To Kill A Mockingbird

I first bought this when I was 16 and I suddenly realised I should read it properly.  I still have my old copy so just pulled it off my shelf and started.  To be honest I haven't got many memories of reading this.  I really don't think I ever managed to read it all!  ( I think the boring cover and small print affected my judgement and I found the opening Boo Radley storyline a bit hard going.)  But reading it again this week it has blown me away. What a fantastic book. I have been in tears every day on the bus this week because of the beautiful, honest writing and the clarity of the story. ( at least my unpopular train replacement bus is fairly empty so no one has seen what a state I have got myself into!) 

Harper Lee's winning formula is writing this from the perspective of a young girl who has lots of spirit, bravado and love of live.  The  characters who live in Maycomb, Alabama in 1935 are so well described by Scout I could almost smell them. All types of people are described: white trash, the desperately poor, snobs, gossips, mentally ill people, drug addicts, liars, violent drunks, lonely people, the honest and the brave and then there is the disenfranchised black community( who live in a tight community behind the rubbish dump.) A group of people in which the majority can't read. A group of people who are almost universally looked down upon and feared by their white neighbours.

 Cleverly nobody is judged in this book because as Harper Lee says the only way you understand people is by trying to 'stand in their shoes'. 

Atticus Finch's defence of Tom Robinson , a young black guy who is accused of raping a 19 year old white girl ,is the main focus of the central part of this book but to me this was just one section of amazing insights into the hypocrisy and petty minded fears of humans. The court room scene is electrifying and it is so obvious that everyone knows that Tom Robinson is innocent but as he is black he just has to be found guilty. Atticus having to deal with the strong belief that he will fight for Tom even though he knows it will be a lost cause is so sad, yet also so empowering , because in the end the town's conscience is put into the spot light  and everyone knows they have all been judged and all found guilty. 

Having the story told from the perspective of a funny, lively tomboy keeps this book fresh. It's funny and totally free of sentimentality. Scout sees things as they are and tells things as they are. Atticus is just so lovely to his kids too. What a super star of a dad! 

  The attack at the end is particularly grim yet also uplifting. All I can say is thank god Scout was wearing a Halloween costume, a piece of reinforced metal bacon, which managed to protect her! Later Scout said she was never afraid while it was happening and that it is only in books and in our imaginations where really scary things happen.  A great example of what Maycomb County had just been told, that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.

I sure am not going to wait 28 years before I read this again! Question is will I go and buy Go Set a Watchman now? Ummm.

The Miniaturist

I have devoured this book in less than 5 days and the sense of place and atmosphere of a freezing cold Amsterdam in the 17th century was excellent and I was totally enthralled at first, but ultimately this huge best seller left me rather cold too.  I felt really disappointed at the end. So many plot lines were just left dangling or just fizzled out. It's that same feeling of :

"ehh?!!  I didn't get that."   which I haven't felt so strongly since I read The Time Travellers Wife. ( another over hyped book!) 

The atmosphere and beautiful writing were great and I was totally sucked in but there were far too many holes in the plot, whole chunks left unexplained, 'big' reveals which were totally obvious and just as things were getting interesting the book ended!

 I think the writer was just trying to pack far too much modern stuff into a 17th century back drop. Ideas about gender, race, homophobia, greed, corruption, bigotry, along with food and religion were all packed in and  the 18 year old main character seemed to take it all in her stride. The title is misleading too, the bloody miniaturist just fizzled away. The main plot device which made me read this book at speed was a damp squib! I didn't get it. Maybe I just wanted a rational explanation at the end but this book just petered out. Oh well, Jessie Burton seems to have done lots of research and she creates a great atmosphere but this book was no way as satisfying at the end as I wanted it to be. This book ended up being more like a painting to me, rather flat! 

The House of Silk

A Sherlock Holmes pistache of which I wasn't expecting much and wow,  I was really surprised.  I loved this book.  I enjoyed reading it a lot and my bus journeys last week were a dream as I read through all the traffic disruption quite happily!
Horowitz did a great job keeping in the spirit of Conan Doyle but also updating the story for the 21st century reader.  The plot was great,a bit slow at the beginning but then it took off and I was hooked.  Everything was in this including murder, disguise, abuse, drugs, corruption, poisoning, and an escape from a locked room.  I never guessed the solution to anything and every twist and turn was a total surprise for me.  yes, it was a great read and I suddenly have realised how much I love mysteries and murders.  This book was not violent at all but the implied violence was there and to be honest that is all you need sometimes.  Plus the research into Victorian London was brilliant.  Horowitz took the reader into much seedier and sordid places than were common in the original books. (Dr. Watson wrote this book from his retirement home.  He was recording a case after Holmes death, a case which was too sensitive to publish in his lifetime.)  It was a great story and to be honest I'm a bit sad I read it so quickly. I wont give anything away but if you are a fan of Holmes then this book is for you. My only problem is I couldn't get the face of Benedict Cumberbatch  out of my head as I read it.

The Snowman

I picked up this book rather tentatively because I wasn't a great Stieg Larson fan. ( the yellow sticker on the book, didn't work for me at all) But I'm glad I did because the only thing they have in common is that both authors are Scandinavian.

I loved the tension in this book and all the false leads and threads. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would! Nesbo has a quirky humour in this book too. I also totally fell for the troubled inspector, Harry Hole, what a great character! I loved his demons and the complicated relationship he had with the one woman he loved.  I also enjoyed reading about his relationship with alcohol. All very informative, getting inside the mind of an alcoholic!

Yes, this book was creepy, gruesome and scary but always a great read and nothing was gratuitous ( my biggest issue with Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series.) Infact the story was great and I was totally hooked. The imagery of the snowman and the implement of choice used by the psycho killer was brilliant. I even enjoyed the terror of reading this late at night under my bed covers! Yes, I enjoyed freaking myself out. But to be honest I've read far worse stomach churning novels. But I'll never look at a Snowman in the same light again! Most of all it was a fast paced thriller, which was also translated really well. Often books in translation have a really clunky style, but this didn't! Well done Don Bartlett. 

Today I've already been round the charity shops in Bicester and bought a few other Nesbos! gonna keep them for later when I need a fix of Harry Hole and an adrenaline rush of fear!