This was my first Sarah Waters book, and I must say I do enjoy her writing style.
Hundreds Hall. Haunted or not? Ghost, poltergeist, or murderer?
Minor spoilers ahead.
.
.
.
Hundreds Hall, once a grand estate, has fallen into decline with the decline of its family’s fortune. The narrator, Dr. Faraday, first knew of the house as a small child when his mother was a maid there. After a 30 year absence, he is called back to the house because of a maid’s illness and is taken aback by the condition of the house and the family.
Over time he becomes sort of a family friend to Mrs. Ayres and her adult children Roderick and Caroline, though perhaps the friendship is more on his side than theirs due to class differences. All the while, strange happenings are afoot. Strange burn marks, footsteps in empty rooms and the like are witnessed by each occupant. The story is cleverly told, and the ending is left for the reader to decide. I’m one who actually likes this type of ending because I end up thinking about all the possibilities for days! The mood of the book was sufficiently creepy without being gory and was an excellent choice for the RIP Challenge, too.
The Little Stranger is shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize.
2009, 480 pp.
[Disclaimer: This book was obtained from my public library.]
When Cat returns home after a 10 year absence because of her mother’s suicide, this is the note she finds. There are several possible ‘he’s’ in Cat’s life that this note could refer to, so we are kept guessing until near the end who her mother means. As she stays for her mother’s funeral, several ghosts from her past come back to haunt her. Domestic violence and alcoholism are prominent themes in the book.
I didn’t really care for this one. There seemed to me to be some plot holes in the story, or at least some unexplained events. For instance, Cat had an extremely happy childhood until age 5 or 6, but we are never told why at age 7 everything changed. She remembers her parents as loving before that time, but definitely not afterwards. Also, I had a hard time believing that the older Jared was so beloved by both of Cat’s parents. The circumstances between he and the rest of the family didn’t seem to warrant this. I just didn’t understand it. I also wanted to feel more sorry for Cat than I did, and normally I would for a character that has suffered such tragic events. I wonder if I would have felt more sympathy for Cat if the book had been written in 3rd person instead of 1st. Her voice seemed to ‘tell and not ’show’ throughout the book. Third person narration may have been able to correct this. For instance, although I know alcoholism was one of the themes of the book, it just got irritating to hear something to the effect of ”I need a drink’ on every other page when 3rd person narration could have shown her alcoholic side a little better. These are just my own thoughts, though. Several people on librarything and Amazon have loved the book, so be sure to check out their reviews for a balanced opinion.
I listened to Life As We Knew It on audio cd with my 15 year old son. He wasn’t impressed with Miranda’s cutesy character at first, but I told him to hang in there, and he ended up being glad he did. We plan on listening to Pfeffer’s The Dead and the Gone if it comes out on audio at our library.
In the story, an asteroid has struck the moon with catastrophic consequences for Earth. Tsunamis, floods, volcanoes, and electrical and food shortages ensue. The book sort of reminded me of a teen version of The Road. Miranda struggles along with her mother and brothers just to survive. She also struggles with the typical teenage problems of today. It made for a few good discussions with my son.
He and I are looking forward to the ‘boy version’ of events in The Dead and the Gone. The second book is also in a different setting (New York vs. rural Pennsylvania), so that element should be interesting as well.
As a medical term, gigantism can refer to “pituitary gigantism”, which is due to prepubertal growth hormone excess. This is sometimes equated with acromegaly, but more precisely, an excess of growth hormone leads to “pituitary gigantism” (vertical growth) if the epiphyseal plates have not yet closed, but it leads to “acromegaly” (lateral growth) if they have closed.
Even before I emerged from my mother’s womb in 1953, people began warning my mother that the infant she carried was going to be huge.
I really enjoyed this debut novel — particularly the first 3/4 of it. Tiffany Baker has created a very extraordinary character in Truly Plaice. First called a ‘little giant’ by her teacher Miss Sparrow, Truly is the exact opposite of her very petite, pretty, and perfect sister Serena Jane. Teased and humiliated by her classmates and community, Truly actually copes fairly well with her large size. Her genetics have treated Truly unfairly, but there are some positives in her life as well. She has the love of three very special people in her life, and she is thus able to tune out the mean-spirited ones who torment her. Not afraid of hard work either, Truly only sometimes feels sorry for herself and tries to make the best of every situation she’s in. (I always think it’s best not to know too many plot points before reading a book so I’ll stop there to avoid spoilers.)
The book covers the first 35-40 or so years of Truly’s life, and as said previously, I very much enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book. I actually read through the first part very quickly, but I did feel that the last 1/4 of the novel dragged a bit. There are also some ethical decisions made by the characters that are quite controversial, and I’m not quite sure how I stand on those issues myself so my thoughts about the ending are mixed. However, I’ll definitely be looking out for Tiffany Baker’s next book. She is a promising new novelist who knows how to craft unique characters and a unique story.
A special thanks goes to Hachette Book Group for sending me this book for review. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County is being released today (January 8th).
There’s no denying that Nabokov is a great writer. In fact, I’d love to read more by him — just on a different subject. I had a hard time rating this book as the subject matter is so despicable, but settled on 3 stars because of Nabokov’s writing ability. A large part of the rating also goes to the excellence in Jeremy Irons’ narration. I absolutely love his voice, but then again, he was almost too good as the narrator for Humbert Humbert. I have not seen the movie with Irons in the starring role.
I won’t repeat the storyline here, as everyone should know the basic outline of it. My question is, why did Nabokov even feel the need to write this story? I’ve heard one reviewer say that Nabokov makes us root for Humbert Humbert over Lolita. Not so. Not with me, anyway. A great writer Nabokov is. A great character Humbert Humbert is not.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
I really didn’t get all that much into the story until the ship sunk — it really gets going at that point. And then, just when I was getting tired of all the desperate tactics for survival in the lifeboat, another interesting development occurs. I was surprised by the twist ending as well, but it was a good one. I was impressed by the symbolism in the book. Recommended.
The Life & Times of Michael K won the Booker Prize in 1983. Written by Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, it is set in South Africa during a civil war. Michael is a gardener in his earlier thirties who has a harelip. He was institutionalized by his mother when he was a child, but at the beginning of the book when she is old and very ill, she calls for him. She would like him to take her to the village where she grew up. Getting the proper paperwork for the train is practically impossible because of the war, so finally they give up on it and try to go there on their own.
Many things happen to Michael on the trip. He is captured and made to work for awhile, and then released. He finds what he thinks is the farm where his mother was raised and makes himself a home (if you can call it that) there. Struggling to survive and evade the government, in the midst of it all he still wants to be a gardener and plants a small pumpkin patch, which he guards and tends with fervor.
The book is told in three parts. Parts I and III describe the storyline from Michael’s perspective. Part II is told in first person by a doctor who tries to understand Michael when he is brought under his care. This was a thought-provoking book and I enjoyed it, though I could have done without some scenes at the end. I’ll definitely read more by Coetzee.
A quote:
I could live here forever, he thought, or till I die. Nothing would happen, every day would be the same as the day before, there would be nothing to say.
Short Story Monday This book of stories by Roberto Bolaño is a NYT Most Notable Book. Bolaño is a Chilean author whose book The Savage Detectives was named to the most recent NYT Most Notable list as well. It seems to be getting a lot of buzz on many ‘Best of 2007′ lists. Although Bolaño died in 2003, some of his works are just now being published in English.
The settings of these stories are in Chile, Mexico, Spain, and many other countries. It has a very international feel to it. Bolaño’s writing is fascinating. Without really enjoying many of the stories, I still felt compelled to read them. There is always something literary going on; perhaps that’s why they intrigued me. However, many of the stories just had too much violence and seediness for my taste–otherwise the book would have had a higher rating from me.
I’m curious about The Savage Detectives, though, and I may try to read that one in 2008.
2006 (for the English translation), 219 pp.
Rating: 3.5
It had been over 20 years since I had read a Stephen King book. I used to love horror and love his books. I really, really did. That changed and I don’t like horror at all now. I like scary, suspenseful stories-just not horror. I think I had convinced myself that surely there wouldn’t be that much horror because he put so much of his wife/marriage into the story. I guess there probably wasn’t as much as in his other books, but it was still too much for me.
Stephen King had said that he wrote this after considering what could happen to his wife if he had died in the car accident that he had. I do think he put quite a bit of himself and her into this story. I liked the beginning of the book very much, but then in the middle there was a little too much of the horror element for me. Lisey’s husband Scott flashes back to a horror-full childhood. There were some crazy things that happen to Lisey as well that bothered me because I kept thinking, “How can he think of these things happening to his wife?”
Anyway, it was a good book for the R.I.P Challenge, but I don’t think I’ll be reading another King book for awhile. If you know of one that is very tame, I might try it. Otherwise, there’s just too much horror in King for this wimpy woman.
The Little Prince is a charming story written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. A pilot has crashed his plane and is stranded in the desert, where he meets a little prince from another planet. The prince tells the pilot about his planet and of the people he has met on other planets. Many lessons can be learned of the stories he tells.
This is a great book for children and adults. It is inspired by the author’s own crash in the Sahara desert as well as other personal events. The illustrations were beautifully done by the author. Highly recommended!
This was my first Sarah Waters book, and I must say I do enjoy her writing style.
Cat,
From 
There’s no denying that Nabokov is a great writer. In fact, I’d love to read more by him — just on a different subject. I had a hard time rating this book as the subject matter is so despicable, but settled on 3 stars because of Nabokov’s writing ability. A large part of the rating also goes to the excellence in Jeremy Irons’ narration. I absolutely love his voice, but then again, he was almost too good as the narrator for Humbert Humbert. I have not seen the movie with Irons in the starring role.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
The Life & Times of Michael K won the Booker Prize in 1983. Written by Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, it is set in South Africa during a civil war. Michael is a gardener in his earlier thirties who has a harelip. He was institutionalized by his mother when he was a child, but at the beginning of the book when she is old and very ill, she calls for him. She would like him to take her to the village where she grew up. Getting the proper paperwork for the train is practically impossible because of the war, so finally they give up on it and try to go there on their own.
This book of stories by Roberto Bolaño is a NYT Most Notable Book. Bolaño is a Chilean author whose book The Savage Detectives was named to the most recent NYT Most Notable list as well. It seems to be getting a lot of buzz on many ‘Best of 2007′ lists. Although Bolaño died in 2003, some of his works are just now being published in English.
It had been over 20 years since I had read a Stephen King book. I used to love horror and love his books. I really, really did. That changed and I don’t like horror at all now. I like scary, suspenseful stories-just not horror. I think I had convinced myself that surely there wouldn’t be that much horror because he put so much of his wife/marriage into the story. I guess there probably wasn’t as much as in his other books, but it was still too much for me.
The Little Prince is a charming story written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. A pilot has crashed his plane and is stranded in the desert, where he meets a little prince from another planet. The prince tells the pilot about his planet and of the people he has met on other planets. Many lessons can be learned of the stories he tells.
