The Circle by Dave Eggers

This is a self indulgent sort of book, miles too long, held together by a shallow but compelling story. It’s about Mae, a young graduate, who joins The Circle and rises to become their star employee. It details the way this organization, which merges Facebook and Google and Microsoft and all the other information gathering/social networking/programming/internet payment sites and groups that exist, stitches up a global monopoly of information. It’s Eggers’ pitch at 1984 really and you can see he’s had a wonderful time creating all sorts of information gathering and tracking possibilities, such as embedding chips in children to keep them safe, and using the power of the network to track down criminals on the run in under fifteen minutes. The funny thing is that all the programs seem appealing on the surface: politically correct and beneficial to society BUT underneath it all they remove people’s privacy so that in the end there are no private moments in their lives at all. The writing is typical Eggers, running off at the mouth, way way too long, but it flows. The development of the totalitarian state where information is everything, something which used to belong to the realms of scifi, now appears frighteningly close.

Harvest by Jim Crace

I’m not really convinced by this book, which was a Booker prize nominee I think. It’s very poetic but there is a lot of book to deal with not much story. It’s set in the times when the Enclosure Acts were occurring, and deals with a village that has been farming its owner’s land forever. A new owner arrives with plans for reorganizing and resettlement. At the same time, three strangers arrive to settle on the edge of the village and a series of crimes against the owner’s property occur. These three changes in the status quo combine to destroy the village. There is one person left who tells the tale. Mmmm, not sure really.

One Summer America 1927 by Bill Bryson

I read half this book. It is written in an easy entertaining style, as is always the case with the talented Mr Bryson, but halfway through I thought, I’m really, REALLY not interested in the subject matter. So what happened in 1927? Well, Charles Lindbergh made his famous non stop flight across the Atlantic. And the genius baseball player Babe Ruth came to prominence. Anybody who is remotely interested in either of those events will love this book. I’m not and I didn’t.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

I’m really glad they’ve made a movie about this book. It’s a kids’ classic scifi and I loved it. I’m a great scifi fan and I’ve always liked kids’ books. This is the story of a genius child in the future who is selected to fight on behalf of the world against the buggers, an alien enemy wh have already invaded the world once and who are expected to come again with even more devastating powers soon. It’s interesting because Card manages to write from Ender’s perspective, with the adults being almost a separate race from the children. They have their own ideas, their own motivations and all the power. Despite his genius, Ender really doesn’t figure them out …. until the end.

The Light Between Oceans by LM Stedman

Wooden characters, a ridiculous story verging on soap opera …. My friend Kathy told me not to bother finishing this book and she was right. A lighthouse keeper and his wife? That’s ridiculous to begin with, or at least in this incarnation. Aboat comes in with a dead man and a baby? I should have sht the book there and then.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Jonathan Franzen said of this book: “I tore through this book with heedless pleasure.” Me too. It’s been a very long time since I sat on the couch and read a book right through. It’s utterly charming, slickly written (she’s a TV writer and it shows) and gripping enough to keep you going right through. It’s the story of Bee, her father Elgie and her mother Bernadette who all live in Seattle. They have a dysfunctional relationship to put it mildly but it’s a loving one. And the book it all about the complexities of their relationships. It’s funny and surprising and while it’s not literary fiction, it’s certainly fantastic fiction!

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

Daunted by the size of the Luminaries, I decided to have a go at Eleanor Catton’s first novel instead. What a lovely writer she is. Her language is fabulous, so much so that you stop and re-read bits as you go. The story, while appearing quite simple, is actually a complicated tale of people exploring their sexuality, and developing relationships. It revolves around four main characters: Isolde, a young girl whose older sister has had an affair with a teacher at her school; her saxophone teacher; Stanley, a young drama student; and Julia, who goes to Isolde’s school and also learns saxophone from the same teacher. The dialogue is really odd. The further the book progresses the less sure you are about whether it’s someone actually speaking, or thinking about what they have said or might say in the future or under different circumstances. The timeframe is similarly odd, jumping around depending on whose point of view you’re experiencing at the time. There is a lot from the girls at school and I got about halfway through before it dawned on me that they are rather like a Greek chorus, more or less anonymous but mouthing the words that describe the action, what other people think, a commentary. The mothers who visit the saxophone teacher (who remains nameless all through the book) are similarly anonymous even though they have names. Their dialogue sums up attitudes and beliefs without them ever having an individual thought. I found this book utterly fascinating. I read it slowly, taking big breaks because you can’t really afford to leap ahead looking for the story, you must concentrate on the detail and you want to remember bits. In this way Catton’s writing reminds me a little of Julian Barnes.