What I'm reading

I have started The Observations by Jane Harris. Although I like swapping between fiction and non-fiction, the last book was light-weight and this is a full size novel. I got it at a bargain price from Amazon [Kindle]. I believe it is the first novel by this author. I am rather critical of historical novels sometimes, as some authors are careless. The jury is out on this one.

The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps - by Michael Faber

I read this one very quickly! Partly that was because it was a short book - only 126 pages in the print edition - but also because it was well paced and kept me turning the pages. It was essentially an extended short story in it's form.

The story is told from a single viewpoint, which seems unusual nowadays, but, for a shorter piece, makes sense. It is a kind of love story, built upon an investigation of a historical artefact, which is slowly revealed. In the same way that the investigation reveals more, as the story progresses, we learn more about Sian, the main character. This culminates in a nice twist towards the end. All in all, a good read.

What I'm reading

I have started The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps by Michael Faber. Time for some fiction again. I got this at a special price for Amazon [Kindle e-book again]. It is not a long book, so it shouldn't take long.

Blink - by Malcolm Gladwell

A fascinating book. It is about our innate ability to arrive at conclusions instinctively, using our subconscious more quickly and effectively than conscious thought. The book is not about neuroscience - more applied psychology. It his full of stories and examples that illustrate the author's points perfectly. I learned a lot about how my brain works. It explained many of my own experiences. A spin off was the clearest description of what autism is all about. Some of the ideas are a little complex, which makes it a slightly demanding read, but it is well written enough to keep the pages turning.

What I'm reading

Time for some non-fiction, I thought, so I have started Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This is a book about how we think - specifically how we can often arrive at instinctive/intuitive decisions very quickly. Again, I am reading this as an e-book on my iPad.

Started Early, Took My Dog - by Kate Atkinson

What an excellent book! It is a complex story, told from a number of characters' viewpoints and there are flashbacks to the events of 30 years before. Regardless of the complexity and the many characters, I never felt lost, as the pace of the book and the inclusion of "reminders" in the way the text flowed kept me going.

It's essentially a "who done it", but with much more subtlety than that genre might suggest. For a long time you are unsure what they had done, let alone who was the bad guy. The multiple threads all interlink to build up the picture of the true sequence of events. If I have a criticism, it is that the ending is a bit disappointing. The important stuff is all tied up, but one is left unclear about where a couple of the main characters might go next.

I realised that this is the fourth book in a series that feature Jackson Brodie, one of the main characters. I will certainly be reading the others.

What I'm reading

I have started Started early, Took my Dog by Kate Atkinson. I spotted this book in the Amazon Kindle store and, having a recollection that I enjoyed the author's work in the past, thought I would give it a go. After reading just a few pages, I remembered the writing style: excellent economic descriptions and a complex web of characters and story. I was hooked in no time.

Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe by Martin J. Rees

Again, I have read a book in quite a short time. This is partly helped by some train/plane journeys, partly because I'm reading it as an e-book (which seems to encourage me), partly because I am making an effort to put time aside for reading, but it is also because it's a pretty good book.

The idea of the book is to review the current (10 years ago) state of the art in cosmology in layman's terms - though I think a reasonable scientific background is needed to grasp some of the ideas. The author uses the values of six "parameters" of the Universe to drive the story and constantly considers how things would have been different if these values had been just slightly varied. All in all, I felt it gave a good explanation of the Big Bang, dark matter and string theory and provided much food for thought.

A tiny downside of the book was that there were substantial faults with the "translation" to an e-book. In one place it seems to skip a couple of pages. Not a disaster, but annoying.