A Night in the Lonesome October – Roger Zelazny (illustrator – Gahan Wilson) – 29.01.22

Wow – this book was really strange and I’m not quite sure what I made of it (and I have a high threshold for strangeness!).

The story is narrated from the point of view of a dog who is the ‘familiar’ to a dark and shady character and his group of animal friends and acquaintances who are also familiars to other ‘human’ (or near human) characters.

It pays homage to many horror classics and there’s a bit of fun to be had in spotting the horror literary characters.

I wasn’t always sure who were the ‘good guys’ and therefore who I should be rooting for and I was a bit confused overall at times about what was actually going on. Maybe just me being thick?

I think I liked it??

Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century (AUDIOBOOK) – Jessica Bruder, Karen White, et al. – 27.01.22

I loved the film adaptation of this book, and since the audiobook was going cheap, and usually books give more insight than movies, I gave it a go.

I think what the book lacked over the film was the gorgeous cinematography – the film was just so visually stunning and showed the vast expanse of the American scenery in a way that the book couldn’t. On the other hand, I think for me the book emphasised the hardship and difficulties that drove so many Americans, often middle aged or older, to have to take up this lifestyle. Crippling housing or healthcare costs forced many to become virtually homeless – migrant workers ‘slaving’ away at minimum wage well into middle and older age.

While there is a romantic side to life on the road, and the community that exists between the travellers, it’s clearly not an easy option. I found the book thought provoking and interesting.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises – Fredrik Backman – 25.01.22

This book is written by Fredrik Backman, who wrote A Man Called Ove, which I read a couple of years ago and loved. It was a news story in my Facebook feed about the American remake of the Swedish film adaptation of A Man Called Ove that led me to both watch the Swedish film (which was excellent) and read this book.

Ironically, it is similar in theme to the previous book I reviewed: The Wish List by Ruby Hummingbird, but whereas that was an example of taking a good premise and ruining it with atrocious writing, this took a good premise and made it better.

Elsa is a small girl who shares a strong bond with her grandmother even sharing a made up language and stories about an imaginary place beyond dreams. When her grandmother dies, Elsa is sent on a treasure hunt which leads her to discovering the back stories of many of the other residents of the apartment building where she lives as well as her own family’s story.

There are a lot of difficult and quite adult themes to be worked through, and although it is a ‘feel good’ book ultimately, it is by no means superficially nicey nicey.

I liked it a lot.

The Wish List (Audiobook) – Ruby Hummingbird (Author), Lucy Paterson (Narrator) – 24.01.22

I wanted to like this book – I’ve read a few others with similar premises which I have liked, even loved, but this one not so much.

A sad old lady, Maria, meets a sad old man, Alfie, once a week for tea and cake in a local café until one day he doesn’t show up. Turns out he died and left her his flat and quite a lot of money as well as a list of nice things he was trying to do to help the people he loved or just wanted to help before he died. Since he wasn’t able to finish the list, Maria takes on the mantle and in helping others she helps herself to get through her grief etc. All good, except ….

I found the style of writing really repetitive and dull. Lots of explaining, and overexplaining and then explaining again like it was written for people with single digit IQs. Things were so signposted before they were ‘revealed’ that you’re thinking, finally rather than ‘oh I didn’t see that coming.’

It wasn’t completely awful, but it was quite bad.

Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air (The Frost Files Book 2) – Jackson Ford – 24.01.22

I find this kind of urban fantasy really fun if its done well, and so far I’m enjoying this series very much. The main character, Teagan Frost, has powers of telekinesis thanks to genetic modification work carried out on her and her two siblings by her parents. As far as she knows, the rest of her family are dead and she is kept in check by a government agency who used to keep her in a faculty, but now allow her to live by herself if she works for them.

In this installment, a small boy has similar powers, and an evil plan to destroy the western edge of the USA by manipulating the tectonic plates and causing major earthquakes. Teagan and her crew must try to find him and stop him before it’s too late!

Fun, fun! There are two more books in the series so far and I look forward to reading them too.

Snow – John Banville (AUDIOBOOK) – 21.01.22

I found this book quite unsettling and disturbing as well as, I’m afraid, quite dull. Set in an Irish stately home during the 1950s a policeman is called in to investigate after a priest is found dead at the bottom of the stairs. Did he fall or was he pushed?

I thought the characters were quite caricatured and the blasé talk of child abuse was really unpleasant and sickening.

I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Saving Time: A Time Police Novel Book 3- Jodi Taylor, Narrated by: Zara Ramm – 19.01.22

I enjoyed this third installment in the Time Police series, which is a spin off from the St Mary’s books about historians observing events in contemporary time (or time travelling).

It follows ‘team weird’ who are a group of three not long qualified time police with interesting back stories and personalities who we are getting to know and love more with each exciting and fun episode of trying to thwart the time travelling bad guys that they get themselves into.

Still Life – Sarah Winman – 17.01.22

This is a beautiful, epic, exuberant and joyful story and I loved it!

During WW2, a young British soldier is stationed in Italy when he saves the life of an Italian man. The book follows his fortunes and those of the people he loves as he returns to London, and later back to Italy as the man he saved leaves him his home and everything in it.

It’s about love and life and family and community and I just found it so uplifting and beautiful and so evocative of what it would be like to find your place in the world somewhere as lovely as Florence.

Come Again (Audiobook) – Robert Webb (Author), Olivia Colman (Narrator) – 16.01.22

The first part of this book is a funny, sweet and wise look at a woman in grief after losing her husband. I was very quickly drawn in and enjoyed that. Then she somehow finds herself reliving the time in her life where she met her husband during freshers week when they were both students. She must try to warn him that he has a slow growing brain tumour even then that isn’t discovered until decades later when it’s too late to do anything about it. This is very hard as from his perspective she’s some crazy woman he’s never met. I liked that bit too. The third part of the book gets a bit action adventury which I don’t like so much with car chases and shooting etc. Still on the whole I really liked this audiobook.

The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Book 22) – William Irwin, Gregory Bassham – 13.01.22

I don’t often like this kind of ‘Pop science’ book, but this one was on a 99p deal and I love Harry Potter so I gave it a go. Hmmm. It seems to me that philosophy is just either stating the bleeding obvious in a really longwinded way, or talking total nonsense in a really longwinded way. Still, I was reminded of a few things from Harry Potter that I’d forgotten about, which was nice, although I thought some of the HP references or puns were too contrived or cutesy.

If you like that kind of thing, then you’ll probably like this.