Tegan's Book Reviews

Saturday, 22 December 2012

A tale of murder, artistic rivalry and literary trickery; a chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you. The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters. THE ISLANDERS serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands, an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator.

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Across 1000 miles of Oregon desert his assassins, the notorious Eli and Charlies Sisters, ride - fighting, shooting, and drinking their way to Sacramento. But their prey isn't an easy mark, the road is long and bloody, and somewhere along the path Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for. The Sisters Brothers pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable ribald tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life-and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humour, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.

Blue River Black Sea

The Danube is Europe's Amazon. It flows through more countries than any other river on Earth - from the Black Forest in Germany to Europe's farthest fringes, where it joins the Black Sea in Romania. Andrew Eames' journey along its length brings us face to face with the Continent's bloodiest history and its most pressing issues of race and identity. As he travels - by bicycle, horse, boat and on foot - Eames finds himself seeking a bed for the night with minor royalty, hitching a ride on a Serbian barge captained by a man called Attila and getting up close and personal with a bull in rural Romania. He meets would-be kings and walks with gypsies, and finally rows his way beyond the borders of Europe entirely.

Take four friends...Rianne: beautiful, wealthy and thoroughly spoilt, she has the world at her feet but is about to risk everything. Gabrielle: intelligent, loyal and always worrying about everyone else, now it's time for her to start looking after No.1. Nathalie: petite, pretty and with a shrewd eye for business, she uses her work to help her forget the one man she can't have. Charmaine: flirty and outrageous, she knows all about the good life. She just needs someone to pay for it...Then a chance encounter changes everything - and for Rianne and her friends, nothing is going to be the same again..

Something strange occurs to guests as soon as they check in. Even if in real life they are perfectly well-mannered, decent people with proper balanced relationships, as soon as they spin through the revolving hotel doors the normal rules of behaviour no longer seem to apply.' All of the following is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

More Mouse Tales: - David Koenig

More Mouse tales, is a behind the scenes peek at disneyland. Stories that outsiders don't always get to hear. From how the cast members portray it. Its a follow up book to Mouse tales, written ten years later to follow up and give you more insight on the previous book.

For ten years Louis Theroux has been making programmes about off-beat characters on the fringes of US society. Now he revisits America and the people who have most fascinated him to try to discover what motivates them, why they believe the things they believe, and to find out what has happened to them since he last saw them. Along the way Louis thinks about what drives him to spend so much time among weird people, and considers whether he's learned anything about himself in the course of ten years working with them. Has he manipulated the people he's interviewed, or have they manipulated him? From his Las Vegas base, Louis revisits the assorted dreamers and outlaws who have been his TV feeding ground. Attempting to understand a little about himself and the workings of his own mind, Louis considers questions such as: What is the difference between pathology and 'normal' weirdness? Is there something particularly weird about Americans? What does it mean to be weird, or 'to be yourself'? And do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us?

A young woman is murdered in her flat and a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star is found behind her eyelid. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case, alongside his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on his final warning and has little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor when it becomes apparent that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands.

How much do you know about what really goes on at your local supermarket? We see them every week and they are privy to some of our most intimate secrets - those we wouldn't even share with our closest friends. To us they are the anonymous helpers for whom nothing is too much trouble. But for them, every customer has a part in a gripping soap-opera of lovers' tiffs, family feuds and extraordinary innuendos - turning the daily life of a checkout girl into a hilariously entertaining farce. As we began to contend with the recession, Tazeen Ahmad realised that the supermarket checkout was the perfect place to gauge how the nation was coping with increasing job cuts, sky-high food prices and a billion pound hole in our economy. The answer, it turns out, was with white bread, ice cream and lots and lots of potatoes. Sworn at, flirted with and at the receiving end of endless customer rants.

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'. In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next.

Perfect People - Peter James

John and Naomi Klaesson are grieving the death of their four- year-old son from a rare genetic disorder. They desperately want another child, but when they find out they are both carriers of a rogue gene, they realize the odds of their next child contracting the same disease are high. Then they hear about geneticist, Doctor Leo Dettore. He has methods that can spare them the heartache of ever losing another child to any disease - even if his methods are more than they can afford. At his clinic is where their nightmare begins. They should have realized something was wrong when they saw the list. Choices of eye colour, hair, sporting abilities. They can literally design their child. Now it's too late to turn back. Naomi is pregnant, and already something is badly wrong ...

I don't know how to tell you what I did. Would you read a letter never meant to be opened? Would you want to know secrets never meant to be told? Or should a woman's mistakes stay buried? An unfinished letter was hidden amongst Tara and Emerson's best friend's things after her suicide. Noelle was the woman they entrusted to deliver their precious babies into the world, a beloved friend. Her suicide shocked them both. But her legacy could destroy them. For her letter reveals a terrible secret that challenges everything they thought they knew. Taking them on a journey that will irrevocably change their own lives and the life of a desperate stranger forever.

The Invisible Gorilla - Christopher Chabris, Daniel J. Simons

If a gorilla walked out into the middle of a basketball pitch, you'd notice it. Wouldn't you? If a serious violent crime took place just next to you, you'd remember it, right? The Invisible Gorilla is a fascinating look at the unbelievable, yet routine tricks that your brain plays on you. In an award-winning and groundbreaking study, psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons asked volunteers to watch a 60-second film of a group of students playing basketball and told them to count the number of passes made. About halfway through, a woman dressed head to toe in a gorilla outfit slowly moved to centre screen, beat her chest at the camera, and casually strolled away. Unbelievably, almost half of the volunteers missed the gorilla. As this astonishing and utterly unique new book demonstrates, exactly the same kind of mental illusion that causes people to miss the gorilla can also explain why many other things, including why: / honest eyewitness testimony can convict innocent defendants / expert money managers suddenly lose billions / Homer Simpson has much to teach you about clear thinking Insightful, witty, and fascinating, The Invisible Gorilla closely examines the false impressions that most profoundly influence our lives and gives practical advice on how we can minimize their negative impact.

In Africa "only food runs...and there's nothing you can outrun!" Peter Allison works as a top safari guide in the Okavango Delta. In this oasis of wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert, rich with wildlife, he caters to the whims of his wealthy clients, he often has to overcome the impulse to run as far away from them as he can, as these tourists are sometimes more dangerous than a pride of lions! Full of outrageous-but-true tales of the people and animals he has encountered - the half-naked missing member of the British royal family; the squirrel that overdosed on malaria pills; the monkeys with an underwear fetish; and last, but by no means least, "Spielberg" the video-obsessed Japanese tourist

Allison's hilarious stories reveal his good-natured scorn for himself, as well as others. Allison's humour is exceeded only by his love and respect for the animals, and his goal is to limit any negative exposure by planning trips that are minimally invasive - unfortunately it doesn't always work out that way, as he and his clients discover to their cost when they find themselves up to their necks in a hippo-infested watering hole! Full of essential wisdom like "Don't run,whatever you do" and "never stand behind a frightened zebra" (they are prone to explosive flatulence when scared!), this is a wonderful and vivid portrait of what the life of a safari guide is really like.

Zoe Baxter has spent ten years trying to get pregnant, and just when she's about to get her heart's desire, tragedy destroys her world. In the aftermath of loss and divorce, she throws herself into her career as a music therapist. Working with Vanessa, she finds their relationship moving from business, to friendship, and then - to Zoe's surprise - blossoming into love. When Zoe allows herself to start thinking of children again, she remembers that there are still frozen embryos that she and her husband never used. But Max, having sought peace at the bottom of a bottle, has found redemption in an evangelical church, and Zoe needs his permission to take his unborn child ...

America Unchained - Dave Gorman

The plan was simple. Go to America. Buy a second-hand car. Drive coast-to-coast without giving any money to The Man. What could possibly go wrong? Dismayed by the relentless onslaught of faceless American chains muscling in where local businesses had once thrived, Dave Gorman set off on the ultimate American road trip - in search of the true, independent heart of the US of A. He would eat cherry pie from local diners, re-fuel at dusty gas stations and stock up on supplies from Mom and Pop's grocery store. At least that was the idea. But when did you last see an independent gas station? Gamely, Dave beds down in a Colorado trailer park, sleeps in an Oregon forest treehouse, and even spends Thanksgiving with a Mexican family in Kansas. But when his trip mutates into an odyssey of near-epic proportions and he finds himself being threatened at gun point in Mississippi, Dave starts to worry about what's going to break down next. The car...or him?

The Night The Angels Came - Cathy Glass

When Cathy receives a call about a terminally ill widower terrified of leaving his son all alone in the world, she is wracked with sadness and indecision. After her devastating divorce, can she risk exposing her own young children to a little boy on the brink of bereavement? Eight year old Michael is part of a family of two, but with his beloved father given only months to live and his mother having died when he was a toddler, he could soon become an orphan. Will Cathy's own young family be able to handle a child in mourning? To Cathy's surprise, her children insist that this boy deserves to be as happy as they are, prompting Cathy to welcome Michael into her home.

A cheerful and carefree new member of the family, Michael devotedly prays every night, believing that when the time is right, angels will come and take his Daddy to be with his Mummy in heaven. However, incredibly, in the weeks that pass, the bond between Cathy's family, Michael and his kind and loving father Patrick grows. Even more promising, Patrick is looking healthier than he's done in weeks. But just as they are settling into a routine of blissful normality, an unexpected and disastrous event shatters the happy group, shaking Cathy to the core. Cathy can only hope that her family and Michael's admirable faith will keep him strong enough to rebuild his life.

Daunted by the dark secrets of the tormented young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Ana Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a US publishing house. But desire for Grey still dominates her every waking thought, and when he proposes a new arrangement, she cannot resist. Soon she is learning more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven and demanding Fifty Shades than she ever thought possible. But while Grey wrestles with his inner demons, Ana must make the most important decision of her life. And it's a decision she can only make on her own...

Chances - Freya North

Vita's nursing a broken heart. Oliver's heart belongs to the past. They should be perfect for each other. But will they chance it? Vita's gift shop would do better if she ran it as a business, not as somewhere to daydream. But she's not one to tell herself off: she leaves that to Tim, her ex. Active and outdoorsy Oliver runs his tree-surgery business as calmly as his home -- but his love life is intensely private. When Vita and Oliver's paths cross at a pear tree, there's a chance of something blossoming. As spring turns into summer, both Vita and Oliver are given choices and chances. But will they take them -- or walk away?

French Women Don't Get Fat - Mireille Guiliano

This is the book we've all (certainly every woman between 25 and 75) been waiting for. It is classy, chic, convincing, funny, wise, well-written and very timely. It's the ultimate non-diet book, which nonetheless shows us how to eat with balance, control and above all pleasure. Chuck out all the radical diet books, think about what you eat and why, and then enjoy eating the right things (and some of the wrong ones) intelligently, and in smaller portions. Eat, like a French woman, with your head not your stomach. Guiliano, French-born and bred, gets the tone absolutely right. She succeeds in that rare high-wire act of being really serious about her subject but without taking herself too seriously; manages to encourage and inspire and amuse, without being bossy or earnest. This is a book that will make you laugh out loud and yet have you following several of her practical precepts within days - everyone who reads it becomes evangelical (French women don't go to the gym, they climb the stairs). It combines just the right balance of memoir, wisdom, wit, delicious recipes, and French common sense.