I listened to the talking book version. Could not recommend it highly enough. It’s a book I probably wouldn’t have actually read, but the narration presented it in a different light to how I would have interpreted it had I read it myself.
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Vikki Petraitis, the podcaster with a speciality on Paul Denyer, has just released her second book, The Stolen, following The Unbelieved about attacks on women after their drinks were spiked.
She’s still out of Melbourne (west of Geelong) in Deception Bay. Young mother, Maddy, has her 7-month old boy stolen by her separated husband.
The hunt starts from there, but the other real villains are the scum radio station (think morning 3AW) where it’s always the woman’s fault. Vermin report for them and intellectual zeroes listen to them.
Difficult to put this one down.9.5/10
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Old school paperbacks. Something about the act of turning the pages that makes the experience more calming. Struggle enough trying to listen to podcasts and spend far too much time on screens already for those options.
Most recently finished ‘Never’ by Ken Follett. Essentially looking at global politics and incidents that could lead to WWIII. Intriguing but seems to end too abruptly; the ideas and angles that are meshed into the story could have even worked as well or better as deeper stand-alone novels.
Death at Booroomba by A L Booth
Jack O’Rourke is wandering along the waterside in Sydney Harbour when he sees a gang of louts mug and tip an older guy into the Harbour. It’s only a couple of days before Jack’s due to head off to the war in late 1915 but he saves the guy and looks after him.
Four years later and he returns from the war a few months late, after the Spanish Flu epidemic is declared over, and he’s notified that he’s been bequeathed that old guy’s farm down near Eden on the NSW south coast. He takes up residence and finds the old guy was murdered.
Despite a number of issues he’s confronted with, being the Anglo-Irish kerfuffle and Russian emigres, it all comes to a conclusion.
It’s very readable but not a classic. 7/10
On a different note, I’ve just finished The God of Small Things (audiobook) by Arundhati Roy, which won the Booker in 1997. It’s not easy going because it leaps all over the place in time, making the plot hard to follow, especially at first, and the Indian names are confusing to my ear, but it all sorts itself out and grows in power and intensity as it progresses. The story is complex, but the heart of it is a relationship between an Untouchable man and a higher caste woman. It deserves its Booker, IMO.
And I have moved from that to Mick Herron’s latest Slough House instalment, Clown Town, read as usual by Sean Barrett. He’s been a perfect reader, but I think the time might have come for him to retire those venerable vocal chords.
One of my all-time favourite books which I’ve read three times now and which never fails to impress with the beauty of her writing and story telling.
Alas, her second novel (20 years later) ‘The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness’ was nowhere near as good. I found it close to unreadable and abandoned it about a quarter of the way in.
I’ve dropped one halfway through recently, then read 2 good ones and am on the verge of dropping the next one halfway through.
The Leap by Paul Daley is about a British diplomat being moved to Australia, and as soon as he touches down, he’s embroiled in a tragedy. The well-known daughter of a bush mogul has died falling from a a building in Riyadh, and two Northern Irish girls have been accused on pushing her, quickly convicted and sentenced to die. They’re Catholic so the High Commissioner doesn’t care, just that Britain isn’t to blame
oThe diplomat is ordered to go to the rural town and ask the father to plead for clemency. Since he’s an Old Testament bible-basher, he refuses point-blank and the town supports him down to the ground.
Gave up about then after the diplomat got maggoted for the second time.
Latest one is The Final Chapter by January Gilchrist, about a writer’s retreat out in a past-it hotel in the Blue Mountains. Every character is awful (so far) and I’m wishing for a The Secret History meets And Then There Were None combo as every character is murdered in turn. As yet, no-one murdered but I’;m sure I’d be disappointed in the choice. No patience for this, and I’m calling time. The weather is miserable too, but they all deserve it.
Definitely paperbacks for me. One of my favourite places to go is the second hand bookstore in Newtown (NSW) just up the road from where I live. I picked up the first Earthsea book there a couple of weeks ago, which I have never read and was able to get the remaining three at my library. Just started the third one and am enjoying them very much.
But how good are libraries! In this age of corporations controlling everything I never take them for granted. It’s always good to support your local library! They are special places.
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Always been a hardback/paperback guy. I keep 99.9% of the books I buy and have thousands. However, I recently played ‘Shawshank Redemption’ on audiobook read by Morgan Freeman on a drive to/from Albany for my wife. She’s a massive reader too but we boxed on with ‘Duma Key’ read by John Slattery from Mad Men and now we’re enamoured with the idea of driving long distance with Stephen King books for company.
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I’ve just finished Clown Town, the latest Slow Horses story. Not one of the best, IMO. The plot is really a bit over the top, even for Slow Horses.
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A new hottest 100 countdown.
Ugh. The Kidz will ruin this by voting Ahn Dho in to the top 10.
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Funnily enough, some of the few books I’ve ever donated to Good Sams were eight or so of the Slow Horses. A very poor man’s version of LeCarre, all written to an increasingly thin and mediocre formula. And yet as popular as all get out. Go figure.
I think the comparison with Le Carré is misplaced. They’re completely different: Le Carré is serious, and Mick Herron is comedy. Plus Le Carré relied on his personal knowledge of secret service work, while Herron freely states that he makes it up as he goes along.
I’m sorry you don’t like the slow horses. I read the first one when it came out and I’ve read all of them since as they’ve appeared. I think the best of them are very good, but not all of them are at that standard. I think they’ve just about run their course; I felt in Clown Town that he’d had about enough of Jackson Lamb, Diana Taverner and the rest of the crew. (Not all Le Carré was great either; IMO the very best is The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, closely followed by Tinker Tailor, and most of what he wrote after the fall of the Berlin Wall is not very good at all.)
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I finished it yesterday. Wasn’t particularly impressed, felt like a very thin plot line. I’ve loved the others.
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I might let that one pass me by.
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Wouldn’t read it on principle.
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In more promising news, Christian White has a newie ‘The Long Night’ due out next month.
New releases by Richard Osman, Chris Hammer, Garry Disher, Benjamin Stevenson and Jane Harper are also imminent. Should keep me going until The Ashes commence.
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Is this ■■■■ serious?
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