Atonement by Ian Rankin

This is one of Ian Rankin's short stories in book form for Shortlist.


It's a pretty decent story and a good way of passing half an hour to 40 minutes. It's the first Inspector Rebus story that I've read and maybe I should read more from Ian Rankin.


A decent short story or short book, whatever you want to call it.

Andy McNab - Today Everything Changes

This is another example of a book that isn't really aimed at me.




If you are interested in the military then this might be right up your street. It's a personal account of Andy McNab and how he went from being a juvenile delinquent to playing a major role in the Gulf War and the SAS. His account is both fascinating and a real eye opener. Although I'm not interested in anything military in any shape of form, this book is quite educational and I can appreciate it from that perspective.

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult

Do you switch off the life support or do you wait for a miracle?


A brother and sister lock horns in the saddest of battles.




It feels like Jodi Picoult books are everywhere I look these days, whether it's in W.H Smiths, ASDA or my local charity shop. But she's one of those Authors I've either avoided or just never got round to reading. I don't know which.

And if ever there was a book that was just OK, this would be it. It manages to be very readable without out being anything special. OK is the best word I can use to describe it. The story is OK, the plot is OK, the writing is OK. It's a steady 4 stars.



I liked the main plot and Jodi Picoult weaves a decent tale and it's got all the ingredients needed for a good book. There are a few plot holes and a few unrealistic and convenient moments along the way but overall they didn't interfere with my enjoyment too much. I am a nature lover so all the wolfy bits were my favourite bits and maybe that's a bloke thing. Because at the end of the day this isn't really a blokey book. The cover almost screams out women's fiction and although I usually prefer books written by women, it did feel very much like this was step too far for me!




It's a decent read with maybe a little bit too much padding for my taste. What starts off as an interesting and thoughtful plot turns into a bit of a legal drama towards the end. And I'm not a huge fan of legal dramas.

Dream Catcher

Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.



                                                        John Updike







I will bag your dream before you even notice it's gone.




I'm a professional dream catcher. Sleight of hand is important but your desire to cling onto your dream is the deal clincher. Some dreams are like limp handshakes. I don't even bother with them anymore, trying to grab hold of a limp handshake dream is like trying to eat soup with a sieve whilst wearing Floyd Mayweather Jr's boxing gloves.



I stick to dreams that are practically flashing their panties. Dreams that are so desperate to escape their human host they will sell their soul to Fred Phelps. Then they come easily enough. A cuddle is all it takes. Or sometimes I will feign a stumble, bump into somebody that is carrying a dream on their back that is making their knees buckle and their souls shrink. Sometimes unrequited dreams make people so miserable their dreams can't wait to jump into my bag. I call them jumpers.



It's a fact that some dreams have longer legs than others and some of them have no legs at all. Some dreams are all mouth. I can hear them from miles away. Some are howlers and some are screamers. Howlers are more common and the likelihood is that there is one standing near to you right now or maybe you have your own howler inside you. Desperate to burst out of a soul that is struggling to stay upright. Desperate to jump into my bag before your dream eats you from the insides and spits you out again.





                                                                      Ally Atherton (C) 2014




256 words







Written for this week's Light & Shade Challenge. Take a peek. It's fun. As usual I appreciate any comments, any feedback, any critique.

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

On the outer deck of a North Sea ferry stands Futh, a middle-aged and newly separated man, on his way to Germany for a restorative walking holiday. After an inexplicably hostile encounter with a hotel landlord, Futh sets off along the Rhine. As he contemplates an earlier trip to Germany and the things he has done in his life, he does not foresee the potentially devastating consequences of things not done.



Sometimes when I read a book that has been shortlisted for a major literary prize I find it a little bit off putting and I half expect myself to be disappointed. But I really did enjoy 'The Lighthouse'.


It's not the most exciting book I've ever read and I wouldn't exactly call it a thrill a minute but the beauty lies elsewhere. Rather than being plot heavy it is character driven and cleverly crafted. It pulled me in from the beginning and I found that the pages were literally turning themselves. This is a story about memories and about how bad memories cling to the surface of happy memories like a snow drop sticking to a cold window. It is also a story that gives the reader time to breathe and time to fill in the blanks. I always say that 50% of a book is written by the person that is reading it. Alison Moore makes use of this with a clever use of subtle, yet powerful ambiguity.



I think it's the ambiguity that I like the most about this short novel. It's the story untold rather than the story told that makes it work so well. Whether it is deserving of a Man Booker Prize shortlisting, I'll let you decide.



Enjoyed it.

Book Review. Clay by Melissa Harrison.

 

                   

     

Eight year old TC skips school to explore the city's overgrown, forgotten corners. Sophia, seventy-eight, watches with concern as he slips past her window, through the little park she loves. She's writing to her granddaughter, Daisy, whose privileged upbringing means she exists in a different world from TC - though the two children live less than a mile apart.



I have been waiting for a book like this to come along for a long time. It just goes to show what hidden gems are waiting for us in our local libraries.

As a nature lover it's as if this book was written for me. Each page is full of such wonderful prose, it's beautiful, almost edible. It's quite a short book but I found it impossible to read quickly, almost obligatory that I should read it slowly. The setting, an unnamed urban city area is as real as the main characters are perfectly drawn. This is one of those books that has an atmosphere. Or as Paul Farley, Author of The Ice Age: Poems, says, 'it has it's own weather.'


I was wandering through the brambles and the tree roots with TC. I was there. In this book and it captured me. What an impressive debut novel. You can find out more about Melissa Harrison at Tales Of The City




I can't wait for her new book.

Girl on the Platform - Josephine Cox

On a trip to London a young man sees a woman sat on the opposite platform and falls head over heels in love. Then she disappears.



Yesterday I visited my local library and came back with five very different books and I chose to read this Quick Read first. The beauty of Quick Reads is that you have the opportunity to try out something different, something that you wouldn't normally even look at. This is what I would normally call a kitchen sink drama. There's no big storyline or plot, it just follows the antics of a couple of twenty somethings on a night out in London.

It's harmless enough but it left me feeling unfulfilled. The story is pretty unrealistic (especially the night out in London) and the ending is so convenient Josephine Cox may as well have wrapped it in a little cotton bow and finished it off with the famous last line 'and they all lived happily ever after.'



Try flicking through a woman's magazine the next time you visit your dentist and you may find a story just like this. That's all I can say really.