In an alternative version of American history, JFK is in his third term as President, Michigan is basically one huge fiery riot, and the government is subjecting soldiers returning from Vietnam to experimental psychological treatment. Reenactments of their traumas are resulting in a loss of memory of any of the traumatic events; for some, who went to war with childhood friends, this includes large gaps in their memories over the course of a lifetime. Meanwhile, one failed experiment, known as Rake, has embarked on a killing spree, dragging along a psychologically damaged young woman, Meg, whose boyfriend was killed in Vietnam.
Continue reading Hystopia
In a small coastal village somewhere in Britain, a stranger arrives, moving into a cottage left vacant by the death of a fisherman years earlier. Meanwhile, the village’s diminishing fishing fleet is confined to the coastal waters by a silent barricade of tankers in the distance, and what catch it manages to return appears mysteriously diseased. Told from the alternative points of view of the stranger, Timothy, and a fisherman, Ethan, we gradually learn about the events that have brought the characters to this point.
Continue reading The Many
Guys. You guys. This book.
I don’t even know what to say about it. I read it on my Kindle, which lets me highlight sections; usually I use this feature to highlight things I think are significant, that I can come back to at the end to help me understand the book as a whole. At a certain point while reading this book, I realised I was highlighting on just about every second page. Every sentence, almost, seems weighed down with significance. Yet somehow, the touch of the author is so light, feather-light, so fragile, that it seemed the book might come apart if I breathed wrong.
Continue reading My Name is Lucy Barton
Before reading this book, I spent about a month reading nothing but novels written by women in the first half of the twentieth century. Most of them were mystery novels. Ninety per cent of the action took place in drawing rooms. The ritual of tea was interrupted for no possible emergency. There were some dead bodies scattered about, but the more serious problem was the difficulty of getting decent servants. It was heaven.
My poor, fragile brain was not prepared for The North Water. Continue reading The North Water
Oh man, I don’t know what to say about this one. I loved, could not put down, the first (according to my Kindle) 87% of it. It ticks all my geek boxes: a serious and well-written piece of literature that touches on significant world issues but also has fantastical/magical elements, mystery and enigmatic prophecies. To be honest, it’s pretty surprising to me that a non-post colonial book with this much magic in it would be longlisted for the Booker, all things considered. And as a little bonus gift for me, we first meet the main/most frequently-recurring character as a punk-loving runaway teen in the 1980s named Holly. I mean, come on! To misquote Friends, this book could have been called “Be Your Own Wind-Keeper, Holly”! Continue reading The Bone Clocks
In a plot that strains the limits of credulity, an elderly failed composer takes up DNA splicing as a super-fun hobby and ends up wanted by federal authorities on charges of bioterrorism, following a most unlikely incident involving his dog. Credulity snaps altogether when, after the feds first pay him a visit, he then goes online to research biological warfare techniques, just out of interest. Despite having a daughter who works in data mining and has taught him to speak basic internet paranoia.
Continue reading Orfeo
In rainy County Clare, a teenage girl with a life-threatening illness lies in her attic bedroom, surrounded by nearly four thousand books, and tells the story of her family.
Continue reading History of the Rain
