shocking

The Power by Naomi Alderman

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PREMISE: Women develop the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers, which allows them to become the dominant sex.

Aaaaah. Why do I do this to myself? I knew what Goodreads would be like on this one and yet in I dove anyway, just to see how much I would drown myself in it. And yet, I’m starting to feel that my forays into the Goodreads 1-starrers are actually benefitting me and giving me this unique take on humanity and it’s gargantuan propensity for difference.

Hahaha…just joking…I do it so I can find the nutjobs on there. However, the sheer hatred that some people have towards books (and there’s a shitload who clearly don’t like this one) has made me start wondering whether I’m actually investing the right amount of emotion and energy into each book I read. And, perhaps more importantly, whether I’m taking them seriously enough.

I’ll be honest, when I read a fiction book I tend to not believe it’s true. Because it’s fiction. And, conversely, when I read a nonfiction book I usually err on the side of believing what is written under the assumption that the author has researched the book and, in general, you’re not supposed to lie in nonfiction. But man, some people take fiction as if it’s the actual gospel (an ironic sentence, I know) and then delight in spewing hatred towards what is ultimately a made up story. I genuinely fear for the health of some of these people if they are able to conjure that much anger and hatred towards a make believe tale. And what’s worse is that they nearly all have additional anger at how they personally have interpreted the book.

It’s just a book. It’s just a made up story. Calm the fuck down.

A few Goodreads reviewers have lambasted the book for not covering/including transgender characters. So what? Don’t take it personally, the author just didn’t write about them. I’m curious as to why Tolkein didn’t include a single unicorn in Lord Of The Rings but I’m not going to lose my shit over it.

I guess ultimately I just enjoy reading. I have books that I like more than others and a few books I haven’t got on with but rather than dwelling on these I just move on to the next. There’s so many out there, why waste time with all that negativity when you could be spending that time reading your next favourite book?

The Power – an interesting idea, very violent in places, definitely thought-provoking and ultimately a really enjoyable and entertaining book. What more do you want?

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

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PREMISE: January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year, Gruhuken, but the Arctic summer is brief. As night returns to claim the land, Jack feels a creeping unease. One by one, his companions are forced to leave. He faces a stark choice: stay or go. Soon he will see the last of the sun, as the polar night engulfs the camp in months of darkness. Soon he will reach the point of no return–when the sea will freeze, making escape impossible. Gruhuken is not uninhabited. Jack is not alone. Something walks there in the dark…

I reckon horror is the toughest genre to write. That is, if you’re writing horror to scare people that is, rather than shock them. Any idiot can write something down that shocks people and nowadays violence is pretty much everywhere so to really shock with brutality and gore you have to go to extreme extremes, but to properly scare (or at the very least, make someone feel uneasy) with words alone is a toughie. Michelle Paver without doubt knows how to do that and, for me, Dark Matter is still her best book. Beautifully written, completely absorbing and is genuinely unsettling throughout.

Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford

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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.

We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson

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PREMISE: When a nameless, struggling actor in 1970’s New York gets the call that an enigmatic director wants him for an art film set in the Amazon, he flies to South America, no questions asked. He quickly realizes he’s made a mistake when it becomes clear that he’s replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script—a script the director now claims doesn’t exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates.

But what the actor doesn’t realize is that the greatest threat might be the town itself, and the mysterious shadow economy that powers this remote jungle outpost. Entrepreneurial Americans, international drug traffickers, and M-19 guerrillas are all fighting for South America’s future—and the groups aren’t as distinct as one might think. The actor thought this would be a role that would change his life. Now he’s worried he won’t survive it.

Best book name ever? Maybe not, but it’s certainly up there. I like to think that Kea Wilson originally had an extra word at the end of the title but decided to drop it last minute. We Eat Our Own Biscuits? Pets? Faeces? Assholes? There’s a novel in each one of those. I imagine We Eat Our Own Biscuits is an historical drama written by Hilary Mantel. We Eat Our Own Pets is obviously a Stephen King novel; he’s got that whole pet thing sewn up. We Eat Our Own Faeces is probably a Gwyneth Paltrow self-help book. And We Eat Our Own Assholes by Ivana Sukyuov, the Russian contortionist gymnast turned porn star.

Anyway, back to the book with no fifth word in the title. It’s fantastic. I get a real joy discovering books like this. An author I’ve not heard of, an intriguing premise, a rivetingly addictive read. There was something really fresh and unique about this book that I’m not a good enough writer to explain so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Zero Zero Zero by Roberto Saviano

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PREMISE: In many countries, ‘zero zero’ or double zero flour is the finest, best flour on the market. Among narco-traffickers, then, ‘zero zero zero’ is the nickname for the very purest, highest quality grade of cocaine. From Mexican cartels to Milanese financiers, Guatemalan mercenaries to Ukrainian warlords, Calabrian traffickers to the traders in Wall Street and London who wash the money clean, this is an unforgettable story that goes around the globe and through every level of society to show the extent to which the drug trade affects us all.

Weaving together stories, interviews, wiretaps and his own experience of the criminal underworld, Saviano reveals an international narco-state, which, in the wake of the financial crisis, is now the pillar of our global economy.

I found Roberto Saviano through Mogwai. An Italian journalist taking on organised crime in Italy and the worldwide cocaine trade by way of a Scottish post-rock band. Naturally.

Mogwai, of course, wrote the soundtrack to the TV adaptation of this book, which I watched, loved and then devoured Saviano’s Gomorrah, the book, associated TV series and then this book.

It’s an eye-opening look at how the cocaine trade works and who is involved at each stage of the process before it reaches my dealer.

Just kidding…I wouldn’t touch the stuff but I find the subject fascinating and thanks to ridiculously brave people like Saviano (who has lived under Police protection since 2006!) we get to learn about it and be dumbstruck by every single aspect of cocaine.

Six Stories series by Matt Wesolowski

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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.

House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

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PREMISE: A young couple – Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson and his partner Karen Green – move into a small house on Ash Tree Lane. It soon becomes clear that something is terribly wrong – their new home is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. What happened next is loosely recorded on videotapes and in interviews, and impelled an eccentric old man to compile – on loose sheets of paper, stained napkins, crammed notebooks – a definitive account of what took place at Ash Tree Lane that seems to unveil a thrilling and terrifying history.

When you have a minute, go on Goodreads and check out some of the reviews on this book. Particularly the 1 star ones. I could pick any at random to make my point but I’m choosing one of the twattiest by a guy named David (cool name, bell end) who states his “overpowering disgust at the people who continue to naively read this book“. He relates the authoring of this book to the downfall of society (?) and concludes by saying “I fear for the future of humanity”. What a wanker.

I love this book and would urge anyone to read it. It’s like nothing you’ve ever read before. But that’s just my opinion. Some people clearly don’t like it and some do. That’s how reading works. And, in general, any type of art. I’ve read a few books I didn’t like but I can’t think of any time I then felt disgust at people who did like them. Fuck off David. I fear for the future of humanity mainly due to colossal fucknuggets like you.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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PREMISE: Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Man, this one is a lingerer. I’m reading an old Carl Hiaasen novel at the moment (always fantastic) but this baby keeps popping into my head. Another book where you can’t help wondering whether something like it will eventually happen. Let’s hope not. A great read.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

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PREMISE: Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.

Weird one, this. No idea if I liked it or not. Well, I did. But I also didn’t. Or did I? I don’t think I did, but I may have done. In fact, I know I did, but I’m actually not sure if that’s true or not. I guess it may be. In fact, it’s absolutely true. As far as I know, anyway. Which isn’t much so the chances are it’s completely false. So, to sum up…this may or may not be a cracking book. I’ve no idea.

Well…I’ve some idea. This book is hugely readable and features real-life characters and events, which I love in fiction. And provided me with a shit-load of history on Sri Lanka of which I wasn’t aware, so all-in-all, a win on all fronts.

Mister, Mister by Guy Gunaratne

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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.