Tag: Book Reviews

Book Review – When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

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whenyouareengulfedinflamescover

When You Are Engulfed in Flames is the sixth book by David Sedaris originally published in 2008. I was drawn to read more of his work after reading Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk earlier this year. While there were many others to choose from, this cover depicting a Van Gogh painting of a skeleton smoking a cigarette and the eye-catching title made this book hard to resist. It collects anecdotal essays about a range of situations: a talkative cab driver turning the conversation far too sexual, the experience of buying your partner a human skeleton, and spending a week with a miserable and slothful babysitter.Read More »

Book Review – The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

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Summary

In this ingenious and captivating reimagining of Rudyard Kipling’s classic adventure The Jungle Book, Neil Gaiman tells the unforgettable story of Nobody Owens, a living, breathing boy whose home is a graveyard, raised by a guardian who belongs neither to the mortal world nor the realm of the dead. Among the mausoleums and headstones of his home, Bod experiences things most mortals can barely imagine. But real, flesh-and-blood danger waits just outside the cemetery walls: the man who murdered the infant Bod’s family will not rest until he finds Nobody Owens and finishes the job he began many years ago.

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The Graveyard Book is one of a number of works by Neil Gaiman that I frequently heard about, even before I was a fan of his. This was one of the reasons why I chose to read it next amongst the works of his I have. I’d thought I had a general idea of what to expect from it going in, but that changed a little when I discovered it’s a re-imagining of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Unfortunately, I’ve only really experienced the Disney adaptations of that story, as I expect is the case with most people, but that didn’t stop this knowledge from influencing my reading experience.Read More »

Book Review – Thirteen Degrees: 13 Scary Stories and Tales of Horror by Brenden Dean

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Summary from Goodreads

Welcome the dreadful cold of terror with 13 original stories by Brenden Dean. Bring a blanket, huddle around the fire, and try to keep warm as you encounter psychotic abductors, deadly spirits and demons of the woods.

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Thirteen Degrees is one of the two horror anthologies I purchased months ago to get myself reading more of the genre. The book collects thirteen short horror stories by Brenden Dean, some as short as a few pages, others a fair bit longer. I won’t be going into anything too specific plot-wise, especially considering the book as a whole is a rather quick read.Read More »

Book Review – Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

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Summary:

The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say misogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check that the baby in question was a son. Everybody knows that there’s no such thing as a female wizard. But now it’s gone and happened, there’s nothing much anyone can do about it. Let the battle of the sexes begin…

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Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett is the third novel in the fantasy comedy Discworld series, this time focused on a new cast of characters. While I enjoyed the perilous escapades of Rincewind and Twoflower, I have been looking forward to reading about characters who aren’t quite so hapless. The story follows Eskarina Smith, a young girl who inherited a wizard’s staff at birth and has an unbridled knack for magic. She is accompanied by Granny Weatherwax, an old witch who serves their community and takes it upon herself to guide Esk into the magical arts.Read More »

Book Review – The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

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Summary from Goodreads

The Chrysalids is set in the future after a devastating global nuclear war. David, the young hero of the novel, lives in a tight-knit community of religious and genetic fundamentalists, always on the alert for any deviation from the norm of God’s creation. Abnormal plants are publicly burned, with much singing of hymns. Abnormal humans (who are not really human) are also condemned to destruction—unless they succeed in fleeing to the Fringes, that Wild Country where, as the authorities say, nothing is reliable and the devil does his work. David grows up ringed by admonitions: KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT. At first he does not question. Then, however, he realizes that the he too is out of the ordinary, in possession of a power that could doom him to death or introduce him to a new, hitherto unimagined world of freedom.

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The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is a book that has sat at the fringes of my interest for a long time, neither forgotten nor explored, even before I read and enjoyed The Day of the Triffids. I first heard about the novel from my older brother many years ago when he was reading it for a high school English class. While I distinctly remember him saying he found it boring, the idea of religious extremism directed at physical mutation and/or deformity in a post-apocalyptic world left a lasting impression on me.Read More »

Book Review – Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

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Summary from Goodreads

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World on their quest for the Dark Tower. Their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis. But beyond the tranquil farm town, the ground rises to the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a terrible affliction that is stealing the town’s soul. The wolves of Thunderclap and their unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to risk all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to. Their guns, however, will not be enough….

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Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King, the fifth book in his series The Dark Tower, is one I’d been wanting to get to for some time. After reading book four, Wizard & Glass, and then The Wind Through the Keyhole (4.5), I had had my fill of flashbacks and side-stories. Though it was without the addition of the latter, I can only imagine what the wait must have been like for fans who’d been reading the series since 1982. I enjoyed those books very much, but even I was more than ready to continue following Roland and company on their quest.Read More »

Book Review – The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha

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Summary from Goodreads

Based on the award-winning blog 1000awesomethings.com, The Book of Awesome is a high five for humanity and a big celebration of life’s little moments and the underappreciated, simple things that make us happy, from popping bubble wrap to hitting a bunch of green lights in a row, to waking up thinking it’s Monday and realizing it’s Saturday. With wise, witty observations from writer Neil Pasricha, this treasure trove is filled with smile-inducing musings that make readers feel like kids looking at the world for the first time: AWESOME!

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I’m hesitant to admit this, but The Book of Awesome is a book I thought of as little more than fluff. I cynically regarded it as a fun little novelty that was an easy sell to the casual reading masses, but it exposed to me the jaded husk of a man I can sometimes be. While I expected a read that would present forced enthusiasm over little things for a cheap laugh, I instead got something humorously sincere and genuinely relatable.Read More »

Book Review – Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction by David Seed

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Summary from the inside cover:

Science Fiction has proved notoriously difficult to define, but has emerged as one of the most popular genres of our times; not only in literature, but also in drama, poetry, and film. David Seed explores this often unconventional genre in relation to themes such as science and technology, space, aliens, utopias, gender, and its relation to time past, present, and future.

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Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction by David Seed is part of the extensive Very Short Introductions collection published by Oxford University Press, containing nearly 400 volumes on a wide array of different subjects. This volume — 271 — discusses the science fiction genre, focusing on its key trappings, such as voyages into space, technology, and alien encounters.Read More »

Book Review – Suspended in Dusk, edited by Simon Dewar

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Summary from Goodreads:

DUSK. A time between times. A whore hides something monstrous and finds something special. A homeless man discovers the razor blade inside the apple. Unlikely love is found in the strangest of places. Secrets and dreams are kept… forever. Or was it all just a trick of the light? Suspended in Dusk brings together 19 stories by some of the finest minds in Dark Fiction.

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While I love horror as a genre in film and gaming, I’ve only had minimal experience with its literature. To help remedy this, I decided to not only pick up some horror fiction, but go out of my way to find something more obscure. I dug up a business card I picked up at Fan Expo last year from Books of the Dead, a horror publisher, which led me to this anthology. Since each story is rather short, I will not be summarizing any of them in a specific way.

What I will say is the book is unified by a dusk motif: in some way or another each story incorporates this time of day as an idea, figuratively and/or literally, such as a peculiar event occurring during this time. Dusk is rarely a crucial aspect of each story, more of a narrative aesthetic that connects them all together.Read More »

Book Review – The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King

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Summary from Goodreads

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet—Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two…and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.

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Published in 2012, The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King is part of his popular and acclaimed Dark Tower series. Written after the series’ completion, this novel takes place between The Dark Tower IV: Wizard & Glass and The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla. The novel, apparently meant to fill in a noticeable gape between the two entries, explores some more of Roland’s personal history before embarking upon his quest, as well as expanding upon the lore of Mid-World.Read More »