Any Book, Any Time: Palestine

In truth, I’ve actually been reading a bunch of comics this year. I’m always reading comics! But lots of them are long-run series where I’m regularly chekcing for updates or binging them until I’m up-to-date rather than a condensed end-to-end piece. Joe Sacco’s Palestine is a full graphic novel of his experiences as a journalist investigating the lives of Palestinians under Israel’s occupation in 1991.

If you’re a big fan of comics, this will be hit-and-miss. People who like non-fiction style comics will enjoy this, people who want adventure and magic may struggle. This very real and upfront account of civilian lives along the West Bank doesn’t shy from the fear and violence that ordinary people face, nor the cold story-seeking attitude that journalists have for finding something that stands out from the usual stories. It’s brutal, honest, and painfully timeless.

If you’re a comic fan who goes for art, this isn’t really a flashy art style and most of the panels are fairly still scenes of people talking. It’s dialogue heavy and there’s a fair few pages that are extremely text-heavy, so this appeals more to the reader rather than the viewer style of comic fan.

I think it’s incredibly strong point is genuinely how worryingly relevant it is. I was loaned the copy I read from my father who I told, after reading it, “It could be right now, except no one has smart phones”. If you’re after some literature on the situation and want to better understand it in the longer-term, this is a good place to start.

Would very much recommend to comic fans and non-comic readers alike!

Any Book, Any Time: A Book of Luminous Things

I wish I knew how to sell the idea of reading poetry anthologies to people. Recommending a book or film or comic is a little easier, but saying “Hey, here’s a book where every 4th page makes me have a profoundly intense emotional reaction, unrelated to the previous one, but the ones in between not so much,” doesn’t seem to catch people’s attention so much. However, this is how this anthology of international poetry felt to me, and it’s the first time i’ve dog-eared a book in a long time (don’t come for me, I’m keeping this book for a while!).

I can’t say I’m in love with all of Czeslaw Milosz’ poetry choices, though the introductions to each poem and the choices to break them into neat themes helped me appreciate each one in a way I might have missed otherwise (though I will argue that ‘Situations‘ is a little too vague a subject). I can say I am extremely thankful to have been introduced to a huge range of new poets to read, and was especially delighted that I found myself repeatedly dog-earing multiple works by Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska). Anthologies like this are a brilliant way of learning about writers who will speak to your tastes, and even just finding single little gemstones that you end up reading over and over again like having a song on loop.

I think this is a nice collection of works, spanning a broad period of times and locations. I think books like this are a great place to get into finding what you like and going from there, though I think were I to pick myself an anathology in the future I would like to narrow it to ‘contemporary’ or ‘period’ collections or maybe to specific regions to get a better grasp of context for each poem and have them sit a little more neatly together.

Any Book, Any Time: Gideon the Ninth

Despite the intimidating scale of this book, a heavy recommendation from a friend and some confidence in my reading habits brought me to hunting down a second-hand copy. Immediately I knew that this is the sort of book I would have gone nuts over; something that would have sat comfortably next to The Left Hand of God and The Way of Shadows. After seeing non-stop posting about this book on social media, I am glad to finally have taken the time to sit down and really face the challenge of reading a big book that I know I’ll love.

Somehow, this didn’t take me over a month to read, despite the break since my last blog post (I was continuing with the next two volumes of Heaven’s Officlal Blessing). It really only took just over 3 weeks, actually, which feels like a record for me. That is partly due to the shorter chapter lengths and fun prose-style. I likely would have finished it sooner, were the book not of an impractical scale for easy travel reading – there’s only so much space in my bag! But I can reassure any reader who wants to attempt something chunkier but is put off by the exhausting investment, you can do it!

Tamsyn Muir’s prose style is fun, bouncy, and easy to binge. The titular character Gideon is vibrant and bursting with personality that viciously pulls the reader along with her on the story. I think if you’re a fan of the gothic YA genre with lots of fighting, dark magic, cool settings and a bit of horror survivalism, this will really be up your alley. The world of the story, the characters, and the unravelling mystery are all really strong points that sell this book. I easily fell in love with several characters and the sheer ernest sincerity expressed between some of them was a really nice breath of fresh air within the dark and gloomy setting. It’s easy to have books like this where character bonds are shallow or seen as weak, so it was nice for this to be so invested in the strong inter-personal dynamics.

My only criticisms are that maybe the choice to have Gideon speak the way she does can feel very jarring in the world she’s in, as it’s not clear where she would have picked up the phrase she does. Also there were just far too many characters introduced all at once… Though it being the sort of YA it is, it’s hardly a spoiler for me to say that the numbers dwindle down soon enough. I am aware this is the first in a trilogy so this thought might change with the next book, but for a space fantasy there is extremely little relevance in it being space-wide, and if anything the entire book could take place on islands on an ocean and it wouldn’t change a thing. I’m hoping the space and planets aspect comes to be more significant in the sequels.
Though this is entirely cosmetic, the taglines for this book could not be worse. If the taglines look tacky and the blurb kind of offputting to you, just ignore them. I promise you the book is good.

If you’re looking for a fun, dramatic story with great characters and interesting inter-personal dynamics, and you’re wanting to sink your teeth into a bigger book commitment than yet another Japanese cat book that I’ve recommended, and maybe you also miss being able to read the stuff you did as a teenager, Gideon the Ninth is a great time and I suggest you check it out.

Any Book, Any Time: Heaven Official’s Blessing

My original plan had been to read and review the entire series, until on purchasing the 3rd volume I saw there were 8 on the shelf. The author, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, had also written The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, which is 4 volumes, with the 4th being almost half the size of the first 3. Despite reading the first of HOB in 3 days, I knew it wasn’t likely I was going to be finishing all 8 any time soon given I would need the funds first to do so (books are hardly cheap!). So, let’s look at the first one as an example of the rest of the series.

Now before I begin, I am aware that, like GDC, Heaven Official’s Blessing was written as one full novel then divided up and published in several volumes. Volume 1 is better treated like manga volumes where ongoing serliased chapters are collected, rather than something as intentionally structured as individual novels in a series. I am, essentially, reviewing the first 1/8th of a larger novel.

I enjoyed GDC immensely, so I naturally am enjoying HOB as a natural progression of the author’s style and interests. The characters are fun and distinct from the get-go, the setting begs to be explored, and the story sets off at a strong pace to hook you straight away. Like with earlier works there is mystery, horror and political conflict as major players in the story that construct the narrative around the romantic tension of the main characters.

Obviously a big reason I was able to race through this first book is because it is aimed at teens and young adult readers, so the text is larger and more spaced out, there’s beautiful illustrations, and more than anythig the prose style is light and informal. Compare that to me dragging my way through the dense, slow and disengaging style of Murakami’s work, I was like a starved person being given a buffet.

My downsides are that the books themselves are very large, making them difficult for commute readings as they don’t fit in my bag so easily and take up a lot of space on my lap on a busy train. Also the chapters are a little longer than I’ve become used to, so pausing mid-way if I’m reading in short bursts is pretty awkward. This is great for binge-reading on days off or geting a few chapters read during lunch break, but not so great for the shorter times when I’m trying to reduce aimless phone scrolling.

I’m excited to work my way through the rest of the books, but will have to take a break midway to read some other things until I get some sort of discount bulk order or a book token. I know I could probably read it online, but I am trying to stop staring at screens so often.

So far, can very much recommend to fans of fantasy, drama and romance. If you enjoyed GDC you’ll enjoy HOB.

Any Book, Any Time: The Wind-Up Bird

Rather than do a book a month, my current goal now is to read as many books as I can in a year. I’ll be honest and say I’ll maybe manage 14-16 instead of 12. But it can’t hurt to try. Putting the effort in is what gets results, and a book a month has finally started getting very doable in a way that I think I can push for just a bit more.

So, the first book of the year: The Wind-Up Bird by Haruki Murakami. This was gifted to me for Christmas after I had noticed the author’s work at my local Waterstones earlier in the month. Of course I’d heard of him, and that he was supposed to be a fairly notable author, but never read his work before. I can decidedly say I am not interested in reading another one ever again.

Burning Through Books: Gathering Moss

I was very kindly gifted a copy of this sweet little number by Robin Wall Kimmerr by a fellow fungi enthusiast who praised the beautiful writing style of this book. After reading it, I can definitely say that if you love a well-written autobiography or cozy travel writing, this is the ecology equivalent! Definitely a rare gem in the field of ecology literature and a lovely introduction to reading about moss.

Burning Through Books: The Book Thief

I’m sure at this point I hardly need to introduce Markus Zusak’s international bestseller. I spent much of my highschool hears being recommended this book, never getting around to it, getting recommended it in Univesity, still not getting around to it, then finally bought myself a copy at Hay Festival earlier this year. It took me until the start of November to finally tackle this absolute tome of a book.

Burning through Books: Causes in Common

I’m a simple person. I see a Daryl Leeworthy book and I buy it. And honesltly of the 2 I’ve read, both have been great investment, so I’m on a 100% success rate! If you enjoyed A Little Gay History of Wales, then I have great news for you about Causes in Common.

Burning Through Books: The Blue Book of Nebo

My mother handed me this book after being recommended it by the Hay Festival newsletter, observing that it had a similar feeling to one of my own works. My observation is that the only similarity is the fact there is an apocalypse in it. Something neither I, nor Manon Steffan Ros, invented, though I imagine we’ve likely been inspired by similar works. If you like post-apocalypse fiction aimed at young people, this particular book lies more in the slower, inter-personal relationships side of that rather than the drama and adventure of YA apocalypse.

Burning Through Books: Hummingbird Salamander

I was lent this book by Jeff Vandermeer as part of a bookswap and I’m glad I was as it isn’t something I would have chosen to read on my own. As a result I’ve found myself very invested in this unexpected story. The very zero-to-one-hundred style of story gripped me and has me turning pages on the busiest of commutes.