Tunnels and Mister Pip

Two short reviews this time, in order to catch up properly before I go away on holiday on Saturday. (We're off to Cornwall for a much needed break.) I didn't think I'd have much time to read this month but, in fact, it's turned out to be not so bad after all. So my sanity has been saved, though some might say that's debatable. ;-)

First up it's another creepy read for Carl'sRIP III challenge - Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams.

Fourteen year old Will Burrows lives in London with his family. They're a strange lot - his father digs underground tunnels for a hobby, his mother never shifts from in front of the TV and his twelve year old sister is rather emotionless but is the one that keeps the household running. Will is a tunnel digger too and introduces his one friend, Chester, to his underground world. But there are some odd looking people wandering about and possibly following them. Why? When Will's father suddenly goes missing Will discovers that he was digging a tunnel he hadn't told his son about and it descends from their cellar. Chester is coerced into accompanying him on the adventure into the subterranean depths to find Will's father. What they find there will change everything Will has ever known about himself, his family, and even the history of the human race.

This pacey, imaginative story for young adults really pandered to my love of books that go underground. (The Hollow Kingdom series by Clare B. Dunkle did likewise.) I found it gripping and really quite scary in a 'what if?' sort of way. The race of beings that Will and Chester go up against are not pleasant in any way, shape, or form and full marks to the authors of this book for creating a universe that is both believable and at the same time not remotely cosy. In short, I loved this book and would especially recommend it for teenage boys or anyone like me with a love of underground stories. The sequel, Deeper, is already available and I'll be searching that out as soon as I can.

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Next it's Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, a book that won the 2007 Commonwealth Writer's Prize and was also shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker prize, so I read it for my Book Awards Challenge that's being hosted by 1more chapter.com.

Matilda is a young girl living with her mother in a small village on a tropical island. Her father left the island some years ago, to work elsewhere, he sends money home occasionally but basically he is out of their lives at the moment. A civil war is looming on their island involving a big company and the young men of the island. Suddenly the war starts and the island is cut off from the rest of the world. Life becomes a question of survival for the village. Mr. Watts, the only white person on the island, takes on the task of teaching the children using a copy of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. The book rapidly becomes one of the most important things in Matilda's life, even though the place and time it was set is a million miles from her experience. Unfortunately, the book also plays its part in later misunderstandings with soldiers from both sides of the war, with completely unforeseen results.

It's hard to describe my feelings about this book because they're mixed. To say I *enjoyed* it would be wrong. I did enjoy a lot of it, the teaching with the book, the bits about the islanders lives etc. But some - much smaller - parts of the story are quite brutal, to be honest, and rather hard to take. I'm glad I read it, I like to read stuff like this from time to time to give myself a good dose of the reality of some people's existences. And the quality of the writing makes the book worth reading too. It also reminded me that I would like to read Great Expectations again sometime soon - I last read it in my teens and am almost positive I would get a lot more out of it now I'm older.

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There! I'm up to date with reviews at last. I'm halfway through The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill, which is fantastic, but I'm pretty certain I won't manage to finish it before Saturday, so that review will be for when I get home the week after next.

Twilight

I think Twilight by Stephenie Meyer is probably one of the most famous books around at the moment. Almost on a par with Harry Potter - everyone I know seems to have read one or two in the series and usually all of them. My visitor from Memphis is with me now and what's she reading? The third book in the series, Eclipse. So of course I had to see what all the fuss was about and happily added it to my pool of books for Carl's RIP III challenge.



For reasons not stated at the beginning of the story Bella Swan has decided to leave her home in Phoenix, Arizona, where she lives with her mother, to go and live with her father in Forks, in Washington state. It's awkward at first, her father Charlie is pleased to have her there but Bella has always disliked Forks and is not at all sure she'll be able to settle. He's bought a truck for her from an Indian friend, so at least she has transport, and with that she starts at her new school.

Bella doesn't consider herslf to be a particularly 'cool' kid, or particularly pretty but is surprsied to find herself the object of attention of a couple of boys. She's never had many friends but finds that here in Forks she does actually have some, they may not be the cool kids, but that's fine. One day in the canteen she notices a group of teenagers sitting apart from the rest of the school. This is the Cullen family and it's explained to her that they are different and always keep themselves aloof from everyone else. Amongst the Cullens is Edward, absolutely the most gorgeous boy Bella has ever seen and it's not long before Bella realises that he has noticed her. After a shakey start they begin to communicate. Then Edward saves her from certain death under a runaway truck and Bella can't figure out how he got there fast enough to save her. Something is definitely peculiar about Edward. Bella sets out to find out what it is exactly and it's not long before she realises she has fallen in love with a vampire.

Most people, I have to say, seem to love this series. Those that don't seem not to like the fact that mostly it's just a teenage romance book with vampires. And this is true, it is. Three quarters of the book is about how Edward and Bella get together, their life at school, and not a lot else. I'm trying to work out why that didn't bother me and I can't. Yes, I liked the two main characters, I also liked the forrested setting of Forks, WA. Most of the book really isn't *about* very much to be honest but despite that I really did like it an awful lot. And when it suddenly took off, a hundred pages from the end, with the arrival of a rogue group of vampires, it was suddenly unputdownable! Superb. If I was going to be really nit-picky I would say that sometimes Edward's resemblance to a Mills and Boon (Harlequin in the US) hero did grate a tiny bit. He is ever so slightly *too* perfect. But I can live with that quite happily, although I probably won't be handing it over to my husband to read. He reads Kelley Armstrong but I'm thinking Stephenie Meyer might not be for him. I have the next book, New Moon and will read it probably next month when I can devote more time to it.

This is my fifth book for Carl's challenge so I'll list it as an extra book or something as I've already read my four books for Peril the First.

The Moor

Having made a complete pig's ear of this post this morning, five minutes before I was due to go out and no time to correct it, I'm trying again this afternoon. Ever get the feeling you don't belong in this century...

I'm going through one of those busy periods at the moment - my husband had a knee operation the week before last so that's involved a lot of coming and going, next week I have a friend from Memphis coming to stay for 10 days so of course that means lots of housework and careful planning, and after that we're off on holiday to Cornwall for a week. So basically October is going to be something of a washout as far as reading is concerned; it'll probably come down to reading in bed for ten minutes last thing at night. The book I'm talking about here, The Moor by Laurie R. King, took me ten days to read and that's no reflection on the book - it was an excellent read. It is in fact the fourth and final book for my Peril the First challenge for Carl's RIP III Halloween challenge.




This the fourth book in the celebrated Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. It begins with Mary, busy with her studies at Oxford, receiving a telegram from Sherlock Holmes. He's on Dartmoor, staying with a friend, The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould. He needs Mary's help but doesn't say why and, albiet reluctantly, Mary hotfoots it down to Dartmoor immediately. She arrives in the middle of nowhere, isn't met, and has to walk the two miles, at night, in the pouring rain, through muddy lanes. She arrives wet, muddy and dishevelled and isn't best pleased at the rather snotty reaction she gets from the men of the house. Worse still the house is freezing and the food appalling: Mary is more than a little bit inclined to return to Oxford the next day. Instead she allows Holmes to tell her about a strange death that has occurred on the moor and about a ghostly coach accompanied by a large black dog that has apparently been seen in several parts of the moor. Russell and Holmes set out to travel the moor, gathering as much information as they can about the dead man and the apparitions people have seen. Baskerville Hall, the scene of one of Holmes's most famous cases, has new residents, Americans, Richard Ketteridge and his secretary, David Scheiman. Holmes and Russell get to know them and then suddenly the mystery deepens when a man is found dead - floating upside down in a quarry pool. Can The Moor be persuaded to reveal some of its secrets to the two sleuths?

I think this is probably my favoutite Holmes/Russell mystery so far. I live not far from Dartmoor and visit occasionally, so some of the locations were quite familiar to me. That could explain why I like this one so much but I think too the air of mystery and suspense is quite strong. But really, I think it is all down to Dartmoor itself. The author describes the wildness of Dartmoor very vividly, it's as though the moor is an important character in its own right, so strong is the atmosphere of wild but slightly menacing beauty. I've fished out a few photos I've taken in the past which I thought would go quite nicely with this post.

Two general views first, illustrating quite well the wildness of Dartmoor.





Next, two views of Hound Tor:





Cornerstone Tor:



The softer face of Dartmoor - this is the village of Buckland-in-the-moor.



And this is Widecombe-in-the-moor of Uncle Tom Cobbley fame.



Anyway, an excellent read. Officially my challenge is finished I suppose but I intend to continue with the books on my list as there are several I still really want to read - depending on time of course.

Holmes and Lucia

Things have been busy so I'm a bit behind with book reviews. Thus, I'm just going to do two quick ones to catch up. The first is The Sign of Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - a Sherlock Holmes mystery of course.

It's a couple of weeks since I read this and it's hard to remember the details. Basically, Holmes is bored and taking drugs when suddenly a Miss Morstan appears with a problem. Her father died under suspicious circumstances some years before and suddenly someone is sending her pearls and apologising for the way life has treated her. Why? Watson is smitten and Holmes investigates.

Wonderful, as always. The back story concerning warfare in India and skulduggery and deception with treasure is most fascinating. I love the scene where Holmes and Watson go in hot pursuit of the villain in a boat on the Thames. Great stuff and I'm all ready now to read my next Laurie R. King novel - The Moor.

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The Mapp and Lucia stories by E.F. Benson seem to be beloved of various friends and bloggers so I thought I'd try them for myself. Queen Lucia is the first in the series.

The story is set in the sleepy village of Riseholme. Mrs. Lucas, known to all as 'Lucia' (pronounced in the Italian manner), is queen of the village and everyone follows her lead in all things artistic. We're introduced to various characters, Georgie, Lucia's effeminate second in command, The Quantocks, Mrs. Weston, Col. Boucher etc. It soon becomes apparent that though they all follow Lucia's lead there is in fact quite a bit of rivalry to be the first with a new fad or with news. And the latest thing is that Daisy Quantock has an Indian Guru living with her and her husband. Lucia is green with envy and furious that Daisy has done this without consulting her. Next thing we know there is a famous opera singer, Olga Bracely, staying in the village and Lucia is again the last to know. What's happening and how will Lucia cope with what appears to be a fall from grace?

E.F. Benson's writing is not new to me - I've read probably all of his superb ghost stories and think he was one of the best supernatural writers around in the first half of the 20th. century. I hadn't tried his Mapp and Lucia books though, not sure why, just wasn't the right time I think.

I have to say that all the people who love this book are quite justified in doing so. It's funny, beautifully observed and actually has quite lot to say about the nature of friendship. We all know someone like Lucia, although maybe not quite as extreme, and I think that's why it all felt so *real* to me. Benson must have been a brilliant observer of people, but he's never cruel, it's all done tongue-in-cheek and with a great deal of humour. Wonderful. I was hoping to find the next book, Miss Mapp, in Waterstones this morning but no such luck. Amazon here I come...

M.R. James

My third book for Carl's RIP III challenge is The Ghost Stories of M.R. James, selected by Michael Cox and illustrated by Rosalind Caldecott.



I always try to remember when and where I buy books but this one totally eludes me. I know I've had it for quite a while and that on the inside cover is written '£6.00' in pencil, so I'm thinking it must have been a secondhand bookshop buy rather than a charity shop one. I also have the vague idea that I dithered over paying that much so it must have been a while ago. Now of course I'm thrilled to bits that I didn't leave it behind as an illustrated M.R. James is something I prize very highly indeed. The drawings are beautiful and I'll use a few of them in this post as I go along. (Click on the pic and you'll get a bigger version.)

The anthology includes some fifteen stories but starts off with a thirty page biography of the author, which I read after I'd read the stories and found fascinating. M.R. James was what you would call a scholar in the old-fashioned sense. Educated at Eton and then King's College, Cambridge he never married and dedicated his life to these two educational establishments as a teacher, but also to his writing.

And what writing. I first read most of M.R. James's ghost stories about fifteen years ago. I thought then that they were very readable but not necessarily as brilliant as people said and that there were other writers of the supernatural who were just as good. Now I'm not so sure. I read these fifteen stories and became utterly enthralled by the imagination displayed and the gorgeous writing that sweeps you away into a world of libraries, churches and stately homes where weird happenings are the order of the day.

The fifteen stories include such well known classics as Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad...



A Warning to the Curious, A View From a Hill and The Ash Tree. The last of these was probably my favourite in the book, a story of what happens when a lord of the manor betrays a witch, who is then hanged. He'd seen her collecting twigs from the ash tree that grew outside his bedroom window. What the witch does to this tree and the affect it has on future members of the lord's family is the subject of the story and its creepiness just blew me away. Another favourite was The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral...



... which tells what happens when a new archdeacon takes over from one who has let things slip, and how some rather weird statuettes on the end of the pews are involved in his downfall.



A Vignette was also a big favourite. It was the last ghost story James ever wrote and is apparently slightly autobiographical in that he used the rectory where he grew up as a setting. It tells the story of a young boy growing up in the vicarage who feels that something is very disturbing about the corner of the garden he can see from his bedroom window.



A gate leads into a plantation of trees and the boy has dreams about a being with a white hand opening the gate and coming up the path. One day he actually does see something and goes down to check...

Difficult to overstate how much I adored this anthology of weird stories. In the biographical bit it describes James's stories as a 'sub-genre of antiquarian ghost stories' and that's a perfect description in my opinion. James knew his world and used it time and again to great effect. I don't think 'stunning' understates the case. I was blown away by the quality of the writing and adored the supernatural bent to the tales. These weren't just stories about ghosts, there's all kinds of daemonic weirdness here and it was truly amazing to read. Add to that the lovely illustrations of Rosalind Caldecott and you have a beautiful volume of stories that I'm thrilled to bits to own.

The Vanished

My second creepy story for Carl's RIP III challenge is a Young Adult spine chiller, The Vanished by Celia Rees. I happened to spot this in our local Oxfam shop, liked the sound of it and bought it. I'd not read anything by this author before, although I had heard of her... I just can't remember where or why. I've since discovered via her FantasticFiction entry that she's actually quite a prolific writer of young adult novels, mainly, but not all, in the horror genre.



The story revolves around three older teenagers, Cassie, Fraser and Jake. Cassie, aged somewhere around 17, is the editor of her school newspaper - a newspaper that is not doing very well at all. Fraser is a new boy who you immediately learn has problems, but not what they are. He volunteers to write for the newspaper on his first day and immediately takes an interest in some photos Jake - the paper's photographer - has taken. They're rather weird studies of various abandoned tunnels or water culverts, all over the city, but when asked Jake has no idea why he felt driven that morning to go out and take these photos.

It's Fraser's idea to increase interest in the paper by getting pupils to send in their experiences of weird goings on in the school, hauntings and so on. Cassie thinks there aren't any and thinks it's a bad idea but is soon proved wrong when they are inundated with replies. It doesn't make any sense. She starts dating Fraser and finds out that there are things about him that don't make any sense either. A young girl has gone missing and the teenagers soon realise that a boy known as 'Billy', that everyone knows and has seen at the school, is not a pupil at all and that he has something to do with the disappearance. Who is he? And what has the children's poem about seven steps that descend from the woods, where no one goes alone, into an underworld of tunnels, got to do with all of this? Cassie makes the discovery that the missing girl is not the first to go missing and then Jake's eight year old sister disappears...

First of all, I thought the three teenagers who were the main characters in this story were very nicely drawn. I liked Cassie a lot for being someone who is focussed, not only on her newspaper, but on her future career as a journalist - but at the same time is a normal teen who falls in love and so on. The boys felt real to me too... I love the way Jake, a year younger than the others, just can't make girls out at all. He adores his little sister but is quite resigned to the fact that at 12 she'll become someone he simply won't understand. This is all nice characterisation, in my opinion.

I think I must be a bit fascinated by underground worlds with lots of creepy tunnels and caves, in fact I know I am. There's quite an element of that in this book and it's incredibly well done - creepy and quite disturbing. The haunting element is likewise excellent and quite adult in content really, despite it being a book for *young* adults.

In short, I was very impressed by Celia Rees and this novel of hers that I bought on a whim. The writing is pacey and the book a page-turner. It was sufficiently creepy to have me looking around the bedroom when I was reading it late at night! Nice one. I'll be checking out the library to see if they have anything else by her *and* keeping an eye on the charity shops of course.

Recent buys

I haven't done a recent acquisitions post in ages, June I think, so I fancy it's time for one of those. I don't actually think this is all of them by any means. *cough cough* These are just the ones I haven't stashed away somewhere or are to hand because they're to be read for challenges. I was thinking the other day that if someone ever abolishes charity shops I would be in a right pickle. There's no easier way to get a quick book fix in the UK, if you're able to get to them, (apart from the library and I indulge in that pastime too...) and not only are the books cheap, you're also helping out someone less fortunate than yourself at the same time. So anyway, here are a few of my latest purchases that I don't need to feel guilty about buying at all!



These six are four charity shop buys and two new. I'm going to read Twilight for the latest RIP challenge and have a feeling I might want to read New Moon fairly quickly after, along with the rest of the family, so thought those were worth investing in new.

This particular Barbara Vine I've had recommended to me by several people so nabbed it quickly when I saw it in the Tiverton Oxfam shop. Holy Fools I've had my eye out for for a while too so that was likewise nabbed quickly. And the other two just looked interesting, particularly The Cruellest Journey, by Kira Salak, which is the story of a woman's journey up the Niger by canoe, following in the footsteps of Mungo Park, two centuries ago.



This lot are three new books and four charity shop buys.

Black Sun Rising and Shadow Bridge were recs from fellow bloggers who have loved them and I always take notice of good fantasy book recs. The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue is a book I've wanted to read forever so I had no hesitation in adding it to a recent Amazon order to get free postage.

The rest were all from charity shops. The Vanished by Celia Rees is the book I'm reading at the moment for the RIP challenge and I'm loving it. Diary of a Provincial Lady is a book I read a few weeks ago so you may be wondering why I bought another copy. Well, it seemed to me it was too big for just one book and when I glanced inside I saw that it included not only that book but three sequels - The Provincial Lady Goes Further, ... in America and ...in Wartime. Was I delighted? Oh yes. The other brilliant find was yesterday in Teignmouth's Oxfam shop, and that was two brand new Sherlock Holmes books, one of which, The Sign of Four, I've been hoping to spot in a charity shop as it's the next one I want to read. I have it in a huge omnibus but it's too heavy to hold so I've been collecting these lovely little paperbacks.

So, all in all I reckon that's not a bad haul, with some interesting reads to come there.