[Books 2007] Various
Sep. 1st, 2007 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro46. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
What the title says. I've heard about this book from a lot of places, but got really interested when I heard the author on Radio 4 a while ago. He is exceedingly sane and articulate - not just considering what he went through, but full stop. This is his account of how he became a boy soldier, and how he was rehabilitated into the civilian world. It's all written from his point of view at the time that these things happened, ie from that or a child, with an absolute minimum of background explanation and analysis. This is really effective in conveying the sense of powerlessness and confusion that he felt all the way through.
Not an easy read (emotionally), but should be essential reading.
47. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
Next week's Bibliogoth book. A re-read for me. Having the memory of a goldfish, I'd forgotten how funny aspects of it are. It's amazing how Newman can simultaneously pay homage to and take the piss out of Stoker's Dracula and 19th century horror and adventure stories in general. Plus, it doesn't take long.
48. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
A Book at Bedtime a while ago, and I missed parts of it. A young woman in Edinburgh finds out that her great-aunt, who she never knew existed, is being turfed out of the psychiatric hospital where she has been kept for the past sixty-one years. There's not much to this book. It touches briefly on the issue that women and girls used to be shut away for being a bit weird, or getting pregnant and such. The interesting part is the recollections of the two elderly women (the great-aunt and the grandmother who has Alzheimer's) on how Esme came to be put away, and the utter ghastliness of Esme's grandmother, mother and sister. The "present day" characters are pretty dull.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the fact that these old biddies aren't being turned out of psychiatric hospitals now (and we know it's an essential present-day setting because the characters talk on their mobile phones all the time), but it happened in the 80s, with the start of "care in the community" (these are precisely the patients that care in the community was originally intended to benefit). So the time line is essentialy wrong.
I returned the last of the library books I've had rattling around here today. I have two books that I have borrowed that are next up, and then I'm going to concentrate on decreasing the mountain of books I own before I go back to the library.
You can all point and laugh when that doesn't work.
What the title says. I've heard about this book from a lot of places, but got really interested when I heard the author on Radio 4 a while ago. He is exceedingly sane and articulate - not just considering what he went through, but full stop. This is his account of how he became a boy soldier, and how he was rehabilitated into the civilian world. It's all written from his point of view at the time that these things happened, ie from that or a child, with an absolute minimum of background explanation and analysis. This is really effective in conveying the sense of powerlessness and confusion that he felt all the way through.
Not an easy read (emotionally), but should be essential reading.
47. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
Next week's Bibliogoth book. A re-read for me. Having the memory of a goldfish, I'd forgotten how funny aspects of it are. It's amazing how Newman can simultaneously pay homage to and take the piss out of Stoker's Dracula and 19th century horror and adventure stories in general. Plus, it doesn't take long.
48. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
A Book at Bedtime a while ago, and I missed parts of it. A young woman in Edinburgh finds out that her great-aunt, who she never knew existed, is being turfed out of the psychiatric hospital where she has been kept for the past sixty-one years. There's not much to this book. It touches briefly on the issue that women and girls used to be shut away for being a bit weird, or getting pregnant and such. The interesting part is the recollections of the two elderly women (the great-aunt and the grandmother who has Alzheimer's) on how Esme came to be put away, and the utter ghastliness of Esme's grandmother, mother and sister. The "present day" characters are pretty dull.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the fact that these old biddies aren't being turned out of psychiatric hospitals now (and we know it's an essential present-day setting because the characters talk on their mobile phones all the time), but it happened in the 80s, with the start of "care in the community" (these are precisely the patients that care in the community was originally intended to benefit). So the time line is essentialy wrong.
I returned the last of the library books I've had rattling around here today. I have two books that I have borrowed that are next up, and then I'm going to concentrate on decreasing the mountain of books I own before I go back to the library.
You can all point and laugh when that doesn't work.
