I’m not going to review this book – it has been review so many times in the past 18 years since it was published that I’m sure you could find someone far more capable than I to tell you how good this book is. I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the series and then passing them on to my mega-reading nephews. I meant to read this book when it first was published in the early 90s. I watched as sequel after sequel hit the book stands but just never picked one up. I recently saw the movie and was so pleasantly surprised by the storyline, action and dialogue that I renewed my interest in reading the books. And so far, I have not been let down.
I am interested in Young Adult (and Junior to a lesser extent) fiction. Good writing is good writing, in my book, no matter what shape or form it takes. I am interested in what elements need to fit together to make a successful YA literary novel. The primary issue is writing a story that is about what teenagers think they are about.
Let’s see if I can say that differently.
In the highly successful (go figure!!) Twilight series the protagonist is a teenage girl about 16 years old, who has fallen in love and is ready to give up her life for a 100 year old vampire in a 16 year old boy’s body. Now any 16 year old girl will tell you that it is possible for a teenager to fall truly, madly, deeply in love. As adults, it is hard to take teenage love seriously. I do have a couple of friends who met when they were in their teens who are still happily married to this day but as any adult will tell you, their relationships didn’t really develop until they were older and more mature. But a teenager does not know that. Stephenie Meyer has taken a typical teenage romance (bordering on a teenage suicide story) and thrown in a couple of presently-popular vampires and wha-la, a best seller. Anyone would want a boyfriend like Edward – handsome, broody, strong, master-protector who would never cheat or grow old. Who wouldn’t? But would any girl who found herself the amorous object of such a one’s love give up her life to join him in living death?
OK – back on track!! As you can see I don’t really think these books are very good. But, teenage girls love them. So, lesson number one in writing for teens – write like teens feel. And John Marsden does just that. He writes with a very authentic voice. Ellie is country girl – a strong girl who has all the foibles of teenage angst, teenage sexual feelings and teenage unreasonableness (is that a word?). The other characters are also strong and constant voices and develop just as any teenager would – they just happen to be teenagers defending their homes from foreign occupation. Their emotions are high and sometimes out of control but they stay in character and they seem real.
Lesson number two – don’t talk down to readers just because they are primarily teenagers. Marsden uses Ellie’s voice to tell the story – she is keeping a journal – and so the voice feels very true. He is really good at writing as a young woman would speak. As a young adult fiction writer you need to find that voice and keep it close to you throughout the process. Anything else and you will lose the attention of your reader. I know that every parent out there has seen the glaze come over their own children’s eyes as soon as they start to preach, instruct, tell off or ask them to do something. As a writer you can’t do any of these things or your readers will just stop reading. Period.
Lesson number three – if the protagonist of your story is a teenager, let them do something either really dangerous or seriously romantic. I have read all genres of youth fiction – fantasy, realism, mystery, action – all of them, and in all of them the main characters are super-human in some aspect. They either save someone or something, have special powers, link romantically with someone very interesting, or go on a fantastical adventure that tests their will and integrity. As adults, we can learn a lot from these kids in books. They kids in Tomorrow When the War Began do all of these things except for the special powers. This book is realistic but these kids have to live completely out of their own comfort zones and capacities to save their own existences. They link romantically together, they save each other, they care about each other and they learn that family is far more important than they previously thought. They fight, they cry, they love and they do it all while trying to save a way of life that they believe is vitally important.
Well, I guess I did sort of review this book. As I write this I am at the end of the second in the series and I am enjoying it just as much as the first. I find I care about these kids and I am cheering for them. I am also concerned that they will become jaded and sour. But that is the adult in me. The teenager in me is totally wrapped up in the adventure, the danger and the excitement. Give it to your kids to read and then read it yourself. You’ll thank me.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Room by Emma Donoghue
I can picture myself as an author thinking about my next book. No inspiration has lit a fire under my ass. I haven't been struck by creative lightning. I check out the successful (meaning high sales) writers that I admire and see what they are writing about. I read the papers to see if anything strikes me as novel-worthy. I want to write something socially meaningful. I want to be taken seriously. I read a news story about a man who holds his daughter captive in a basement for 24 years and fathers her children. This could be a novel! Jodi Picoult has made a credible name for herself writing book after best-selling book about curly social issues. Lionel Shriver wrote an immensely popular book about a boy who commits a school massacre from the perspective of his mother. D.B.C. Pierre won a Booker Prize, for heaven sake, writing a story about boy mixed up in a multiple killing rampage. I could write a book about the atrocities committed by a man who kidnaps and encages a woman. But it needs a twist so I will write it in the voice of the small boy who is the child of the keeper and the kept. Fingers on keyboard I begin.
The Room feels just this calculated right from the beginning. It is clever but there is no passion in it. There is a lack of oomph, a lack of intensity that this story needed to keep my interest. The first few pages were interesting but as soon as I needed the story to rise up, pick up pace, ripple, rock and roll it let me down by staying level.. I didn't feel like at any time the story took over from the author's intentions and it never spread its wings and soared.
I love a story that surprises me, that takes me along on an unexpected ride. I don't need shoot-em-up or knock-me-down action. I love words that create moods just as much as I love a character that moves through its novel life with its own personality. The characters in The Room were predictable and measured.
Oh, I have made this novel sound like a huge bore. It’s not. It was short listed for the 2010 Booker Prize so several people think this book has excellent merit. As I have said, it is a clever premise and competently written. It is a little scary saying that a novel that attacks such a sensitive and tricky subject is not up to my snobbish standards. But it’s not.
Donoghue, to her credit, writes a consistent voice in the 5 year old boy, Jack, which grows with his journey from a confined space with no outside influence to the big bad world. He sees his world through innocent eyes and it is sad to watch those eyes lose their innocence slowly. Donoghue covers all the bases of this tricky subject with this novel – the child, the abuse, the escape, the afterlife, the family, the punishment. I just wish it hadn't felt like an interview in a journal. I wish I could have been sucked into the story and spat out the other end. I wish I could have had a much deeper empathy with both mother and child. I wish, by the end of the novel, I knew what it felt like to be locked in a room for all of my life. I would have liked this book to take me to the darker side instead of just showing me where it was.
The Room feels just this calculated right from the beginning. It is clever but there is no passion in it. There is a lack of oomph, a lack of intensity that this story needed to keep my interest. The first few pages were interesting but as soon as I needed the story to rise up, pick up pace, ripple, rock and roll it let me down by staying level.. I didn't feel like at any time the story took over from the author's intentions and it never spread its wings and soared.
I love a story that surprises me, that takes me along on an unexpected ride. I don't need shoot-em-up or knock-me-down action. I love words that create moods just as much as I love a character that moves through its novel life with its own personality. The characters in The Room were predictable and measured.
Oh, I have made this novel sound like a huge bore. It’s not. It was short listed for the 2010 Booker Prize so several people think this book has excellent merit. As I have said, it is a clever premise and competently written. It is a little scary saying that a novel that attacks such a sensitive and tricky subject is not up to my snobbish standards. But it’s not.
Donoghue, to her credit, writes a consistent voice in the 5 year old boy, Jack, which grows with his journey from a confined space with no outside influence to the big bad world. He sees his world through innocent eyes and it is sad to watch those eyes lose their innocence slowly. Donoghue covers all the bases of this tricky subject with this novel – the child, the abuse, the escape, the afterlife, the family, the punishment. I just wish it hadn't felt like an interview in a journal. I wish I could have been sucked into the story and spat out the other end. I wish I could have had a much deeper empathy with both mother and child. I wish, by the end of the novel, I knew what it felt like to be locked in a room for all of my life. I would have liked this book to take me to the darker side instead of just showing me where it was.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
My E-book Reader v My Books
I love a book – the actual, physical book. I love to hold a book and run my finger down the cut pages. I love a book tossed casually on my bed and lots of books piled haphazardly on my desk. I love the feel of a book in my bag as I go off to town or to uni. I love the smell of a new book as well as a well read, well loved book. I love to look at books in my home and in a book shop.
I love my e-book reader. I love that I have over 100 books in my hand at once. I love the fact that just by plugging in my e-book reader I can download another 4 books without actually having to get on my bike, ride to the book shop, buy the book, and ride home again – what a waste of good reading time!
But before I can compare books and e-book readers, I think a definition of a Book is due. A book can take many different forms. It can be an 800 page hardback tome (OK, don’t worry, I’m not going to go on and on about the size of Fall of Giants again). It can also be a 40cm by 40cm so-called Coffee Table Book (What? You don’t read your Coffee Table books? I have stayed up till the wee hours of the morning entranced with a very large book about the making of maps many nights! You should try it). A book can be a normal paperback of any size, mostly easy to hold and carry around. A book can be very small filled with philosophy or poetry. It can even be a comic book sized, very soft covered graphic novel (of which I am just beginning to appreciate).
A book gives its reader clues about the story just by its physical presence. When the action starts heating up and you can see that there are 200 pages left to go, you know this is a build up to the intermission, so to speak. If there are only 25 pages left to go you know to ignore the ringing phone and the cries of hungry children and keep reading. An e-book gives you no such clues – you have to take this increase in tension just as it comes, on faith, and go with it. When a book starts to bog down or get a bit boring, you can see that that there is still the majority of the story to come and choose to give it the flick, or see that there are only a few pages left and persevere hoping that it comes good in the end. With an e-book reader – no such luck. You have to decide to continue by pure stubbornness or quit because it just feels right to quit! This sort of reading takes practice, but the learning can be quite thrilling.
You can slam a book closed when you get angry or frustrated with the plot or a character. You can push the off button really hard on an e-book reader but it’s not the same (obviously). You can lovingly place in a book mark that your friend just brought you back from her trip to Turkey (so jealous) and close your book with the sweet anticipation of starting again as soon as you get home from work. Or you can push the off button. You can bend the page to mark your place, stick a post-it note on a page that you want to read to someone, write in the margins and photocopy your favourite bits of a book. E-book reader – you can push the off button. You can lend a book. E-book reader – well you get the picture.
But, and this is a big but, as I said before, with my e-book reader I can carry 100 books with me in my small handbag. I can decide I don’t want to read the book I am reading and, with a flick of a button, be reading another book within a few seconds. I can go on a holiday and have more room for shoes and clothes so I don’t have to wear the same pants for three weeks and wear my heals out for a walk on the beach because I had to make room to bring the latest Alice Munroe in my suitcase (or Steven King which would mean leaving the shampoo at home as well – not such a great idea).
If someone sees you reading a book they generally leave you alone. E-book readers, at the moment, invite conversation. Now, this may be a good thing or a bad thing. When you are sitting on a bench in the park, right in the middle of Pip’s adventures, a passerby stopping to ask about your e-book reader is not always a welcome thing. But a handsome, inquisitive, ring-less stranger interrupting your coffee and Mr Darcy could be the start of something wonderful. OK, that’s a little silly but hey, stranger things have happened. And until everyone has one, an e-book reader is still a novelty and having one makes you a little more popular!
Both of these ‘holders of pages of wonders’ have a place in my reading world. I still love books. Why do I have to stop loving the physical book just because I also read novels on my e-book reader? There is not one reason that I can think of. Why do I have to hide my e-book reader when I’m with my snobby, intellectual and highly judgemental bookish friends (really I do love them)? I won’t. And if the media stories are true concerning the sales of e-books, then everyone will have one soon. I’ll just be able to say something like ‘oh, yes, I bought my first e-book reader in 2010 – I was one of the first!” Then I can be an e-book snob, as well.
I love my e-book reader. I love that I have over 100 books in my hand at once. I love the fact that just by plugging in my e-book reader I can download another 4 books without actually having to get on my bike, ride to the book shop, buy the book, and ride home again – what a waste of good reading time!
But before I can compare books and e-book readers, I think a definition of a Book is due. A book can take many different forms. It can be an 800 page hardback tome (OK, don’t worry, I’m not going to go on and on about the size of Fall of Giants again). It can also be a 40cm by 40cm so-called Coffee Table Book (What? You don’t read your Coffee Table books? I have stayed up till the wee hours of the morning entranced with a very large book about the making of maps many nights! You should try it). A book can be a normal paperback of any size, mostly easy to hold and carry around. A book can be very small filled with philosophy or poetry. It can even be a comic book sized, very soft covered graphic novel (of which I am just beginning to appreciate).
A book gives its reader clues about the story just by its physical presence. When the action starts heating up and you can see that there are 200 pages left to go, you know this is a build up to the intermission, so to speak. If there are only 25 pages left to go you know to ignore the ringing phone and the cries of hungry children and keep reading. An e-book gives you no such clues – you have to take this increase in tension just as it comes, on faith, and go with it. When a book starts to bog down or get a bit boring, you can see that that there is still the majority of the story to come and choose to give it the flick, or see that there are only a few pages left and persevere hoping that it comes good in the end. With an e-book reader – no such luck. You have to decide to continue by pure stubbornness or quit because it just feels right to quit! This sort of reading takes practice, but the learning can be quite thrilling.
You can slam a book closed when you get angry or frustrated with the plot or a character. You can push the off button really hard on an e-book reader but it’s not the same (obviously). You can lovingly place in a book mark that your friend just brought you back from her trip to Turkey (so jealous) and close your book with the sweet anticipation of starting again as soon as you get home from work. Or you can push the off button. You can bend the page to mark your place, stick a post-it note on a page that you want to read to someone, write in the margins and photocopy your favourite bits of a book. E-book reader – you can push the off button. You can lend a book. E-book reader – well you get the picture.
But, and this is a big but, as I said before, with my e-book reader I can carry 100 books with me in my small handbag. I can decide I don’t want to read the book I am reading and, with a flick of a button, be reading another book within a few seconds. I can go on a holiday and have more room for shoes and clothes so I don’t have to wear the same pants for three weeks and wear my heals out for a walk on the beach because I had to make room to bring the latest Alice Munroe in my suitcase (or Steven King which would mean leaving the shampoo at home as well – not such a great idea).
If someone sees you reading a book they generally leave you alone. E-book readers, at the moment, invite conversation. Now, this may be a good thing or a bad thing. When you are sitting on a bench in the park, right in the middle of Pip’s adventures, a passerby stopping to ask about your e-book reader is not always a welcome thing. But a handsome, inquisitive, ring-less stranger interrupting your coffee and Mr Darcy could be the start of something wonderful. OK, that’s a little silly but hey, stranger things have happened. And until everyone has one, an e-book reader is still a novelty and having one makes you a little more popular!
Both of these ‘holders of pages of wonders’ have a place in my reading world. I still love books. Why do I have to stop loving the physical book just because I also read novels on my e-book reader? There is not one reason that I can think of. Why do I have to hide my e-book reader when I’m with my snobby, intellectual and highly judgemental bookish friends (really I do love them)? I won’t. And if the media stories are true concerning the sales of e-books, then everyone will have one soon. I’ll just be able to say something like ‘oh, yes, I bought my first e-book reader in 2010 – I was one of the first!” Then I can be an e-book snob, as well.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
I will not read an eight hundred page (plus) novel again! What are the publishers thinking of when they publish an hardback book that is 851 pages? Don't they realize we will get bored at some point, even if the book is interesting? I know that there is a lot to say about World War One, and I know that Ken Follett is probably the author to say it. But honestly, I get antzy and want to move on to something else by page 542 of any book.
An 851 page book is also impossible to hold in my preferred reading position - in bed on my side. Do most people read sitting up in a chair or with the book on the table in front of them? I don't think so unless you are studying and this is not a studying type of book. I think that Ken Follett has earned the right to make his books any damn length he wants to, but please, publishers and editors, talk him out of it next time. It's too big a commitment for any but the most loyal fans.
My dad, who sadly passed two years ago, was a most loyal fan and would have cherished this book. I'm sorry that he didn't get to read it. Follett has, again, written a most readable book with an historically accurate story. And I did persevere for my father's sake. No - 'persevere' sounds like it was a struggle and it most certainly was not. If anything is was a pleasure to read this book. There was no 'a-ha' moment in the end but there was good and honest story telling.
The book begins by developing some supremely likeable characters in some very real situations. There is an Earl and a Coalminer, an Earl's sister and a Housekeeper, an upper-class American, an upper-class German and a lower-class Russian. Their lives intermingle and twirl around each other as WWI heats up, begins, plays out, and ends in all its glory and horror. A couple of years ago I read 'Paris, 1919' by Margaret MacMillan, which is about the six months of peace talks involving Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau. It was an engrossing expose (that's an e with an accent) on the history of peace negotiation and the high cost of war. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the foundations of politics on a global scale. Follett takes these events and turns them into a very readable popular fiction novel.
There are real historical characters in this book and the fictional characters have much to do with them and are in their confidences. This is a great way to make history real to readers who know nothing about WWI. It was a devastating event and it does not have a prominent place in school lessons any longer. Follett is obviously passionate about the politics and economics surrounding WWI and has not pulled his punches when it comes to aiming squarely in the right corner of who is to blame for the absurdities of this war. He obviously means no disrespect to the soldiers who fought and died in this war but means all disrespect to the military, political powers and bankers who kept it going for so long with such a devastation loss of life.
And I must say something about Follett's descriptions of 'place'. The landscapes, big and small, in a novel are most important to me. If I cannot feel the place the author is placing his characters in, if I cannot smell and see and hear the surroundings of the people I am reading about, then the book doesn't work for me. Follett does situate his characters in places that speak as much as those characters do. In the depths of the coal mine you can feel the lack of air and the damp. In the trenches of France you can smell the foulness of the air and feel the mud squishing around army boots. In the small apartments of St. Petersburgs in winter you can hear the wails of hungry children and feel the desparate cold. Follett is a master of setting a scene without intruding on his own storyline.
Ken Follett takes on a big project in writing this book and covers every step of the way with love affairs, personal tragedies, and families as the fore-front subjects in this novel. He skillfully shows how the war affects them all by bringing people together and separating them forever. Read this novel. It will teach you about a place in history that should have taught us bigger lessons than it did, while entertaining you with people that you will feel fondly for and remember long after the reading has ended. And if you like this novel you must read 'Pillars of the Earth' as well. But that is for another Book View sometime.
I will not harp on about this but...Nancy Pearl, Seattle Librarian Extraodinaire, said that once you reach 50 years of age you only need to read 50 pages of a book before you decide to continue or stop. The first 50 pages of this book were good enough to keep me going. But from now on I will not even pick up a book that is too thick to fit comfortable under my pillow when I fall asleep at night. I may miss out on some fabulous books and I may break this vow occassionally but this is going to be my rule of thumb (and I can safely say this now that we know for sure that there will be no more Harry Potter books (smilely face)).
Happy Reading, Rhonda
An 851 page book is also impossible to hold in my preferred reading position - in bed on my side. Do most people read sitting up in a chair or with the book on the table in front of them? I don't think so unless you are studying and this is not a studying type of book. I think that Ken Follett has earned the right to make his books any damn length he wants to, but please, publishers and editors, talk him out of it next time. It's too big a commitment for any but the most loyal fans.
My dad, who sadly passed two years ago, was a most loyal fan and would have cherished this book. I'm sorry that he didn't get to read it. Follett has, again, written a most readable book with an historically accurate story. And I did persevere for my father's sake. No - 'persevere' sounds like it was a struggle and it most certainly was not. If anything is was a pleasure to read this book. There was no 'a-ha' moment in the end but there was good and honest story telling.
The book begins by developing some supremely likeable characters in some very real situations. There is an Earl and a Coalminer, an Earl's sister and a Housekeeper, an upper-class American, an upper-class German and a lower-class Russian. Their lives intermingle and twirl around each other as WWI heats up, begins, plays out, and ends in all its glory and horror. A couple of years ago I read 'Paris, 1919' by Margaret MacMillan, which is about the six months of peace talks involving Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau. It was an engrossing expose (that's an e with an accent) on the history of peace negotiation and the high cost of war. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the foundations of politics on a global scale. Follett takes these events and turns them into a very readable popular fiction novel.
There are real historical characters in this book and the fictional characters have much to do with them and are in their confidences. This is a great way to make history real to readers who know nothing about WWI. It was a devastating event and it does not have a prominent place in school lessons any longer. Follett is obviously passionate about the politics and economics surrounding WWI and has not pulled his punches when it comes to aiming squarely in the right corner of who is to blame for the absurdities of this war. He obviously means no disrespect to the soldiers who fought and died in this war but means all disrespect to the military, political powers and bankers who kept it going for so long with such a devastation loss of life.
And I must say something about Follett's descriptions of 'place'. The landscapes, big and small, in a novel are most important to me. If I cannot feel the place the author is placing his characters in, if I cannot smell and see and hear the surroundings of the people I am reading about, then the book doesn't work for me. Follett does situate his characters in places that speak as much as those characters do. In the depths of the coal mine you can feel the lack of air and the damp. In the trenches of France you can smell the foulness of the air and feel the mud squishing around army boots. In the small apartments of St. Petersburgs in winter you can hear the wails of hungry children and feel the desparate cold. Follett is a master of setting a scene without intruding on his own storyline.
Ken Follett takes on a big project in writing this book and covers every step of the way with love affairs, personal tragedies, and families as the fore-front subjects in this novel. He skillfully shows how the war affects them all by bringing people together and separating them forever. Read this novel. It will teach you about a place in history that should have taught us bigger lessons than it did, while entertaining you with people that you will feel fondly for and remember long after the reading has ended. And if you like this novel you must read 'Pillars of the Earth' as well. But that is for another Book View sometime.
I will not harp on about this but...Nancy Pearl, Seattle Librarian Extraodinaire, said that once you reach 50 years of age you only need to read 50 pages of a book before you decide to continue or stop. The first 50 pages of this book were good enough to keep me going. But from now on I will not even pick up a book that is too thick to fit comfortable under my pillow when I fall asleep at night. I may miss out on some fabulous books and I may break this vow occassionally but this is going to be my rule of thumb (and I can safely say this now that we know for sure that there will be no more Harry Potter books (smilely face)).
Happy Reading, Rhonda
I won a contest!
My first post.
A little fun thing - I won a contest on the ABC - The Books Alive Suggest a Read contest. I wrote a little review of Wolf Hall and won! . Last week I recieved a box full of the the 50 books that were recommended by Books Alive as the 50 books you can't put down. (Some I can't even pick up!!)(oh, I know, I'm a snob but I am over 50 and I am not wasting my time on bodice ripping romances - sorry!) So now my next to the bed pile has grown considerably.
Here is my entry taken from the ABC website -
31 August, 2010 6:02PM
Recommended reads in Recommend a ReadYour most talked about books.
If you had to recommend just one book to someone, which is it? We asked you to tell us about a book that changed your life, or one that you could not live without, and the response was terrific
We had two packs of 50 books You Can't Put Down; one for an individual and one for a book club.
Our panel selected Rhonda Nichols review of Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Marie Huttley-Jackson for her recounting of the discussion created when St Judes Book Club tackeled Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Rhonda will receive one pack of 50 books as will the St Judes Book Club.
Their winning reviews are below, along with a couple of Highly Commended entries. All the reviews we recieved are here.
Winning review
Wolf Hall - Hillary Mantel (Reviewer: Rhonda Nichols)
Within the first 50 pages of Wolf Hall I knew that this book was magic. The retelling of the court of King Henry the Eighth from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell takes a common story into a new and uncommon attitude. Hillary Mantel's writing is sublime, smooth, intense and unyielding. Every sentence was a delight in which I, as the reader, needed to pay attention and become totally immersed in the characters, plot and setting. This is one book that I savoured and selfishly devoured at the expense of the family and the pets. I think the saying 'didn't want the book to end' is appropriate here. Usually, while reading a good book I can't wait to get to the end to see what happens, but with Wolf Hall I wanted the experience to go on and on. I would give this book to friends and enemies, family and strangers and I would defy any of them to not love becoming a member of the English court in the 1520's, with all its intrigue and drama, through the reading of Wolf Hall
A little fun thing - I won a contest on the ABC - The Books Alive Suggest a Read contest. I wrote a little review of Wolf Hall and won! . Last week I recieved a box full of the the 50 books that were recommended by Books Alive as the 50 books you can't put down. (Some I can't even pick up!!)(oh, I know, I'm a snob but I am over 50 and I am not wasting my time on bodice ripping romances - sorry!) So now my next to the bed pile has grown considerably.
Here is my entry taken from the ABC website -
31 August, 2010 6:02PM
Recommended reads in Recommend a ReadYour most talked about books.
If you had to recommend just one book to someone, which is it? We asked you to tell us about a book that changed your life, or one that you could not live without, and the response was terrific
We had two packs of 50 books You Can't Put Down; one for an individual and one for a book club.
Our panel selected Rhonda Nichols review of Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Marie Huttley-Jackson for her recounting of the discussion created when St Judes Book Club tackeled Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Rhonda will receive one pack of 50 books as will the St Judes Book Club.
Their winning reviews are below, along with a couple of Highly Commended entries. All the reviews we recieved are here.
Winning review
Wolf Hall - Hillary Mantel (Reviewer: Rhonda Nichols)
Within the first 50 pages of Wolf Hall I knew that this book was magic. The retelling of the court of King Henry the Eighth from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell takes a common story into a new and uncommon attitude. Hillary Mantel's writing is sublime, smooth, intense and unyielding. Every sentence was a delight in which I, as the reader, needed to pay attention and become totally immersed in the characters, plot and setting. This is one book that I savoured and selfishly devoured at the expense of the family and the pets. I think the saying 'didn't want the book to end' is appropriate here. Usually, while reading a good book I can't wait to get to the end to see what happens, but with Wolf Hall I wanted the experience to go on and on. I would give this book to friends and enemies, family and strangers and I would defy any of them to not love becoming a member of the English court in the 1520's, with all its intrigue and drama, through the reading of Wolf Hall
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