All posts tagged: NetGalley

Book Review – ‘Wayward Heroes’

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Title: Wayward Heroes Author: Halldór Laxness (translated by Phillip Roughton) Genre: Fiction (literary) Release date: 1st November, 2016 Rating: ★★★★ “This reworking of Iceland’s ancient tales, set against a backdrop of the medieval Norse world, complete with Viking raids, battles enshrined in skaldic lays, saints’ cults, clashes between secular and spiritual authorities, journeys to faraway lands and abodes of trolls, legitimate claimants and pretenders to thrones, was written during the post-WWII buildup to the Cold War, and Laxness uses it as a vehicle for a critique of global militarism and belligerent national posturing that was as rampant then as now. This he does purposefully, though indirectly, by satirizing the spirit of the old sagas, represented especially in the novel’s main characters, the sworn brothers Þormóður Bessason and Þorgeir Hávarsson, warriors who blindly pursue ideals that lead to the imposition of power through violent means. The two see the world around them only through a veil of heroic illusion covering their eyes: kings are fit either to be praised in poetry or toppled from their thrones, other men only to kill or be killed by, while women are more …

Book Review – ‘The Mystery of the Three Orchids’

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Title: The Mystery of the Three Orchids (Commissario De Vincenzi #12) Author: Augusto De Angelis (translated by Jill Foulston) Genre: Fiction (mystery/crime) Release Date: 8th August, 2016 (first published in 1942) Rating: ★★★ “Death is in the air at one of Milan’s great fashion houses. As a new collection is unveiled, and the wealthy rub shoulders with the glamorous, owner Cristiana O’Brian escapes upstairs to discover the strangled body of her servant slumped on her bed – a single orchid by his side. When Inspector De Vincenzi is called in to investigate, the brilliant detective is puzzled; why is Cristiana behaving so suspiciously? And what is her estranged ex husband doing there? As two further corpses appear, each accompanied by an orchid, De Vincenzi must see through dirty tricks and slippery clues in order to uncover the real killer. Augusto De Angelis’s notorious sleuth returns in a cryptic murder mystery teeming with blackmail, deceit and revenge.” (Pushkin Press) This is the third book in the ‘Inspector De Vincenzi’ series that I’ve read (the others were The …

Book Review – ‘The Birdman’s Wife’

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Title: The Birdman’s Wife Author: Melissa Ashley Genre: Fiction (historical) Release Date: 1st October, 2016 Rating: ★★★★★ “Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. The Birdman’s Wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man. Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover, helpmate, and mother to an ever-growing brood of children. In a golden age of discovery, her artistry breathed wondrous life into countless exotic new species, including Charles Darwin’s Galapagos finches. In The Birdman’s Wife a naïve young girl who falls in love with an ambitious genius comes into her own as a woman, an artist and a bold adventurer who defies convention by embarking on a trailblazing expedition to the colonies to discover Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.” (Simon & Schuster) So I need to …

Book Review – ‘Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman’

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Title: Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman Author: Stefan Zweig (translated by Anthea Bell) Genre: Literary Fiction Release Date: 4th February, 2016 Rating: ★★★★ “‘The less I felt in myself, the more strongly I was drawn to those places where the whirligig of life spins most rapidly.’ So begins an extraordinary day in the life of Mrs C – recently bereaved and searching for excitement and meaning. Drawn to the bright lights of a casino, and the passion of a desperate stranger, she discovers a purpose once again but at what cost? In this vivid and moving tale of a compassionate woman, and her defining experience, Zweig explores the power of intense love, overwhelming loneliness and regret that can last for a lifetime.” (Pushkin Press) I’m starting to get to the point with Stefan Zweig that any comments I make about his work should be preceded by a disclaimer that goes something along the lines of, “In my eyes, he can do no wrong.” So if you read any further, you should keep in my …

Book Review – ‘Seven Skeletons’

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Title: Seven Skeletons: The Evolution of the World’s Most Famous Human Fossils Author: Lydia Pyne Genre: Non-fiction (science, history) Rating: ★★★★ “Over the last century, the search for human ancestors has spanned four continents and resulted in the discovery of hundreds of fossils. While most of these discoveries live quietly in museum collections, there are a few that have become world-renowned celebrity personas—ambassadors of science that speak to public audiences. In Seven Skeletons, historian of science Lydia Pyne explores how seven such famous fossils of our ancestors have the social cachet they enjoy today. Drawing from archives, museums, and interviews, Pyne builds a cultural history for each celebrity fossil—from its discovery to its afterlife in museum exhibits to its legacy in popular culture. These seven include the three-foot tall “hobbit” from Flores, the Neanderthal of La Chapelle, the Taung Child, the Piltdown Man hoax, Peking Man, Australopithecus sediba, and Lucy—each embraced and celebrated by generations, and vivid examples of how discoveries of how our ancestors have been received, remembered, and immortalized.” (Penguin Random House) After reading …

Book Review – ‘A Robot in the Garden’

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Title: A Robot in the Garden Author: Deborah Install Genre: Science fiction Release date: 10th May, 2016 Rating: ★★★★ “Ben’s really great at failing at things—his job, being a husband, taking the garbage out. But then he finds a battered robot named Tang in his garden. And Tang needs Ben. More ornery and prone to tantrums than one would expect from something made of gears and springs, Tang desperately must be fixed—and he just might be the thing to fix what’s broken in Ben. Together they will discover that friendship can rise up under the strangest of circumstances, and what it really means to be human.” (Sourcebooks Landmark) I love to read and I’ll read just about anything once. But sometimes I tend to read a bunch of heavy (in terms of content, not weight) (ok, sometimes weight too) books in a row and the reading just all gets a bit much. Sometimes I need a palate cleanser. That’s what A Robot in the Garden was for me – a palate cleanser. It was delightful, funny, …

Book Review – ‘Before the Fall’

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Title: Before the Fall Author: Noah Hawley Genre: Fiction (mystery) Release Date: 31st May, 2016 Rating: ★★★★ “On a foggy summer night, eleven people-ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter-depart Martha’s Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs-the painter-and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul’s family. With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members-including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot-the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers’ intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while …

Little reviews // May 2016

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I’ve got three little reviews for this month – one is an ARC I enjoyed a lot less than I thought I would, one is a ghost story set in the Arctic, and the last is a modern retelling of a Shakespeare play. The Butchers of Berlin Author: Chris Petit Genre: Fiction (historical/thriller) Release Date: May 1st 2016. Rating: ★★★ I was 100% convinced that I’d enjoy this, basically because of this line from the blurb: “Corpses, dressed with fake money, bodies flayed beyond recognition: are these routine murders committed out of rage or is someone trying to tell them something…” [Simon & Schuster]. Ok, so maybe ‘enjoy’ isn’t an appropriate word to use in the context of this book, but you get what I mean. Unfortunately I was left pretty disappointed. The biggest problem I had, was trillions of plot threads and characters to keep track of. I spent the vast majority of the book trying to understand what was happening, which resulted in me not enjoying it and I would have abandoned it had I …

Book Review – ‘Sleeping Giants’

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Title: Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) Author: Sylvain Neuvel Genre: Science Fiction Release Date: 26th April, 2016 Rating: ★★★☆ “A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand. Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected. But some can never stop searching for answers. Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of …

Book Review – ‘Ice Diaries’

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Title: Ice Diaries Author: Jean McNeil Genre: Non-fiction (biography/memoir) Release date: March 2016 Rating: ★★★★ “A decade ago, novelist and short story writer Jean McNeil spent a year as writer-in-residence with the British Antarctic Survey, and four months on the world’s most enigmatic continent — Antarctica. Access to the Antarctic remains largely reserved for scientists, and it is the only piece of earth that is nobody’s country. Ice Diaries is the story of McNeil’s years spent in ice, not only in the Antarctic but her subsequent travels to Greenland, Iceland, and Svalbard, culminating in a strange event in Cape Town, South Africa, where she journeyed to make what was to be her final trip to the southernmost continent.“ (ECW Press) Antarctica is probably my most favourite place to read about, but up to this point my reading has been largely confined to the books by/about the Antarctic explorers of the early 1900s (like Shackleton, Mawson, Scott, and Amundsen) and I was quite keen to read a contemporary take on the continent. So when I saw Jean …