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May wrap-up

31st May 2011 / / 0 Comments

As spring comes to an end, it’s time to look back over the month of May…

Book of the Month

It’s tough to narrow it down to one title this month, so I’m going to declare it a tie between two. Naomi Wood’s The Godless Boys was a very fine debut, while Conrad Williams’ Loss of Separation was another great read from a favourite author. (And this was nearly a three-way tie, because Chris Beckett’s The Holy Machine is not far behind them at all.)

Reviews

Features

In case you ever wanted to hear me speak about short fiction…

16th May 2011 / / 1 Comment

…you now have a chance to do so. On 16th July, the Bristol Short Story Prize will be hosting ShortStoryVille, its first festival of short stories. And, at 1.30, you will find this item on the programme:

1.30 – 2.30 Reading Short Stories – panel discussion chaired by acclaimed short story writer Tania Hershman. Is there an art to reading a short story? Is it very different from other forms of fiction? Does it depend on where a story is read: a collection, single story in a magazine, on an ereader? Tania is joined by three passionate short story readers- book reviewer and blogger David Hebblethwaite, Clare Hey, former editor at HarperCollins and founder of trailblazing, digital-only short story publisher Shortfire Press and Scott Pack, publisher at The Friday Project, influential blogger, commentator, reader, creator of the popular meandmyshortstories blog and all-round book-billy.

The rest of the schedule is here; it includes writers like Helen Oyeyemi, Stuart Evers and Sarah Salway — sounds a good line-up to me.

The ShortStoryVille festival will be held on Saturday 16th July from 12.00 to 6.00 at the Arnofini arts centre, Bristol. Expect to see more short fiction coverage on here during the run-up.

One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four… and Five…

13th May 2011 / / 6 Comments

This is a little questionnaire with which Simon from Stuck in a Book came up last week, to provide a little snapshot of one’s reading. So let’s see what my books are…

1) The book I’m currently reading

Cornelius Medvei, Caroline (2011)

The story of a man who becomes smitten with a donkey. I’m not yet far enough in to be able to form a useful opinion, but it has started off well. I’ll be reviewing this for Fiction Uncovered in due course.

2) The last book I finished

Leo Benedictus, The Afterparty (2011)

A tale of tragic happenings at a film star’s birthday celebration, wrapped in the email correspondence  between a fictional author and his prospective agent, discussing the very book in one’s hands. This is probably the most self-referential book I’ve ever read, and to be honest I wasn’t sure whether I’d get along with it. The Afterparty turned out to be a delight, though: nicely written, and a smart commentary on celebrity culture and the gap between public perception and private reality.

3) The next book I want to read

Katie Ward, Girl Reading (2011)

So I’m reading a lot of 2011 work at the moment. Girl Reading is structured as a series of novellas on the painting portraits of girls and women reading. It seems an unusual subject for a debut novel, and I am intrigued.

4) The last book I bought


Colin Greenland, Seasons of Plenty (1995)

Strictly speaking, the last book I bought was The Afterparty, but I want to list five different books here; so we’ll go for this — which was on the book-swap shelf at work, instead. I loved Take Back Plenty when I read it last year; now I’ll get a chance to see what the sequel is like.

5) The last book I was given


Ian McDonald, River of Gods (2004)

This was a birthday present, which I was very grateful to receive. My introduction to McDonald, The Dervish House, was one of the very best books I read last year. River of Gods comes with a very high reputation, and I look forward to seeing if it lives up to that; I am confident that it will.

***

There we go. That was quite interesting to put together, and actually it’s not a bad encapsulation of the kinds of books I most like to read. Speaking of which, I have at least two books to be getting on with, and plenty more to follow after that…

Notable books: May 2011

2nd May 2011 / / 1 Comment

My usual monthly look at some forthcoming titles.

Essie Fox, The Somnambulist

A Victorian-set ‘gothic mystery’. I like a good old spooky story; this could well be worth a look.

Rachel Genn, The Cure

An Irish builder, now based in London, finds himself in a police cell, beaten up, with no memory of what happened, and (I infer from the synopsis) discovers secrets about his life. Intriguing.

China Miéville, Embassytown

After several novels with a London setting, Miéville is heading back to more exotic fantastical territory with this one. I’ll be interested to see how that works out.

Adam Nevill, The Ritual

I loved Banquet for the Damned, Nevill’s debut novel, when I read it a few years ago. It had a strong sense of place and atmosphere; this new book is set more in the wilderness, and I really think the author could do something great with that kind of backdrop.

Katie Ward, Girl Reading

This sounds an unusual debut — a series of linked novellas about the painting of portraits of girls and women reading, moving through history into the near future.

Luke Williams, The Echo Chamber

I’ve been intrigued by the sound of this novel, about a woman who can hear everything, and remember what she’s heard, ever since I first learnt about it — and still am.

Alexi Zentner, Touch

Sounds like a novel with the atmosphere of a fairy tale, set in the Canadian wilderness.

April wrap-up

1st May 2011 / / 0 Comments

Time for a round-up of what was happening on this blog in April.

Book of the Month

I meant to read it last year, but never got around to it; and I should have done, because it’s excellent. Mike Thomas’s debut novel Pocket Notebook is a brilliant study of a policeman’s life spinning out of control, and a superb piece of writing. I can’t wait to see what Thomas comes up with next; I’ll be following his writing career with great interest.

Reviews

Features

Orange Prize shortlist 2011

12th April 2011 / / 2 Comments

So, the shortlist of this year’s Orange Prize for Fiction has been announced, and it is:

Emma Dooghue, Room

Aminatta Forna, The Memory of Love

Emma Henderson, Grace Williams Says It Loud

Nicole Krauss, Great House

Téa Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife

Kathleen Winter, Annabel

My reaction? Well, Room is the only one of these that I’ve read (indeed, the only book on the whole longlist that I’ve read), and I thought it was good, so fair play to it. The Tiger’s Wife was already on my radar, and I’m very much looking forward to reading it (which I will get around to doing soon, honest). The Memory of Love wasn’t on my radar — and, judging by its synopsis (the lives of an English psychologist, a surgeon, and a patient reflecting on his past, intersect in Sierra Leone), is not something I would instinctively pick up — but I loved Forna’s entry in the BBC National Short Story Award last year, so I may well take a look at it.

I don’t have any experience of the three other authors’ works, so I can only go by how they sound to me. Grace Williams Says It Loud is a  love story between two people who were placed in a psychiatric institution; I’ve come across a brief extract, which I thought  well-written. I know Krauss received great acclaim for The History of Love, but the idea of Great House (three lives linked by the same desk) strikes me as potentially too gimmicky, and the excerpt I’ve read didn’t especially grab me. Annabel concerns a hermaphrodite in remote Canada; I suspect the quality of the prose will be key to the success of this book, and the extract I found was promising, very precise in its detail.

The winner of the Orange Prize will be announced on Wednesday 8 June.

Review Response Bingo

7th April 2011 / / 10 Comments

As a bit of fun, I thought I’d put together a list of responses that negative reviews sometimes generate (I have seen, or heard about, variations on all of these). Eyes down for the full house…

It’s just your opinion. You are jealous of the author. What are your qualifications? You are overthinking. You don’t understand the genre.
You don’t appreciate how much time and effort the author put in. You make unreasonable demands of the book. How many novels have you written? I don’t care about good writing; I just want to be entertained. You want to appear smarter than you are.
You don’t know good books. You have a vendetta. Who reviews the reviewers? You are just trying to prove that you are cleverer than the author. You are being deliberately contrarian to satisfy your ego.
You should be grateful to the author for having written the book. You really need to have read the other books in the series. Look at all these 5* reviews of the book! If you had read the book properly, you would see that… You shouldn’t be critical.

Notable books: April 2011

1st April 2011 / / 4 Comments

It may be the first of April, but I’m not joking when I say that I am looking forward to the following books this month.

Robert Jackson Bennett, The Company Man

Bennett’s first novel, Mr Shivers, was one of my favourite reads of last year, a really smart fusion of fantasy, horror and historical fiction. His new book is a tale of industrial corruption set in 1919, and I look forward to reading it very much.

John Boyne, The Thief of Time

A reissue of Boyne’s 2000 debut novel about an unageing man who has lived since the eighteenth century.

Glen Duncan, The Last Werewolf

A werewolf novel, yes, but one published by Canongate, who can usually be relied upon to have interesting books. True, this is pretty flimsy reasoning; but Canongate published an interesting vampire novel last year in The Radleys, so why not?

Sebastian Fitzek, Splinter

Sounds intriguing – a man loses his wife in a car crash, then finds her alive but with no idea who he is, just as he seems to be slipping out of (or losing his grip on) reality.

Shehan Karunatilaka, Chinaman [link is to PDF extract]

I read an extract from this novel, about a dying journalist’s quest to find a missing cricketer, when I was going through the Waterstone’s 11 — and was absolutely blown away by the prose. There is no question that I’ll be reading this as soon as possible.

Sam Leith, The Coincidence Engine [link is to PDF extract]

Another of the Watertsone’s 11 that I want to read, though this time it’s the concept (it features the ‘Directorate of the Extremely Improbable’) that attracts me most.

Paul Murray, An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Skippy Dies was one of the very best books I read last year, so I certainly want to read this, his 2003 debut, now being republished.

Monique Roffey, Sun Dog

Another new edition of a debut, this one from 2002. August Chalmin has an affinity with the weather, one day discovering frost on his arm…

Naomi Wood, The Godless Boys

This debut novel takes us to the 1980s of an alternate England in which secularists have been banished to an offshore island. I first heard about The Godless Boys when Wood was on a panel for Picador Day at Foyles last May, and now I get my chance to read it.

March wrap-up

31st March 2011 / / 0 Comments

March felt like a month that was relatively light on reading, though I must admit I haven’t counted up to confirm this. There was still a fair amount of stuff on the blog, though, as I shall now list.

Book of the Month

The best book I read in March came from the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist. Generosity by Richard Powers is a fascinating story about stories and science and being caught up in change. It’s in my top two contenders for the Clarke, with only one book on the list left to read.

Reviews

No book notes this month, but quite a few full-length reviews:

… and I finally completed Volume I of The Oxford Library of Classic English Short Stories.

Features

World SF Blog fiction, Jan-Feb 2011: The Portal review

17th March 2011 / / 0 Comments

My latest review is now up at The Portal; this time, I’ve been looking at the stories published on the World SF Blog during the first two months of the year. The authors featured are: Nick Wood; Pyotr Kowalcyzk; Michael Haulica; Ekaterina Sedia; Eliza Victoria; Stephen Kotowych; and Charlie Human.

Click here to read the review.

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