home country? What led him to write the incendiary verses that launched him into international infamy? Mister, his interrogator, wants answers. So Yahya resolves to tell his own story, in his own words, and on his own terms.
Wow. This fucker hits home and gets you thinking. The book, that is. Well, the author as well, I guess, as he wrote it but I wasn’t referring to him as a fucker. But fair to say that fucker has written another fantastic book.
PREMISE: Authors Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena is a literary darling while June is a nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls?, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse, stealing Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.
But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
I’m back on Goodreads for this one as I knew this caused some debate and where there’s debate, there’s bellends. Some colossal twat called Clive Williamstein wrote this elloquent diatribe:
“There are no people in this book. There are only “white people” “Asian people” and “cis-het people”. Because you know how everyone fits neatly into those categories and it tells you everything you need to know about them? When referencing or thinking about another human being, their race is the only real important thing to consider.
I hate the protagonist, and not for the reasons I’m supposed to. We are supposed to accept that this person believes in actual literal ghosts and makes decisions accordingly. Fuck off.
I’ll save you some time… white people are all bad, successful people are all women, dumb people are all men, Asian people are all awesome and hard done by. Feeling slightly guilty about being a piece of shit makes people believe in ghosts and attempt murder. The end”
Now, I’m all for people having their own opinions. As I’ve said in other reviews, all books are either liked or disliked…that’s okay…that’s how it works. But Clive then signed off his review with this beauty:
“Fuck this book and everyone who gave it 2 stars or more”
Which, for me, lends a completely different slant to his review. Whereas he might have come across as being someone who was trying to make a point about race (and this book certainly encourages people to do that), with that last sentence he now just comes across as an old, white, grumpy, argumentative, racist prick.
As for the book itself, I really enjoyed it and absolutely flew through it. It’s an entertaining story and fantastically, addictively well-written and that’s all I’m after from a book.
PREMISE: In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come.
From the Gulf Coast to Los Angeles, the Midwest to Washington, DC, their intertwined odysseys unfold against a stark backdrop of accelerating chaos as they summon courage, galvanize a nation, fall to their own fear, and find wild hope in the face of staggering odds. As their stories hurtle toward a spectacular climax, each faces a reckoning: what will they sacrifice to salvage humanity’s last chance at a future?
This is probably up there in my top 5 favourite books of all time. Scarily, eerily, worryingly-as-fuck accurate in terms of (a) what’s likely to happen with climate change and the planet and (b) what can happen when people as stupid and as stupidly dangerous as Trump continue to get into power. An absolute must-read.
