Recent reads July 2014.

Unless you don't know me at all then you will realise that it is a miracle if I can find time to do anything other than survive most days what with chasing after the hunter of electrical wires... so when the diminutive terror is asleep I mainly attempt to contain the chaos. (As well as other mundane but sadly necessary activities.) In spite of all this I have managed to find some time to write a few blogs and even read a couple of books!

One of the books I managed to read was World War Z by Max Brooks which I got out of my local library whilst grabbing a few family/baby recipe books to help me feed my little monkey.

Now I guess I'm a bit weird because I'm a bit squeamish about the idea of death and dismemberment but I do enjoy a good zombie book.  I don't know why but I guess it's the idea of surviving insurmountable odds and impossible situations.  That and I find the status-quo of modern life a bit boring so I prefer the drama of dragons, space battles or just a load of reanimated corpses.

One of the things that I liked about this book is the narrative style as it is not just told from one point of view you end up finding out how people experienced the outbreak in China, America, Cuba, Japan and a lot of other places. Some stories seemed a bit boring where as others were a little close to home for me and made me sit up thinking what I would do with my little one in a crisis situation like a civil war. (My brain hates me and wants to think about all the things at the wrong times of night. Annoying brain!)

After I worked out how this book's narrative worked I ended up getting hooked and reading it in a few days which is a lot faster than I have managed to read anything recently.  I would recommend this book as it is interesting to look at the idea of a zombie apocalypse from a number of different perspectives and it's always good if a book makes you think. Probably not so good if it gives you nightmares but swings and roundabouts, eh?

The next book I read was The Long War by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett which is a sequel to their previous collaboration The Long Earth.

This story is set 25 years from the start of the previous novel and the events of step day are still being felt in the original or Datum Earth and across the stepwise Earths.

This book tells the story of the mistreatment of sapient natural steppers known as the Trolls, tensions between the Datum and the colonists who have stepped away to other Earths and the people exploring even further into the long Earth than has previously been managed. While I enjoyed this book I didn't find it quite as engrossing as World War Z but then again it is a different type of improbable/impossible scenario... none the less as the book follows at least four possibly more different characters it takes time for the situation to be explained.

I enjoyed the different ways the characters we follow saw the long Earth and how their adventures intertwined so I carried on reading despite it seeming like it was taking a long time for the war in the title to actually happen.  I felt like the main event which was foreshadowed was reserved for the last few chapters to get the readers hooked just like in the last book, so you will need patience if you're waiting for the action.  Despite the slow pace of this book I want to know what happens next and read The Long Mars! I wonder how long it will be until the library gets that in?

So whilst I wait for the library to get The Long Mars in I'm reading Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett which I could describe as a guilty pleasure but I'm not po faced.

I love Terry Pratchett's writing style even if it isn't considered literature. Then again James Joyce's Ulysses is still sitting on my bookshelf... I tell myself that I'll finish reading it one day.  So that's what I've been reading other than Tabby McTatt & What the Ladybird Heard x 100.

Recent Reads.

It's been a while since I last regaled the Internet with tales of the last books I have read.  Understandably I didn't manage to read very much in November and I think my prose suffered a little for that.

However, in December I made up for it by reading five books and neglected my writing. Well technically I read three novels and two graphic novels...

The first book I read was one I started trying to read another year but couldn't get into but this time I  persevered and ended up getting entranced by Life of Pi.

This is as the title would suggest is a story about someones life.  The life of Piscine Molitor Patel, aka Pi and the various challenges in his life but mainly his watery ordeal.  I'll let you get hold of a copy or watch the film and find out the rest of the story.

Almost immediately after finishing Life of Pi I was given another book to read.  This book was a book that Paul had got out of the library that appealed to me but was unable to steal off him when he borrowed it for himself. Later he got in out of Sheffield Central Library again especially for me.  The book? Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.

When Paul was reading this book it appealed to me because of the mixture of magical elements and contemporary crime fiction story.  If you know me then you'll know I do enjoy a bit of magic or science fiction entwined into my yarns... crime stories aren't normally my cup of tea but I've enjoyed Jasper Fford's nursery crime series, Paul Magr's Brenda & Effy/ Iris Wildthyme books and Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series so maybe my tastes are changing as I age.

So I ended up devouring that book in a matter of days and enjoyed the mixture of crime drama tropes, magic, geeky references and reminders of puppet shows I hadn't thought about in years.  It made me laugh doubly hard at this years Doctor Who Christmas special actually...

Well once I'd finished Rivers of London I launched into reading the sequel Moon Over Soho that Paul has kindly renewed for me after he'd read it.

This book was just as enjoyable as the first one with the continued magical crime fighting adventures of everyone's favourite apprentice wizard copper and techno geek Peter Grant.  I probably read these books a bit too fast but I did really enjoy them, the only tiny bit that irritated me was that the main character is sometimes a bit dismissive about everywhere that isn't London but then again I'm not a Londoner.  Maybe that's a plus point for some people... I guess if I ever finish my novels people will ask why my characters are always Northern lasses but I guess that's all I know!

Still I'm looking forward to stealing the next book in this series from Paul when he gets it out of the library.  I also like how Ben Aaronovitch has written for Doctor Who like Paul Magrs. (I told my Paul this and he was not impressed! Even less so when I suggested I should try to do the same...)

Next on my book binge hit list was Volume 7 The Calm Before, this was a long anticipated read as I hadn't had my fix of the Walking Dead graphic novels for a year by this point.

I was lucky enough to receive this as one of mine and Paul's joint Christmas presents along with the next book, which was unsurprisingly Volume 8 Made to Suffer.

Both were gripping graphic novels and I won't give any spoilers away to anyone who hasn't got this far but they do a good job of telling the tale of a group of survivors and the trials they face after the zombie apocalypse.  If you haven't read them, give them a go they're brilliant but be warned you'll get hooked fast! Now I just need an excuse for getting volume 9...

After completing these I then started on to my next lot of literary crack and dove into George R.R Martin's A Game of Thrones.

Obviously this is a completely different book to Life of Pi, Rivers of London, Moon Over Soho or The Walking Dead Graphic novels but I think it's good to read something different for a while.  This is good because my sister and her boyfriend bought me this...

Technically it's seven books although it's kind of five I am reliably informed.  So far I'm about a quarter of the way through A Game of Thrones and I'm not not running to read it at every opportunity but I don't like to put it down when I start.  This is obviously a good thing as I can also get some other things done like write this! (Although I should be working on my fiction *cough cough*...)  It also reminds me of the days when I used to hole myself away with fantasy books and read until the books were finished, also another good sign.

I think that this A Song of Ice and Fire boxset should keep me out of trouble for a little bit or at least until I don't know mid June?

Now I think I'm going to attempt to introduce my anti-heroine to her latest predicament then nestle down with a good book!