February by Lisa Moore

February by Lisa Moore
First published by House of Anansi/Groundwood Books in 2009 (this edition by Chatto & Windus in 2010)









Description (from Goodreads)
In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine's night storm. In the early hours of the next morning, all 84 men aboard died. Helen O'Mara is one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns. This title shows us the oil rig go down and Helen emerging from her grief to greet a new life.


My thoughts
Before I saw February in the pile of books my Grandma had put together for me, I hadn't seen or heard of it before. The cover is not what you might call eye-catching, but because it was in the pile, I decided to read the description on the back cover, where I realised that the cover is pretty irrelevant to the story; it doesn't even give an inkling of what it's about. (Which is really a pity, because the book is worth reading)


The book follows Helen, the widow of Cal, a man who was working on the oil rig Ocean Ranger on the night that everything went wrong and 84 men died. Apparently, the Ocean Ranger accident was a real event, something which I did not know about before I read the book. While I was reading the story, I thought it was an event that was made up to be used as a backdrop for the novel, but when I finished the book and got round to reading the acknowledgements (something which I do, even though I think most people tend not to), I found out that it was a real event. (You can find out more about it HERE.)


Throughout the story, we go back and forth, to different times in the past and in the present, which allows us to understand Helen's grief, despite the fact that not everything is told in chronological order. The book doesn't solely focus on Helen's grief and her journey in dealing with it. It also follows Helen and Cal's children's lives (though not necessarily directly), so as to show the impact that particular accident had upon their lives; John, who was the eldest and the only boy, Cathy and Lulu, the two middle girls, and Gabrielle, who was born after her father died. And there is one important subplot, which is supposed to be the trigger for the telling of the story and though which the main characters come to deal with their grief.


Despite the fact that it deals quite a bit with grief  and dealing (over a rather large period of time), this book is not too heavy to read. The writing is very good and the way in which it is written (with all the jumps in time) just helped pull me into the story and made me want to read on and on so that I could find out what was going to happen next. The characters were easy to relate to and understand and faced real problems in real ways. Definitely a book worth reading.


Rating: 8/10


Author:
Lisa Moore is a Canadian author. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and has also studied at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has written two collections of stories, Degrees of Nakedness and Open, as well as a novel, Alligator. She has also written for tv, radio, magazines and newspapers.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Candide by Voltaire

Candide (or Optimism) by Voltaire
First published in 1759 (this edition by Penguin Classics in 1979)









Descriptions (from Goodreads)
A flamboyant and controversial personality of enormous wit and intelligence, Voltaire is one of the most intriguing figures of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. His masterpiece is Candide, a brilliant satire on the theory that 'the world is the best of all possible worlds.' The book traces the picaresque adventures of the guileless Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunegonde, tortured by the Inquisition, etc., all without losing his resilience and will to live.


My thoughts
Candide is another book I can't find myself to rate. I will be honest here and say that the only reason I decided to read this one was so that I can say that sometime in my life I read Voltaire! But when I got round to reading the first couple of pages, I realised that the names of some of the characters reminded me of something; that I had heard of them before. (I still can't remember where...!)


Candide is essentially a satire; a story full of irony, sarcasm, exaggeration and parody, that is meant to sound funny, but it usually has an underlying message - to offer constructive criticism using wit as a weapon (thank you Wikipedia). That is exactly what Candide is and I can understand why the book is also known as Optimism. Candide is the main character and he seems to be as backbone-less as can be. He just seems to accept everything that he is told, regardless of who the person telling him is. Essentially, he does not seem to have any free will of his own, or any particular skills; he goes through life by listening to others. And he is very shallow.


So, the other characters are essential to the progression of the story, as Candide on his own wouldn't have done much. As for the story itself, before reading it, you cannot imagine how many bad things happen to the characters in this book! Abductions, killings, rape, theft, just to name a few. But even still, Candide does not let all the bad events make him less happy about life. He lives by the motto that 'everything bad happens for a reason'. Which I suppose is a very good motto to live by, but not when absolutely nothing good ever happens to you.


The philosophy that this book is based on is brilliantly presented by Voltaire. It is rather obvious that he thinks the philosophy is ridiculous, and throughout the book, he shows us just that. But even though it is rather philosophical, it doesn't get tiring when you're reading it, which I find great when I'm reading anything about philosophy.


Rating: N/A (Again, I don't feel like I can rate it - I mean, it is Voltaire)


Author:
François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day. (from Wikipedia)


Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald
First published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1960 (this edition by Penguin Classics in 2011)










Description (from Goodreads)
F Scott Fitzgerald's stories defined the 1920s 'Jazz Age' generation, with their glittering dreams and tarnished hopes. This book features three tales of a fragile recovery, a cut-glass bowl and a life lost. It portrays the idealism of youth and the ravages of success.


My thoughts
I am going to be completely honest here: this book is a bit of a cheat, but nonetheless, I am including it in my 100 Books In A Year Challenge, as it is a book and I did read it. But, because of the fact that it is so short (and because it features 3 short stories), I am making this a mini-review, as I can't say anything about it without spoiling it for anyone who wants to read it.


Having read The Great Gatsby a few months ago and really enjoyed F. Scott Fitzgerald's style of writing, I decided to try reading Babylon Revisited when I noticed my grandparents had a copy of it on their bookshelves. Plus, at the time, I really felt like reading something that would not take me too long to finish.


All three stories were unique. They were in no way connected and each dealt with a completely different kind of issue. My main problem was the fact that they just stopped, quite suddenly. I found that to be especially prominent in the first story (which was also the longest). I was reading it, got to a point where the chapter finished, turned the page expecting to carry on with the story and saw that the story had finished. So, it left me hanging a little.


Other than that, the writing was very good. But I did enjoy The Great Gatsby a lot more than Babylon Revisited. I'm looking forward to reading something else by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (I'll have to have a look through all our old books - I have no idea what might be hidden in there!)


Rating: N/A (I can't really rate it)


Author:
You can find out more about F. Scott Fitzgerald at the end of my review of The Great Gatsby.




Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

Where or When by Anita Shreve

Where or When by Anita Shreve
First published by Harcourt in 1993 (this edition by Abacus in 1994)









Description (from Goodreads)
Charles Callahan, a faithfully married businessman, chances upon a newspaper photograph of a woman he loved 30 years ago. Unable to resist, he writes her, a poet living with her husband and two children.

Powerfully drawn together again, the two lovers grapple with issues they never expected to face: the nature of erotic love and betrayal, the agony of lost years, bewildering moral quandaries in an age of shifting values, and the elusive nature of time.

My thoughts

This is a book I had never thought about reading at any time. I had heard of Anita Shreve before, but I just never seemed to want to pick up a book of hers to read (for no particular reason). So this year, when I was browsing through my Grandma's bookshelves, I noticed that she had quite a few Anita Shreve books and it made me curious. Apparently, she loves reading Anita Shreve books, so I decided to try one to see for myself. Where or When was just the one I decided to pick up, as I looked through a few descriptions and that was the one that made me want to read it more.

So, after that ramble, I'll go on with the actual review. Where or When is the story of two people, Charles and Sian, who met at a summer camp when they were 12 and fell in love with each other. Fast forwarding 30 years, Charles and Sian have not seen each other since, but when Charles sees a photo of Sian in the newspaper, he decides to contact her. After that, we have a series of letters coming back and forth between the two main characters, until Charles realises he really is still in love with her (and she is still in love with him).

To me, the whole premise the novel was based on seems rather ridiculous. I can understand two people being in love, losing contact and then, meet up again, only to realise that the feeling has always been there. But in this case, it was a little stupid. I mean, Charles and Sian met when they were 12 (!!!), were at that summer camp for only a week (!!!!!) and after 30 years, they just decide that those brief moments 30-odd years ago are worth breaking up their whole families for. It just sounds very unrealistic and very shallow. And that ending.... Talk about disappointing. It left so many things open. But, at least, I am happy that it wasn't what I expected it to be.

And I really came to dislike Charles as a character. He was in debt, there was a big chance of their house being repossessed because of said debts and all that he cared about was how, when and where he would meet Sian. He didn't even seem to care that much about his children, at times, which I found to be catalytic in my decision not to like him. Sian, at least, was a little more dignified as a character.

All in all, I obviously haven't had a good first experience with Anita Shreve's writing, but I promise myself I will try reading another one of her books next year when I visit my grandparents' house again.

Rating: 4/10

Author:

Anita Shreve is an American author. She holds a degree from Tufts University and taught in high schools for a number of years before deciding to quit, in order to pursue a career in writing. She has written a large number of books, including:

The Pilot's Wife  |  The Weight of Water

The Last Time They Met  |  Sea Glass

You can find out more about Anita Shreve and her books from her official website.

Read for the: 100 Books In A Year Challenge 2011

The Time Will Come (3)

The Time Will Come is a great meme hosted by Jodie over at Books For Company. The point of this meme is to list a book that has been sitting on our bookshelves unread for too long and we have been meaning to get round to for ages!

This week's pick is:

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

A sensation across Europe—millions of copies sold. A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue. It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age—and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it—who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism—and an unexpected connection between themselves. It’s a contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives.




We've had this book sitting on the bookshelf for a couple of years now and I still haven't got round to reading it. I've heard many great things about the whole Millennium trilogy (as it is called) and it does sound rather good. But the main reason I haven't read it yet is because of this:

Now, I'm not usually a fan of covers that have stills from the film, but this one is just exceptionally bad and off-putting for some reason. It's just making me not want to read it, which is a shame, really. So, I decided to put it into a "The Time Will Come" post, in the hopes that that will make me read it soon!

Has anyone read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo?? If so, what do you think about it?