Okay so I wasn’t too sure about this one, as it was more of an experiment than anything else; a bit different to anything I normally write.
Timeless Values.
Melancholy voices,
A moonlit serenade
Haunted shadows,
The phoenix flies
Whispers conflict,
Darkness replenished
Words glitter across the page,
Beautiful shimmers of gold
Contrasting colours,
Sweet serendipity
Lights dance brightly,
Wind whistling tunelessly
Thoughts distraught,
Destined forever more
© Ben Johnson 2011.
Synopsis: In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder – for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him – but how and at what cost?
Review
Well, here it is, the third finished novel of the year, and by far the strangest book I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
Although the book deals with some serious issues such as rape, violence and crime – enough to put some people off – I feel that this is a piece of literature that everyone should read. My reasons for this are simple: the novel is thought-provoking, intriguing, and throughout I felt connected with the main protagonist, Alex; a strange thing to say about a fifteen year delinquent who enjoys gang-crime and extreme violent acts, but who also enjoys classical music. Particularly Beethoven’s Ninth.
Some people who will read this novel, will have no sympathy for a mere child who shows no remorse and causes so much hurt and violence to perfectly innocent victims, but as the novel progressed I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one who began to sympathise with the troubles that the Government force upon him after he is finally arrested and put in jail for his actions.
Now, I feel it necessary to mention the language used within this novel, as it can be challenging at first to understand. I’ve even know people cast this book away on the principle that they can not get used to the language used; Burgess uses an experimental teenage-slang language at many points during the book. However, I feel that with a little bit of perseverance you can soon begin to deduce what means what, and it doesn’t distract from the plot at all.
Now, in conclusion I imagine that opinion about this novel is divided right down the middle; some will say he got what he deserved, others will disagree. I do know one thing for sure; this novel is one that everyone should read at some point in their lives.
5/5.
Synopsis: Moab is My Washpot is in turns funny, shocking, tender, delicious, sad, lyrical, bruisingly frank and addictively readable. Stephen Fry’s bestselling memoir tells how, sent to a boarding school 200 miles from home at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready to try and face the world in which he had always felt a stranger. When he was fifteen, he wrote this in a letter to himself, not to be read until he was twenty-five: ‘Well I tell you now that everything I feel now, everything I am now is truer and better than anything I shall ever be. Ever. This is me now, the real me. Every day that I grow away from the me that is writing this now is a betrayal and a defeat’. Whether the real Stephen Fry is the man now living, or the extraordinary adolescent now dead, only you will be able to decide.
Review
When deciding whether to review this book I thought to myself that I should pull myself away and not bother; it was my firm belief that it doesn’t matter what I try and say about Stephen’s wonderful autobiography, I will do it a complete injustice. Nevertheless, I have loved and lived every word of this book over the past few days, so I thought it only fair to attempt to get down in words, why everyone should read this book.
This book is a journey; a journey in which we feel what he felt, live what he lived; a journey filled with despair, remorse, sadness, deceit and love. The book itself is both intriguing and humorous, often at the same time, as we are catapulted through Stephen’s accounts of the tales of his childhood in boarding school, his first homosexual experiences, his pranks and jokes, his adolescent angst and early experiences with depression.
It is extremely well written, as one would expect from Mr Fry, and is delightful, charming, brutally candid, and a pleasure to read. We’re presented with his feelings of regret, despair, and self-loathing, and although I can far from condone his actions as a delinquent youth, neither can he; he acknowledges this most genuinely, and from it you can see how and why he has become what he is today.
Throughout the book Fry quite honestly rambles away, often going off into side-anecdotes, and although this can be irritating for some readers, I found it nothing short of endearing, bringing a certain charm to his style of writing; the way in which he meanders through tales of his childhood, often coming back to his original point several pages on, gives us a sense of how his life has been an emotional roller-coaster from which he has clung on to the very end, to make himself the person which he wants to be.
I myself have no flaws with the book, and yet I feel obliged to point out perhaps why some may. In Stephen’s brutal honesty, he doesn’t hold back. At all. Because of this, at times his language can be.. colourful, shall we say. In this way I don’t think the book should be read by young readers, unless of course the parent deems it acceptable. If you can see past this then you will find his language to be witty and engaging; overall a refreshingly forthright and touching memoir.
5/5.
Synopsis: Margrave is a no-account little town in Georgia. Jack Reacher jumps off a bus and walks fourteen miles in the rain, just passing through. An arbitrary decision, a tribute to a guitar player who died there decades before. But Margrave has just had its first homicide in thirty years. And Reacher is the only stranger in town. So the murder is pinned on him. As nasty secrets leak out and the body count mounts, only one thing is for sure: They picked the wrong guy to take the fall. Killing Floor introduces Jack Reacher, the tough ex-military cop of no fixed abode. Trained to think fast and act faster, with an eye for the women, he is truly every thinking reader’s perfect action hero.
Review
Okay, so here it is, my first read of the year; Killing Floor by Lee Child. Now, I hadn’t heard of this author before, because normally this isn’t my type of genre to read. However, whilst browsing the Amazon Kindle Store I saw his name crop up. After being intrigued by the synopsis and some good spoiler-free reviews, I thought I’d give it a shot. I can safely say I’m glad to know that I’ve started off with a series which stretches on for another fourteen books; plenty to get stuck into with this one it seems.
The novel itself was fantastic; intriguing and mysterious throughout, it had me hooked all the way from the first page to the last. Now, I’m not normally used to his style of writing, but the short and snappy sentences gave the novel that fast-moving feel which sweeps a reader off their feet and doesn’t put them down until it reaches its conclusion; I hardly noticed that it’s 528 pages long.
I found the characters to be believable and interesting, especially that of the main protagonist Jack Reacher, who at first the reader learns nothing about. As the novel unravels you start to feel yourself warming to Reacher and certain other characters, giving me the feeling that I was with them all the way in their battle to discover the truth, before everything goes up in flames.
4/5.
Okay, so it’s been a strange year of reading for me; in some ways it’s been good – I found a new favourite novel in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – but in other ways it’s been terrible – I only managed to read a pretty poor total of 25 books, in comparison to the 48 of last year.
In the early part of the year I found myself revising for AS exams, so that meant that I couldn’t get through many books; in the end I ended up with three that month. From then on I had a severe lack of reading mojo; even when my exams had finished I found myself struggling to get myself stuck into novels, only reading one book in February & March: Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris.
It was disappointing but in April things improved; I managed some good books when I went away to Tenerife in Spain for a week – including the first book in Stieg Larsson’s popular Millennium Trilogy – and that brought my total for the year to 9. However, I don’t think that holiday regained my mojo, or at least if it did, I lost it again for the next three months; only reading one book.
In August I went on holiday to Greece, and as usual I managed to read a fair few books; another 5, bringing my total to a mere 15. On holiday I read The Picture of Dorian Gray and it rapidly became my favourite book of all time. Wonderfully well written, Wilde manages to create fantastic characters, and every word speaks out to the author.
In September I went book to school after summer, and I was caught up in the rush of starting Year 13, only managing to read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown throughout September. In October & November my reading was steady; three books per month, including my first Ben Elton novel The First Casualty, which was a brilliant read.
As December came around I had only read a total of 22 books, which was extremely disappointing, and I obviously started thinking of how I’d improve on it in 2011. However, there was a month left and I settled in to read American Gods, my first Neil Gaiman book. It was wonderful, one of my best reads of the year. At first I didn’t think the subject of God’s an mythology would interest me, but it was done in such a fantastic way; I will be reading more of Gaiman’s novels. Through the rest of December I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as a re-read for my English exam in January, and I concluded my reading for the year with the final novel in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix; Lord Sunday, which was a good read.
Overall it was a pretty terrible year of reading, and I hope to improve on it in 2011, with the addition of my Amazon Kindle which I received for Christmas; a gift guaranteed to get my reading mojo back in form.
Well here it is, the books I’ve read in 2010. A disappointing year but hopefully I’ll improve next year.
Total Read 2010: 22. 
January.
1. Snakehead. – Anthony Horowitz.
2. Crocodile Tears. – Anthony Horowitz.
3. Breakneck. – Erica Spindler.
February.
4. Dead Until Dark. – Charlaine Harris.
April.
5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. – Steig Larsson.
6. The Kite Runner. – Khaled Hosseini.
7. The Reader. – Bernhard Schlink.
8. Living Dead In Dallas. – Charlaine Harris.
9. Club Dead. – Charlaine Harris.
July.
10. The Girl Who Played With Fire. – Steig Larsson.
August.
11. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. – Steig Larsson.
12. Frankenstein. – Mary Shelly.
13. The Picture of Dorian Gray. - Oscar Wilde.
14. Good Omens. – Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman.
15. Heroes Of the Valley. – Jonathan Stroud.
September.
16. The Lost Symbol. - Dan Brown.
October.
17. Macbeth. – William Shakespeare.
18. The First Casualty. – Ben Elton.
19. Eragon. – Christopher Paolini.
November.
20. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. – F. Scott Fitzgerald.
21. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows. – J.K Rowling.
22. The Bloody Chamber. – Angela Carter.
December.
23. American Gods. – Neil Gaiman.
24. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. – Mark Haddon.
25. Lord Sunday. - Garth Nix.
Favourite Book: The Picture of Dorian Gray. – Oscar Wilde.
Well here’s the list of things I managed to complete from my ’54 things to do in 2010′. Not a bad effort, might do another one of these for next year.
Key: Italics = Completed.
54 Things to do in 2010.
