80 Books No.73: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor

Having finished this, I couldn't really understand why I'd never read this before. It's a popular GCSE text, it's got a title which rolls pretty neatly off the tongue and it's so similar to To Kill a Mockingbird that it would seem the natural next choice for anybody to recommend to you. I feel almost let down by my English teacher that this didn't happen before I was twenty-six.

No matter, it was a rare find when I came to it. I enjoyed almost every page and found so much truth and wisdom in the pages. Like Harper Lee's classic, it deals with black segregation in the 1930s, only this time from a black girl's perspective. It was beautifully sparingly written and made me wonder why more people don't rave about this when they rave about Atticus and co (though Atticus totally deserves raving about - he's the Man).

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Roll of Thunder is that it's part two of a trilogy. It seems really odd for people to have decided to stick a middle book on so many reading lists with next to no reference to the other two parts. It would be like whacking Catching Fire on the curriculum and ignoring The Hunger Games. I sort of want to see what part one is like but it seems to be about trees; I struggle to empathise with trees.

But a really good read nonetheless.

80 Books No.72: Arthur, High King of Britain by Michael Morpurgo

We've already established I don't really get Morpurgo, and I feel like I should because the kids love him so. I just can't find a book I connect with of his, even Private Peaceful, because I never really truly love his characters. This probably makes me the hardest hearted person ever, but there it is: I cry more at Boxer dying in Animal Farm than at any of the events in Private Peaceful.

Given this, it will come as no surprise that Arthur, High King of Britain didn't really grind my gears. I do like an Arthurian legend and I'm immensely gutted that Anna Elliott's Avalon trilogy has been completed on e-book only, as I not only don't own an e-reader, I have no intention of buying one. It seems I am doomed never to find out if Trystan and Isolde are ever going to get together (I mean, it's pretty blindingly obvious they will but whether they'll come to a sticky end is anyone's guess). This little book, I hoped, would fill the void a little and educate me somewhat in less romantic Arthurian myths.

In terms of conveying the legends, Morpurgo does well. It's essentially a little run-down of key tales from the Knights of the Round Table which means it was always going to be a little picaresque in style. He therefore does well to tie it together a little (even if he for some reason involves the Isles of Scilly again). What lets it down is that I don't actually rate his style of writing and that he introduces some frankly weird plots into the story. Okay, so he doesn't make up that Arthur sleeps with his half-sister and has a bastard, but does this really need putting in a kids' story? Acres of awkwardness if we had to teach this. In terms of reading for meaning and analysis, it's also completely void of any material. The planning needing to surround this novel would be ridiculous.

Basically, not a recommended read. I feel I could probably blag a few answers on University Challenge off of the back of it though.

80 Books No.67: Why the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo

I've spent some time over the last week or so tidying out the book cupboard at work (something that will hopefully be completed this week). It is impossible to believe how many books there are in there, some of them barely touched. Why the Whales Came is a reasonably old book, in comparison to my new purchase of The Hunger Games anyway. It is a Morpurgo classic, and for some reason kids seem to love Michael Morpurgo. I can't say as I entirely understand why, even after reading this book.

It is a short enough book with a decent enough story of two children in 1914 (why always the war, Morpurgo?) on the Isles of Scilly. Tales of curses and scary men had some correlation with things like To Kill a Mockingbird. It was a little fantastical, as I'm still not really sure 'why the whales came' apart from some curse that was apparently on the island. That was a little frustrating, but maybe I missed a key point.

The story was predictable and ended too neatly, but it was interesting enough whilst it lasted. Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm comes from the fact that I was reading it till 4am one night because I couldn't sleep. Bitter, mumble mumble mumble.

It's on my redesigned curriculum for this year anyway.

80 Books No.65: Until the Next Time by Kevin Fox

The amount of labels I've added to this post will demonstrate how hard this book was to categorise. I've hesitantly called it 'historical', although I'm not entirely sure 1970s Ireland and the Troubles are really consigned to the past; I've called it 'fantasy' due to the beliefs about and occurrences of reincarnation present throughout the narrative. I added 'thrilled' as Amazon categorises it as such. 'Romance' I'm definite about, as certain as I am that this is indeed a 'book'. This vein of uncertainties dogged me throughout the reading.

Sean Corrigan receives his uncle Michael's journal on his 21st birthday - an uncle he never knew about, if I remember correctly. This drags him from New York to rural Ireland to investigate what happened to his uncle in the 70s. The novel makes use of both Sean's 1996 first person narration and Michael's journal in order to tell the story. The author himself has said he found the dual narrative very easy to use as the voices of the characters were very similar and so was their story. This does, however, make it really rather confusing for the reader, an effect which was partially intended as the novel goes on to explore the idea that all of these characters have lived before and are doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes until they learn they lesson. In my opinion, it got a bit bogged down with this.

The confusing nature of the narrative meant this was quite a slow read for me, as part way through Michael's sections I'd have to remind myself that we were in the 1970s and he was on the run from US police, as opposed to Sean who seemed to have upped and left his life in America on a whim and some odd dreams. To confuse things further, Michael was frequently called 'Mickaleen' which was HIS uncle's (or great-uncles's) nickname - he'd been on the run from Irish nationalists. Then Sean was occasionally called 'Mickaleen' by people who'd known him when he was Michael...

I'd really recommend a flow chart if anybody else wants to try reading this. It was a fairly interesting story, certainly in its more 'historical' sections, although I preferred Sean as a character. The romantic element came in the form of Kate/Erin/whatever her name may now be, and Anne, who was a brilliantly drawn character. Fox really captured Irish conversation for me and the characters leapt off the page when they spoke. Definitely a writer who I would read something else from if it was slightly less convoluted and confusing.

80 Books No.61: The Queen Must Die by K A S Quinn

This book was similar in concept to King of Shadows in as much as a modern teenager (both American now I think about it) whose life is in some way unsatisfactory travels through time to a point he/she is interested in. He/she then interacts with a number of famous historical figures and is involved in some drama before a return home to his/her own life where he/she realises the lessons he/she has learned.

I won't apologise for the spoiler above by the way; The Queen Must Die is the first in the Chronicles of the Tempus series, so of course Katie and co were always going to survive to live another day. This isn't Game of Thrones.

I sound incredibly cynical and I don't mean to, because I really enjoyed this. From the very beginning it was engaging and captivating as Quinn has created a very likeable character in Katie. She did adapt to being in Victorian England even quicker than Nat in King of Shadows but it was a little less noticeable here. I also really liked the inclusion of Princess Alice and James the doctor's son, and they formed a nice little trio at the heart of the story. The big background story involving the Tempus, which will presumably be explored further in the following books, added another level to the novel which Cooper's novel sort of lacked for me.

I enjoyed this novel so much I even tried to get into reading A N Wilson's The Victorians again. This came to a crushing defeat part way through Chapter 5 as I discovered again that non-fiction and me don't get on. This is something I may have to address in 2014.

However, a solid children's/teen novel which I would probably recommend as further reading for anybody who enjoyed King of Shadows for the time travel aspect.

I'm concerned by how often I've googled 'The Queen Must Die' as part of this blog entry though; MI5 will be at my door shortly. MI6, however, I could get on board with.

Oh yeah, Queen of Tenuous, that's me.

80 Books No.60: Young Bess by Margaret Irwin

Although I always enjoy a historical monarchical novel, it seemed especially fitting in the week the latest heir to the British throne was born. A pretty tenuous link but it meant I could post a completely gratuitous photo from the many I've enjoyed over the last week:

It was only after I'd bought this book that I realised it was not one of those five-a-penny Philippa Gregory copycats that I usually end up reading, but a novel which pre-dated Gregory by quite a way. This was first published in 1944, and even the film of it was made and released before Gregory was even born. This therefore was a bit of a find.

This is set later than the other Tudor court novels I've read this year and is the first in a trilogy. This first part explores the young Elizabeth I's life before her battle for the throne began in earnest. It therefore covers similar ground to The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir which I read almost exactly four years ago. There are several fundamental differences to the stories the two writers weave, but they are both grounded in quite a lot of fact.

Young Bess was hard-going at first and I found the first couple of chapters a bit of a chore. However, once the story kicked off properly (basically once Henry VIII was dead and buried) it became far more enjoyable. I was really rooting for Thomas Seymour even though I knew it was never going to end well for him. I always think the sign of a good historical novel is that you still hope for the best even when you know the real story, and Irwin has done that in spades here.

There were some distractions. The focaliser kept shifting, so whilst this was supposed to be about Young Bess, at times were in Edward Seymour's office and miles away from the young princess. Also a distraction, though almost certainly only for me, was that Anne Boleyn was constantly referred to as 'Nan Bullen'. What was better here than in Dunn's The Queen of Subtleties was that Irwin avoided having to rely on diminutives of people's names in order to differentiate between the many Henrys, Annes, Catherines and Edwards. It was just sort of a case of having to suck it up and realise that everybody in Tudor England had the same name.

Which brings me back around to the Royal Baby, in a way. There has been so much media hype around the birth, hype I've willingly bought into because I have a complete couple-crush on the Cambridges. For a whole 30 seconds my hair looked Kate-esque today - then it got out of control again. I looked positively polished.

Anyway, aside from my obsessions, reading all these Tudor novels and comparing them to how the media and general public deal with the monarchy now is fascinating, not least in some of the online posts I've seen about where Prince Philip is at the moment. I've read countless opinions about how he must be more sick than we know and they're keeping us in the dark (not as crazy as it may seem - Irwin claims that Henry VIII was dead for three days before it was announced). These opinions tend to then drift onto 'when the Queen dies' which highlights just how far we've come from the times Gregory, Irwin, Weir and co write about. One of Anne Boleyn's crimes was treason, a charge which could be laid at her door due to the suspicion that Elizabeth was not Henry's daughter, but also because she'd allegedly been heard to talk about 'when the King dies'. To suggest the monarch would die, at some point, in the far distant future, was treason. This seems utterly bonkers to us in the 21st century but was a real crime in Henry VIII's day.

So whilst people may moan about the birth of another generation of the Royal family, at least we can comfort ourselves with the fact that any speculation over the monarch's health won't land our heads on the block anymore.

Another gratuitous picture for good measure:

80 Books No.47: The Queen of Subtleties by Suzannah Dunn

I'm a sucker for Tudor fiction despite never having found anything as good as Philippa Gregory's and Hilary Mantel's offerings. There's something so very enticing about the sexy glamorous world of Henry VIII's court, where things happen which put our modern Royals to shame. It's a world which has rich pickings for a good novelist who can stomach the extreme amount of research necessary to achieve success.

The Queen of Subtleties tries to find a fresh angle on a subject which has been frankly hammered to death. Here, in quite a rare move, Dunn chooses Anne Boleyn as one of her narrators, whilst the other half of the story is told by an entirely unlikely character: the king's confectioner. Quite how Dunn came up with this idea is anybody's guess, as it's a strange one, and quite tenuous: it is entirely unrecorded whether the king's confectioner had ever met Mark Smeaton let alone seemingly fallen for him, so it falls down on the research almost before it starts.

Anne Boleyn is one of my favourite historical characters. Sort of like a more ruthless Kate Middleton, what she achieved in her relatively short life is almost always overshadowed by her scandalous death. History likes to trample on women so let's just take a moment here: she enticed one of the most powerful men in the world despite being of relatively low birth; she supposedly held out from giving him what he wanted for seven years, despite there being clear evidence to show he usually had women as when he wanted them; because of her, at least in part, he divorced the daughter of the power couple of the world at that time and created the Church of England. He broke with ROME for goodness sakes, when he could have made a more judicious match with a French princess which would have gone down much better with the Pope at the time. The changes brought about in these ten years have had ramifications down the centuries, and at the heart of is this reportedly quite average looking woman.

So in theory, Dunn's choice of narrator should make for a good read. It's readable enough, and Boleyn's narrative is infinitely superior to that of the confectioner which is largely boring and pointless because it is almost certainly entirely fabricated. What this book was, though, was unoriginal as it shed no fresh light upon this well-known story and didn't encourage any sympathy towards the main characters. It was also poorly constructed in terms of sentences which had commas all over the place, like a child who has only just learned that they exist.

If you want to read about the Tudor court, don't waste your time on this; go for Gregory or Mantel and you'll get a far more interesting read.

80 Books No.42: The Midwinter Child by FJ Reid

This was recommended on TES as a potential class reader and I quite liked the concept: modern day child receives the sword Excalibur and has to complete some quest vaguely connected with King Arthur. I like an Arthurian legend; actually I need to find Sunrise of Avalon by Anna Elliott to complete that trilogy - I've only just remembered that. Anyway, I like an Arthurian legend because it's sort of historical and yet fantastical as well - which makes it pretty cool.

Within about a page of The Midwinter Child, it was clear that this was either self-published or from some minor publishing house. The cover* and font and generally type-setting smacked of a lack of money and also it needed editing in some places, which led me to believe self-published. It's certainly available on Authonomy. This doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or anything, but it is quite a jarring experience to keep having to work out distances between letters and things. There were a few misplaced punctuation marks and things which did basically colour my decision on using this as a class reader. It was also a bit long and in places not amazingly written.

However, judging it on its own merits, it was an enjoyable enough read. The main character was reasonably engaging and there was a mystery and mythological element which I enjoyed. I found it difficult to get into at times, which may have been a reflection of my lack of concentration whilst reading it, but also that it wasn't the most attention grabbing book ever. Indeed, I skim read parts of it.

I probably read this too much with a teacher's hat on. Someone without a teacher's hat on give it a whirl.

* You'll have to trust me on that; I couldn't actually find a picture of the cover for this blog :(

80 Books No.41: King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

I need to re-read this book really, despite only having finished it yesterday. I think I'd appreciate it more on a second run-through as I think I expected a different pace and climax which then put the whole structure of the novel off kilter for me. Despite this, I'm genuinely considering buying a class set for school, and these are the reasons why...

King of Shadows is about Nat, a young American actor who is in the midst of rehearsals for a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then he falls ill and wakes up in 1599, where he's rehearsing for A Midsummer Night's Dream with Shakespeare himself. You know, what usually happens when you have a vomiting bug, right?

Things happened quite quickly in this book, and Nat accepts his transportation to 1599 exceptionally quickly, which did irritate me somewhat; however, like Black Swan Rising, if he'd taken forever to adapt it would have been a very dull 100 pages or whatever. There's probably something in this for me to learn in my own writing. The pace of the novel never really dipped which means this will likely appeal to teenagers, especially reluctant readers. I think a re-read would help with emphasising key parts of the story in my own head, let alone with a class.

The amount of background detail of Shakespeare's London and theatre is, I'll admit, a key part of this story's appeal. There's only so often you can complete comprehension activities on what the period was really like before it becomes completely boring; at least an actual story might engage students. Also, the timeslip element is, for me, hugely appealing as I love time travel stories (although not TimeRiders, I found that quite tedious).

Lastly, I really liked the ending and how it tied up with other Shakespeare plays. There was an emotional heart to the story which would be even clearer on a re-read.

All in all, an enjoyable little book. And short...

80 Books No.36: Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Easily the most highly regarded book (in theory) on my list this year so far. This won both the Man Booker and Costa Book of the Year in 2012, making this Mantel's second prize winner on the bounce after the first in the Cromwell series Wolf Hall. Both these books are sort of seminal in my own life and share the odd distinction of both being bought for me by my mum. Wolf Hall was a 'cheer up, you've only broken and displaced a metatarsal' present, whilst this one was a 'cheer up, you've only got a promotion' present. Both were very well received.

Bring Up The Bodies finishes exactly where Wolf Hall left off; Thomas Cromwell is staying at Wolf Hall where Henry VIII has just become acquainted with a certain Jane Seymour, whilst Anne Boleyn's popularity with the hot-headed king is starting to wane. From there, Mantel details the last six months of Anne's life and Cromwell's part in them. I've read this story time without number, mainly in Philippa Gregory novels, but also in random other ones, including some awful thing by Emily Purdy which was one of the worst books I ever had the misfortune to buy. This, however, comes at it from Cromwell's viewpoint and he is the hero of proceedings. In this respect, this novels are more political than romantic, which actually isn't such a bad thing; there isn't much romance in having your head chopped off, after all.

The vast cast of the Tudor court does make this confusing at times, but Mantel does give people quite distinctive characters to help with that. The cast list at the beginning is more useful as you read as you can check back; it means almost nothing before the story starts. Mantel's chosen style of narration is also, at times, grating, and more so than in Wolf Hall. I'm not sure why she chooses to refer to Cromwell simply as 'he' all the time, especially as it makes for awkward reading quite frequently when she has to make the distinction and write 'he, Cromwell, walks down the corridor'. Why bother?

The great advantage this novel has is the story which is better than anything anybody could make up anyway. It has everything a blockbuster should have: sex, betrayal, gossip and fights. I knew the story in some detail anyway, and yet this threw fresh light upon it; I've always assumed Mark Smeaton was tortured and yet this suggests it was perhaps ambiguous. Mantel's great strength is that she makes the reader root for Cromwell despite his frankly quite odious nature, at least as classically depicted. I'm actually sort of dreading book 3 which will detail his downfall.

A brilliant read as far as I'm concerned.

80 Books No.7: The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

This book was lent to me when I was in the middle of The Stand, and when I’d finished that I wanted something far more easy going, so this book got relegated to the bottom of the pile. Having now caught myself up, this was the next one to read.

If you can’t tell from the above paragraph, I wasn’t really dying to read this. I’ve never got on with Jeanette Winterson. People rave about her and I just don’t get her, her writing largely leaves me cold. Now to be fair, in this book, I was impressed with some of her descriptions of people and places. I felt there was worth to them. To the actual plot – I’m not so sure.

It’s based on the true events of the Pendle Witches in Lancashire in 1612. Last year was the 400^th anniversary of these events, and so Winterson wrote this novella. Her descriptions of the environment and the events are good, creating a real sense of 17^th century rural Lancashire. It was interesting to have the two-fold fears of witchcraft and Catholicism brought together so succinctly, and to learn about an event which is apparently so famous but which I’ve never heard of before now. It was also a quick read, which is always nice when you’ve set yourself a target of 80 within the year!

Ultimately, though, it lacked soul for me. I didn’t care for or about any of the characters, perhaps because it was clear they were going to die pretty quickly. Roger Nowell was about the most interesting character in my opinion. Alice Nutter was admirable in her actions, but not drawn in enough detail for me to be that interested.

The historical event is worth reading into, not least because it shows how easily fear can be whipped up into something more (something the Daily Mail still plays on today), but unless you really like witches, Jeanette Winterson or both, I’d probably skip this.

80 Books No.6: Changeling by Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory is an odd one. Her Tudor Court novels are largely quite exciting and salacious and keep you reading, and yet if you try re-reading them her overlong sentences seem to hide some quite limited vocabulary at times. I didn’t really get into ‘The Cousins’ War’ series, after reading both The Red Queen and The White Queen, maybe because I didn’t know anything about that historical period and so lost interest.

My main problem with her is that I tend to believe her implicitly and so have a quite twisted view of British history.

This book was largely an okay choice, even if it was made by my mum on a whim to bulk out an order she was making. It’s Philippa Gregory; it’s young adult fiction; it’s about the Catholic church. It should be a win-win all round for me. It was enjoyable enough in places and I particularly liked the character of Freize.

Yet this book just seemed to expose Gregory’s apparently quite limited vocabulary: characters were constantly ‘demanding’ something. The plot sort of ambled around without much direction to it. There is an absolutely ridiculous scene involving nuns attacking people, and the word ‘wimple’ (always entertaining anyway) appeared so many times it was untrue; I couldn’t take killer nuns seriously when their wimples kept falling off.

Basically, I agree with everything this young reviewer said in The Guardian. I’ll probably keep reading the series if I can get hold of them, if only to find out who the ‘real-life historical figure’ they’ll meet is. I’ll admit it was interesting to find out so much about Islam at this time and how Islamic nations were at the forefront of educating women. However, I doubt I’ll be parting with cash in order to read them; I’ll pay more when Gregory buys a thesaurus.