TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| Books of The Times: ‘Amaze Me,’ Mother Said, So That’s What She Did Mary Karr’s searing new memoir of alcoholism and recovery is every bit as absorbing as her devastating 1995 memoir, “The Liars’ Club,” which secured her place on the literary map. feeds.nytimes.com |
Audiobooks roundup Sue Arnold on Stephenie Meyer, Michael Crichton, Michael Morpurgo, Neil Gaiman and othersBreaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer, read by Ilyana Kadushin and Matt Walters (21hrs unabridged, Hachette, £24.99)Having been rudely advised by several Disgusted Tunbridge Wellians that my choice of children's books last week was totally out of touch with today's young readers, I have based this week's selection exclusively on bestseller lists and bookshop recommendations. Work this one out. The four books of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, which has sold 85m copies so far, occupy seven places in one children's top 10 bestseller list – yes, it's perfectly possible if you include the pop-up versions and the special movie editions. Warning: if you haven't read the first three, there's no point listening to this last one, which sees beautiful, bewildered schoolgirl Bella Swan hitched at last to the boy she sat next to in biology, who turned out to be a vampire – a decent vampire, though, who drinks fresh animal rather than human blood. President Obama's girls have read them all, and so has a friend's daughter, off to read natural sciences at Cambridge. I can understand the universal appeal. Meyer's teenagers are so damn cool. "Butt out will you," says Bella to the werewolf about to rip out her friend's throat. "You're ruining everything." "Yeah right," replies the werewolf. The railway children never spoke like that.Pirate Latitudes, by Michael Crichton, read by John Bedford Lloyd (9hrs unabridged, Harper, £15)Crichton is the author of Jurassic Park, and his final book (he died last year) is full of the non-stop action, danger, thrills and blood that appeal to teenagers. Set in Jamaica, in 1665, it's a classic swashbuckling adventure story about the real-life Harvard-educated Captain Charles Hunter (1627-70) and his band of pirates, who would have merged unnoticed aboard the Hispaniola. Hunter, buried in Tunbridge Wells, and his mates – Whisper, Black Eye, Mr Enders, the Moor and Don Diego the Jew – are also treasure-hunting. My favourite is Lezou, a formidable French female pirate, said to be Blackbeard's lover and hanged in Charleston in 1704. The descriptions of high and low life in 17th-century Jamaica – described by Sir William Lytton, a former governor, as a region "not burdened by moral excesses" – are social history at its best.Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, by James Patterson, read by Evan Rachel Wood (2½hrs abridged, Headline, £14.99)Max, Fang, Nudge, Iggy Angel and the Gasman are genetically engineered children, but not, alas, like Ishiguro's in Never Let Me Go. They're 98 per cent human and 2 per cent bird – handy for escaping from their sworn enemies, the Erasers. I hated the gratuitous videogame violence, but apparently Patterson was aiming at teenage boys who twiddle buttons rather than read. He got it right – the books are bestsellers.The Graveyard Book, written and read by Neil Gaiman (7hrs unabridged, Bloomsbury, £16.99)Logically, I shouldn't like this equally violent story, which starts with a family being knifed to death, but I do. It's sharp, original and funny, and you care about the characters (most of whom are ghosts), especially the baby who escapes the killer and takes refuge in a cemetery. Don't listen to it in the dark.The Silver Blade, by Sally Gardner, read by Janet Suzman (6½hrs abridged, Orion, £14.99)Baroness Orczy for children who'd rather have a Gypsy with magical powers saving people from the guillotine during the French revolution than the Scarlet Pimpernel. Janet Suzman's voice is, as always, unforgettable.Classic Collection: Three Stories by Michael Morpurgo, read by Ian McKellen, Jenny Agutter, Tim Pigott-Smith, Emilia Fox and the author (10hrs unabridged, Harper, £15)Good stories, interesting characters, brilliant readers – enough said.AudiobooksStephenie MeyerMichael CrichtonNeil GaimanMichael MorpurgoSue Arnoldguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The Bride's Farewell by Meg Rosoff Meg Rosoff's feisty heroine survives in a Hardyesque landscapeMeg Rosoff seems to be drifting further back in time with every book. Her first novel for young adults, the award-winning How I Live Now, was set in a grimly believable near-future dystopia, while 2007's What I Was took place in the 1960s, in a boarding school on the Suffolk coast. The Bride's Farewell, her fourth novel, is set in the 19th century, in the ragged, savage rural economy of Thomas Hardy, where to be both poor and female is as good as being born invisible.Rosoff specialises in feisty heroines, and her main character here, Pell Ridley, is no exception. The farewell of the title is the novel's opening act, for Pell has no intention whatsoever of getting married. Her fiancée might be her best friend, not to mention a way out of grinding poverty, but she knows that becoming his wife will mean relinquishing her tomboyish freedom in favour of the brutalising labour of child-bearing.So, the night before her wedding, she packs a bag of bread and cheese, saddles her pony and sets off for the Salisbury horse fair, determined to forge her fortune with her own two hands. The odds might be stacked against her – she loses her pony, brother and money within the first few pages – but her determination and devastating horse sense mean she is never quite a victim.Children forced to survive in the wild have been a common theme in Rosoff's work, and she pays careful, knowing attention to the details of Pell's journey: how she chooses where to sleep, what she eats, how she tries to keep warm and how it feels when she fails. You might not quite be able to catch a bird in lime or shoe a horse by the end of it, but you'd certainly have the rudiments of the job. But tough as this feral existence might be, it's certainly preferable to the workhouse, that looming spectre that awaits those no longer capable of fending for themselves.That's not to say Pell is entirely isolated in her looping journey through the south-west of England. Part of the book's charm is that the country she wanders is peopled with appealingly mysterious characters – not quite stock, but not fully revealed either. Pell takes up first with a band of Gypsies and then, having acquired one of the most delightful dogs in literature, moves on to an unnamed and taciturn hunter with whom she falls slowly in love.Both the hunter and the Gypsies have their own agenda and the complex, unnerving way these intersect with Pell's own fate is beautifully managed. Rosoff never patronises her readership or succumbs to the desire to make goodness seem simple: her world is as morally ambiguous as it is deftly realised, and all the better for it.Children and teenagersOlivia Laingguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Fraught Expectations In this novel, a suburban doctor grows dangerously obsessed with his son’s romance. feeds.nytimes.com |
Publishers, sellers bet on which winter books will break through Publishers and booksellers place their bets. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |