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The Posh, the Privileged and the Paranormal

The Posh, the Privileged and the Paranormal

Tag Archives: reading

Top Ten Tuesday – Sequels I can’t wait to get my hands on

06 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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books, reading, sequels, top ten tuesday

It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday. Well actually, it’s not, as it’s quite clearly Wednesday, but yesterday I was too busy posting about Bonfire Night, and I really didn’t want to miss this one: Top Ten Sequels I Can’t Wait to Get My Hands On. For anyone unfamiliar with TTT, it’s organised by The Broke and the Bookish http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.co.uk/p/top-ten-tuesday-other-features.html and the idea is quite simple. Every week, they provide a book-related theme and bloggers have to pick their top ten.

Top Ten Sequels I can’t wait to get my hands on:

The Epic Fantasy follow-ons I’ve been waiting for ages for – sadly neither of these have a release date yet, and both authors had huge gaps between their last two books, so I won’t be expecting to read these any time soon.

1) The Winds of Winter (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) – George RR. Martin

2) The Doors of Stone (The Kingkiller Chronicles) – Patrick Ruthfuss

The final books of trilogies I’ve loved this year – luckily, all of them are due next year and the authors seem pretty reliable. I think they come out around the same sort of time – that’s going to be an intense month’s reading! 

3) Ruin and Rising (The Grisha)  – Leigh Bardugo

4) Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy) – Lauri Taylor

5) Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin Trilogy) – RL LaFevers

The one I have been waiting half my life for, to the extent that it’s never going to live up to my expectations 

6) Strange Fate (Nightworld Series) – Nine Nightworld books came out in quick succession in  the late nineties. Te tenth and final book in the Nightworld series was meant to be released in 1998, when I was 13. Since then, it’s been delayed and delayed. Release dates have been announced and dropped. After the awfulness that was the new Vampire Diaries trilogy, I’m not even that keen to read this any more, but I know that the second it’s published (if that ever happens) I will buy it, just to get some sort of closure!

Top Ten Tuesday – Autumn Reading List

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by georgianaderwent in Top Ten Tuesday

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books, reading, top ten tuesday

Here’s my entry for Top Ten Tuesday a weekly feature hosted by the blog, The Broke and the Bookish – http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.co.uk/

Each week they ask people to write a top ten list of something on a literary theme. this week, it’s Autumn Reading. It’s five days late, but in my defence, I recently started a new job and my brain feels like it’s about to melt. Nonetheless, I had to get involved with this week’s TTT. My favourite entry so far was summer reading, which really gave my vague reading plans focus and a hint of a challenge. Once I’m back from Furore I’m planning to write a post about how I found the ten books I listed here: Summer Reading

TOP TEN AUTUMN READS:

1 Fangirl – Rainbow Rowell: The cover of this book made me smile like a maniac. That is so me and my fiance when I am in full blown WRITING MODE.

16068905

It sounds both hilarious and touching, the story of a girl who’s spent her teenage years obsessing over her favourite book series online starting university and having to adapt to the real world.

I’ve never been quite as full-blown as the heroine appears to be (though I’ve often been tempted, I’ve never actually written fan-fiction) but loving certain books a little bit too much is certainly something I can identify with.

2)Wildwood – Colin Meloy: I picked this up in a charity shop recently. The first thing that attracted me was the beautiful cover. The second was a quote of recommendation from Lemony Snicket, my favourite imaginary author. And then I noticed who’d written the book, and I was stunned. Colin Meloy is the lead singer/songwriter of the Decemberists, one of my all time favourite bands. Since when does he write children’s fantasy novels? I’m trying to read less YA, so going for a Middle Grade novel seems a step backwards, but I couldn’t resist. If my favourite band were, say, One Direction, I’d be slightly dubious about reading a novel by their lead singer, but even in their songs the Decemberists are fantastically literary, using obscure words and mixing in obscure references from history and folklore., so I’m expecting good things from the book. I’m also expecting it to be painfully hipster.

Wildwood (Wildwood Chronicles, #1)

3)MaddAddam – Margaret Atwood: My “About Me” page claims that I “love to read literary novels that don’t forget about plot and fantasy/paranormal novels that don’t forget about prose. My absolute favourite books are generally those that blur the boundaries between the two categories.”

 

Margaret Atwood has to be the Queen of writing books that fit that description. I think she’s a fantastic writer, so I’ve read all her utterly serious novels that consider what it means to be a woman in the modern world, but where she really blows me away is when she explores the same themes within a sci-fi/dystopian framework. The Handmaid’s Tale is the early example she’s always remembered for, but I think Oryx and Crake, a story of a future world of genetic modification, environmental disaster and online lives, may well be the best thing she’s ever written. The Year of the Flood was a compelling sequel,and I’m excited to read this third and final book in the trilogy. I don’t always agree with all of her politics and I suspect this instalment is going to be unbearably grim in parts, but I’m still very excited to read this. If you’ve never tried the series, I’d definitely recommend giving Oryx and Crake a go.

MaddAddam (MaddAddam Trilogy #3)

4)Moon Over Soho – Ben Aaronovitch: Of all the books on my summer reading list, Rivers of London was one of my favourites. I resisted the temptation to launch straight into the sequel, but I’m looking forward to doing so over the next couple of months. This series is a strange blend of police procedural and urban fantasy. It’s the story of a London policeman who discovers he’s a wizard and has to stop supernatural threats against the capital. It’s a brilliantly realistic portrayal of both the best and the worst of London, and it’s nearly as funny as early Terry Pratchett.

Moon Over Soho (Peter Grant, #2)

5) Snuff: Terry Pratchett: Speaking of which, it’s been brought to my attention that there is a Discworld novel that I haven’t read. I am stunned by this fact. For years, I read every new Discworld book the moment it came out, and it would generally be the highlight of my reading year. The funny thing is that it turns out my now fiance did exactly the same thing all through his teens – I love that we had an obsession in common years before we ever met. With the best will in the world, the last few books in the series have not been as good as the earlier books, but I found a brilliant review from Patrick Rothfuss (one of my more recent favourite authors) which eloquently sums up my feelings on the issue: “Not the best Discworld book I’ve read. But whinging about this not being the Best Pratchett Book Evar is sort of like complaining that the diamond ring you’ve been given is only three/quarters of a carat.” Apparently there’s an even newer one out in November, so I really need to get myself caught up.

Snuff (Discworld, #39)

6) Expo 58: Jonathan Coe – One of my all time favourite novels is Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up, closely followed another book of his, The Rotters’ Club. I’ve been underwhelmed by some of his more recent novels, but I’ve got high hopes for this one. I’m currently working for the modern day Civil Service, so a story about what it was like in the fifties sounds intriguing Add in a spy story and (fingers crossed) Coe’s trademark wit and way with words, and this could be great. Let’s hope it doesn’t disappoint me.

Expo 58

I’m going to stick to six for the moment. Any more and I’ll never get Book Three finished. So, have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think and which should I start with? What are your autumn reading plans?

 

Top Ten Tuesday – Words or phrases that make me pick up a book

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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books, class, cornwall, medici, Oxford, reading, sheffield, time, top ten tuesday, vampires

It’s time for Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly feature hosted by the blog, The Broke and the Bookish – http://brokeandbookish.blogspot.co.uk/

Each week they ask people to write a top ten list of something on a literary theme. This week, it’s one of the most intriguing ones I’ve come across so far – Word and Phrases that make you pick up a book.

Places

1.  Oxford – Yes, I happen to have written a series of books set in Oxford, but this isn’t even a fix. Long before and long after I wrote Oxford Blood, I’ve been attracted to books set at England’s premier university (I don’t want to hear it, Cambridge fans). Partly, it’s that combination of recognition and nostalgia. Knowing exactly what a road a character is walking down looks like or what beers they serve in a pub a character visits really helps you identify with them, and a book that captures the Oxford experience well brings back wonderful memories of some of the best years of my life.

Above and beyond my personal preferences however, I think Oxford is objectively a great place to set a book, or indeed, a TV series. Firstly, it’s an utterly beautiful town, and everyone loves a picturesque setting. But most importantly, it’s a place where hundreds of people who are some combination of rich, clever, young, ambitious, good-looking and eccentric come together and live in close proximity under large amounts of stress, creating the perfect recipe for drama.

Examples: Brideshead Revisited (basically invented the “isn’t Oxford lovely” genre, even though only a small proportion of the book features posh boys at university whilst the rest is really fairly depressing). Career Girls (Only the first few chapters of this are actually set at Oxford, but those few chapters give the best representation of Oxford Union politics and student journalist I’ve ever come across)

2)Sheffield/Yorkshire – Before there was Oxford, there was Sheffield. And on the whole, novels about the two couldn’t be more different. One evokes images of floppy haired youths frolicking on manicured lawns, the other, surely men downing a pint before going down t’pit or t’factory. If I see a book about Sheffield, I pick it up with a sinking heart, because I know that it’s probably going to be grim, but for the same reasons around recognition as above, I’ll usually read it anyway.

There actually aren’t that many books about Sheffield specifically (if anyone has any recommendations, let me know) but when I expand out into Yorkshire more generally, it suddenly becomes quite a wide genre. I guess all the novelists live in Leeds. And once you’re further out, whilst there’s usually still a touch of grinding poverty, you also get fantastic moorland scenery.

northern

Examples: The Northern Clemency (set in Sheffield and a rare example of looking at middle class northerners); A Woman of Substance (servant girl from the Yorkshire Moors founds her own company and becomes billionairess. I inherently approve); Wuthering Heights (the classic tale of being a bit northern).

3) St Mawes/Cornwall – I have far less claim on this area than on the other two, but my family always used to holiday in St Mawes, and that area in particular, and the whole of Cornwall more generally, has always managed to exert a hold over my imagination. Cornwall is beautiful, in a wild, windswept way, and to me, it always has this sense of otherness about it. I like it’s odd mythology and it’s saints that aren’t recognised by any established churches. I think it’s pretty much the best place in the UK to set an adventure story.

Examples: Over Sea, Under Stone; The King’s General

kings general

Time periods and historical people

4) The Medici/Renaissance Florence – there’s something about the Medici family (the Renaissance rulers of Florence) that has always caught my interest. Lorenzo the Magnificent always seems to me to be one of the few examples in history of something approaching a benevolent dictator. A novel set in Renaissance Florence (especially one featuring  the Medici family) is always going to feature beautiful buildings, political scheming, brutality, philosophy and stunning art. What’s not to like?

5) Historical Women – I’m the sort of person who sees history in terms of characters, and there’s no archetype I like better than the women who defies the narrow box she’s been put into by society to gain power. Stories featuring genuinely strong modern women are quite interesting too, but it’s the historical ones that really get me. I wrote my thesis on an eighteenth/early-nineteenth century political player called Jane Osbaldeston, and one day I’d love to write a fictionalised, sexed up account of her life.

Themes

6) Vampires – there’s not a lot to say that I haven’t said at length on this blog previously (see this link for at an-length discussion of my thoughts on the genre). Nowadays, there are far too many vampire books that don’t really do it for me at all, but there’s still something about the genre that intrigues my enough to at least check out anything vampire related, even if I then hastily cast it aside.

7)Mythology – As a kid, I was obsessed with mythology, mainly Greek, but any ancient myths were fair game. In my teens, I dabbled with paganism, and although I abandoned that long ago, I still find the concept fascinating. My areas of interest change all the time. At the moment, it’s mainly the Celtic side of things that really gets to me. If it’s well researched, mythology, either as the main focus or as a side plot, can totally make a book for me, but few things annoy me as much as authors throwing mythological names into the mix seemingly based on a few minutes on Wikipedia.

Examples: The Dark is Rising (Celtic loveliness), The Forbidden Game/The Secret Circle (One of the things that made me first admire LJ Smith’s books over and above all the other YA paranormal writers was her brilliant grasp of, respectively, Norse and Greek mythology in these books)

8. Class – There’s something about class in all it’s complexity that I find oddly compelling. Sometimes, a simple story of rich, titled folk is enough, but what I usually crave is a tale of worlds colliding, of someone struggling to fit in  or pretending to be something they are not.  This can be fun in a historical context, but I actually prefer this sort of thing in a contemporary, or at least twentieth century, setting, where I can really appreciate the nuances.

snobs

Examples- Snobs/Past Imperfect Prep (The writer of Downton Abbey is the absolute master of this genre. Snobs is the perfect read for anyone who likes those “girls meets earl” type novels – a relatively realistic take on marrying into the aristocracy, and Past Imperfect tells the story of five debutantes in the 1960s and how they are faring in the modern world.

 9. Unconventional narratives – a bit of a pretentious one this, but anything that’s told from multiple perspectives or jumps back and forth in times or is told through newspaper articles etc etc tends to make me want to give it a go. It’s usually then about a fifty/fifty chance between me loving it or hating it, but I always admire the author for giving it a go.

Examples: The Blind Assassin, Cloud Atlas, What a Carve Up

10. Time – I couldn’t think of a better way to express this one. I sort of mean any book in which time plays a major part, whether it’s telling the tale of a town over hundreds of years, following the entire life of one person, featuring time travel or just lots of flashbacks. For some reason, these sorts of ideas make me feel fascinated and intrigued in roughly equal measure.

Examples: Sarum (tells the story of the area around Stonehenge over 10 000 years, featuring a cast of thousands); The Time Travellers Wife (obviously); The Spoils of Time (runs from the 1900s to the 1960s, and it just kills me to watch the main character grow old)

sarum

My rubbish attempt at reading an extract of Oxford Blood

13 Saturday Apr 2013

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books, extract, outtakes, Oxford Blood, reading, vlog

As I mentioned the other day, I’m currently doing a blog tour to celebrate the release of Screaming Spires. One of the things I’ve been requested to do is to produce a video of me reading an extract from one of my books. After several takes, a move away from the window, and a large glass of gin, I now have a great, professional-looking video ready for the blog that’s going to be hosting this on April 22nd.

In the meantime however, I felt I had to share my first attempt, which is a bit of a train wreck, but which might hopefully make you smile.

This is taken from very early in Oxford Blood, when Harriet first meets Tom Flyte. Thanks to my fiancé for agreeing to read Tom’s lines, even if he does struggle to keep a straight face even more than I do (though as he insisted on staying off-screen, it’s not as brutally clear as my attempts not to laugh). Special features to look out for include:

*My valiant attempts to impersonate my own accent of eight years ago when reading Harriet’s lines

*Freddie’s dog trying to join in with the fun

*Freddie deciding we have reached the perfect place to stop and therefore slamming down the lid of my laptop.

In case you’ve forgotten, Oxford Blood is free at Amazon until April 15th and Screaming Spires is available now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009SQ1LPK

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009SQ1LPK

Anno Dracula and rekindling my love of vampire fiction

12 Saturday Jan 2013

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anno dracula, history of vampire books, reading, vampire fiction

Image

Despite the fact that I obviously love vampire books (you’d have to be pretty stupid to attempt to write a trilogy in a genre you disliked!) until this week, it’s actually been ages since I’d read one. Partly, this was because all the work I’d been doing on my own vampire novels had left me fairly sated, partly because it’s so hard not to compare similar books to mine. In that situation, I don’t know which is worse – the bad ones that make me mentally scream “why is this piece of rubbish selling so much better than Oxford Blood?” or the ones that make me think “I wish I had written this.”  With a really very finite amount of time to read in between my day job, writing, and attempting to maintain a social life, I’ve been trying to make an effort to make my reading time count and make sure I experience as wide a range of genres and styles as possible. Finally, the sad truth is that there are an awful lot of awful vampire books (I claimed you have to love a genre to write it – I strongly suspect that in the wake of twilight, far too many people jumped on the vampire bandwagon, with little interest in or knowledge of what had gone before). Awful in the sense of being badly written, awful in the sense of far too similar to lots of other novels and awful in the sense that although supposedly a vampire book, you could replace the characters with attractive, slightly mysterious humans and the plot would barely change (as Fifty Shades of Grey, Twilight fanfiction with humans, demonstrated so neatly).

Anyway, I finally read a new (to me) vampire novel – Anno Dracula, by Kim Newman. I only cracked because a friend had leant it to me, and looking nervously at the trashy eighties horror cover, it took me ages to get around to reading it. I’m so glad I did. It’s one of the best books, vampire or otherwise, I’ve read in a long time. After failing to give a single book five stars last year (apart from one re-read) my first read of 2013 is straight into the rarefied world of a perfect score.

I wrote a post a few months ago about how relatively few vampire fans have actually read Dracula, and how it was actually a genuinely good book rather than just an outdated, cliche-ridden founder of a genre. ( Have You Ever Actually Read Dracula?) Well all I can say is that Kim Newman is clearly fully in agreement with me. Unusually for a piece of entertainment riffing off Dracula, it takes its inspiration from the original book rather than later films or a vague idea of the story. All the obscure characters than cinema tends to ignore such as Dr Seward and Lord Godalming are present and correct. If you have read it, you’ll really appreciate the way this book continues the story of all the characters, large and small, keeping their personality intact, but also, in some cases, putting a different spin on it, eg. implying that Lucy was giving herself to Dracula willingly, and that Van Helsing’s attempts to give her blood transfusions, rather than Dracula’s ministrations, was what killed her (due to a lack of understanding about blood types).

The plot is quite straightforward. Dracula survived the events of the eponymous novel, married Queen Victoria and is now ruling Britain. As a result, people know about the existence of vampires and it’s becoming increasingly common and fashionable to become one. The basic premise is therefore broadly similar to the Parasol Protectorate, another book I really enjoyed, but I feel that this book took the concept and ran with it much better.

The first good point about the book is that it’s simply a damn good read. There are some interesting characters and it’s a real page turner.

Secondly, I found it really quite well written, with some fantastic turns of phrase. I’m quite puzzled by a few reviews that claim this isn’t the case – it’s one of the most technically adept paranormal novels I’ve ever read.

Thirdly, the author is clearly passionate about Victorian history and literature, and about vampire novels and films, and has very obviously done his research. It’s not just Dracula –  there are characters from a whole host of other old vampire novels, such as Carmilla, Varney the Vampire and the imaginatively titled The Vampyre. I haven’t read, all of those, but from his fabulous treatment of the Dracula cast, I imagine they’re pretty cleverly represented. In particular, the title character from The Vampyre, Lord Ruthven, is the Prime Minister in AD, and so awesome that I’m now desperate to read the original.

Beyond vampires, pretty much every character, from the stars to the cameos, is either a historical or literary figure, from Sherlock Holmes to Bram Stoker’s wife (the author being in jail for writing a seditious novel against the Prince Consort!), Oscar Wilde to Dr Jekyll. It was great fun spotting the references I knew, although even as a history graduate and huge vampire fan, lots of them went over my head, leading to a bit of fun on Wikipedia.

Finally, there were lots of little historical jokes (eg. some people were more concerned about Dracula being Catholic than being a vampire when judging his suitability for the throne) which were both amusing and cleverly done.

There’s a murder mystery, lots of political intrigue and a bit of romance, all of which are handled well.

To get the full benefit from this book, it’s probably useful to have read Dracula and ideally to have at least some familiarity with the Victorian period and/or Victorian literature and/or other famous vampire books and vampire mythology. Nonetheless, I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s looking for a fun but absorbing read. I rarely give five star reviews, but this has shot up into my list of favourites.

I’m now going straight onto the sequel, the Bloody Red Baron, set in World War One with Dracula leading the German air-force.

In another blog post, I commented on how important I think it is for writers to read, to maximise both inspiration and enthusiasm. (Writers: Don’t Forget to Read and Write) Reading this has rekindled my love of vampire novels, and I suspect can only help encourage me to finish the Cavaliers Book Three. With this in mind, on Monday I’m writing a post detailing just what it is I enjoy about vampire novels and whilst their a worthwhile genre, not just pure trash. Check that out, and in the meantime, I really can’t recommend Anno Dracula enough. Pop over to Amazon and get yourself a copy – http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005G4GJJQ

(Oh and whilst you’re there, if you haven’t already, get yourself a free Kindle copy of Oxford Blood before the promotion ends tonight –  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009SQ1LPK  – both are also available at Amazon.com)

NOTE: I obviously don’t own the rights to the Anno Dracula cover pictured at the top of this post. As I’m only using it as part of my attempts to sing the book’s praises, I hope the the authors, publishers and lawyers don’t mind too much!

2012 Reading Part Two – Awards and Reflections

21 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by georgianaderwent in Uncategorized

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books, reading, year in review

After yesterday’s stats and lists, as promised, here’s the more interesting part – a few thoughts on the specific books I’ve loved, hated or had some other strong reaction to. Each entry links to my review on Goodreads for anyone feeling particularly interested:

Favourite book

Sadly I can’t say there was any one book this year that really blew me away or that I’d add to my all times favourites list. The Wise Man’s Fear came close however. It’s proper, full-on epic fantasy. It’s one of the few books on this list that I read in hardback rather than e-book, and ironically probably the one that would have most benefited from being read on my Kindle, as I nearly broke my wrists trying to lift it. It’s the sort of book you can seriously geek out to (I might have visited the odd forum speculating about how the series is going to end..) but at the same time, it’s incredibly funny and well written. In many ways its very different, but as a rough guide, if you like a Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) you’ll probably like this.

This also wins the “most desperately awaiting the sequel” award.

My runner up would be Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which created an entire history of English magic and had some truly amazing scenes, but dragged a bit too much for me to truly love it.

Biggest Disappointment (or the “I’ve been meaning to read this for ages and now I wish I hadn’t bothered” award)

This is a tie between The Lies of Locke Lamora and Consider Phlebas.

In the case of the first one, various people told me that if I liked modern fantasy (which as the above shows, I really do) this was a must-read. In the end I just couldn’t get into it at all and have no intention of reading the sequel.

The second was almost the opposite. I’ve never read much sci-fi and wanted a book to lead me in gently. Everyone seemed to recommend this, but instead of playing around with genre conventions (like all my favourite fantasy) this just seemed to embrace them. I am however planning to give the sequel, The Player of Games, a whirl, as both its synopsis and its reviews suggest something much more to my tastes.

The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy also deserves an honourable mention in this category, for demonstrating to me that what’s hilarious in a weekly 200 word newspaper column doesn’t necessarily work as a full length novel. 

Most conflicted review

Girl Reading. Basically, this seems like a collection of short stories, but the author is keen for it to be taken as an artistic whole. Some of the segments were painfully dull, others were some of the best things I’ve read in years. The author was clearly incredibly talented, but this, her first book, just didn’t quite work for me. I could easily have given this anything between 2 stars and 5 stars with a straight face. As a bit of a cop out, I went for 3. Read the review for more details. It’s probably also the review I’m proudest of.

The “Giving this two stars is breaking my heart” award / the “ruining teenage memories” award.

Books 5 -7 of The Vampire Diaries, but especially 7: Nightfall, Shadow Souls, Midnight.

LJ Smith is one of my top ten favourite authors and that it was the original Vampire Diaries trilogy that, way back in my teens, first got me into vampire fiction. I re-read them last year, and despite them being aimed at teenagers and despite the fact that I’ve read tons of other vampire books since, I still loved them.

And then I discovered that a new trilogy had been written.

I’d heard bad things, so I stayed away for a long time but  finally I could resist no longer. In the case of 5 and 6, if they’d been written by someone else and not meant as part of the series, they’d have been okay. Not a patch on the earlier ones, but respectable enough paranormal fiction.  And then I read 7, and God help me, it’s just a bad book, plain and simple. I gave it two stars, my lowest rating of the year. And this is an author I’ve sent fan mail to in the past. It almost made me want to cry. On the positive side, another of the author’s books, The Forbidden Game, was my only re-read and my only five star review. 

The “What the hell? Did I write this and then forget I’d done so?” award

Oxford Whispers (Not to be confused with Oxford Blood)

I was searching for my book on Amazon (as let’s face it, authors are wont to do) and I found this in the search listings.

  • Set at Oxford University- check
  • “fish out of water” female lead – check
  • Historical English Civil War aspect – check
  • Paranormal themes – check
  • Posh boy love interest – check

 

I showed my boyfriend the Amazon page, and his response was “are you sure you didn’t write that?”

Anyway, I’ve since read it, and it’s a fun read, especially if you like Oxford and the Civil War and sexy posh boys, which I really rather do. And it’s not about vampires at all, but rather ghosts and voodoo,  and the story isn’t actually very similar at all, but the superficial similarities are still enough to blow my mind. 

So have you read any of these books? Do you whole heartedly agree with my thoughts or are you unable to believe I have such awful taste?!

 

2012 Reading Part One – List and Stats

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by georgianaderwent in Books

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books, reading, year in review

This year, for the first time ever, I resolved to review every book I read. It’s not quite the end of the year, and I intend to boost the total quite a lot over the next ten day , thanks to the combination of books as presents and time to read.

However, everyone seems to be doing their end of year book recaps this week, so I thought I’d join in. Tomorrow, I’m putting up my rather random awards. For today though, as I’m in a very geeky mood, here on some stats on my reading and a list of what I read:

    •  I read 25 books. I’d have liked it to be more and I’d estimate that it usually would be, but writing/editing/promoting my books inevitably eat into my reading time.
    •  2 were fiction (both self-publishing advice) the others were all fiction. Apart from my university years when I’d probably read about 4 history books a week, that’s always been roughly my ration. I like my writing to be as far removed from reality as possible.
    • I was keen to review books that I re-read cover to cover, as well as new ones. In the end, there was only one re-read, The Forbidden Game. I was surprised but pleased to find I still loved it almost as much as when I was a teenager.
    •  It’s a slightly artificial distinction, but of the fiction, I’d say 10 were YA and 13 “proper adult.”  Note to self: grow up!
    •  I don’t like the distinction that’s often made between “literary fiction” and “genre fiction” Out of interest however, I’d say that at face value, I read:
          • 2 books that were fairly clearly literary (probably my worst record since my teens, but in my defence I was researching a vampire novel)
          •  9 that were broadly paranormal
          • 4 that were fantasy
          • 1 that was sci-fi
          • 4 dystopian (when that did become a genre all of its own?!)
          • 2 “chick-lit” (urgh)
          • 1 crime
          • I’d add that 2 that I’ve classed as fantasy and one that I’ve classed as crime could easily be regarded as literary too by a sympathetic, open-minded reviewer.
  • Ratings-wise I gave:
          • Three 2 stars
          • Eight 3 stars
          • Twelve 4 stars
          • One five stars
  • Looking at that I think I’m definitely on the generous side with reviews (I’m not sure all those ‘four starrers’ really merited it) but I think it shows I’m also getting good at picking outs books I’m going to enjoy. There’s nothing worse than when someone gives a book a 1 star review on the basis that “I hate vampires/elves/time travel, they’re stupid and over-done” when the blurb made abundantly clear that that’s what the book is about.

Here’s a list of the books, in order of when I read them.

  1. Forbidden Game Bind-Up (LJ Smith)
  2. The Wise Man’s Fear (Patrick Rothfuss)
  3. The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch)
  4. Soulless – The Parasol Protectorate (Gail Carriger)
  5. The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
  6. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
  7. Got You Back (Jane Fallon)
  8. Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)
  9. Pretties (Scott Westerfeld)
  10. The Slap (Christos Tsiolkas)
  11. Girl Reading (Katie Ward)
  12. The Fledging of Az Gabrielson (Jay Amory)
  13. Nightfall – Vampire Diaries 5 (LJ Smith)
  14. The Urth of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe)
  15. Shadow Souls – Vampire Diaries 6 (LJ Smith)
  16. Midnight – Vampire Diaries 7 (LJ Smith)
  17. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke)
  18. The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy (Fiona Neill)
  19. The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)
  20. Smart Self-Publishing (Zoe Winters)
  21. Consider Phelbas (Iain M Banks)
  22. Self-Printed: The Sane Person’s Guide to Self-Publishing (Catherine Howard)
  23. The Iron Witch (Karen Mahoney)
  24. Oxford Whispers (Marion Croslydon)
  25. Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)

So how does that compare with your reading for the year, in terms of quantity, quality or variety? What did you think of any of these books?

Tune in tomorrow for my pick of some of the best and worst of these, alongside some more personal awards…

E-Readers and their haters – Love words, not paper

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by georgianaderwent in Personal, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

e-readers, reading, Writing

Though I am normally a cheerful, laid back sort of person, when I allow myself to think about literary issues that irritate me, a variety of things come to mind.*

However, currently winning by a huge margin is people that claim that they hate e-readers, or worse, that they are destroying literature. I’ve seen this said far too often, from some authors, from serious commentators and from angry people on the internet.  See for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/jonathan-franzen-ebooks-values

Now, I have no problem with people who personally prefer to stick to physical books – that’s a perfectly valid opinion. I can see that owners of book shops aren’t keen (though I’d tend to assume that most people who use e-readers had been buying their physical books online for years anyway). What I can’t stand is when people act as though this makes them almost morally superior, or at least a greater lover of literature. People who say things like, “you can’t beat the smell of a book,” or “it’s just not the same when you’re not holding a book in your hand,” as if  to imply that you, sitting there with a lump of plastic in your hand, are a philistine who can’t appreciate such rarefied pleasures.

To those people I say, “You’re not a lover of literature, you’re a fetishiser of paper.”  When I say that I love books,  what I mean is that I love the text contained within them. I love being transported to a different world, or getting a new perspective on the one we live in. I love marvelling at a beautiful piece of perfectly crafted prose, and equally, gasping at a roughly written but breathtaking plot. I love falling in love with characters, falling in hate with characters, cheering characters on or wishing for them to meet a horrible fate.

Whilst I am doing all this, as long as the text is legible, I don’t care how it’s being presented to me – paperback, hardback, e-book or papyrus scroll.

Oxford Blood - Papyrus Scroll Edition

Oxford Blood – Papyrus Scroll Edition

To me, people who talk about the sensual pleasures of a book, and literally mean the physical object rather than the words, are massively missing the point. Yes, a beautiful cover and thick pages can be nice, but they are definitely an extra little treat rather than something central to the enjoyment of the text. Thinking otherwise is like going to a restaurant that serves the most wonderful food and complaining that you don’t like the perfectly functional plates.

Besides, are most modern books really things of such beauty? I wrote my thesis on someone called George Osbaldeston. In a moment of madness/brilliance, I bought myself, at auction, an original copy of his autobiography (seemingly the enthusiasm of publishers for minor celebrities that I complain of below goes back several centuries). There aren’t many copies in existence. It’s bigger than my computer monitor. The pages are ragged and must, I think, have originally had to be cut open with a knife. It has pride of place on my coffee table. The day it arrived in the post (via a slightly disgruntled postman) I basically hugged it to my chest. Visitors can never resist looking inside.

If all physical books were like this, maybe I'd come to a different conclusion

Now, if every book was like that, I could sort of see the doubters’ point. But let’s face it, the vast majority of physical books that I, and I suspect most people, have ever read are old tatty paperbacks – perfectly serviceable, but hardly works of art. Even modern hardbacks, with a few exceptions, aren’t really something you want to coo over and proudly display on a shelf.

I genuinely think that e-readers are doing marvels for increasing people’s exposure to literature. I’ve definitely bought more books since I’ve owned one, partly because they’re cheaper, partly because it’s so easy – click a button and start reading ten seconds later. Another unsung joy of e-readers is the ability to download classical texts for free. I’ve downloaded and read a variety of out of copyright books that I’ve always sort of meant to read but would never have made the effort to go out to a shop and hand over money for. And of course, ereaders make it a million times easier for self-published authors (alas, good and bad) to get their work out there.

Anyone who truly loves literature should be cheering their existence. That this is far from universally the case is a depressing sign of some people’s terror of change. Remember, love words, not paper.

*For anyone who cares, here’s a brief list of my other complaints:

  • Readers who assume that “self-published” is synonymous with “terrible.”
  • Writers who help to perpetrate that stereotype by self-publishing badly spelt, unedited rubbish in huge quantities
  • Agents/publishers that won’t take a chance on a new author but will give gigantic advances for ghost-written “autobiographies” of minor celebrities in their early twenties who have done nothing but the one thing they are vaguely famous for.
  • Reviewers that are so cruel and personal you’d think the author they’re attacking had murdered their entire family rather than written a book that wasn’t quite their cup of tea. It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I know it almost certainly will one day. Reading reviews like this of books I love makes me furious, but even reading them of books I hated upsets me.
  • And one last very specific one I’ve seen a lot of recently – Reviewers that state that they don’t like books that are written in the third person. Fine, just dismiss the vast majority of literature.

Writers – Don’t forget to read and write

11 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by georgianaderwent in Personal, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

nanowrimo, other books, personal memories, reading, Writing

I would imagine that most fiction writers originally got into writing for the same reason – because they loved reading. Devour enough books and the urge to write one yourself becomes almost irresistible, whether you’re inspired by a great book or thinking ‘I can do better than that,’ about a mediocre one.

It was certainly the case for me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been constantly reading. I was one the sort of child who had to be regularly told to stop reading and play outside (see bizarre picture below for just how much tiny me loved books!) I’ve long believed that the longest, dullest train journey would be fine as long as I had a moderately interesting book. When I found a really good one, I could disappear into it for days.

I’ve been writing for nearly as long as I’ve been reading. I wrote endless short stories as a young kid, thoroughly encouraged by my mum, who loves reading and writing as much as I do.* I wrote a surprisingly decent (for a prepubescent anyway) fantasy novella at the age of ten, and a proper paranormal novel at the age of seventeen. I still maintain that the latter would be sellable if I could ever be bothered to edit out the worst of the teenage ‘emo-ness’ and give the characters sensible names.

Image

For the last two months however, books have absolutely dominated my life in a way they never have before. I published Oxford Blood on October 19th. For weeks before, I’d been editing and formatting and working with my cover designer. For weeks afterwards, I’ve been promoting and maintaining a web presence, as well as editing Screaming Spires. And yet last week, something suddenly struck me. I had neither done any proper writing nor read an actual book in months. Something seemed horribly wrong about this scenario.

Therefore, despite the fact that I was desperately trying to edit Screaming Spires in time for a January 2013 release, I decided to take a step back and have a go at NaNoWriMo to get the bulk of The Cavaliers Book Three  written. It might mean Book Two slips a little, but at the moment, I couldn’t care less. It’s going really well so far, and had reminded me how much I love both writing and my series.

Last night however, I stepped back even further. I try to review every book I read, and a quick glance at my Amazon profile shows that between January and September of this year, I read 20 novels. Since then, nothing. I work full time (and I do mean full time – 10 hour days usually) and in the evenings I do a lot of work on my books. Taking time out to actually read seemed like it would make the whole edifice collapse around me, especially once I started NNWM-ing. How could I reach 50 000 words when I was wasting time reading someone else’s?

Then yesterday, as I tend to do, I popped into a charity shop on my way back from Pilates. And because I’m a sucker for a beautiful cover, I bought this – http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004LB59QO –  to treat myself to at some point. Then I accidently started reading it. The book was pretty good, though that isn’t the point of this post – if you’re interested in my thoughts on The Iron Witch, check out Goodreads, where I’ll endeavour to write a review within the next few days). I ended up reading half of it last night and the other half this morning, feeling slightly guilty, but too wrapped up in the story to care. But then guess what? Far from failing behind, I wrote 4000 words today. Reading something new reminded me why I love books and thus why I love to write. It revitalised me.

So to any writers out there, especially those stuck in a rut, feeling a bit disillusioned or spending all their time blogging/tweeting/”Goodreading” etc, however busy you are, and however desperate to promote your current releases, make sure you’re actually writing and make sure you’re actually reading. Never forget that the former is the point of it all and the latter is almost certainly your original inspiration.

*One thing all authors whose books contain ahem, saucy scenes, seem to get asked if whether they were embarrassed to let their mum read them. My mum used to churn stuff out for Mills and Boon. I was more worried that she’d offer critical editorial advice than that she’d be offended!

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Oxford Blood (The Cavaliers, #1)

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