Dave Gorman Vs. The Rest of The World

I have loved both of the previous Dave Gorman books that I could get my hands on, and my feelings didn't change while reading his latest: Dave Gorman Vs. The Rest of the World in which he challenges anyone to a game of their choice, be it darts or Egyptian laser chess (otherwise known as Khet).  
  My enjoyment of Gorman's antics stem not from the bizzare challenges he sets himself but after finishing DGVtRotW I realised I love them because of the people he meets are always interesting, and without this book I would have thought they were the stuff of fiction.  For example the monopoly lady who with her husband and two other couples would play with real money.  Or the guy in Wales with the secret Subbuteo attic who in my head sounded like uncle Brynn from Gavin and Stacey.  There's a blip at the end with a guy named Steve, but he's needed as a moral to this story.
  Also Gorman's writing style means that his books are never hard to read, and I often have to slow myself down otherwise I'd be done with them in less than a day.  If you need a smile, or you love board games (or any kind of game) then pick this up, and after you've read it pass it on to someone else because everyone should feel how I do after reading one of his books.     

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight

Having been an avid Buffy fan since I was ten years old, it made sense that I should delve into the graphic novels.  After the disappointment from reading Nancy Holden's Queen of The Slayers, I was expecting something in the same vein.  However, I do own Angel: After the Fall vol.1 + 2, which take place after the events of the series finale of Angel and I like them (so far), so I was quietly hoping Buffy Season eight would be the same.

Unlike Queen of the Slayers, we join the Scooby gang a couple of years after the series finale, with Buffy in Scotland, the head of a massive slayer army that has outposts all over the world.  S8 upped the ante.  I've read articles that confirmed my suspicions that the writers who had been used to the confines of a television series, had  now gorged themselves on all the possibilities that a comic could offer them.  Nearly everyone from the television series makes an appearance, including characters considered to be long gone, and the story takes us all over the world, into other dimensions and then takes us on a joyride to the future too.  This of course means that Fray can finally have another outing, which was very much welcomed in this household.  I had a couple of moments of 'Why on earth would you do that?!?' but as an uber fan I was glad I could return to the world I grew up with an hour each week.  Season 9 promises to be even better, going back to basics with Buff living in San Francisco, getting her life on track and just fighting vampires like any slayer should.  Here's hoping that Whedon and Co. keep up the good work.

the Tiger's Wife

Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, (and prominent occupant of Waterstone's offers table over the past few months) Tea Obreht's debut novel is about fables and folklore.  Natalia is traveling to provide vaccinations for an orphanage across the boarder of a war torn country when she learns of her beloved grandfather's death.  This causes her to re-tell, and see with fresh eyes, two stories that he told her as a child: one of the deathless man, and one of the tiger's wife.

This was ridiculously easy to get into.  I was intrigued by the premise and as I devoured every word I enjoyed it's mysterious ambiguity.  However, towards the end of the novel I began to question Obreht's structuring of the plot, weaving between the tales and Natalia's present were often clunky, and I was dissatisfied with the ending.  What I had loved in the beginning had come back to bite me.  I may need to have another read in a years time as the start was brilliant, it's just a shame the last third could not live up to that promise, but I will still look forward to Obreht's next novel.  

Sense and Sensibility

For the last two years Summer has meant one thing for me: time to read an Austen.  This years pick was Sense and Sensibility.  A tale of two sisters, there is a third but she's basically scenery, and their tangled love lives.  I didn't like this one as much as Pride and Prejudice, or my personal favorite Emma, but it was a nice read and nothing more than that.  Maybe if I come back to it in a few years I'll feel differently?

The Passage

Firstly, there was a lot of hype surrounding Justin Cronin's 'vampire' novel upon it's initial release.  A brilliant strategy of the publishers made sure I knew the basic outline of what was said to be the greatest vampire epic to date. For me this was mainly through all the pre-promotional bits and pieces that Waterstone's were filtering into my conscious.  Be it either an article in (what seems to be the now defunct) Books Quarterly or a free, and very large, pamphlet containing the first few chapters.
  I took notice, but all this publicity pushed me into this line of thought: if a book has been pushed so hard prior to official release, is it really any good?  The publishers who generate this type of 'buzz' are PAID to promote a novel and make sure that it becomes a best seller.  So, I ignored all those "pre-order for £10" deals, eventually forgetting about this supposed game changer when it disappeared from the front page of bookseller websites and then from their promotional tables in store.
  Fast forward to July of this year.  I see the cover poking out through the quick choice selection.  It was time to buy into the hype.

Smartly set a few years into our future, The Passage is mainly about a girl called Amy and her part in a world that has been ravaged by vampiric creatures.   The beginning leads to the routine zombie story; science experiment gone wrong which unleashes chaos on the human race.  Here, twelve former death row prisoners are injected with a virus that causes them to become said creatures.  Of all the people to pick!  A warning: these aren't twilight vampires, they are large carnivorous glowing animals.    

At the start, I was being fed all different types of information from different characters and I was wondering what has this got to do with anything?   As soon as I'd get comfortable and in the groove with one set, Cronin would quickly move onto the next.  It wasn't until about 200 pages in that I realised he wasn't padding, everything is relevant.  However, a third of the way into the story everything changes with time moving onwards 100 years plus.  All the characters that are listed on the inside jacket are gone, and new story lines are introduced in a post viral world.  Again, it took me a while to warm to the new surroundings but the plot persevered and it was the right direction for the book to head in.  Cronin is great at creating characters and providing more than adequate and interesting back stories, but if anything, search out the amazing action scenes which happen in the lab facility and a prison compound.

It's a strange book but I liked it, and if you've got the time, and at some points the patience to get acquainted with this new world, then give it a go.