Number 21 - The Savage - David Almond & Dave McKean

 

Another brand new writer to me.

This is a young person's book, probably not even YA, about a young boy struggling to deal with the loss of his father. He starts writing his own comic about the Savage -a boy living like erm, a savage, on the outskirts of the small town he lives in.

His comic is illustrated by Dave McKean so we have a graphic novel within the regular novel.  It's an interesting format and works well.  McKean isn't a legendary graphic novel artist for nothing and his art here is perfectly suited to the story.

Almond's writing is basic (as you would expect from a children's book) but packs in a healthy dose of emotion and meaning. 

It's very short but sweet.

Number 73 - The Summer Book - Tove Jansson

 

I can't think of a more appropriate book to read during the recent bout of minus 6 degree weather. This month's book group book and one I was looking forward to.

I knew Tove Jansson from the Moomins. One of my most magical memories from childhood was the Moomins on TV. I was a bookworm even back in those days and no doubt will have read any of the books that were available.

Sadly, I just didn't particularly like this book. It's not badly written. The prose is actually very good. It's lyrical and poetic and all very nice. It's just not very interesting to this reader.

It's not what I would call a novel.  It's a series of very short anecdotes about a little girl and her Grandmother living on an island off the coast of Norway in the summer months. There's no single story, no real continuity, not even any call backs to previous events. It all feels very choppy and episodic.

It's all very prettily written and lots of metaphors for life happen to the characters and it's all very meaningful and lovely. It has a deep ecological message from well before such things were fashionable. But this is one book where I have to admit that it wasn't written for me. 

Sophia doesn't always ring true as a character. She's a preteen child but has chapters where she talks like a university lecturer. 

For such a short book it took me a week to read it.  I think if it had been close to 200 pages I would have given up. For all the nice writing, it's just too cloying and sentimental. There are a few laughs, but few and far between for me and the book never hooked my interest or made me care for Sophia or her Grandmother. 

Number 71 - Holy Ghost Road - John Mantooth

 

This was a NetGalley read and another brand new author for me.

Some books take their time in establishing a setting and the characters and the plot will slowly develop as the location etc become clearer.

This doesn't. we're plunged into the action on page one and it never lets up.

When we meet our central character Forest, she's on the run. She needs to get to her Gran's house.  her Gran can help her, she always has done in the past. Surely her dreamwalking powers will save Forest now. What is she running from? She's not sure herself.  It's scary though. It has something to do with the strange preacher Nesmith who has an uncanny influence on everyone in the county, and indeed has shacked up with Forest's mother.

The only thing worse than Nesmith, is his sister Ruby Jewel, a blind old woman who still seems more alert and aware than any human should be. Or maybe the goat-headed thing that is following Nesmith as he searches for Forest to deliver her into a fate possibly worse than death.

Together with a friend she meets on her dangerous run, Forest must travel the Holy Ghost Road to her Granny's house and her only hope of salvation.

This is gorgeously written southern-gothic horror. The atmosphere of dread and mystery is sustained through every word of the book. 

There are familiar elements to the story but they feel fresh under Mantooth's restrained prose and perfectly nuanced storytelling. 

There are layers upon layers to the story and this will certainly reward a reread sometime. There are dark themes running through the book, loss and grief, the negative side of family, the power of belief vs logic.  These make for a compelling coming of age story as Forest travels her own spiritual journey as well as the grueling physical trek down the eponymous highway.  All the while she needs to avoid the grasps of the villainous trio who dog her footsteps the whole distance.

I will certainly be buying a physical copy of this for my reread, whenever that might happen. Mantooth is a major talent. By all the gods and demons, he can spin a damned scary yarn.

Number 40 - Born To The Dark - Ramsey Campbell

 The second book in Ramsey's Bricester Mythos trilogy and the follow up to The Searching Dead (which I wrote up here in February last year if you want to look up my thoughts on that volume)

Firstly, it has to be said that PS Publishing did an amazing job with these books, and Les Edwards (the cover artist and a bit of a legend in the horror field) is as great and eye-catching an artist as he ever was.

The story picks  up in the 80s, 30 years after the events of the Searching Dead.  Dominic Sheldrake is now a married university lecturer with a child of his own. He teaches film study, which allows Ramsey to ruminate on some of his favourite films and their meanings in the course of the book.

In the opening chapter he meets up briefly with Jim and Bobby, his friends from the first book for a long delayed reunion.  This is used to give a slightly clumsy recap of the first book as well as reintroducing us to the cast.

Unfortunately, in the political discussion that ensues in chapter one, we find that Dom is now a poster boy for Thatcherism, which made me dislike him quite intensely. I hope this is done to inject a feel of the 80's rather than further self insertion of the author into the text.

When he returns home to his wife and child (Lesley and Toby even though the blurb on the inside cover names his wife as Claudine who is actually one of Toby's friends). We find out that Toby suffers from seizures in his sleep and they've just been referred to a facility called Safe to Sleep. 

Of course, all is not well at safe to Sleep, and Dominic soon finds himself fighting to reveal the truth about the facility to his loved ones or anyone who will listen. The facility is run by Christian Noble, Dominic's ex-teacher, and the cult leader Dom faced in the first book. What is the Noble family doing in the clinic?  Can Dom do anything to fight?

The sense of paranoia that develops once the plot starts gathering momentum is masterfully done. How can he fight this evil if no one, including his nearest and dearest, believes a word he says?

It's all written in Ramsey's unmistakable style.  There's something insidious in the prose that slowly nibbles away at your sense of reality while reading a Ramsey Campbell novel. This one is no exception. despite my initial dislike of Dom in the early chapters, I soon sympathised with him and wanted to see him persuade the people around him what was really happening.

One of my pet hates in horror is when everyone just accepts what's happening without a problem. This book certainly doesn't suffer from that. It derives probably half the horror from the fact that only Dom knows what's happening and he just can't make anyone believe him.

It's not a perfect book. The opening chapter was a bit clumsy, and despite the number of times we're told Toby is advanced for his age, he never seemed to speak realistically as a 5 year old child. It was a damned good read nonetheless and those are minor quibbles.  

I have book 3 on my shelves, pulsating and calling out to be read. 

It shall wait it's turn.

Number 4 - The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole - Sue Townsend

I first read this book in 1985 when I myself was nearly the same age as the titular hero. This has 70p written in pencil on the top of the first page inside, so it's easily possible that this is the very same copy that I read all those years ago.

I remember finding it very funny first time I read it, but I don't recall it being embarrassing laughing uncontrollably in public funny. 

That's the difference between reading this as a teenager, and reading this as an adult. This time round, I was sitting reading it on my lunch at work and several times dissolving in hysterical fits of giggles.

I have a less complicated relationship with the character this time too.  In 1985 I was skinny with dark hair and glasses - and liked to read a lot.  Especially after the tv show came out, the favoured insult from those so inclined was "Adrian Mole" in much the same way that kids matching that description now get called Harry Potter. That may have taken the shine off the books for me somewhat and may explain why I have still to read the other 4 Adrian books.

Top of the list of reasons why this was so much funnier this time is that I understand what the adults are talking about. Whilst I don't think I was quite as naïve as Adrian, I didn't get a lot of the little asides. The references to the books he's reading with some vastly wrong fact about the author - eg, reading a book "by some woman called Evelyn Waugh" or the biography of Kinsley Martin where he says it's strange that it doesn't mention that he wrote Lucky Jim.

Townsend captures the uncertainty of teenage life with total accuracy. You just know you wouldn't want Adrian anywhere near you, let alone in your close circle of friends.  He's irritating, self-absorbed, and obsessed with sex. He spreads chaos around him whether he means to or not (example Mr Braithwaite's letter). However we can't help but sympathise with him. Even though probably three quarters of his pain is imaginary, and most of the rest is self inflicted, we're privy to some of his most private thoughts and we can understand where he's coming from. And we know he does care about some things. 

I have a couple more of the rest of the series to track down - I want to get similar editions to this one if possible-  but I will be continuing the series sooner rather than later.

For quick easy, screamingly funny reads, this is a very difficult book to beat.