Review: Adam Nevill's "No One Gets Out Alive"

Adam Nevill’s latest fiendish work has reached new heights of terrifying. Famous for his skin-crawl-inducing paranormal horror, which so far has come in various gruesome flavours: Scandinavian pagan folklore, Lovecraftian madness, creepy dolls and Victorian taxidermy, all enough to rob me of any decent sleep, his books always had a classic horror elegance to it - but they are positively cushy compared to the brick-sh**ting real-life horror he’s unleashed on us now.

      Fret not, the paranormal element is still well and truly present. But as I agonised, glued into protagonist Stephanie’s skin, my nails bitten to the quick, flippin' ghosts, unsettling as they were, were the least of my problems. If anything, they pointed to the bigger problem: Knacker McGuire and his psychotic cousin, the token Evil Private Landlord of an unregulated rental market we’ve all had to deal with in our student years at some point (and some of us, beyond), and which, more often than not, is run by deluded psychopaths keen on milking the naivety or desperation of the modern destitute, knowing full well they cannot be beaten by lawyers tenant can’t afford or Small Claims Courts, which are notoriously incapable of enforcing their rulings.

     This book, my dears, is not about charming-albeit-evil Victorian dolls scratching on your bedroom door with ancient, cracked porcelain hands in the dead of night. This one’s Eden Lake meets Silent Hill.

   Let me call it Landlord Horror. The sheer every-day survival terror you will only experience when your options have become severely limited by crippling poverty. OK, maybe the landlords we had to deal with weren’t as bad as Knacker. But what unites the real and this fictional one is that, if you’re as poor as protagonist Stephanie, with an irregular pittance of an income from a job that works you into exhaustion, no security net, scraping by on pennies day by day, with friends and family either too far, too indifferent or too alienated to help, you are completely at the mercy of whoever owns the roof of the house you’re sleeping under. And you better just hope and pray Knacker McGuire isn’t that man.

    Nevill paints the picture of Stephanie’s bleak existence and her helplessness masterfully. She’s so used to encountering dodgy characters that she probably thought she could handle this one. And it’s not that she has much choice. Desperation makes her rush into a rented room agreement. And once Knacker, oscillating between creepy and sleazy and downright antisocial, has his hands on her deposit, she is stuck – without that money her options are hardly more than the streets. Desperation is what makes her rationalise the warning signs until it’s too late. Lack of sleep saps her of energy, because late at night she hears crying and voices in other tenants’ rooms – tenants she only seems to encounter briefly in dimly lit staircases and who don’t seem to want to speak to her.

      In short, it doesn’t take long for her to feel like she is losing her mind, and to learn that Knacker and Fergal are capable of worse things than just making her feel severely uncomfortable.

      And when Knacker’s cousin Fergal – who makes Knacker look like a school boy in comparison -  arrives on the scene, and a dark presence inflicts violence in the rooms around her, things begin to spiral out of control. 

    And the comparison to Silent Hill? You’ll see what I mean when you get there. If you want your cosmic horror element, Knacker and co are just the gateway: it will billow into this before long and will fully fledge in the second half of the book, which will hound you with paranormal terror that is inescapable and won’t stop at anything before it breaks you.

     Again, I’d be a party pooper if I gave the story away, of how bad things get. I don’t see why I should ease the way for you, dear reader, by preparing you. You must suffer the horrors as I have, because, let’s face it, we love it – why else would we be reading this?

     Let me just say this: considering that around the time I started reading this book, I found out I have to move house myself, and reading about the depressing, existential anxiety-inducing familiarity of trying to find a place that is a) not a hovel, b) in my price range (which is virtually impossible in Witneyshire), and c) not run and occupied by a Knacker McGuire, made my stomach churn, and this book seemed to hit all my fear buttons with a hammer. It made me want to clamber for the property ladder just to not have to rent anymore.

    Give Mr Nevill this: he might well be the modern Dickens who opens up the public eye to the need to regulate and restrain private landlords. True, this is a horror novel, but the terror lies in familiarity with exaggerated features.

This here novel definitely comes as a cautionary tale: read the small print of your contract. More so, insist on a contract. And don’t move into the first place on offer. Small Claims Courts cannot fight hell.

P.S. Adam – thanks for giving Waterstones a cheeky cameo! ;)

Sleep-deprivedly yours,

Patty

Doomsday Kids 2: Nester's Mistake

A little while ago I reviewed Karyn Langhorne Folan’s Doomsday Kids, a gripping tale of a group of kids trying to survive in a world destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. I did enjoy it, albeit with the reservation that I was unsure about whether nuclear war, a threat that was very real in the 80s, and continues to be one as long as nuclear weapons exist, makes an appropriate subject for entertainment.

      And part of me still wishes for a debate, a call to arms to responsibility and continued disarmament, if you will, perhaps even a more politicised message as it was in Anton Andreas Guha’s Ende or GudrunPausewang’s Last Children. But maybe that is just my personal reflex after having grown up in the Cold War. And maybe this book would be a fantastic opportunity for book clubs and schools, having none of the inevitable datedness of similar titles. And then, whether a piece of art is merely consumed or properly digested is not within the control of the author – it’s the reader’s job and choice.

        But when I step back, it probably makes sense that a group of terrified children huddling in a bunker and then embarking on a journey to a safe mountain place through nuclear wasteland have simply no time, mind and energy to point the finger and discuss the political intricacies that would have led to nuclear war. They would be stricken by grief about the loss of their families, terrified by a world that had gone from relatively safe to a place in which virtually everything and everyone poses grave danger, from minor cuts and blisters to former longstanding pillars of the community. They’d be choked by fear and panic, overwhelmed by their own inadequacies in survival skills, their tensions aggravated by the remnants of a high school pecking order and juvenile politics.

And that’s what Karyn Folan did just marvellously. Liam’s Promise was a great start to an incredibly gripping and promising series easily up there with, and much more relevant than, The Hunger Games, the Gone series or The Maze Runner.

And Nester’s Mistake, the follow up, is tying up all the loose ends I was missing in the first book, without ever losing suspense, and ending on a nail-biting cliffhanger leading to a third part that can’t come soon enough.

The kids have arrived in the mountain place, but their fight for survival is far from over. I won’t be a spoilsport and give you a summary of what happens – if you have read the first book, you’ll probably be gagging for the rest of it, anyway. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like about it:

All the characters have grown immensely. The teen personalities I remember from the start of the first book, who were typical children grown up in relative affluence, trying to find their place in their high school society, have changed almost beyond recognition – their new harsh life has carved and refined them and added layers and depth. Folan has skilfully used a powerful writer’s tool: knowing and sympathising with what has shaped a person makes you love and root for them, effectively erasing the boundaries between the good and bad guys. While I was tempted to dismiss Amy and Wasserman as the classic high school princess and jock bullies at the start of the first book, my opinion completely changed. I found myself unable to take sides with anyone, which really drew me into the story. There is no true constant hero in this story, heroism or villainy come by moment-to-moment decisions. Amaranth, for instance, the underdog girl I especially liked, made some bad choices in this one, leaving me to wonder if I had misjudged her completely, but goes out on a truly heroic move. And even the dangerously mad neighbour has a moment in the light, making it impossible to truly hate her.

     The other bit that I really liked (for want of a better word) was that Folan caught up on the inevitable radiation sickness, which I found had been on the sidelines in the first book. But then, exposure and the cumulative effects take time, and in book 2 it became a central, well-described enemy. It’s one of the aspects that frighten me most about nuclear war: The blast is just the beginning. Living in a poisoned world in which nothing much will thrive and grow anymore, and which saps you of strength and health, is a pointless exercise at odds with the human instinct for hope and survival at any cost. And yet those kids fight. And you can’t help but fight with them every step along the way.

Simply awesome... while I'm usually not one to advertise e-books, preferring my good old hard copies, I do urge you to give this a try.

Absolutely cannot wait for part 3.

Yours, radiantly

Patty

Our September Children's Book of the Month: The Maze Runner

When I read The Maze Runner by James Dashner a few years ago, I was gripped, and tearing my hair out that it initially didn't seem to find the recognition it deserved. It was similar with The Hunger Games, but sometimes books just need to come into their own.

Surely Hollywood's garishly blinking arrow has helped draw attention to it, too, with the movie being released soon. It's sad that it perhaps needed the Dystopia Rage kickstarter of The Hunger Games, because it's a terrific book in its own right. But the main thing is, it's being read. Hurrah and huzzah! And because we love it, we made it our Children's Book of the Month.

 

The story starts with young Thomas waking up to a lift door cranking open, and a bunch of kids staring at him. He doesn't know how he got there and what happened to him, but he now finds himself at the centre of a humongous stone maze. In the day, there are exits opening, leading out into the maze, and he soon learns that for a long time the strange kids venture out there, trying to find a way out. One sinister thing is that the maze changes overnight, so any progress made in a day becomes redundant. The other is that they have to be back by sunset, because then the gates close, and anyone trapped outside in the maze will be at the mercy of the Grievers... horrific monsters, half animal, half machine.

As if that wasn't enough to deal with, there are also tensions among the kids, as Thomas finds out soon enough...

 

This is the start of an utterly riveting teen dystopia series that lovers of the Gone series by Michael Grant and The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins will utterly enjoy. Mind, while it is classed as Teen literature, it makes more than a cracking read for any adult fan of the genre, too. Have a peek at the first chapter here. Some find it takes a little while to get going, but just a little persistence will bring much reward and make it nigh impossible to extract it from your hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Non-Fiction Book of September: Travels with Epicurus

Little fills us Westerners with so much terror (and consequent denial) as the idea of aging. Our constant pursuit of eternal beauty, energy and health has caused us to see old age as undignified, something to be feared. A shame, really, considering that traditionally in ours and still in many other cultures, our elders were considered a source of wisdom and serenity.

In recent years, a movement called the New Old Age has taken off... and while it surely is commendable to want to remain fit and active into old age, could it be that it is just out of a reaction to that ageist attitude that still prevails, as if one has to prove oneself and justify one's existence past retirement age? Which just goes to show that the original problem is still alive and well.

Klein addresses precisely that when he travelled to the Greek Islands to explore the locals' attitude to aging.

The Huffington Post wrote a fantastic review, which says "Klein returned to the Greek village and philosophers he has visited for decades to discover authentic ways of aging. In his funny and wry account, 'Travels with Epicurus: A Journey to a Greek Island in Search of a Fulfilled Life', he concludes that old age is a privilege to be savored, rather than a disease to be cured or a condition to be denied."

And Marcus Berkmann, author of A Shed of One's Own, writes in the Daily Mail: "Reading this book after a period of overwork and high stress, I was bowled over by its easy charm and hard-won wisdom. I shall be buying it in bulk as presents for my equally overburdened peers, and I suspect a few older people will enjoy it, too."
Read the first chapter here.

Patty

Our Fiction Book of the Month: "All the Light We Cannot See"

Our book of the month, "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr, has already created quite a stir in the U.S.. The Washington Post described it as: "I’m not sure I will read a better novel this year than Anthony ­Doerr’s 'All the Light We Cannot See'. Enthrallingly told, beautifully written and so emotionally plangent that some passages bring tears, it is completely unsentimental — no mean trick when you consider that Doerr’s two protagonists are children who have been engulfed in the horror of World War II."

The Boston Globe equally enthuses, and the L.A. Times loves that "Doerr's novel is ambitious and majestic without bluntness or overdependence on heartbreak — which is not to say it won't jerk those tears right out of your head."

On this side of the pond, reactions have been similar: The Guardian states that "this novel will be a piece of luck for anyone with a long plane journey or beach holiday ahead. It is such a page-turner, entirely absorbing".

There's good reason we heart it so much, see?

If you're still unsure, don't fret: read the opening chapter here or pop in the shop to have a gander.

Toodles,

 

Patty :)

Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist

They do say not to judge a book by its cover, but in this case we can make an exception. The cover is definitely an eyecatcher. And the pages between are just as stunning. The story is mysterious, bordering on eerie. The characters not what you expect, after the first glimpse they become as intricate and in their own way intriguing and beautiful as the cover that cloaks them. 

I won’t give any of the story away other than that a young woman arrives in Amsterdam of the 1600s, newly married to a rich merchant, to move into his grand house, only to be greeted in a cold, if not hostile manner by his haughty, austere sister and some quite lippy servants. No trace to begin with of the husband, who, even after an eventual arrival, extends no more interest in his new bride than a polite handshake. The young woman is justifiably befuddled and disillusioned – it’s not what she imagined her marriage to start like. And then her husband buys her this elaborate, extremely expensive dollhouse, which is a carbon copy of the house she’s just moved into.  The young woman doesn’t know what to make of any of it. And things get stranger yet. Arguments in the household she cannot make sense of. Odd glances thrown, but nothing explained. And when she hires a miniaturist to help her furnish her dollhouse, she starts receiving odd presents with mysterious messages attached... and the dollhouse starts influencing her life in an uncanny way she can make as little heads or tail of as the rest of her new environment.

What really makes this book in the first place is its almost tangible atmosphere. You are transported to a historical Amsterdam that glitters in frost and the mysteries woven through its fabric, you inhabit the characters like your own skin. And do I sound silly when I say it *feels* Dutch? I’m a sucker for being transported to places in my mind and given a taste of their essence, and this a Ben and Jerry’s of a sampler. For a debut, it’s absolutely mindblowing. It’s a stunning movie for the mind and the senses. It was our book of the month for good reason, and just for its beauty it’s worth buying the hardback, because ... well, because as a paperback or even e-book, it will just feel like having Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker on a shredded old tape. I got a netgalley proof, and I’m buying the hardcover, baby. 

Toodles,

Patty

Karen Maitland's "The Vanishing Witch"

Ever since Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, I’ve been HOOKED on historical fiction – the more medieval, the better. Characters, for me, cannot be covered in enough sh*t, living in hovels, plagued bysuperstition and a wee bit of pestilence. Sure, there are Philippa Gregory’s various novels (and various other authors), awesomely  describing life at court, the power battles and intrigues. Thoroughly enjoy those! But my favourites are still those novels with a wide range of characters, telling tales of all walks of life of that age. Some friends of mine and I had a dorky little Pillars of the Earth fanclub... and one day one of them told me to read Karen Maitland. It took me a while to take up that recommendation, but I have never regretted it. Maitland is INCREDIBLY readable. You break through the barrier with ease and full on dive into the dark ages... and what makes her so brilliant is that her stories always border on the magical, without ever becoming fully fledged fantasy. The magical element in her books is rather born out of the superstitions of the characters. You become so immersed in that world that you cannot tell anymore what is simple trickery and what is magic, or whether there is magic at all. Much like a medieval person must have felt like, the boundaries between simply not knowing things and actual exposure to magic are blurry. It’s a world with an intriguing but completely different mindset, with different hardships and values, yet entirely relatable as a human experience. Her previous works, such as “Company of Liars” and “The Owl Killers” were absolutely stunning, and “The Vanishing Witch” easily keeps up with them. While I won’t ruin the fun and give the story away, rest assured that nothing in it is as it seems, and it’s often not easy to tell who you can trust. It leaves you feeling vulnerable, tense, thrilled yet enchanted. I absolutely adored it.

Your repressed citizen,

Patty

Our Fiction Book of the Month for July

Our Fiction Book of the Month for July, The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, is not just a feast for the old peepers. Of course, I was instantly charmed by the intricate vintage-y dollhouse cover art (and surely not just I have been guilty of obtaining a book just for its outer beauty?)... and not just I. Check out this incredible piece of chalk art created by Jess from Waterstones BishopsStortford.

(I totally would try that with our A-board, too, but whenever I do, the creatures in the picture just whimper "Kill meeeee!" But one digresses...)

            


Or this incredible display done by Waterstones Nottingham (yeah, cheers for showing us all up, Notts ;)!)

                            

But this book is nothing short of a beaut on the inside, as well. Read the first few pages of the book here.

See? Told ya.

Burton's little masterpiece has been compared to "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "The Goldfinch" and the writings of Sarah Waters. But regardless whether you like those three, give it a shot. We do heart it.

Charmed,

 

Patty

Our Non-Fiction Book of the Month for July

A contemporary of Queen Victoria, Dowager Empress Cixi has been compared to Lucrezia Borgia in her ruthlessness.

Jung Chang, author of the much beloved "Wild Swans", presents us with a fascinating portrait of a strong but controversial character.

Read the Guardian review here and the Telegraph review here.

There is also a great blog interview with Chang on our website.


P.S. If you enjoy this, or the subject of women in China in general, do not miss this gem: "The Good Women of China", a stunner written by journalist Xinran.

Don't miss our Children's Book of the Month for July!

Review: The Rain by Virginia Bergin

There is little as sinister as the very basis of our lives becoming life-threatening to us. Always having watched apocalyptic movies and reading books on the subject, it wasn't even the idea of something toxic that freaked me out so much, it was the idea that something as basic as air and water could make our very own habitat our enemy.

Rain, probably the epitome of nourishment, becoming poison is just too much for my head. Yeah yeah, Hunger Games, Battle Royale... that mankind can be a source of evil doesn't really come as a surprise anymore. But forces of nature that get us off our high horse of evolutionary advancement – I can't help but equally worship and be terrorised by them.

Years ago I wrote an apocalyptic short story about poison rain. And bang, here is a book that deals with that very subject.

The premise is that a meteor trojan-horses a bacterium from outer space into our atmosphere, which, when in contact with water, multiplies like crazy. And it really loves to feast on people.

The story starts with young Ruby being at a party, making out with a guy in a jacuzzi, when rain clouds gather – and a hysterical parent ushers them inside. Not knowing what is happening, her heart throb sneaks back outside to gather his belongings, only to stumble back in, screaming, scratching his face to shreds. And Miss Ruby suddenly, confused and clueless as to what's going on, other than the scraps of news she hears about “staying out of the rain”, finds herself in a world collapsing. She gets a lift home, only to be quarantined by her parents, and watching the neighbour die a horrible death on her doorstep.

And her mundane life of friends, mobile phones and shopping becomes one of thirst, death and survival, where even tap water is the enemy, or anything contaminated with the new poison rain.

Neighbours become enemies fighting like animals over the last bottles of drinkable fluids.

All in all a pretty nail-biting read.

There is just one gripe I have with it.

I hated Ruby. From the start. She is a spoilt, whiny, sullen teenage princess, whose persistent English version of the valley girl talk (“Oh my gawd, my Dad is such a loser!”) totally, ohmygod, drove me up the fricken wall. There is a key scene when her Dad is asking her to pay attention to some life-saving information he wants to pass on, and she just sits there moping about having left her mobile phone at her friend's house. You just want to slap her around! All she seems to worry about is make-up, fashion, boys, even AFTER THE FRICKEN APOCALYPSE. I mean, that's what SHE LOOTS!

I understand the author wanted to perhaps create 'that' character kids can identify with, but if the general teenage populace is really that airheaded and mopey, I don't want to live on this planet anymore! She is a high school bully who complains that the guy trying to save her life is the pimply nerdy guy.

I give her that, she does develop over the course of the story into someone not as annoying, but the improvement is not great. It is hard to love a story – and don't get me wrong, the book itself is amazing! - where the main character is the shallow brat that one can barely stand to be around for five minutes in real life, much less read about in a book for days.

So here's my verdict. It's a fantastic, gripping tale. Well-written in general, but I had to grit my teeth through Princess Mopey's valley talk and make-up sampling, to give the book credit where credit is due. Part of me wants to think I have just outgrown teenage books, but the truth is, I love them! I have enjoyed the Gone series, The Maze Runner series, The Enemy series, all of which managed to give teens some credit for brains and being able to act like someone not as tedious as Ruby. Teenage literature doesn't necessarily need cliché teenage characters to hit the target market. And creating an unlikeable protagonist is bound to backfire. Luckily this book just had enough other good features to redeem itself.

Yours, infectedly,

Patty 

Mockingjay - The First Trailer

If you haven't seen it yet, here it is!! The first trailer for the third Hunger Games movie "Mockingjay Part 1" is out there, and it's fricken EPIC! I can't add much to what has already been written up on wonderful Nerdist Chris Hardwick's (who this bookseller always fancied a wee bit when he hosted MTV's Singled Out waaaay back in the days, but one digresses) website, but I can only confirm. It's not just the trailer for another teen movie. It is subtle. It is suave. It is CREEPY.

Talk about teaser. We'll still have to wait 'til 21 November. Gaaargh!

Ah well. Might as well go and read the book first. 

We haz it. Just saying. :)

May your local bookshop be forever in your favour.

Toodle pip,

Patty :)

Andrew Solomon's Far From The Tree - Review

Andrew Solomon blew me away a few years ago with his Noonday Demon, a book which was a finalist for but, dammit, should have won the Pulitzer Price. It was unlike any other book I had ever read: a mix of science, psychological and sociological study, autobiography, philosophy, and inadvertently perhaps even a self-help book. It helped me tremendously, and has others. Hard to top, you’d think.

But Solomon’s done it. It is a very personal book to him, having known from an early age that he’s gay and subsequently having struggled in a society that still perceives this as a ‘sickness’. This book took him a long time to write, but every minute he spent, researching, interviewing, exploring the subject was worth it. The result is astounding. Far from the Tree is a well-rounded, all-encompassing study of parents’ relationship with their children, born into or marked by what most would perceive as tragedy at worst, or a challenge at least: children with disability, mental illness, criminal activity, born out of rape, and so forth – and how these relationships, despite hardship, flourished and gained a meaning they might not have under different circumstances. How the people involved even managed to embrace some of those challenges as identity, which turns the idea of disability and illness on its head, suggesting that trying to fix or make certain perceived problems like deafness and homosexuality “go away” causes more damage than it improves.

           This book bears Solomon’s trademark holistic approach, it covers all angles and perspectives and neglects nothing. He looks at the very individual story of each person involved but also places it in its wider societal context, micro- and macro-analysing and this way managing to still any appetite and need for reading this book: be it scientific curiosity, a need to relate and be understood, inspiration on a personal and wider philosophical level, even finding answers, explanations and solutions if one finds oneself involved in a similar subject matter. It is a lesson in tolerance, love, acceptance for the self and others and embracing differences.

When I say this is not an easy read, please do not misunderstand. Solomon’s style reads beautifully and accessibly, but I had to put the book down time and again, just to digest the richness of it, to catch up with my thoughts and how I related to it, to fully grasp what he was talking about. It is not a book made for passive consumption, it is one that, “for best results”, should be chewed and allowed to seep into one’s soul. It is challenging not on a “too hard to understand” level, as the man talks nothing but sense, it is merely the complexity of it that blows you away.

       Solomon has confirmed himself as my hero: he’s an intellectual, but one that is humble, openly flawed but nonetheless enlightened, outrageously warm and humane, a man with a vision as wide and encompassing as the sky. Sorry to gush, but there are very very few people who have managed to do what he has done.

So I beg you, please please read this book. I myself shall be shipping it to friends far and wide, like soul-expanding, mindboggling, brain-blowing and enlightening lollipops. Far from the Tree is a masterpiece that will probably never find its match. Until Solomon writes another one.

Patty :)

Karyn Langhorne Folan's Doomsday Kids and the pros and perils of popular dystopia

Having grown up in the Cold War, I have always had a morbid fascination with anything related to doomsday, but in particular with nuclear holocaust. I’m aware that my reading dystopia now is an obsession born of that fear. It’s been the equivalent of continually prodding a hole in your tooth with your tongue or picking a scab.  Despite it terrifying the living daylights out of me, I couldn't help but returning to the scene of trauma, observing, gathering information, considering possibilities. Maybe in an attempt to rationalise absolute horror or the possibility of not just my own extinction but that of our entire planet. 

         It was a possibility in the 80s, one we got very very close to around ’84, and to this day I can’t decide whether it makes suitable Young Adult fiction. It is too unimaginably awful to be child’s play. Of course, there is the current trend of post-apocalyptic teen fiction, but it’s all set in a fairly far-off dystopia which is safe enough for a young mind to contemplate and play with. Enough interspersed with young romance and heroism that makes those scenarios abstractly symbolic enough to not become gratuitous. But something as real and close to home as nuclear holocaust?

       I have always been in two minds about it. I think kids need to know about certain issues, and shouldn't be left in the dark about them. And we definitely shouldn't talk down to them. But then again, it’s our job to protect them from fear too big to be processed healthily in a young mind, and I think if kids read these kind of books, they need to be talked about with adults and contextualised. It’s not something juvenile cognition can cope with on its own.

       I first read a children’s book about Hiroshima, The Day of the Bomb by Karl Bruckner, the true story of Sadako Sasaki, the girl with the thousand cranes  – ironically a present for International Children’s Day, when I was about 9. Then there was the equally harrowing Raymond Briggs film When the Wind Blows, which some fool had broadcast on a Saturday afternoon, during a children’s matinee. All this in a time where talk of nuclear threat was on the news on a daily basis. Altogether, for me it was a bit much – it gave me nightmares.

      Then, when I was 11, there was a terrifying book called The Last Children by renowned German author Gudrun Pausewang, dealing with an atomic attack on central Germany and the effect on and pitiful demise of a family. It was syllabus material then, and no doubt valuable in a time when every ounce of peace movement was needed. But it’s still one of the most horrific books I have read on the subject. It had everything. Graphic descriptions of a scorched earth. Horrible mutilations. Radiation sickness. The disintegration of civilised society. Deformed newborns. And one particularly powerful scene of a teenage boy whose legs had been torn off by the blast and who only got around by means of a rickety, soiled pram, hanging himself off a tree by a wall on which he had written “Damned parents”: The parents who had stood by and done nothing to stop the nuclear arms race. It was meant to be a cautionary tale, and, justified, Pausewang didn’t hold back.

       The more astounded I was recently when I saw that Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust is classed as 9-12. While it is by far not as bleak as Pausewang, and actually has an ending of hope,the first half is still pretty full-on. I have recommended it to parents, but with a word of warning - I don't think it should nor is meant to be read "alone".

       Still, as a grown-up, I can’t help myself but read everything on the subject I can get my hands on. Thus it was inevitable that I picked up Doomsday Kids. And here’s the verdict:

It is doubtlessly well-written. I love the characters, who are mildly cliched (there’s a jock and a princess and a weird girl and the loner type, but then, teenagers tend to fit themselves into one category or another for a sense of belonging, so I think those “classifications” work), but the variety of them makes for some tense, conflict-ridden reading. Imagine those different types locked into a small shelter, having to get along, because the only alternative is a bombed out, radioactive world outside. I like that different ethnic groups and disability were represented (the little sister has Down’s Syndrome): you ended up getting a good cross-section of the population. And none of these characters were static: each one of them grows and develops and becomes deeper and more rounded with every page. None of them end up being fully good or fully evil, no one having a moral high ground. They’re kids suddenly confronted with the end of the world, having to survive without their parents, where they suddenly can no longer trust even those they thought to know well, and adults become a threat more than a source of protection and help. They are kids who have to deal with sickness, injury, hunger, emotional distress. They make good and bad decisions. They are fallible and vulnerable. They’re kids.

The story is carried and paced well, suspense is kept up throughout. It ends on a cliffhanger that made me scream “What? You can’t stop now, man! WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN?” – so in that respect it has done a great job of storytelling. And yes, I am excited that there will be sequels.

      It’s a fairly harrowing tale – again not as extreme as Pausewang, but still pretty gruesome. I can’t decide whether I liked or disliked how amazingly those kids had it together, all circumstances considered. But would a young mind be calmer because it couldn't grasp the true horror...or would it collapse for the same reason? Again, that would probably vary from person to person, but that mental struggle didn't come across as strongly as it could have. Also, I couldn't help but think that the threat of radiation sickness was somewhat underplayed. The actual scope of what nuclear war means is missing, reducing it to the playful horror of a computer game. Maybe it’s intentionally played down in order to protect the young reader, and maybe it's still coming in one of the sequels, but inevitably I worry that it creates a “meh” attitude towards the subject matter. What bothers me is that it seems to treat nuclear war more as a form of entertainment in the wake of the current YA Dystopia trend. 

        The question raised for me again is: Is softening young adult post-apocalyptic literature (especially using scenarios that pose or have posed a real threat) irresponsible? Or should young adults be protected from these subjects by giving them a “light” version? I’m in two minds about it, always aware of the fears I lived with as a child, but now, at the same time, glad I wasn’t patronised by a sugar-coated apocalypse.

I have grown up with these type of books being treated as a warning, being politicised, being catalysts of public debate. I think if we’re dealing with true threats, they shouldn't be used as a mere source of entertainment.

Because, maybe  - MAYBE   -  we’re meant to be scared to death of some things.

Traumatisedly yours,

Patty 

The Book Thief - Heart Thief, more like! - A Review

One of the first things my Dad told me about reading is that no matter how often you read a book, it will be like new to you. You will always discover something different, always find a different kind of meaning in it for you in that exact point in your life. I hear so many people say they would never read a book twice, but really, it isn’t about just knowing the plot. You can appreciate a book for all its different forms of beauty, depending on where you are in life.

You know that eternal #firstworldproblem of running out of space for books, and having to decide which ones are gonna go to the charity shop? Some people find it easy – read it once, and it goes. But for me, and possibly for some others, it’s truly the test of a book’s true heart – is it gonna be a one-night-stand, or a life-long romance? Those books never leave me. Literally. And those books are the truly great ones. And sometimes you don’t even know. Sometimes it’s in the hands of a book-fate fairy, if you will, to reintroduce you to an old, forgotten love.

What I’m trying to say, this isn’t the first time that I have read The Book Thief. And it’s the second time around I think I could get a fuller, rounder, deeper appreciation of it. What a wonderful, wonderful book.

The story: intense, powerful, human, flaying your heart open, for want of a better comparison, like a china town duck.

The characters: quirky, idiosyncratic, bordering on weird, flawed, real, but truly lovable because of it.

The writing: simply beautiful, with turns of phrases that made me underline them.

The perspective: as told by Death: creating an “intimate distance”, a paradoxical but close observational point of view that evoke satire as much as rich humanity.

The Book Thief is universally amazing: one of those books you can recommend to everyone and not fail.

Please read it.

I’m not kidding.

Do!

Yours, bookishly,

Patty 

Oh YES it's a Gruffalo!

It's been a few days now... too many days since our Gruffalo Tea Party without an update! Nina really put her heart into the preparation (though she enjoyed every minute of it). And we really got a sample of the lovely Witney spirit: our darling Susan, former Children's Bookseller and loved by many of our customers, who now runs the Cook shop around the corner from Hackett's, volunteered to do what she does best: story time with all the eager children that showed up.

On the same day, in the morning, a lady called Anna, who had just come in to buy a few books, volunteered to return for the event to do free face painting, just because "she loves the shop". What an utterly wonderful thing to say and do, and what great community spirit this displays - I have lived in a few places, and grown up anonymously in a big city, but have never experienced this kind of thing.
Lordy we LOVE Witney!

So here is a big THANK YOU to all of you who turned up - so MANY of you - and made this event truly wonderful with your enthusiasm. So many children showed up dressed up, bright-faced, with toy Gruffalos, and one baby even wearing a Gruffalo outfit that was unbearably cute.
There were cupcakes, and balloons, and children joining in, shouting the good lines in unison, and booksellers nearly fainting from all the balloon-blowing (but one cannot say no to a darling
child eagerly holding out a pudgy hand in balloon-envy) - good times were had by all. Hope to see you all again soon!

Half Term Joy and Banter

Bet y'all can't wait for Half Term! :)
Well, if the weather stays as it is, don't be worried about finding things to do. We've got loads of stuff in here to keep the kids entertained: stickerbooks, tales of adventure, Lego, puzzles, games, art supplies, and if the sun comes out again, we also have guide books to explore wildlife and the Great Outdoors, or to get cracking in the garden.

And to top it all off, as it's the 15th anniversary of the Gruffalo, we'll have a

GRUFFALO TEA PARTY!

There'll be pretty Gruffalo decorations, story time, cakes and biscuits, mask making and Gruffalo Hide-and-Seek.

It all kicks off on 30th May at 2pm, headed by our lovely Children's Bookseller Nina.

So hopefully we'll see you there!

Witney author in book prize finals!

Some of you may remember last June, when we launched wonderful local author Thomas Brown's magnificent gothic horror debut "Lynnwood".

For those of you who don't, there is a great little video created by Southampton University student Joseph Madden, which sums up the event brilliantly.

It was an incredible day celebrating an incredible book and the storytelling skill and passionate work that has gone into it. For those of you unfamiliar with that beauty, pop into the shop and speak to me or see the reviews on our website.


Well, we have been tweeting about it for a bit now, but a little while ago, "Lynnwood" was nominated for the People's Book Prize, a prize not given by a distant panel of people, but by readers, through a democratic process of voting.

And the great news is that "Lynnwood" is now one of the finalists!

We're extremely proud to support Mr Brown and his work - it truly is a book we love and believe in!

And in other good news, Witneyite and born Oxford man, Mr Brown has also become the poster boy for the Southampton University English and Creative Writing degrees.

A great thumbs up from us, and a massive recommendation to all our customers.

Lots of booky love,

Patty 

The Shop (Blog) is Open

Dear all,

glad you found your way to us!

We've finally decided to start a blog, because - let's face it, if you've been to our shop, you know we never shut up - 140 characters on Twitter just don't cut it. The other day I tried to talk about "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared" by Jonas Jonasson, a book I know many of you have enjoyed, but do you think I could fit that title in a tweet in a relevant context? It ended up being "The 100-Y-O Man WCOOTWAD", and the only response I probably elicited was either "Is she drunk?" (not on the job, sigh!) or "Is the cat on the keyboard?" (Oh I want a shop cat, and a shop parrot, wouldn't that be ace? But parrots and books have an uncomfortable stencil-esque relationship, and I can't get the cat back out from behind the shelves, so no...). Anyways, to make a long story short, we decided to start a blog for a variety of reasons.

We can tell you about books. Books we love, books we might not love that much (it happens) but still think you might love.

We can let you know about events.

We can talk about books and reading and all kinds of fun stuff.

We might even post some silly stuff once in a while. (Again, if you've been in to chat with us, you know solemn sanity is not at the top of our list of priorities.)

We can let you know about new stuff coming out.

You can even post us reviews of your favourite books and we'll post them on here (Kids, adults, youse all invited!)

You can even ask us stuff or make suggestions, and we'll feed back to you and do stuffthings about it. Remember, this is your community bookshop.

THIS. IS. WITNEY! (I know, lame!)

So yeah, all that.

We'll still have our twitter account, though (@WstonesWitney). Because Hash Tags are fun.
I'll try and get everyone to post on here, and we'll try and post as often as possible, when we're not shelving or dusting or telling you about awesome books in person.

Come see us in town.
And if not, come see us on here.

We'd love to have you!

Toodle pip,


Patty :)