In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 19/52

I'm surprised I read so much this week - 17th December to 23rd December.  That said, the three Sophie Hannah's are all audiobooks.  I listened to Pictures or It Didn't Happen - a three hour quick read - again before buying a few more credits for the next few books, that is, The Other Half Lives and A Room Swept White.

The Other Half Lives is the first Sophie Hannah book I ever read.  Happily, it's been long enough that I'd forgotten the finer details of the intricate plot.  I'd also forgotten one of the more disturbing details of A Room Swept White - that Hannah implies the scientific community were picking on Andrew Wakefield for disagreeing with them.  That's dangerously inaccurate; Wakefield's claim that the MMR vaccine caused autism was not properly tested or validated.

Memoriam is a graphic novel that I spotted in the library, about a girl who wakes up with no memory.  It was pretty interesting.  Introduction by the author of the Fables series, which tells you something about it.

I read The Dark Half as part of my Stephen King project.  I wrote a longer post about it here.

Finally, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? was the inspiration for the title of a Gilmore girls episode.  I read a bit about the book and it seemed interesting so I picked it up on Kindle.  It's set in the depression and focuses on a dance marathon, in which young couples danced for an hour and fifty minutes at a time with ten minute breaks, the longest lasting pair winning a prize.  It's bleak and miserable, but in a very interesting way.  We know it ends with the main character shooting his partner because the entire story takes place in a flashback as the verdict at his trial is being delivered.  It was great, I enjoyed it.

In Which We Discuss Sophie Hannah and What, Exactly, I've Been Doing This Whole Time

....yeah, it's been a while.

As you can see from my stats posts, I have been reading. I have a book on the go constantly, and generally dip into it throughout the day, whenever I'm not focused on anything else. I read while level grinding in games, or during ad breaks, or while travelling. So I've been reading. I just haven't been writing about it.

I recently discovered a new author - well, new to me. Sophie Hannah. I found a copy of the other half lives in a charity shop six weeks or so ago, but I only got around to reading it the other night. I literally couldn't put it down. I read the 550 page novel in two days. That's not terribly fast for me, but it is unusual for me to sit still for that long in one go.  Afterwards, I went to the library, and borrowed the point of rescue.  That was yesterday, and I finished it at 5am this morning.  Then I read some of The Witcher, because I am a cowardy-custard, and I was nervous of going to sleep.

Hannah has written general fiction novels, one children's novel, and several volumes of poetry, but what I've read so far are her crime/psychological thriller books.  In an interview printed at the back of the other half lives, Hannah talks about her method.  It seems she begins with a scenario that intrigues her, that throws up a lot of questions, then slowly begins building answers.  The other half lives, for instance, begins with a man confessing to the murder of a woman who's still alive. What I really liked about that book was how secrets were continually revealed, but there were still mysteries to solve, right to the end.  I also rather liked the fact that everything was neatly spelled out in the last chapter, since I'd gotten a tad confused by that point, and wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything.

I kind of want to buy Hannah's entire bibliography, but I've had to settle for borrowing them from the library.  I've got two of her books reserved at the moment.

I've bought quite a lot of books over the last few days.  The Last Wish and Blood of Elves for a start, both by Andrzej Sapkowski, in the Witcher series, and two Stephen Kings - On Writing, and Just After Sunset, a book of short stories.  I love King's short stories.  Actually, I love short stories in general, particularly those inspired by fairy tales.