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. 

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.

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.

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.

Jpod

Jpod
I didn’t realise I like Douglas Coupland until I picked up this book, when I then realised that he’d written Generation X … so it appears I am a fan. However I haven’t read any of his books, which is unsurprising.

Jpod didn’t initially appeal because its a thick book, beyond my default ‘under 300 pages’ limit (550 odd eeek!)… however it had pretty pictures of lego-ish men on the cover so that grabbed my attention. As did the book title of ‘jpod’ too. Good title that. I can see why they used it. I flicked through the pages of jpod without reading anything…. just to smell the pages and check out the font, kerning, paragraphs, whitespace and pictures as usual…. immediately I was hit by the layout… very appealing, if like me, you don’t read much, and are turned off by pages and pages of text. This was full of various font sizes and weights and looked just gorgeous. The subject matter was great too, as its about office life, shit marketing departments with daft ideas and a splattering of web related stuff thrown in for good measure. This book could be my life tbh. Bought it, as yet unread. Might read it if I’m bored on holiday.

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.

Bad Luck And Trouble

Bad Luck And Trouble
This is a book for people that want to look like they love reading whilst at the check out in Tescos. Its a big hard back, and has ‘idiot’ written all over it. Even the story is ridiculous. The subject is like a bad Da Vinci code combined with a bad Die Hard movie, I was nearly ill several times whilst reading it. I’m still reading it…. and will probably finish it, because I want people to know publically that I can read at least one ‘big’ book. Can’t wait til its over tho. This has ‘good formating’ by default because its a hard back. Hardbacks are always easy on the eyes.