December Books

Date: 31 December 2009 16:54:55

Hidden in Time by Michael Phillips is one of those generally terrible creations... the Christian novel. This books is about an archaeologist called Adam who has already managed to track down the original Garden of Eden and in this sequel novel he manages to excavate both Noah's Ark and the Ark of the Covenant. Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't particularly have a problem with the story, but it does annoy me that in every other chapter there is someone having a miraculous conversion experience. A terribly improbably storyline, but a million times better written than the Left Behind novels (not that that would be difficult though!!!)

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I listened to The Complaints by Ian Rankin on audio CD. It is the most recent offering from the popular author, and an introduction to a new character. I have always really liked the John Rebus novels, so I was curious as to how this one would pan out. Starring Inspector Malcolm Fox, an Edinburgh copper working in the complaints department of the police force. As expected he is a man who doesn't like corruption of personal favours so when he appears to be being set up he sets out to investigate in his own time. Teaming up with a Detective Jamie Breck, who has also been set up and been accused of paedophilia, the pair of them work out what is going on. A great book and I really hope that this is the start of a new series of novels featuring this character.

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Dreams From my Father by Barack Obama was a surprising book. I wasn't sure what to expect but it was a beautifully written reflection on race, culture and identity. Growing up Barack Obama didn't really know who his father who he only met once when he was 10 years old. This biography follows his story back to Kenya to meet his family and I found it very moving to see his growing understanding of how his feelings of 'fitting in' and 'not fitting in' helped to develop his sense of identity. I think it is unusual to real such a beautifully written account of a life, especially from someone who is such a prominent politician, even though he was not President when this was published. I have to admit that it has given me a great deal more respect for the current President of the USA.

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The Beach House by Jane Green is a rather mediocre book. It is about a 65 year old woman called Nan who lives in Nantucket. In order to make some money from her rambling house she starts renting rooms out and she tries to fix her tenants lives. A surprise reappearance of her husband who has been dead for 25 years adds to the confusion. This was an OK book but there were so many characters it was hard to keep hold of what was going on and it had the most implausible twists and turns which kind of negated the nice bits of the story!!!

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Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson is fairly typical of his novels. A kidnapper is abducting rich white women to order, Alex Cross has to find out who he is and rescue as many of the women as possible. Combine that with a bit of personal drama and you have a James Patterson novel. I have to admit that I quite like his books... they have short chapters which make them easy to read. They also make them very fast-paced which means I read them far too quickly!!!

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Diary of a Mad-Mother-To-Be by Laura Wolf is a truly awful book. It about a vile creature called Amy who has been happily married to Stephen for a couple of years when she suddenly decides she wants a baby. She is a shallow character, more worried about how she looks that her baby and I found her most annoying. One of the things that irritated me the most about this book though was the unnecessary footnotes. They added nothing to the story and just served to piss me off. Poorly written and not worth wasting a tree on!

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The Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder is a truly lovely book. It is composed of 24 chapters and you are meant to read one each day of Advent, but as I forgot to start it at the beginning of the month, and I wanted to find out what happened I didn't stick to this! The story is about a little boy called Joachim who buys an advent calender in a shop. The difference is that this calender is home-made and each time he opens a door a piece of paper drops out with an additional part of the story. The sub-story is about a little girl called Elizabet who goes missing 40 years before Joachim buys his advent calender. She goes on a journey back through time and along the way she meets characters in the Christmas story, until she finally reaches the stable where Jesus was born. An utterly charming book which makes Christmas all the more magical.

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Out of My Depth by Emily Barr was an OK book with a really disappointing ending. Old school friends all meet up when they are in their thirties. Since school they have followed different paths, some got married and had children, some went to Australia after the death of her mother. But they have a dark secret which unites them. Really good up until about the fifth chapter before then end when it all fizzles out and there was no real ending. Disappointing!

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The Tent, The Bucket & Me by Emma Kennedy was the book I bought my Mum for Christmas. Admittedly one of the reasons I bought it for her was that I wanted to read it. So, before she has even started it, I have finished it (my excuse is that I had to read it before I went back to the mainland!). The book had me giggling all the way through. I guess the author is a couple of years older than me, but I so recognised the stories of camping in the 1970's and 1980's. When we were kids we often went camping to France, and whilst we weren't poor poor we also weren't rich, so much of our food was taken with us and our spending was very sensible. We never had as many disasters as she did on holiday, but the story of her getting incredibly sunburnt did remind me of my sister and her "tanning" habits. A brilliant book, both if you love, or hate camping. Also the author was brought up in Stevenage and Hitchin which is where I work so I recognise some of the places she talks about. Well worth a read!!!

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