Neil Gaiman – Everything Is Better With Dragons

2013

Headline Publishing Group

The unknown narrator, escaping from a family funeral, returns to his childhood home, but not finding what he sought he carries on down the Lane, to the Hempstock Farm, home of his only childhood friend Lettie Hempstock, her mother and grandmother. While there he remembers the bizarre events that happened in the spring just after he turned seven, forty odd years before. Then, he forgets again.

The genius of Neil Gaiman’s storytelling is his ability to weave myth, memory and fantasy into original narratives. His unique take on stories that have been around forever makes them fresh and new, where a less inventive writer would be dull and repetitive.

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is another fine example of his creativity, and is currently fighting with ‘American Gods’ for first place on my list of favourite Neil Gaiman books (Mr Wednesday and ‘Lo-key’ Lyesmith are such wonderfully devious bastards – I love them), and by the end of the book I was crying. I felt so sorry for the narrator, and Ginnie Hempstock. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Hempstock ladies are based on the weird sisters. Whoever they are based on though, they are archetypal characters – the wise old lady, the motherly farm-wife, the wild country girls – without being caricatures. The narration, with it’s changing perspective, is a seamless reflection on memory; what is real? Which of our childhood memories do we forget and why?

This is a thought-provoking, beautifully written book. At 243 pages it isn’t huge, but I read it in four and a half hours. I couldn’t put it down.

Rose

I had a bit of a foray in to Amazon the other day and found several free e-books (thanks to the freebie page at http://www.everythingbooksandauthors.com) and read them quite quickly. Most were short stories but one,‘Georgiana Darcy’s Diary’, is probably more of a novella. Since I took the time to read to them I thought I should probably review them.

Georgiana Darcy’s diary: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Continued

Anna Elliott, with illustrations by Laura Masselos

2011

Wilton Press

It’s 1814 and the war with Napoleon is coming to an end, Elizabeth and Darcy have been married a year, Georgiana is 18 years old and still living at Pemberley with them, and their Aunt De Bourgh has organised a house party. She’s trying to marry Georgiana off too some suitable gentleman.

Georgiana feels the need to start writing a diary again, and starts writing about her life. Sick of the fawning fortune hunters, Georgiana is in love with her cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam. Unfortunately rumour tells her he is engaged to someone else, and when he returns to Pemberley to recover from a wound taken at Toulouse she is determined not to give in to her feelings.

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young lady of rank and property will have packs of money- or land-hungry suitors yapping around her heels like hounds after a fox.‘

In the interests of not giving the whole plot away, all I’ll say is the denouement of the storyline is fairly obvious. I mostly liked the story but was slightly unsatisfied by it. I would be interested to read the other two books in this Pride and Prejudice Chronicles, Pemberley to Waterloo, and Kitty Bennet’s Diary.

3/5

Cait the Cat Burglar (55 Portobello Road)

Christine London

2013

Cait is a waitress, stranded in London as she tries to earn money to send home to her sick mother and sister in America. Bribed and threatened in to becoming a thief by the sinister Rothwell, Cait tries to steal the work of an Australian musician. The first time she fails miserably. There were croquet hoops involved.

At work the next day her target comes in for a meal and Cait finds herself questioning her resolve.

This short story is entertaining, although I found it a little too soppy for my taste and too much ‘fairy-tale ending’. I’m not sure I’d bother to read the series of books that this short story is a part of.

2/5

How to talk to girls at parties, A short story

Neil Gaiman

2006

Headline

Originally published 2006 and republished as an e-book 2013 with an exclusive first chapter from Neil Gaiman’s new book, ‘The ocean at the end of the lane’, due out mid-June. Vic and Enn are going to a party Vic heard about from his friend Alison, unfortunately they end up at entirely wrong party with interesting consequences. It’s a fun little story, but then I like Neil Gaiman’s work, having read a couple of his books. He’s a truly original writer.

4/5

A Little Bit of Everything for Dummies 20th Anniversary Edition

John Wiley & Sons, Inc

2011

This book is exactly what it says on the cover, a sample of their published work since the first …For Dummies book in 1991. Covering everything from Windows 7 to Puppies to Sex, this book is an interesting one to flip through.

3/5

And that’s the lot for now.

Bye,

Rose