I Think Therefore Who Am I? by Peter Weissman (46/81)

Category: Retro - Beats, Hippies, 1960s and Counterculture

I was not born in the 1960s, but have always had a fascination with this period; the music, the fashions and the politics, and I've had a sense of having missed out on something special. But Peter Weissman's memoir of his experiences in 1967 put some of my yearning into perspective.
The author's memories do not portray the time as a golden age, but at the same time he doesn't renounce it or downplay its personal significance.

My overall impression of this book is of the honesty of the author in description himself and his experiences. He unflinchingly describes his younger self as shy, naive and unsuccessful with women at the start of the book, and then as he begins to change through his LSD experiences, he is still portrayed as often foolish and not quite as worldy as he would like to think.

And of LSD taking, here is another of the writer's strengths as he avoids the pitfalls of over-glamorising or over-dramatising the experiences. Again the best way to describe his approach is honest.

'I think therefore who am I?' is essentially a coming of age story and although some of the specifics relate to that time and place, much of it struck a chord with me despite having been born a couple of decades later.

Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi (44/81)

Category: Crime and Detectives with a global theme
Country: Greece

A mysterious detective arrives on a small Greek island to investigate the death of a woman that police have dismissed as suicide. The book moved between the present and the last weeks of the woman's life.

Central to the story were the traditional Greek attitudes towards marriage, family and honour. and it showed a community dominated by superstitions, pride and shame. These aspects added an interesting dimension to the murder investigation, along with speculation about the identity of the detective.

It was a very engaging story, and the local colour, despite the negative aspects, made me yearn for a holiday in Greece!

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (43/81)

Category: Dystopia and Apocalyse

I've renamed the category from just being Dystopia as this book and The Road are probably more about apocalyptic situations than technically dystopian societies.

I vaguely remembered The Day of the Triffids from the television series when I was a child, so I was expecting an adventure story about killer plants. I was expecting it to be dated and corny, but it was a complete revelation. It seemed so modern, it must have felt so ahead of its time when it was first published. The triffids appear directly in the book infrequently, so they remain an ominous when they could have so easily become a silly idea.

The book really does ask some big questions about what people would do faced with the destruction of society, and it succeeds in making you think about it. Some parts of it were actually rather upsetting to read which again I wasn't expecting.

I'll be returning to John Wyndham again.

The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa (42/81)

Category: Themed Titles – Animals

I was drawn to this book because I’d heard about its unusual narrator – a gecko. The gecko observes the comings and goings from his vantage point on the wall of the house of Félix Ventura, an Albino who makes a living by faking histories and ancestors for prominent people.

The story is very much about identity with the chameleons of the title referring to all of the characters here. Even the gecko is not just a gecko as he remembers a past life when he was a man.

It was a surprisingly easy read, despite the unusual narrator, unfamiliar names and place, and descriptions of dreams.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (41/81)

Category: New to Me Authors

I’d heard good things about this book but wasn’t particularly attracted to it, but when it was the monthly choice of my book club, I decided to give it a go.

Despite my misgivings, I was hooked from the first page. This is good old fashioned story telling. The plot is about an amateur biographer who is invited to hear the life story of a famous author, who has always fabricated elaborate stories about her background. What follows is a family saga, mixed with elements of ghost stories and references to classic literature such as The Woman in White and Jane Eyre.

It was a gripping story although the resolution was perhaps a little too neat and did require a leap of imagination to make it seem plausible. But that did seem entirely fitting for the style of the novel.

A great book to curl up with on winter's evening (although I read it in a sunny garden!)

An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (40/81)

Category: Around the World
Country: Zimbabwe

Horrific political regimes do at least seem to produce some interesting literature, and this collection of short stories is no exception. The stories are centred around Zimbabwe, mainly as affected by Mugabe’s rule with the soaring inflation, AIDS epidemic and social injustice.

Whilst Mugabe doesn't feature directly in many of the stories, the impact of his oppressive regime and the tragedies of the instability in Zimbabwe can be felt across the collection. The stories cover the whole social spectrum of Zimbabwian society, and although there are glimpses of humour, it is overall a bleak portrait. The quality of the writing is however excellent, making it compelling reading and unlike many short story collections, there aren't any weak points here.

I would certainly be keen to read more by this author and hope there will be a full length novel in the future.

Right as Rain by George Pelecanos (39/81)

Category: Crime & Detectives (with a global theme)
Country: USA

The first in the series of books featuring the characters Strange and Quinn. Strange is a black private investigator, hired to investigate the killing of a black policeman. Quinn is the white former police officer who did the shooting and is coming to terms with his mistake and life outside of the police. Despite his connection with the case, Quinn ends up helping Strange to get to the bottom of things, which unsurprisingly involves police corruption and drugs.

It was typical Pelecanos fayre - the mean streets of Washington DC, awash with popular culture references, multi-racial characters and a big showdown at the end. It is a gritty portrayal of Washington, which is central to all of his books, and can't be doing much for the tourist industry.

It was a good read, not the most intellectually challenging, but you know what you are getting and it is easy to lose yourself in the plot for a few hours. However, I am beginning to find the plots a bit formulaic, especially that big risky showdown where the main characters take the law into their own hands, which is how all of his books I’ve read so far have ended.

Down and Out in Paris and London (38/81)

Category: Non-Fiction

I read Animal Farm and 1984 years ago and loved them both, but somehow was never drawn to any of Orwell’s other work. But I was glad I took a chance on this book.

It is based on the author’s own experiences before he was famous, working in the restaurant trade in Paris and being homeless in London. Despite the subject matter, it was a surprisingly easy read, testament to Orwell’s skill as a writer. Although his poverty was only temporary, his empathy with the eternally destitute is real and his tone is never patronising.

In the first section on Paris, he describes in detail how one can live on a meagre number of francs, and provides an in-depth account of Paris’ restaurant trade, which treats its hierarchy that treats its lowly staff terribly, but provides some interesting anecdotes here.

In the second part of the book, Orwell moves to London, where the promised job falls through and he finds himself homeless. The tone here is darker, as he is living amongst people who are often without hope, but it is still graced with brilliant characters and some astute insights. I particularly enjoyed the section on the evolution of swear words.

Tales from the City by Armistead Maupin (37/81)

Category: Authors that are New to Me

I’d been meaning to read this book for years, and then on holiday in San Francisco, our apartment had a copy on its shelves. As it is the definitive San Francisco book, I had to read while I was staying in the city.

I loved the references to the city and I found it a compulsive read, but I didn’t ever fall in love with it or the characters. I was interested in the characters in the way that you might be interested in gossip about celebrities – I never really cared, but it filled up some time without having to think too hard. It struck me as rather a shallow book and the characters, despite being overtly quirky, never seemed real.

Moreover the naivety of the 1970s and the sexual free for all didn't sit comfortably with me, knowing that the scene it was portraying was later to be hit by AIDS. I found it hard to read it in the light way it was written with this hindsight.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (36/81)

Category: Non-Fiction

In the UK, it was hard to avoid the hype surrounding this book, and as a fan of detective fiction, I felt compelled to read it. It promised to be a great thriller, with the country house murder story that shaped the early detective novel. The praise heaped upon it by illustrious writers was immense. I should have realised that it won’t live up to the expectations.

The story is that of a murder of a child in Victorian times that caused scandal at the time and was never satisfactorily resolved. At first I was intrigued by the murder and found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it, but then the solution was found quite early and I was wondering if there was going to be a twist which never really came. The book had been meticulously researched, and there was so much detail in there about absolutely everything. The parts about Victorian society, in particular about attitudes towards women and mental health issues, were fascinating, and the parts about the influence of the case on authors were also interesting, but overall much of the information was superfluous and it could have benefited from more ruthless editing.

It was a decent enough book, but it never reached the heights which the reviews promised, and a cynical part of me wondered how much the author’s previous position as the editor of a literary review helped gain those praises.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain (35/81)

Category: 1001 Books to Read Before You Die

This short book was my introduction to classic noir. It is the story of the dangerous passion between Frank, a drifter, and Cora, a married woman. Driven by their uncontrollable desires, they plot to murder Cora's husband, referred to only as The Greek.

It is one of those stories where you just know that everything is going to end badly for pretty much everyone and sure enough it does. Narrated by the amoral Frank, the reader is drawn into their world and almost feel some sympathy for them despite their wrong-doings, and this technique still works, but in other ways the book seemed incredibly dated. The dialogue that was supposed to show the intensity of their passion just made me want to laugh, which ruined the drama somewhat.

On reading this I could see why this and other noirs were made into films as I kept think how it would work better on screen than on the page.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton (34/81)

Category: New to Me Authors

Gabriel Syme is an undercover policeman who infiltrates a secret anarchist group who plan to bring down society. To protect their identities each member of the group is known by a day of the week, with Syme taking over the post of Thursday.

Another odd book (like The Third Policeman) that I enjoyed in part but am not entirely sure I fully understood and at times made me feel like I was going mad! It was very funny in places and absolutely ridiculous in others and up to a point can be enjoyed as an absurd adventure. But in the latter chapters there is higher allegorical meaning, which was lost on me.

So I was glad I read this and would encourage others to give it a try, but I don't think I'll be reading more of Chesterton in the future.

Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks by Christopher Brookmyre (33/81)

Category: Themed Titles – Animals

I loved Christopher Brookmyre’s early books and will admit to having a slight crush on his investigative journalist character, Jack Parlabane, but I was under-whelmed by some of his later books and I haven’t bothered with quit e a few of the recent ones. But if “Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks” is anything to go by, he is back on form. For anyone who isn’t familiar with his books, he has been described as similar to Carl Hiassen, but his stories are set in Scotland.

Once more it features the cynical journalist Parlabane, but this time he is narrating the book from beyond the grave, and the theme of the book is the paranormal and fake psychics. The title refers to some people’s unshakeable beliefs despite huge evidence to contrary. Essentially this is a crime novel, but the trickery of the celebrity mediums and the human psychology behind it makes for an interesting setting.

Yet again, this is a book with a split narrative. Parlabane is the main narrator and his deadpan Scottish humour will be familiar to anyone who has read Brookmyre’s other books, but he shares the narration with a student caught up in the events and a female journalist with opposing views to Parlabane. The parts by the latter are dryer in style than the rest and the opening chapter seemed to drag, but it is worth sticking with as the story soon picks up.

I guessed a couple of the twists before they were revealed but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of this. A good light read.

Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan (32/81)

Category: Retro – 1960s, Beats, Hippies and Counterculture

Although my fourth book in this category, this is the first example of writing actually from that period that I’ve read for the challenge. As an example of the weird literary experiments of the time, I think this is a good choice.

The book is made up of a series of short essays (for want of a better word) that are all vaguely around the idea of “Trout Fishing in America”. In some “Trout Fishing in America” is more or less what you would think it means, tales of fishing across the USA, but more often the phrase turns up to mean something completely different. It is often the name of a person, it is the name of hotel in one place and in my favourite story, it is a slogan written on school jackets.

There were parts of it that I enjoyed but other parts I found frustrating. Brautigan can obviously write and I would have liked to see his talent used in a sustained way rather than the fragmented style here. Very much of its time and therefore great for this category and I will certainly attempt more of his work in future.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (31/81)

Category: Dystopia

In case you are one of the few people who hasn’t already read the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Road”, I will explain that it is about an unnamed father and son walk along a road in America in the post-apocalyptic future. It is a very bleak depiction of the future, with a barren landscape and society crumbled to horrific lawlessness and immorality.

The other dystopian novels I’ve read so far have all described the system in place to rule society and largely these are intended as utopias but that have gone wrong. But there is nothing of that here. Society has completely crumbled and it is pretty much every man for himself. This is by far the darkest portrait of the future that I’ve read, and yet at the same time it was the most effecting.

Amongst the horrors of the desolate landscape, there is the relationship between the man and the son, which is an incredibly touching portrait and despite the world seeming very alien, this relationship always felt real.

“The Road” is a difficult read, not because of the lack of punctuation around reported speech, but because of the raw emotions and terrifying vision it depicts. Highly recommended but best read in private as it has the power to reduce you to tears.

The Flood by David Maine (30/81)

Category: New to Me Authors

The Flood is a retelling of the Bible story of Noah and the ark. The original story is a good one anyway (whatever your beliefs, it is hard to deny that the Old Testament has some great stories) but the author has managed to bring the characters to life. He has used a lesser known edition as his source, so the names differ somewhat to the ones with which we are most familiar, for example the main character is Noe.

The story is told from different perspectives, which anyone who has read my other reviews will already know is something that I love when it is done well, as it is here. So we see the flood from the point of view of Noe’s wife, his three sons and their respective wives. There is also the occasional chapter written in the third person thrown in for good measure which shows us Noe’s story, but at more of a distance than the others.

The book starts with Noe receiving God’s message about the impending flood, through time on the ark (although that word is never used) and then onto the period afterwards, when the family are dispersed to repopulate the earth, which was less familiar territory for me as I think my school teaching of this tended to end with the flood receding.

I thought this was a great book. I found it very funny in place (there is a great discussion on how the animals should be kept on the ship) and it was just as much about how families react in crisis as it was about religion. However, I would be cautious in recommending this as some people may be offended by some of it (there is a lot of “rutting” in the book) and towards the end, there are questions asked about religion. So despite it being based on a Bible story, I think it might be enjoyed more by the less religious.

Hippie by Barry Miles (29/81)

Category: Retro – 1960s, Beats, Hippies and Counterculture

At first I thought it might be a bit of cheat including this book in a reading challenge as this book does mainly consist of photographs. However it turned out that there was still a substantial amount of text amongst the wonderful images, so it has earned a place in my list.

“Hippie” covers the counterculture movement from 1965 to 1971, spending a lot of time in San Francisco where the hippies dominated, but also visiting the equivalent scenes in Los Angeles, New York and London. The book is very much about the culture of the period in terms of music, fashion and lifestyle choices, with the political aspects not being covered as in depth here as elsewhere.

The author is in a good position to write about this era as his background includes being chairman of the Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, co-founder of Indica Books and Gallery and International Times (IT) and head of Zapple, the Beatles' spoken word label. He actually pops up in the book once or twice, where he refers to himself in the third person, which seemed a bit odd. Despite his connections, this book is far being a rose-tinted trip down memory lane with a description of the later Haight-Ashbury scene being particularly disturbing. He is also very realistic about the limitations of the hippie ideals, how short-lived its heyday was and about its long-term impact.

“Hippie” is very much an overview of the movement and at times I would have liked more detail, but it provides a good introduction to the subject. It is also a book that can be dipped into and returned to again on account of the great pictures.

The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Lavers (28/81)

Category: Non-Fiction

The idea of the unicorn has persisted for centuries, appearing in a number guises around the world. Here, Chris Laver attempts what may seem impossible, looking at the natural history of a creature that doesn’t actually exist.

Whilst our idea of a unicorn may not exist, there are real animals who have contributed to the legacy of the unicorn in one way or another, so the author examines possible candidates for having been the origin of the unicorn. He examines a number of other authorities on the subject (who knew so much research had already been done into unicorns!), to come up with some possible candidates for the inspiration for the unicorn.

The book then moves on to the use of the unicorn in the Bible and as a symbol in Judea-Christian religion and my favourite part, about the supposed healing qualities of their horns. There is also a really interesting section on the hunt for unicorns in Africa, and a rather disturbing section about an experiment to “create” a unicorn.

The only criticisms I have is that Chapter Six on the Khutu was rather too long for what it added and the final chapter begins with a mention of New Age and advertising, which is something I would have been interested in a chapter on, but which isn’t taken any further.

All in all this is a very well researched book with a lot of detailed information but the author writes in an accessible style with occasional flash of wit worthy of Bill Bryson.

Giraffe by J M Ledgard (27/81)

Category: Themed Titles – Animals

This is a fictional retelling of a real life incident. In Czechoslovakia, under communist rule in the 1970s, the largest ever group of giraffes were brought from Africa to be breed in captivity. Like many things in that time and place, this was a tool for propaganda, but something goes wrong, leading to a horrific outcome. I’m trying to avoid too much of a spoiler here, but to be honest the blurb for the book gives it away.

However, knowing how things end does not spoil the reading of this great book. How the story is told is a wonderful journey in itself. The story is split between different narrators, including a scientist (an expert in blood flow), a sleep-walker, a hunter and best of all, a giraffe. Their differing perspectives, especially as it moves towards its awful conclusion, add to the texture of the novel.

The book also has some brilliant descriptions of giraffes and interesting musings on man’s relationships with animals. Added to this, the looming presence of the communist regime make “Giraffe” a fascinating read, and all the more interesting for being based on real events.

And despite the illustration of a giraffe on the cover, this is far from being a children’s book.

Tropical Fish - Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana (26/81)

Category: Around the World

Country: Uganda

This book is structured as eight short stories which could work as stand-alone pieces (and some have been published in magazines), but they are best read in order as presented here. All of the stories in some way are about Christine and her two older sisters, growing up in Uganda following the regime of Idi Amin.

The stories change perspective, some in the third person, but most in the first person, one as diary entry and another particularly affecting story, as a letter to a former lover. Essentially they are coming-of-age stories, but set against a backdrop of unrest, the effects of colonialism and AIDS. Uganda plays an important part in these stories, ironically even in the one that is set in Los Angeles.

Some of the problems faced by the characters here are specific to Africa, but other feelings portrayed should resonate with everyone. This is a wonderful book which I expect to have a lasting effect on me and I'll be keen to read whatever Doreen Baingana writes next.