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. 

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
This is one that i’ve been meaning to put up for a while now, even tho I’m not sure why. This is a book that’s been taunting me for ages…. I first heard about it years ago… then stumbled upon it in Waterstones one day. Its not normally appealing, the formating is very standard, apart from the diary form ‘chapters’. I recall narrow margins and pages of text, which makes it very unappealing. However the story of a nobody observing the world and school he exists in, reminds me a little of myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever read this… but its a grower for sure… this is probably one of my favourite books that I haven’t read yet.

oh I’ve just checked my phone: 200 pages, Good paper & font, cheap but bad kerning.

One Red Paper Clip

One Red Paper Clip
I don’t really remember too much about the formating on this one, but the story is so good it’ll really appeal to non-readers. It starts with a sale of a paperclip on ebay and continues on and on with various sales getting big and better…until.. well you’ll have to have a look at it to discover where it leads. I recall decent margins, the occasional picture and easily managable chapters. But as I’ve already said…. the unbelievable, incredible, fantastic story is the selling point here. A really mesmerising read.

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 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.

The 5 people you meet in Heaven

The 5 people you meet in Heaven
230 pages, not particularly good paper, and a bit smelly too. Not sure what made me pick this one up, probably didn’t look too thick to read and if I recall the title was a bit odd. Turns out a guy dies and instead of being embraced by everyone at the pearly gates, he’s confronted with 5 key people from his life. Might read this if I get loads of time on my hands.

The 3.5 lives of Captain Bluebear

The 3.5 lives of Captain Bluebear
This book is as mad as a box of matches! If Eddie Izzard was a book, it would be this one. There’s a lot of pages, which I didn’t like too much, but the formating (layout and whitespace) was good… pictures too! which I was stoked to see. I won’t buy this, but it was such a good find that I had to mention it. Buy if you’re bonkers and have a childs brain (harry potter fans) … its big, yellow and soft backed, which means it’ll crumple at the corners in my bag when I’m travelling. Not good. Still fun tho.

Londonstani

Londonstani
Can’t remember much about this title apart from a good name and a catchy cover. I did like the subject matter. Young asian guy growing up in London, reminded of my friend Darryl, who is a punkistani