Henry's Demons

"Henry's Demons" by Patrick & Henry Cockburn (Kindle Edition)

This book is a fairly straight-forward non-fiction story about a young man who in his early 20s develops psychosis and the other symptoms of Schizophrenia. His father, Patrick, a foreign correspondent for UK newspapers, provides most of the narration but several chapters are written by the young man Henry himself and offer of fairly unique point of view. Apart from Henry's descent into madness and the problems it causes for his family, this book also explores the medical research into Schizophrenia, treatments over the ages and the sorry state of contemporary mental health care in western nations. With my own history it's hard not to be moved by stories like this and it's clear that Henry himself still hasn't completely come to terms with the events that changed his life. Still with his partial recovery it offers a message of hope in the end.

Back Story/Rapture Of The Nerds

(a couple of short reviews written 'on the road' so to speak)

"Rapture of the Nerds" by Charles Stross & Corey Doctorow (Kindle Edition)

I've read plenty of Stross and nothing of Doctorow before..this seemed a little sub-par and mediocre, a few nice ideas tho.



"Back Story" by David Mitchell (Kindle Edition)

(That's Mitchell the comedian and not the novelist of the same name)- highly entertaining stuff as he recounts a walk across part of London linking various buildings and landmarks with events in his life and career. Read it pretty much in one go and wanted it to be longer.

Ender's Game

"Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card (Kindle edition)

Well then, this is another of the widely read, much discussed, multi-award winning modern classics of sci-fi that I had never gotten around to reading until now. The other day I saw a trailer for the movie version so thought I better get in quick. Although some aspects of this book seem to be common knowledge - I think I knew the twist ending about a decade ago, so who knows how a movie will still surprise. Anyway..it is the not-so-distant future, after a couple of attacks by the alien "buggers" a united world military plucks Andrew "Ender" Wiggan from his home and family and sends him to the orbiting 'Battle School" where he learns the ins and out of zero-G combat in a competitive team type environment. He becomes more isolated but eventually gains friends and enemies as he moves between 'Armies' the teams or houses with names like "Dragon" or "Salamander". Meanwhile his equally brilliant brother and sister start their own plan to change the world.
Ender eventually arrives on the Asteroid Eros where he trains in a simulator learning spaceship combat..and then comes the twist ending..followed by what I thought was an unnecessary couple of differently paced chapters (mainly setting up for sequels I guess).
Its easy to see why this book became popular with a generation of geeks..Ender speaks with their voice and he wins against bullies and uncaring adults. Its something of a unique voice amongst action hero types. It was a good solid read but I feel no need to continue on with the rest of the books in the series - something like 8 of them now!

Attempting Normal

"Attempting Normal" by Marc Maron (Kindle Edition)

I first became vaguely aware of Marc Maron a year or so ago when articles about the success of his "WTF" podcast began appearing in the media. I didn't listen to the show itself until about last August and initially bounced off it hard but then it slowly won me over and now I'm a fan. On "WTF" Maron interviews assorted comics, actors and other creative types..and it seems to be some sort of therapy for him to do it. We hear hints of a troubled past but I never knew the full story until reading his new book.
This is pretty much a memoir of his turbulent life and his struggles to overcome his addictions and personal demons. Each chapter is a seperate story 'bit' like something he would perform on stage..I found most of it interesting and amusing but there was only a few laugh out loud moments - its not that kind of book. Sometimes I felt he gives us a little too much information on his habits, but I guess he's going for some sort of full disclosure release here. Oh yes and he's a cat lover which of course gives him extra brownie points to me. Maybe not to everyone's taste but I thought it was worth the read.

Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary

"Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary" by Roger Ebert (Kindle Edition)

Hardly a book, more a published list of terms the author and his correspondents have created for all those famiilar movie cliches and tropes. Amusing stuff but I read through the entire thing about 30 minutes - I suspect you could probably find the whole list for free somewhere on the internet.

Masters of Death

"Masters of Death" by Richard Rhodes

This is a very grim book which I doubt I would have read had it not been written by the always brilliant Richard Rhodes ("The Making of the Atomic Bomb" etc). It’s a short history of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, special para-military units who followed the German troops into Eastern Europe and basically killed everyone the Nazis didn't like.
There are plenty of harrowing eye-witness accounts of massacres and other "Aktions" along with detailed profiles of Hitler and Himmler plus a chapter trying to explain how people can become cold-blooded killers.

Ghostwritten

"Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell

This was David Mitchell's debut novel - I've read a couple of his later works and still have a couple more on the to-read pile. Had this one on the shelf for about 5 years - I don't know why because its brilliant!
What at first seems to be 9 unconnected short stories set in various locations in Asia, Europe and the US slowly become linked by various direct and indirect references to each other..some quite subtle. There also several connections to his later book "Cloud Atlas" which I can appreciate having read it first.
Going into the various plots might ruin it for future readers but there are broad themes of fiction vs reality, spirituality and the ongoing grind of life and history..with a distinct east asian angle.

Number 9 Dream

"Number 9 Dream" by David Mitchell

David Mitchell's second novel and the fourth I've read by him. This time its a mainly linear story instead of the intricate structures of "Ghostwritten" and "Cloud Atlas".
The books tells the story of seven weeks in the life of Eiji Miyake, a young school-leaver from a rural part of Japan as he travels to the big smoke of Tokyo on mission to find the father he never knew. Along the way he finds jobs, love and Yakuza gangsters. There are a few digressions during his quest - we read the series of odd short stories he finds in a safe house and follow the journal of an ancestor in the WW2 Japanese navy. The ending is a bit of a shock and hit home with me due to recent events here (hint hint). Overall a great read.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet

"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" by David Mitchell

David Mitchell's 5th and most recent book is once more set almost entirely in Japan. In 1799 Jacob De Zoet is a young clerk sent by the Dutch East India Company to Dejima, an artifical island trading post in Nagasaki harbour. He's tasked with sorting out their books and soon learns just about everyone there is corrupt in some way or form. He develops a crush on a young Japanese woman but before a relationship can develop she's sold into virtual slavery as a nun at a monastry with sinister secrets.
This is probably Mitchell's most linear and straight story, there a few digressions and only 2 or 3 viewpoint characters.
The story does a good job of transporting you to a distant time and place. Every time you think you can predict what's going to happen a new twist occurs. In some ways it reminded me of Neal Stephenson's Baroque saga, no bad thing.

Nightmare Movies

"Nightmare Movies" by Kim Newman

This hefty volume written by Kim Newman is actually two books in one - the original "Nightmare Movies" written in the 80s (but updated by new footnotes) and "New Nightmares" a recent work that covers releases in the last 20 odd years. The second part is much better written IMHO.
Basically Newman takes a sub-genre at a time and discusses all the related movies in that niche, how they relate, what they were inspired by and what they went on to inspire. I enjoyed his synopsis of films I'd never heard of before and his witty put downs of lousy productions..but some times it became endless lists of titles, directors and actors which bored me silly.

Empty Space

"Empty Space" by M. John Harrison

This is the third in Harrison's Kefahuchi Tract series, closer in style and content to the first, "Light" (which I loved) than to book 2 "Nova Swing" (a bit meh to me).
There are 3 main story strands, one set in a near future England and the others in the 25th century universe introduced in the earlier books. There are shared locations and names from the earlier books but this one mainly stands alone.
Harrison's writing is all about atmosphere and some of it at times reminds me of the taste of mental illness. I'm not sure I quite grasped all that happened in the climax but its a great ride getting there.

Glasshouse

"Glasshouse" by Charles Stross

Stross does it again with novel of ideas an morality set several hundred years in the future. After undergoing selective memory editing the main character volunteers to take part in an experiment - living in a community based on what the future historians know of the mid to late 20th century and our era...something like a warped 1950s small town. As usual, is all what it seems? As memories start to return, the protaganist, now in a female body, starts to grasp the full picture ad has to take action. Saying more would give too much away and I'm lazy anyway...The ending was a bit disappointing after a long build up but otherwise this was a great read.

The Apocalypse Codex

"The Apocalypse Codex" by Charles Stross

This is the 4th book in Stross's 'Laundry' series and probably not a good one for new readers to jump on to. The plot of course concerns Bob Howard and employee of the secret British agency known as the "Laundry" - a unit tasked with protecting the UK (and the world) from various occult threats and the coming armageddon. Unfortunately there's less of Bob in this book and more of 2 new POV characters who I really couldnt get enthused about.
The plot involves the Laundry trying to discover the real plans of an American evangelist who is trying to get close to the UK Prime Minister - the action soon moving to the USA and becoming a little predictable. More Bob would have helped.

Tales From Development Hell

"Tales From Development Hell" by David Hughes

A few months back I read the same author's "The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made" and this is pretty much more of the same with a little more broader scope.
Each chapter deals with the trials and tribulations of the development of a particular movie which in most cases never made it to the screen. The Hollywood system comes off looking like a bunch of buffoons, ruining the great ideas of everyone it deals with.
Its a great fun read if you're into movies, wish it was a bit longer.

Harker: The Book of Soloman

"Harker: The Book of Solomon" by Roger Gibson & Vince Danks

This is a very well written and drawn graphic novel regarding a pair of Detectives Harker and Critchley - Harker is a little bit Morse, a little bit Gene Hunt and a little bit every other TV detective of the the last 30 years. Critchley is a more street-wise, hip side-kick. Together they investigate a series of what seem to be ritual murders and uncover a Satanic cult in the midsts of London. But is every thing as it seems? (you know it isnt!).
This is a handsome hardcover collection of the first 4 Harker issues and as such its a little short, leaving you wanting more.

Sun In A Bottle

"Sun In A Bottle" by Charles Seife

There's an old gag about fusion power - "Its 30 years in the future and always will be" ..this book pretty much expands on that saying, first giving us a layman's guide to fission and fusion and then a potted history of their initial uses as weapons. There's a description of early fusion research and where it went wrong and the occasional cranks and deluded researchers. This historical section could have been expanded with more detail - its all over in about a chapter. The 1989 'cold fusion' claims and rebuttals get a chapter to themselves as do the more recent 'bubble fusion' experiments. The author is clearly not a big supporter of current efforts in the hot fusion field and ends up sounded rather cynical and jaded about the whole thing. We end with a (yet again) too brief survey of alternate 'desktop' fusion methods and a little meditation about 'the science of wishful thinking' to ram home his point.
I guess I was expecting a little more of a straight history of fusion efforts and ended up a little disappointed with this book, although it is a fine work of popular science.

Postwar Air Weapons: 1945-Present

Postwar Air Weapons: 1945-Present.

This is the type of book I would have saved my pennies for as a military aviation mad teenager..but I think I would have been as disappointed with it as I am today. The pictures are great but the main text is slight and hardly encyclopaedic. The illustrations are out of synch and leave you scratching your head about what's being discussed. The break-outs describing weapons used in various conflicts are good but don't really go into the expected detail. However I guess what I was expecting would be a huge volume of hundreds of pages and this certainly isn't that book.

Mars Attacks: 50th Anniversary Collection

Mars Attacks: 50th Anniversary Collection

About 20 years ago when I first started using the internet one of the things I found was an archive of scanned Mars Attacks cards. I had only heard them refered to before then so it was interesting to see what made them so infamous and controversial..fast forward to 2012 and here we have what is essentially a coffee table book featuring the original 55 cards (both front and back) and latter day versions. There's also a little history of the sets which puts them in context of the early 60s era. The 1996 movie only gets a sentence..probably a rights issue. The book design is top-notch including the dust jacket that mimics the original bubble gum card wrapper.

Habibi

"Habibi" by Craig Thompson

In a word, WOW. This is a massive (in both size and impact) graphic novel by an author/illustrator I've never seen anything from before. Set in an unamed middle-eastern country its tells the story of Dodola, an Arab girl and Zam a black boy who she first meets as a baby. The story is somewhat complicated and often told in flashbacks and sidebars. Besides the main love story (if it can be called that) the book digresses into folklore, stories from the Quran/Bible and a myriad of topics such as arabic calligraphy and the environment. The often intricate artwork is impressive and the book never bores despite being close to 700 pages long. In other words I liked it.

Hallucinations

"Hallucinations" by Oliver Sacks (Kindle Edition)

I have a lot of time for Doctor Oliver Sacks..he's written some great books over the years and has been the subject of many fascinating interviews.
As the title suggests this is basically about all the weird and wonderful cases the author has personally studied or read about in his studies ( excluding those by schizophrenics unfortunately ). The text also includes a brief section where Sacks recounts his 60s drug experiences.
Just when I felt the book was getting going it came to an end - way too short to cover the subject matter alas.

Stranger Magic

"Stranger Magic" by Marina Warner

Marina Warner's lastest tome involves re-telling several key stories from the famous "Arabian Nights" and then discussing the influences that led to them being written and how they've influenced fiction (and fashions) both Eastern & Western ever since. She also digresses into several other areas including movies and (of all things) Freud's couch.
The stories themselves are a joy to read and tempt me to buy the recent Penguin 3 volume set of the Arabian Nights. The analysis and discussion of them however does tend to range from fascinating to boring as hell - it often descends to academic paper level..maybe I'm just too uneducated to take it all in!
Not as well illustrated as some of Warner's previous works but still interesting enough to keep me reading for a couple of months on and off.

Lost At Sea

“Lost at Sea” by Jon Ronson (Kindle edition)

Jon Ronson is good old-fashioned type of investigative journalist, only his subjects of interest are different. He focuses on the fringe, the extreme and the unseen side of life. In the previous 3 or 4 books of his that I’ve read he usually has a unifying theme but this one is a collection of self-contained articles written over the last decade or so. From a millionaire trying to re-build their partner as a robot, the dark side of the Anglican church’s “Alpha” courses, the assisted suicide industry all the way to real-life superheroes on the streets of America -this is a mixed bag but every single topic is a fascinating mini adventure into the unknown. He writes well and has a typically English self-deprecating humorous style. One of my favourite small pieces is his attempt to re-create one of James Bond’s fictional journeys in a borrowed Aston Martin, eating the same foods and staying at the same hotels. Another lengthy article uncovers just how credit card companies find their next victims and the resulting mess they can make..quite sobering. So something for everyone indeed.

Alif the Unseen

"Alif the Unseen" by G. Willow Wilson

It took me a long time to get through this one, not because its particularly long but because pesky life kept intruding into my reading time. Finally finished it on Waitangi day..and it will be the last physical book I'll be reading for while-the rest of my collection, both read and unread now being boxed up and stowed away. Never fear I've stocked up on ebooks..so here's my brief review.

'Alif' (his real name isn't revealed until the last chapter) is a part Arab part Indian young man living in an unnamed middle-eastern city-state. He spends his time using his elite hacker skills to aid the city's various dissident groups. After he breaks up with his higher-class girlfriend his online activities bring him to the attention of 'The Hand', the state's online security chief . A mysterious old book comes into his posession and soon he's catapaulted into a supernatural-tinged adventure.
There's a lot of rich detail about modern Arab life, Islam and mythology mixed with pop- and 'cyber-' culture. Being somewhat interested in all of the above I was gripped as the story unfoled but ended up being somewhat disappointed - the story told is somewhat simplistic and linear..I guess after the strong start I was expecting something in the vein of Neal Stephenson or similar. Having said that its still highly entertaining and well-written. its the author's first novel so things can only get better.

Bossypants

"Bossypants" by Tina Fey (Kindle Edition)

Tina Fey is an actor, producer and comedy writer, this is her first book. It starts like an ordinary memoir, describing her childhood and family but soon digresses into all sorts of areas - we get bullet pointed lists of tips and hints, breakout boxes of anecdotes and so on. Among the highlights are an account of her doomed cruise ship experience, a look behind the scenes of her Sarah Palin impersonations during the 2008 election campaign and why you shouldn't drink any liquid you find where male comedy writers lurk. Its all very witty and sharp but I can't help feel its somewhat padded out to book length..oh well, definately worth a look.

Mirage Men

"Mirage Men" by Mark Pilkington (Kindle Edition)

From about the age of 10 I was an avid follower of the UFO mystery. I read every book on the subject that I could find in the library and bought many more. After half a lifetime following the topic I can categorically state that 90% of what’s written about the subject is crap and about 99% of the authors who write such material are spouting bullshit. In recent years the rising babble of the Internet has made matters even worse.
Like many others I vacillated from one viewpoint to another, ending up in the strongly sceptical camp. I believe we’re dealing with a complex set of phenomena and there’s no single simple answer. The true-believer types (particularly Americans it seems) clinging to the peculiarly 1950’s ETH (Extraterrestrial Hypothesis – i.e. real live aliens in nuts and bolts flying saucers) have done immense damage to the field and bring automatic ridicule any attempted research.
So coming across this book was a breath of fresh air – a UFO book that wasn’t trying to push any agenda or outlandish scenario. Instead we get an old-fashioned investigation, the author and his colleague travel from the UK to the USA trying to get to the root of the many aspects of UFO mythology. What they find probably both is and isn’t a surprise – that many of the core stories of modern ‘ufology’ are probably disinformation seeded into the community by intelligence agencies and the like (the “Mirage Men” of the title). Something of a turn-around from the usual conspiracy theories but having read the book it makes sense – the modern UFO community have made themselves useful idiots sucking up and repeating this nonsense, providing cover for all sorts of government activities. Needless to say this book won’t be popular with the ETH crowd and they’ll stick to their beliefs which are becoming more like organised religion every day...the author has already been smeared as an enemy by many of them.
In the end we all love a good mystery and resent mundane reality trampling over our dreams.

I Can Make You Hate

"I Can Make You Hate" by Charlie Brooker (Kindle Edition)

I've been a fan of Charlie Brooker's output for several years now..first encountered him via his year-end 'wipe' specials downloaded from the interrnet and have since followed him through his Guardian columns (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker), TV reviews and other TV shows. He's around the same age as me and seems to share a similar sense of humour.
This book is a collection of his columns, reviews and scripts from 2009 through to mid 2012. Its great material, makes me laugh out loud (well at least giggle..) and its always witty and close to the bone. Noone does pent up anger and rage at the modern world quite like Brooker. However it does immerse you deeply into a very UK-centric universe, with frequent references to public figures and celebrities that meant next to nothing to me.
Well worth your time.

How To Be A Woman

"How To Be A Woman" by Caitlin Moran (Kindle edition)

I became a fan of Caitlin Moran after hearing her interviewed on the radio and assorted podcasts, so naturally I bought both her books. This first one isn't quite aimed at my demographic, so this is only my mere opinion as an outsider daring to read it.
The framing device is the author's experience if life growing up from around 13 to her mid 30s, her family, jobs etc. In each chapter one of these anecdotes leads into a certain topic to be discussed. I have to admit I enjoyed reading the life experiences more than the following polemics. Sometimes it went on too long and even resorted to PUTTING TEXT IN CAPS to drive home a point. I feel there was a bit of preaching to the choir going on-I can't see any (sane) woman who picked up the book disagreeing with most of her points. Having said that, most of the time there's loads of humour and wit involved so I can forgive the ranting. Some topics made me feel something of a squeamish male and worried about how seedy it was getting-a 'should I be reading this?' feeling but I survived to the end and overall enjoyed it.

Mother, Brother, Lover

Mother, Brother, Lover by Jarvis Cocker (Kindle edition)

Not much to this little book - basically Jarvis Cocker presents a selection of his song lyrics (some more well-known than others), writes a lengthy introduction and then selected notes about each one (the best bit, I thought). As he states in his intro, its just not the same without the music so its a bit of a slog reading through some of the less familiar material.
I've been listening to his stuff since Pulp's "A Different Class" back in 1996( I think!) so learning the background to the songs was very interesting...some turned out to have quite different origins than I had imagined.

Red Shirts

“Red Shirts” by John Scalzi (Kindle edition)

I’ve always liked Scalzi’s stuff and this one looked like a lot of fun – promising to be a bit of a meta piss-take of Sci-Fi television in general and “Star Trek” in particular.
The basic plot regards a group of new transfers to the starship Intrepid who become friends and realise something’s not quite right about the ship, its crew and the frequent perilous situations they find themselves in.
So far so good but once the central mystery is solved it gets a little bit tedious and, well ..pedestrian. I guess I was expecting more humour and parody, instead I got a bit of a mediocre adventure that becomes totally sappy by the end of its 3 unnecessary codas. Still entertaining enough but not knock-out stuff.

Your Movie Sucks

Your Movie Sucks by Roger Ebert (Kindle edition)

Not too much to say on this one, its a collection of reviews by the late great american movie critic Roger Ebert. In this volume he selects some of the worst films he's seen between around 2000 to 2007 and uses his great wit to tear them apart. Highly entertaining and led me to buy 2 more of his books.

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