This book surprised me. I am not a Si-Fi fan but could not put the book down, the story was totally captivating.
I must say, I had watched the movie of Cloud Atlas (also by Mitchells) last year and again, surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying a story in a genre I don't normally relate to. The Bone Clocks has a similar feel to Cloud Atlas but a different set of characters.
It is a very difficult book to summarise or describe suffice it to say it is very very good and worth reading!
Holly Sykes is a runaway teen who wants to dictate the shape of her own life. On the run, she finds she is under the influence of weird 'radio people' in her head, visions and hallucinations of past and future happenings that she cannot understand. As it transpires, on the fringes of her world there are two groups of beings fighting for preeminence in the world of people. They are fighting to control the world though people who have psychic sensitivities.
Throughout the story we move in history and geography and meet people who have all come in contact with these beings, who are integral in the survival of civilization and each other. This is a novel with well defined characters whom we care for, loads of action and intellectually satisfying.
I suggest reading without trying to suss everything out, but just going with it and enjoying the language and the characters. The story does reveal itself in the end. Well worth reading.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
The Translation of the Bones | Francesca Kay
An excellent, small book, with a wonderful story. Not everything we read has to run to 400+ pages...A great story in the hands of a skillful author can be told in a small book. Less is more.
This book is centered around a small church with a small congregation, mostly devout older women but not exclusively so. The priest, Father Diamond, is there doing his duties, unambitious, privately having a crisis of faith but pottering along in a small corner of Battersea.
All is as it should be until a simple-minded faithful parishioner Mary Margaret O'Reilly supposedly witnesses a miracle. Word gets out and the world goes mad, bus loads of tourists and pilgrims arrive and cause a huge crisis of faith for all involved.
The story centers around the miracle and it's consequences in the lives of Mary Margaret and her reclusive, morbidly obese mother and we also see the impact it has on the lives of Stella Morrison who is lonely in her marriage and misses her son who is away at boarding school and Alice Armitage eagerly awaits the return of her soldier son who is stationed in Afghanistan. The whole community is affected, we just don't know if it will be for good or ill.
The story is beautifully woven, well worth reading.
This book is centered around a small church with a small congregation, mostly devout older women but not exclusively so. The priest, Father Diamond, is there doing his duties, unambitious, privately having a crisis of faith but pottering along in a small corner of Battersea.
All is as it should be until a simple-minded faithful parishioner Mary Margaret O'Reilly supposedly witnesses a miracle. Word gets out and the world goes mad, bus loads of tourists and pilgrims arrive and cause a huge crisis of faith for all involved.
The story centers around the miracle and it's consequences in the lives of Mary Margaret and her reclusive, morbidly obese mother and we also see the impact it has on the lives of Stella Morrison who is lonely in her marriage and misses her son who is away at boarding school and Alice Armitage eagerly awaits the return of her soldier son who is stationed in Afghanistan. The whole community is affected, we just don't know if it will be for good or ill.
The story is beautifully woven, well worth reading.
The Lighthouse | Alison Moore
This is a thoroughly enjoyable, small book. It is the story of Futh, a middle aged man recently separated, trying to make sense of his life. He is having a crisis, for sure, but one which does not elicit mockery but rather sympathy.
Futh decides to take a walk in Germany. He meticulously organised himself, his accommodation and for his luggage to be transported from hotel to hotel. But what he cannot organise or control are the people he meets and the impact they have on him as he walks.
He has a lot of time to think and remember as he goes from town to town and this also is not something he can control. The impact of the walk ,the people and memory are beautifully described.
Will Furth find himself or become profoundly lost?
Futh decides to take a walk in Germany. He meticulously organised himself, his accommodation and for his luggage to be transported from hotel to hotel. But what he cannot organise or control are the people he meets and the impact they have on him as he walks.
He has a lot of time to think and remember as he goes from town to town and this also is not something he can control. The impact of the walk ,the people and memory are beautifully described.
Will Furth find himself or become profoundly lost?
The Man in the Wooden Hat | Jane Gardam
This is the second book in the Old Filth trilogy.
Gardam has done a very clever thing with these three books: Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat and Last Friends.
The main story is set in the first book: Sir Edward Feathers Old Filth (failed in London try Hong Kong) was a successful lawyer in Hong Kong, deeply integrated into the expat community but also connected to Hong Kong. He returns to the bar in London to end his career and retire.
we meet him as a widower living in quiet isolation in Dorset. He wants to write and peacefully live out his last years.
What he does a lot of is reminisce, going over events in his life which have formed and scarred him. He had a difficult, emotionally cold childhood, an education in pre-war England and launching his career in Hong Kong as an ambitious young man.
He meets and marries Betty, who understands his emotional immaturity but learns to love and 'manage' him. They have a long marriage, although there are hints that there may be infidelities along the way.
Feathers also has a nemesis ,Terry Veneering, who comes to Hong Kong as a flashy, loud and assertive young lawyer and more or less shadows Feathers and Betty throughout their lives.
In the second book, the story is told from Betty's perspective. We know the story, we don't have new action as such, but there are new anecdotes and 'slice of life' segments that fill out what we know. I really enjoyed this as Betty has quite a different perspective on their life.
And finally in the third book, we see the whole story from Veneering's perspective. It's a wonderful conclusion to the trilogy.
Gardam is a very skilled author and what could be boring and repetitive is actually a captivating look at the lives of three people emerging from one era into another, caught between the exotic East and the old school Western cultures that form them.
Gardam has done a very clever thing with these three books: Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat and Last Friends.
The main story is set in the first book: Sir Edward Feathers Old Filth (failed in London try Hong Kong) was a successful lawyer in Hong Kong, deeply integrated into the expat community but also connected to Hong Kong. He returns to the bar in London to end his career and retire.
we meet him as a widower living in quiet isolation in Dorset. He wants to write and peacefully live out his last years.
What he does a lot of is reminisce, going over events in his life which have formed and scarred him. He had a difficult, emotionally cold childhood, an education in pre-war England and launching his career in Hong Kong as an ambitious young man.
He meets and marries Betty, who understands his emotional immaturity but learns to love and 'manage' him. They have a long marriage, although there are hints that there may be infidelities along the way.
Feathers also has a nemesis ,Terry Veneering, who comes to Hong Kong as a flashy, loud and assertive young lawyer and more or less shadows Feathers and Betty throughout their lives.
In the second book, the story is told from Betty's perspective. We know the story, we don't have new action as such, but there are new anecdotes and 'slice of life' segments that fill out what we know. I really enjoyed this as Betty has quite a different perspective on their life.
And finally in the third book, we see the whole story from Veneering's perspective. It's a wonderful conclusion to the trilogy.
Gardam is a very skilled author and what could be boring and repetitive is actually a captivating look at the lives of three people emerging from one era into another, caught between the exotic East and the old school Western cultures that form them.
Moloka'i | Alan Brennert
I was drawn to this book because it is the story of the leprosy colony in Moloka'i which I had heard of but didn't know much about. Brennert has done a lot of research and it infuses the story with personal and historical authenticity.
The book is primarily the story of Rachel, a six year old girl, living in Honolulu in the late 1890's who is diagnosed with leprosy and then transported and exiled to the Leper colony on Molokai. She is not allowed any more contact with her family and has to learn to make a new family in the isolated community.
I was captivated by the beauty of the landscape, the variety of characters and Rachel herself who is amazing. Also there are non-infected people who work on the island voluntarily, nuns and priests who care for the wellbeing of the children and adults in the community. The best known is Father Damian but the book is set after his death. The doctors who came and persevere with the disease were incredible people as well as dedicated professionals.
As Rachel grows up she has the same questions and longings as any other girl growing up in that era, but is confined to a small peninsula with limited resources and no chance of escape. We journey with her as she grows up and into her dotage.
This book is well worth reading, and others like it who can reveal to us what it was like to have such a severe disease at a time when medicine was a developing science.
The book is primarily the story of Rachel, a six year old girl, living in Honolulu in the late 1890's who is diagnosed with leprosy and then transported and exiled to the Leper colony on Molokai. She is not allowed any more contact with her family and has to learn to make a new family in the isolated community.
I was captivated by the beauty of the landscape, the variety of characters and Rachel herself who is amazing. Also there are non-infected people who work on the island voluntarily, nuns and priests who care for the wellbeing of the children and adults in the community. The best known is Father Damian but the book is set after his death. The doctors who came and persevere with the disease were incredible people as well as dedicated professionals.
As Rachel grows up she has the same questions and longings as any other girl growing up in that era, but is confined to a small peninsula with limited resources and no chance of escape. We journey with her as she grows up and into her dotage.
This book is well worth reading, and others like it who can reveal to us what it was like to have such a severe disease at a time when medicine was a developing science.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)