Quantum Radio – A.G. Riddle – 11.04.24

I bought this because I loved A.G. Riddle’s Lost in Time, and because I am fascinated by the world of quantum mechanics (at least, what little I can understand of it) which always seems very sci-fi even in the real world.

I didn’t love this one as much. I liked how is started out, and I quite liked the ending, but the middle was too actiony for my taste – like a sci-fi James Bond movie.

When academic Ty Klein spots a pattern in data from the large hadron collider in CERN he is thrown into a dangerous world of cat and mouse chases across the world and even across parallel worlds. There is some nice story development and some nice character and relationship development, but, like I said, too much action for me.

Making Money (Audiobook) – Terry Pratchett – 09.04.24

This is my latest in the buy any Terry Pratchett book that comes up cheaply on kindle or audible scheme. In Making Money, Sir Terry gives his wry and wise and witty commentary on the world of economics while telling a rollicking good tale. What can I say – it’s Terry Pratchett – if you haven’t read it – why not?!

Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel (Audiobook) – Margaret Atwood – 02.04.24

Version 1.0.0

This book was written and set during the covid lockdown period and is a collaborative novel, which means it was written by lots of different people. A lot of big names in the world of literature, in fact, contributed, and the proceeds were to support writers losing money due to lockdown.

The premise is that a woman starts a new job as building supervisor to a New York apartment block during the covid lockdown and every evening the few remaining inhabitants (it’s a topic of much complaining that all the people who could afford it left New York for their county homes when lockdown struck) converge on the rooftop terrace every evening initially to bang pans and clap in support of key workers, but in what develops into a platform for each person to tell their story to the group.

The different stories are written by different authors (we are not told who wrote what) and vary quite a lot in how much they held my interest – some where great, others not so much. One thing that annoyed me was that the stories were supposed to be spoken to the group and some where so not the way anyone would speak when recounting a story and very much the way someone might write a novel.

From other reviews I’ve looked at, it seems the ending divided opinion, but I did like how the novel ended.

Death and the Penguin – Andrey Kurkov – 01.04.24

What a strange and beautiful book this was. Set in Ukraine in the immediate post Soviet era the book follows Viktor, a wannabe writer who takes a job for a newspaper writing obituaries for (not yet dead) important people.

Viktor lives in a small flat with his penguin (the local zoo was so short of funding it gave away animals to anyone who would take them) and drinks a lot of vodka. The book is funny and touching while also being deeply tragic and bleak and very compelling – I wouldn’t have expected to be so gripped by a book with this description!

The Book Keeper (Unholy Island 2) – Sarah Painter – 27.03.24

I love Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations books, so I was excited by this new series set on a remote island off the North East coast of England. While Crow Investigations in in the Urban Fantasy genre, this series is (I guess..) rural fantasy, in that it has magical realism/supernatural elements, set in a small town island community, giving it a more gentle slow pace befitting the setting. That is not to say that it’s boring, far from it. In this second book in the series, more Island lore is explored, as well as the developing relationship between the island’s two most recently arrived inhabitants. I enjoyed the read and am looking forward to the next book in the series.

The Heart Goes Last (Audiobook) – Margaret Atwood – 27.03.24

Margaret Atwood once again shows her storytelling genius in this darkly comic dystopian romp.

Stan and Charmaine are the ‘everyman’ couple who are forced to live in their car when the American economy takes a nose dive. They are tempted by a new scheme offering them a home and jobs in a enclosed society in return for being prison inmates every other month.

It all seems great to begin with, until they slowly come to understand that their situation is much more dangerous than they first assumed.

The setting is steeped in both retro nostalgia and menacing futuristic (or is it?) technology. I loved the mix of humour, pathos, tension and character development, and I liked the ending and found it satisfying. (I also like the narrators.)

Impossible Creatures – Katherine Rundell – 22.03.24

This young adult fantasy adventure feels like a classic, and I did enjoy reading it.

A young boy discovers he is the heir to a family responsibility to protect a portal to a magical world. He gets drawn in to an adventure with a girl from that world and they discover that they must face dangers to save both the magical world and the real world from terrible destruction.

The story is fun and exciting and manages to not be patronising. It had been compared with Tolkien and Pullman, and for me this book is far short of their works, but still good.

Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audiobook) – 22.03.24

I had so much fun in my younger days reading my way through the whole cannon of Terry Pratchett’s discworld novels – I own all of them in physical copies, but I’m seriously considering giving away all or most of my physical books, because I really don’t like the faff of actually having to hold a book and turn pages and have enough light to see by etc that comes with actual books, not to mention the fact that almost all the walls in all the rooms in my house are already lined with bookcases/shelves full of books. With this in mind, if any Pratchett discworld books come up in Audible or kindle sales I will snap them up with a view to having them all in digital form. (If I was rich I would just buy them all in a heartbeat!) So, that’s why I bought this on an Audible deal and had great enjoyment listening and reacquainting myself with Sir Terry’s wonderful wit and wisdom. Some slightly dated views but on the whole I think Terry Pratchett was way ahead of his time in terms of supporting all kinds of minority rights and embracing difference. This one covers war, empire, religion, feminism and equal rights for different magical species. Highly recommended.

The List of Suspicious Things – Jennie Godfrey – 18.03.24

This book is quite similar to ‘A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ which I recently listened to, in that a child/teen protagonist becomes amateur sleuth to try to solve murders. I liked this one better for a few reasons, firstly, it was narrated by the wonderful Joanne Froggatt and I loved her skilful acting and her lovely Yorkshire accent. Secondly, this book is set in The north of England during the nineteen seventies and centres around the Yorkshire Ripper Killings. I grew up in the north of England, and although I was only young ( I was born in 1969) I remember well the hysteria that the Yorkshire Ripper evoked around that time.

It’s really a coming of age story, with the main character, Miv, becoming obsessed with solving the Yorkshire Ripper case but her investigations only leading to uncovering uncomfortable secrets from friends and family members that contribute to her maturing/loss of innocence.

I enjoyed the character development and the journey down memory lane in this interesting and well told story.

The Book of Doors – Gareth Brown – 18.03.24

What is not to love about a novel full of magical books, a shady underworld of book collectors, some good some middling and some very bad, lots of danger and adventures, some romance, some time travel and causal loops? Answer – there is nothing not to love, which is my convoluted way of saying – I loved it!

This is just my kind of book, like a cosy blanket and a cup of tea. May the world be full of such books.