Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
==General fiction==
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Sheila Kohler
|title=Becoming Jane Eyre
|rating=2
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There is no denying that the Brontë family lived an interesting life. While some authors' lives are shrouded in mystery, with their characters far better known than they themselves are, that's not really the case with the Brontës. Various biographers have, over the years, provided a clear picture of 19th century Yorkshire life thanks to a wealth of original letters and diaries preserved from the time. This makes Kohler's choice of topic slightly odd. Rather than an attempt to imagine the unknown lives of the sisters, it is a cobbling together of facts and assumptions that have been in the public arena for some time. For anyone who knows anything about the Brontës, it really is nothing new, and that's a shame.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849010862</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Phil Rickman
|summary='It can't be a coincidence that Stepford women are all the way they are' says Bobbie, Joanna Eberhart's only friend in Stepford. Joanna has recently come to live in the idyllic suburban town of Stepford with her husband and two children. She is an independent woman with her own part-time career as a photographer, is intelligent, liberated and has a keen interest in feminism.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015899</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Summer Wood
|title=Wrecker
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I found the book title intriguing and wondered if I'd got caught up in some demolition yard story by mistake. Wood, at some stage in the book does give her readers the explanation. It's a boy's name apparently and the detailed explanation is rather charming - and apt. But it's also just a tad over-the-top (in terms of credibility I'm thinking) and by the time I'd finished the book I was heartily sick of this name which had short-term appeal for me. I was muttering to myself saying silly things like - why can't he be called Billy, for example. But I'm not writing the book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408809311</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Philip Jose Farmer
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless Peer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=It's World War One, and Britain has got wind of some brilliant scientific research, that has created a new bacterial weapon capable of wiping out the world's supply of sauerkraut. But a dastardly German has stolen the formula. Before he can give a variant based on boiled meat, cabbage and potatoes to the kaiser, his most recent nemesis - Sherlock Holmes, no less - must be brought out of beekeeping retirement. Cue an adventure and a half, as he and Watson take to the skies for the first time in their hectic lives, end up in darkest Africa, and encounter a certain yodelling, long-haired nobleman, more than up to the name of King of the Jungle...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681206</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tom Rachman
|title=The Imperfectionists
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=This book has reached the dizzy heights of an ''International Bestseller'' with plaudits all over its covers. And it's a debut novel, albeit by an author who has worked in journalism. So, am I going to be another notch on the book-reading bedpost, so to speak?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849160317</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jon Steele
|title=The Watchers
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=At over 500 pages I'm sincerely hoping that this book is going to appeal. The back cover blurb is promising, informing the reader that the author is a well-travelled cameraman/editor of many years standing. The story opens with a young Marc Rochat starting a new life in Switzerland. Everything is strange and new to him. He becomes a night-watchman at the local cathedral and carries out his duties diligently. He doesn't mind the fact that it's a rather solitary job as he more than makes up for the silence (when the bells are not ringing that is) by chatting away to all of the various bells as if they were human. Marc's conversations with his 'ladies' are utterly charming. I could listen to them all day.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593067517</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=John Hart
|title=Iron House
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hart is already a best-selling author so he has a lot to live up to with his latest book. At over 400 pages it's a big, meaty read. The story opens with Michael, now an adult. In his prime, with the woman he loves and about to become a father: life is looking very rosy indeed. He thinks that he's left his shady past behind him forever. He's wrong. Hart gives his readers a little background info on Michael, the central character, just enough to whet our appetites. It worked for me and I was eager to keep turning the pages. At the start of the book there's a definite sense of something catastrophic about to happen and that it involves Michael in some way.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848541791</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Tim Thornton
|title=Death of an Unsigned Band
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Russell knows that his band is going nowhere, and the prospect of a life consisting only of a grim day job and some depressing creative exercises is getting him down. But when Josh turns up with a potential way out, it's not quite the way Russell, or any of the other band members, would have envisaged.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099531879</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Haley Tanner
|title=Vaclav and Lena
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Vaclav and Lena are both children of Russian immigrants, growing up in Brooklyn. Vaclav dreams of becoming a fantastic magician, with his friend Lena as his assistant, and as children they practise their routine together, making lists of the things they'll need, the costumes they will wear and the tricks they will perform. Vaclav is confident and happy, but Lena is quiet, withdrawn and struggles with speaking English. Yet Vaclav believes, always, that they are destined to be together. Even when Lena disappears one day and is gone from his life for many years still he hopes that, somehow, he will find her again.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434020443</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jon Blake
|title=69ers: A Novel About the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival of Music
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the summer of 1969, as Thunderclap Newman proclaimed in their one and only musical claim to fame, there was something in the air. The alternative generation were talking about the recent Woodstock Festival in America, and eagerly looking forward to what promised to be a similar gathering, albeit on a smaller scale, at the Isle of Wight at the end of August, where Bob Dylan was headlining.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908105658</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Wesley Stace
|title=Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary="Nothing in recent fiction prepared me for the power and the polish of this subtle tale of English music in the making, a chiller wrapped in an enigma [New Statesman]"
 
"His handling of dry comic dialogue and cynical affectation is reminiscent of P G Wodehouse… an intelligent, fun and thoughtful piece of fiction [Independent on Sunday]"
 
Just two of the previous reviews that adorn the back cover of 'Charles Jessold…'
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099546574</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Rebecca Makkai
|title=The Borrower
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I read the front cover blurb and didn't quite get it 'She borrowed a child. He stole her.' I don't mind 'not getting it' in the slightest as it just makes me want to read the book even more. So I was keen to get stuck into this debut novel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434021008</amazonuk>
}}

Navigation menu