An Abundance of Katherines

An Abundance of Katherines

Borrowed – unread – unreviewed

Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet

Anthem of a reluctant prophet

It has been a week since finishing this book. so forgive me if I struggle to give a direct punchy review, as its effect has worn off of me a little – in future I shall endevour to review titles I read as soon as I have read them.

Luke Hunter, the first person lead character of this title, can see how people are going to die. He’s young, he’s struggling to find his way in the world, yet this gift is a curse and he wishes to be no media whore to the baying masses that want association with his ‘God-like’ ability.

This book, carries along well to begin with, however by the middle of the book, I did start to lose faith in the power of the plot. I hoped it would include more and more visions of death and how Luke faces up to his gift, perhaps include more and more characters that try to take advantage of him etc. However, no. The book falls into line to deal with the young life and concerns that wouldn’t be out of place in any teen(ish) novel, dipping occasionally back to the ‘prophet of doom’ hook that made me pick up, buy and read in the first place.

Was this a good book? yes. Was it what I expected? not really. I’m happy to have read it – and will recommend it to friends, but warn them not to take the back cover too literally. I feel the marketing hype selected the punchiest aspects only to hook us into purchasing – the tale is more a young life with a twist than anything else.

I most state though, that this is a rich story. I could visualise it well and really would love it to be made into a film. Kind of ‘Dogma’ meets ‘The Wonder Years’ in a contemporary ‘emo’ 2008 lifestyle.

over 300 pages of reasonable font, average page, nothing special margins and quite normal kerning and lineheight. Great, great cover art and choice of font though – I was sold on it alone. 

Life on the Refridgerator Door

Life on the Refridgerator Door
This is probably my first true ‘girly’ book, which I’m regretfully proud of. Regretfully, because I guess I should have found one a lot earlier. But anyways… not very many pages, and short well formatted chunks of text. Basically this is what it says it is, notes left on the fridge door about the relationship between a mother and daughter (if I remember correctly). Whilst I didn’t read much of this book in the shop, it did make a large enough impact on me to ‘phone-it’ … hate reading? you’ll love reading this.

The End Of Mr Y

The End Of Mr Y
This was a surprise find. Its big bold red spine grabbed my attention and was stunned to see the pages were all black (not the faces, but just the edges). I knew this would be a good one, cause anyone going to that length for presentation alone, deserves to be purchased. The cover is quirky, the back cover is equally as mysterious…. and even tho its states itself as being ‘a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death (ed: yawn) … and time-travel’ <– Ooo ello, this raises an eyebrow. Sooo… all this manages to get me to to open the pages and have a flick through… lovely big line-spacing, and a decent font, but other than that its pretty standard format, normal margins, lots of pages of unthrilling text and paragraphs that don’t really look much like paragraphs at all, cause the indents and gaps aren’t big enough. But either way, I sat for a bit and read the first few pages. Thankfully, its a contemporary tale, set in the ‘now’ which makes it much more palettable in my (pun) book, I’m gunna give this one a go anyway… I’ve bought it so I might as well.

I’ll probably add more this once I’m done, or mid way at least. Worth checking out I think. 4 stars for the black edged paper alone, how often do you see that??

the average american male

the average american male
Wow, this is a good’un. A cool front cover, not that many pages (250ish), tiny chapters (the first is called ‘Christmas with Mom and Dad’ and the word count is 3 ‘Same old bullshit’) perfect. It gets better. Apparently it sparked a youtube storm… which is probably a load of bollocks as I haven’t had chance to check it out yet… but the story is about a guy thats young enough to know what he wants in life (sex) and old enough to know what he doesn’t want in life (commitment… and a partner with a fat ass). This book is absolutely incredible, I only bought it today and have read half of it already and I don’t want it to ever end. If this was a blog or a channel on youtube, I’d check it out every day for years. Women need to read this to know how we (men) think… and men need to read this to laugh at how fucking ridiculous we are and confirm that we’re not alone. Oh and the paper is average, loads of dialogue (makes for quick reading), smallish font (boo!) … standard margins… nothing special on the formating front but the subject matter is worth it.

A full 5 stars awarded. If you don’t buy this book, you are an arse.

Edit: a youtube frenzy? uhh no. However the clips are funny:

Atomised

Atomised
This grabbed my attention probably because of the ‘3 for 2′ sticker on the front and a black n white blonde in panties. Its a meaty read for me at well over 350 pages of not particularly good paper, however the linespacing is ok, and the margins are decent. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of dialogue in the read, which makes for lots of paragraphs of unappealing chunky text. ergh. I read the back cover (a rarity for me) and found the storyline interesting, plus its been/being made into a ‘major film’ so the sticker on the front cover tells me… and with that sticker comes lots and lots of quotes from influencial sources, further convincing me that it’ll be worth me time purchasing. Fair enough … however I swear the girl in panties did more for me than anything else. I might read this if I ever have enough time on my hands, or catch a terminal illness. Better still, I might buy the DVD and tell everyone I’ve read it.

The Raw Shark Texts

The Raw Shark Texts
This book took a bloody long time to get on here. Why I’m not sure, because I’ve been stalking it in Waterstones for aaages… waiting for it to come up in a ‘3 for 2′ offer no doubt (like it did in Leeds, when I ’should’ have bought it) Grrr. anyways….

this is like a picture book with text… formatted wonderfully… loads of effort gone into making it diverse and interesting. With each turn of the page you’ve no-idea whats coming next… and that’s without reading a word of the story. This is a grand book. A real non-readers book. I will buy this in its hardback version, cause I’m not 100% certain that they’ll continue the formating in a paperback version (I hope they do cause its kinda key to the storyline) … click the cover above and read about it. The story has got flavours of the Matrix and Memento.  

Nanotales

Nanotales
For ages, I’ve had in my head that I’ve always wanted a book that could be opened at any page and you wouldn’t be lost. A good coffee table book whereby a story could last for as long as you had time, even if it was only a few minutes. Well Nanotales appears to be just that. Firstly the title grabbed me. Nanotales, sound contemporary, which appealed to me instantly. The cover quote says it all. It instantly drew me into opening it, where I found the paper was great, the font was a decent type and the kerning made each letter and word ‘breathe’ with space. Very refreshing for the eyeballs. Add to this the gorgeous layout of almost double line spacing and you’ve got yourself a very ‘non-reader friendly’ bucket of freshly sliced tree ink.

I read a coupla ‘chapters’ (if you can call them that) … and bought straight away. This is what all books should be like, if I had my way. Read this book if you hate reading, you’ll love reading it.

Shorty Loves Wing Wong

Shorty Loves Wing Wong
Bit of a late find this one, I was almost out of the shop. 90 pages, half of them pictures of odd looking cat figures in modern poses and humanal(?) situations. Read the back cover and it sounded really good, contemporary and relavant to todays world. Easy on the eye. didn’t notice any thing about the paper (so it was probably average) … a little hardback tho if I recall. The only bad point imo was the standard formating of the text (small font, tight kerning, standard linespacing etc) and a complete absence of paragraphs. One could argue that the ‘chapters’ are only paragraphed sized, but c’mon, a little sentence break in the odd place would have helped people (ie: me) a little. That minor detail prevented it getting a full 5stars from me. However, I’m more than happy to give it a generous 4. Turns out it was written by michael smith who also wrote The Giro Playboy which looks equally as readable.

Train Man

Train Man
Another daft book. But I’m liking these irregular format things, makes browsing more interesting. This is laid out in messageboard format based on conversations from one of Japans busiest forums. I can’t exactly recall if its all fiction or faction, but its different that’s for sure. Check it out. (if you hate reading)

Written in Chinese with english subtitles