octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

This is ridiculously clever. At no point did I suspect what was going on - though, to be fair, this is pretty much always the case on the rare occasions that I read a mystery. I'm always stumped. So many unpleasant people! And they pretty much all deserved what was coming to them. Not feeling sorry for any of them, I was riveted. There is, it must be said, some really unfortunate racism to side-eye in this book (definitely a product of its time), and that was disappointing. The puzzle itself, however, was very well executed.

I've only ever read one other Christie book, which I liked but wasn't too engaged by. After this I might be more inclined to try another.

Along with The Chrysalids, this is my favourite of Wyndham's books. I just love it. I don't even know why I find it so appealing, but I think it's something to do with a kid and an alien reaching out to each other to learn, and in friendship, without any of the sort of hysterical sci-fi drama that's so common in fictional first contacts. It's just so domestic, and so laid back - my favourite scene is Matthew talking to his dad about the cows, and how they get stuck in their learning and aren't able to go further. And it's not a silly question! It's an enormously significant one, really: cows can learn when and where to go for milking, but they can't learn to open a gate, when they see it opened for them every day. Why?!

It's such an unflashy little story, for such a flashy concept. I love that. And I love that it doesn't have to be 500 pages long to get its ideas across. More sci-fi should be so restrained...

This is by far my favourite Dickens. In fairness, though, I've only read half a dozen or so of his - I find Oliver Twist a simpering, sickly little bore, and have no interest whatsoever in David Copperfield, even if he is Dickens' favourite character. But Bleak House... sprawling, massive, miserable Bleak House, I find you perfect in every respect.

I don't even mind that you outweigh an elephant. And considering how often I - justifiably! - bitch about too-lengthy books, that's saying something. Many of the SFF books I read could be cut down by half and lose nothing. But this giant wordy volume would lose a great deal if even a little were edited away. It's taken me the better part of a month to work my way through it and I don't even care. It's a masterpiece.

Lots of good ideas in here, though perhaps not all of them are as developed as they could be, and what characters can do at any one time can be frustratingly dependent on what the plot needs them to do - or not do (Ing in particular strikes me as becoming conveniently, implausibly stupid whenever Firdaus needs to appear intelligent). I do like the alien world though, and I especially like the link between knowledge and consumption, which I thought was explored really well.

The story of some poor mad bastard who decides to cycle the route of the Tour de France, I read this because the very first entry on Book Riot's "Read Harder 2017" challenge was to read a sports book. I don't read a lot of sports books; this may actually be the first. Not owning anything that would remotely qualify, I had to pilfer this one off my step-dad's bookshelf. It was cycling or race-horses. I chose cycling. Primarily because the cover promised the book was extremely funny, and I thought if I had to read about sports I should at least attempt to enjoy myself.

French Revolutions was funny, but I have to say not as funny as promised. To be honest I spent most of the read in a state of bemused horror at what people will do to themselves. Why put yourself through this level of misery?! I spent more time feeling sorry for the poor masochistic author than I did laughing with (at?) him...

When I say that I "really like" this book, what I mean is I really like Jane. I always end up wishing that she'd comprehensively ditch the giant arse that is Rochester, just as she ditched him once before, and just as she ditched the total crushing bore that is St. John. In my ideal version, Jane Eyre takes her portion of the inheritance and runs off to explore the world, free of jerks and not giving the tiniest shit.

Well. She can take Pilot. That poor old dog doesn't seem to living the high life with his miserable git of an owner post-fire either.

Epitomises the phrase "worthy but dull". It gets an extra star for the research, which is clearly extensive, but the presentation of such was so unrelentingly turgid that I'm still not altogether sure what the main proofs of the author's argument were, simply because I lost the train of nearly every thought he had. (I maintain it was in self-defence; if I had to read one more sentence about handwriting samples I would have screamed.)

This strikes me as research that might have been better presented as a series of papers in professional journals. I am not a historian. When I read histories, I do so as a layperson. I do not believe that laypeople are the target audience for this book. It sacrifices clarity for endless, mind-numbing detail - one example of which is the footnotes. Though recently in reviews I've been bitching about books that used endnotes instead of footnotes, this is one case where it should be reversed. Footnotes are most useful when they clearly illuminate the main text through explanation or example. Here, they are too frequently strings of reference numbers and letters, untranslated snippets of text, and fragments of comment floating between the two. They would be better tucked away at the back of the book where the pros can go delving for source material if they're interested.

Dreamy, slow-moving account of what happens to a land and a people when memory fails. It's a lovely, quiet story, touching on a number of myths and legends, but I think some parts of it were too obviously metaphorical. The son-and-boatman bits, for instance, didn't have the subtlety of the rest, it was fairly obvious what was going on there and didn't really need the constant repetition.

Eiseley is I think my favourite science writer of all time. He gives such context to science, such human meaning, and he writes as if scientists were routinely artists as well. (If only!) He is what I aspire to be as a science writer, and I want to go shoving his books into other people's hands and say "You've got to read this!" on a frighteningly frequent basis.

This book doesn't quite match up to The Immense Journey for me, but it's still got several fantastic pieces: the dog with the fossil bone, the play-fight over a bone with a fox cub, the encounter with a woman who had traces of Neanderthal in her features...

This is one of those books I'll keep and read over and over again. Highly recommended.

Enjoyable, undemanding read. Serafina's life in the house was the most interesting part of this for me - her relationship with her dad, her wandering the halls at night, catching rats and pillaging the library. I was honestly far more interested in that than I was in the Black Cloak or Braeden. I'd have been completely unaffected if the latter had exited stage left - as long as the dog stayed behind, it was far more entertaining than he was! The continuing adventures of Serafina and the Doberman sounds like fun to me...

And visiting Biltmore has been added to my bucket list.