Review - The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Better than the The Thursday Murder Club in many ways: e.g. we find out about Elizabeth's past instead of getting loads of stupid hints; we get to know most of the characters better; I didn't have the same moral unease about the character's actions this time (although some of their actions were still morally dubious); one of the characters has an Instagram account that exists in the "real" world and one of the new characters, Connie Johnson, was very good value (I hope Richard Osman finds some way to bring her back in book 3).

It is not all positives though. For example, while it had me laughing out loud within the first few pages ("I thought I might either get a dog or join Instagram... Not a big dog, of course," says Joyce. "I haven't got the hoover for a big dog.") I didn't find it as consistently funny as the first book. I also have a slight concern that Bogdan has turned from a character who was more than a little dodgy into a lovable rogue but, as I like the new Bogdan better, I'm willing to turn a blind eye on this occasion.

I have one major issue though and, while I admit that it is a fairly small hill to die on, I'm going to complain about it anyway. (I don't think this is a spoiler... but look away now if you are of a nervous of such things.) A character uses an "infra-red light" to read something. No, no and once again, no! An ultraviolet light perhaps but "infra-red" - NO! At first I thought that Richard is a clever bloke, this must be an infra-red herring that will pay off in a joke later but he just seems to have got it wrong. If I ever bump into him, I'll give him a piece of my mind... before gushing stupidly like a fanboy about how much I enjoyed the books.

Overall though, I thoroughly enjoyed the second outing of the Thursday Murder Club. The observations about old age remain razor sharp: "Joyce thinks about kneeling, but really, kneeling over the age of sixty-five is a pipedream, so she sits on the step above instead." and the plot carried me along effortlessly. I hope I have companions as lively and fun as the Thursday Murder Club in my retirement years.

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Review: Burning Chrome by William Gibson

Burning Chrome by William Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A collection of short stories from the man who defined cyberpunk. Some (inevitably) were better than others. For example, I couldn’t quite get my head around “New Rose Hotel” but “The Winter Market” conjured up believable technology and the society it would create. The big surprise for me was “Johnny Mnemonic” an interesting short story that spawned a truly awful film; William Gibson deserves better from Hollywood.

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Read This Year - 2022

Thanks to our wonderful librarian's project to promote a reading community in the school, I have a "Currently Reading" poster on my door. The first poster of the year has been prepared:

This is the page that the QR Code for "Read this year" will link to. The widget below should update automagically as the year progresses.

Mr Muir's bookshelf: read-in-2022

Burning Chrome

by William Gibson

A collection of short stories from the man who defined cyberpunk. Some (inevitably) were better than others. For example, I couldn’t quite get my head around “New Rose Hotel” but “The Winter Market” conjured up believable technology and ...

tagged: read-in-2022

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910

by Alan Moore

tagged: read-in-2022

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen

by Alan Garner

tagged: read-in-2022

Around the World in Eighty Days

by Jules Verne

Good fun and not quite what I expected. One surprise is that there is no balloon trip ! Also, crossing Europe is barely mentioned; we go from London to the Suez Canal in pretty much a single bound. Clearly, travel in Europe was considere...

tagged: read-in-2022

Annual Update

 Time for the annual update...

2022 Reading Challenge

Mr Muir has read 4 books toward their goal of 50 books.

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4 of 50 (8%)

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I was pleased I made my target in last year's reading challenge, so I've left it the same this year. As always, too many distractions get in the way of reading, so it's as well I have this challenge to turn it into a game! For a summary of my reading in 2021, see Goodreads' My Year in Books.

New Year's resolution: cross-post more of my Goodreads reviews hear and on my social media accounts.

Review: The Sanest Guy In The Room

The Sanest Guy in the Room: A Life in Lyrics by Don Black
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An unusual autobiography. By his own admission, Don Black doesn’t like reading biographies with loads of information about families and childhood; he would rather cut to the chase. As he says:

I have never been a fan of autobiographies. I find all of them way too long, full of boring pages about stuff I'm not at all interested in. I only want to know about the subject, not about the subject's grandparents who may have come from Lithuania, or the subject's aunt who may have been a Windmill girl.

The first thing you learn as a lyric writer is not to waste a syllable, and that you have to eliminate the unnecessary. Lyric writing is all about compression and getting to the nitty-gritty. I guess that's why I find it numbingly tedious when these books veer away from the reason I bought the book in the first place.

Fair enough. I don’t have a problem with that. But this philosophy lead to an autobiography that is arranged as a randomly organised collection of loosely themed sections. A pity because it was very good in parts.

Generally, the stories and observations in the book are really interesting. For example, many (but frustratingly, not all) of the sections start with an interesting quote:

"Youth is believing that some day you'll dance like Fred Astaire."
--Jacqueline Friedrich (Journalist)

There are some great anecdotes that make me think I'd rather sit and have a meal with him, listening to his reminiscences, rather than reading them. He ventures into grumpy old man territory at times but, I can forgive him that as often there is a really sharp observation buried in the grumpiness:

When I wrote 'Born Free' in the sixties around six hundred people recorded the song. When 'Skyfall' won the Oscar I don't think anyone recorded it apart from Adele. No one covers songs any more which means it's harder than ever to write a standard these days.

I did enjoy this book but somehow, it is less than the sum of its parts.

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Reading Challenge 2021

The widget below should automatically update every time I finish a book in 2021. 

 

2021 Reading Challenge

Mr Muir has read 9 books toward their goal of 50 books.

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9 of 50 (18%)

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I like the way Goodreads can be used to track what you read and I especially like the challenges - that it prompts me to keep reading and to move onto the next book, or finish the one I'm on. It makes it a bit like a game, and while the purist may despair at the gamification of reading, it works for me. I also like the sense of community that Goodreads supports. I don't interact with that community as much as I could but I must admit to being pleased whenever a like or a comment appears.

And while on the subject of community, I have written before about our school librarian's "Currently Reading" initiative (see Keeping Track). The posters that appear around the school create a sense that the school is a community that values reading. 

Over time, I have refined the poster I use to display what I'm currently reading. I now include a brief note about the book and a couple of QR codes that link to this blog... but perhaps that’s a subject for another post. 

What I want to mention here is what is happening at the moment because, during lockdown, the pupils can't see the posters... Our ever resourceful librarian, however, has gone digital. Every month, she sends out an email with thumbnails of what the staff are reading. I wouldn't like the posters around disappear, and I assume we'll start updating them again as pupils return, but I do like getting a list of what is being read all in the one place. I'm hoping that, post lockdown, we will see what is being read both in hard copy and electronically.

Review: Next

Next by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book had some potentially very interesting ideas at its heart... but it didn’t quite come together for me. Lots of unconnected stories although some (but not all) came together (in a way that seemed ridiculously tenuous) at the end. Scientists that behaved in a way that wasn’t just unethical but, frankly, unbelievably stupid... and yet appeared to be rewarded at the end. A lawyer that was supposed to be smart but acted in ways that were exceptionally dumb. And don’t get me started on the parrot.

Having said that, I enjoyed it... mostly.

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