2024 In Reading

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

It’s certainly true this year, 2024, had probably the least new activity from me. As a result of all this my blog has been quiet, I hope to improve on that in 2025. That doesn’t mean I stopped reading, and so below are four of the books I enjoyed in 2024. As always I want to try and avoid spoilers, but just give you a taste of what to expect if you were to read any of the listed works below. There are links at the bottom if you wish to investigate further.

Two In The Bush – Gerald Durrell. Books by Gerald Durrell are always a good go-to when you want something easy, but worthwhile. There’s so much to learn about the wildlife of this planet, and as Gerald Durrell makes his discoveries he invites you to join him through his books. Two in the Bush is about a journey through New Zealand and Australia in the 1960s, in an attempt to film and learn, what at the time, was new information to the majority of us on this side of the world. Starting with a trip through New Zealand, seeing what was being done to protect endangered species rare to those islands, the book then crosses over to Australia for the same purpose. As always I thoroughly enjoyed this, Durrell recreates the land, the vistas, the fauna and the flora with insight and wit, as well as in such a way you itch to be there with him. The local characters come to life and you wonder what happened to them after. What is nice is that an internet search from 2024 reveals how some of these projects turned out, and in most cases, the work done back then had a good outcome.

“Just at that moment the skipper of the launch cut the engines down, and we drifted under the cliff, rising and falling on the blue green swell and watching the breakers cream and suck at the jagged cliff some twenty-five feet away. The nose of the crane appeared high above, and from it dangled – at the end of an extremely fragile-looking hawser – something closely resembling a gigantic pig net. The crane uttered a series of clankings, groans and shrieks that were quite audible, even above the noise of the wind and the sea, and the pig net started to descend. Jim gave me a mute look of anguish and I must say that I sympathised with him. I have no head for heights at all and I did not relish, any more than he did, being hauled up that cliff in a pig net slung on the end of a crane that, from the sound of it, was a very frail octogenarian who had been without the benefit of oil for a considerable number of years. Chris, wrapped up in his duffle coat and looking more like a disgruntled Duke of Wellington than ever, started Organising with the same fanatical gleam in his eye that Brian always had in similar situations.
‘Now I want you to go up first, Jim, and get the camera set up by the crane so that you can film Gerry and Jacquie as they land,’ he said. ‘I’ll go up next and get shots of the launch from the net, and then Gerry and Jacquie will follow with the rest of the equipment. Okay?’
‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Why should I have to go first? Supposing the thing breaks just as I get to the top? Have you seen the rocks down here?’
‘Well, if it breaks we’ll know it’s unsafe and go back to Picton,’ said Jacquie sweetly.
Jim gave her a withering look as he reluctantly climbed into the pig net, which had by now landed on the tiny deck of the launch. The skipper waved his hand, there was a most terrifying screech of tortured metal, and Jim, clinging desperately to the mesh of the pig net, rose slowly and majestically into the air, whirling slowly round and round.
‘I wonder if he gets net-sick as well as sea -sick?’ said Jacquie.’”
― Gerald Durrell, Two In The Bush

Stowaway To Mars – John Wyndham. I bought this at a second hand book stall in the early 1990s back home at a market in Milton Keynes, and I’d just never got around to reading it. The last few years saw a sudden burst of enthusiasm from myself for this author and so I dug out this paperback and decided 2024 was finally the year, probably about 30 years late. The story is of a competition to be the first to get a man to Mars. It follows a British team, and all the intrigue and politics connected with such a mission. First published in 1936, this is a fascinating insight into how the future was seen way back then. So many things that weren’t predicted make a huge difference to the way the world works nearly a hundred years later, that this future feels quite primitive. For example, the media interest in the project is almost entirely newspaper-based, how old-fashioned that looks in the days of instant 24/7 news via the internet. Even the way society works and interacts is still very much class-based. Not only is this worth reading for the story, it’s ironically a fun journey back in time.

“There was a short interval of stupefaction before he regained presence of mind enough to relatch the locker and go in search of a pistol. Back in the living-room he reported: “There’s a stowaway aboard, Dale.”
The four stared at him as the remark sank in. Dale grunted, scornfully: “Impossible. The ship’s been guarded all the time.”
“But there is. I saw—”
“And searched before we left.”
“I tell you I saw his foot in the chart locker. Go and look for yourself.”
“You’re sure?”
“Dead certain.”
Dale rose from the control desk and held out his hand.
“Give me that pistol. I’ll settle with him. Now we know where the extra weight was.””
― John Wyndham, Stowaway To Mars

Brunel, The Man Who Built Britain – Steven Brindle. The main shopping centre in Bletchley, where I grew up, was named The Brunel Centre, I’ve no idea why. To child me it was just a name of someone from the past. It wasn’t until I seriously started looking into history that I realised how important this man was to the industrialisation of, not only Britain, but the world! Now, many years later, I have a high respect for what this man achieved so when I came across this book about his life I decided I wanted to know more, also I love trains. Like most biographies, this starts at the beginning, with his parent’s history, and then goes on to tell about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his achievements as well as his struggles, although it does so by project, rather than entirely chronologically. For instance, it tells the stories of the railways, then the bridges and then ships, even though often these things were happening concurrently. This helps understand the processes, but seeing the bigger picture of his life involves flicking back and forth to remember what was happening at the same time. It’s not too much of a disadvantage and I learnt a whole lot more than I did before I picked up this book. Brunel really was someone to name buildings after, although I still don’t know why he had one in Bletchley.

“For nine weeks, Brunel laboured away for up to 20 hours a day, searching for this ideal route, mostly living on horseback, retreating to country inns when the light faded and working on into the night, snatching a few hours’ sleep, then starting again at dawn. William Townsend seems to have faded from the picture within a few weeks: Brunel had become impatient with his comparatively slack working hours. Instead he called on the services of various local surveyors to help him take levels and annotate the Ordnance Survey maps.”
― Steven Brindle, Brunel, The Man Who Built Britain

High Fidelity – Nick Hornby. This is a very famous novel, and I never really had any impulse to read it, that is until a chance conversation with a friend drew it properly to my attention. I have so many books in my “To Be Read” pile, but I like it when I spontaneously buy a book I feel I need to read then and there and go off on an adventure I hadn’t seen coming. This is what happened here. It’s a story about life not going the way it’s supposed to, and it was due to the fact there are many of these, that I hadn’t really paid too much attention to this one. However as a big fan of the 1990s, for me, the nostalgia in this book was palpable. The main characters would have been way older than me at the time of its setting, but just the atmosphere of England in the 90s is exactly what I look back fondly on. As well as books I love music, and so teenage me was often searching out vinyl in record shops, of the type depicted here, there was one just by the Brunel Centre! As stated, this could be just another “bad relationship” book, but there’s something both amusing and thoughtful about the insights of Rob, the main character, as he deals with (or doesn’t) what life throws at him, as well as the moral issues of just what type of a man is he? All this makes this more than just another relationship novel. Along with the tone and the memories of better times, this seals the deal for me. Where did the England of the 1990s go? I genuinely think it was the best decade I’ve lived in.

“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

As for me, I had started various new projects but hit, not writer’s block – for I knew exactly what I wanted to write, but something preventing me from really getting into it. I’ve said elsewhere this was the realisation that I knew my previous work could be improved. I’d learnt so much up until now and being a self-published writer, I was in a position to go back and redraft, and so I realised this is what I needed to do: redraft EVERYTHING before I could go forward! Therefore my goal, my need, for 2024 became clear.

Amidst a change job in my real life, one day I may make enough money to live from my writing, things became busy, however, I was able to complete Humanity, Framed of Rathgar, Indoldrum and the first series of Beck’s Game; I’m currently halfway through the second series so hope to get that out before the end of the year. Although I was surprised at how much I enjoyed properly reading these works again, I feel at ease now that they have been pushed to a higher bar.

This leaves me the relatively easy task of Series Three and some other bits and bobs for next year, and then I’m clear to get going on something new. What that is, I don’t know – if I continue with a stalled project or want to go from scratch with one of many new ideas I’ll wait to see how I feel. Of course, in addition, there is much to be read. Bring on 2025!

Buy Two In The Bush – Gerald Durrell
Buy Stowaway To Mars – John Wyndham
Buy Brunel, The Man Who Built Britain – Steven Brindle
Buy High Fidelity – Nick Hornby

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Suspending the Disbelief

How Far Can We Go?

Fiction is, by its very nature, made up. That means writers of stories have to convince their reader that whilst in their world what they are reading can have believably happened. This might seem easy, in theory, when dealing with the domestic; if the novel is about a couple who fall in love then (don’t call me a cynic) as this happens all the time, possibly it’s happened for the reader, then it’s conceivable some made up people have done the same thing.

However for authors of science-fiction it can take on an extra challenge. From whole worlds having to be created into which the reader has to submerse themselves, to twisting our everyday experiences into something most of us would find unbelievable. Yet not only does the reader have to accept this, so do the characters who need to be rounded and accessible and have a good reason why they would give countenance to something we would judge them for if we knew that person in normal circumstances; of course in the novel they would be right to do so and we would most probably be eaten by Chapter Five.

Even though the fictional world and those that populate it are made up, there are still rules that have to be abided by. For an author to break those rules, even if they created them themselves, they need a good reason and a method which does not cause the reader to step out of that world. This has to be played very carefully when adding twists to the plot. Twists have to not be seen coming, but in hindsight make perfect sense, a hard trick to pull off; at best the new direction of the story should be built in first and the previous deceptions in the plot thought up later.

Earlier I said that in theory stories that deal with everyday situations are easier to convince the reader to accept, but this is only in theory. Compare two examples:

In many of Shakespeare’s plays characters meet each other briefly and fall instantly in love, hopelessly devoted to each other they are then prepared to go to extreme lengths to get or stay together. Whilst “the possibility of love at first sight” is another blog in itself and totally outside of the scope of this website, on the whole Shakespeare manages to get his audience to go with it. It propels the plot forwards and the actors often do a lot of work to convince us this is so. I wonder if Shakespeare’s name can carry the weight for us to allow him to get away with things we’d be harsher on with other writers? He certainly proved he knew what he was doing.

“The very instant I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service; there resides
To make me slave to it.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Compare that, and I’m sorry to lower the tone of this a little, with a plot point from a famous worldwide TV programme, in which after many years of being on air two characters who were just, let’s say, Friends, decided to become a couple. It didn’t work out in the programme and one of them went on to fall in love with the person she was created to be in a couple with (it ended years ago, get over the spoiler). But at the time few believed this new relationship, still to this day it’s become a joke of bad plotting.

NOTE: I just want to point out I fully know that my example is not in keeping with higher literary standards I set for this blog, neither am I much of a fan of said TV programme, but it was the best example I could think of. Please don’t judge me, laughing emoji (oh dear I’ve even introduced emojis now).

Back in the world of science-fiction lots of really strange ideas have to be sold carefully because they are so different from the reality. Often we like this because we want to step away from the ongoing normality that is this world, that makes sense, but it’s not an excuse for the writer to be lazy or push things too far.

How about a story where a large number of women unknowingly fall pregnant by xenogenesis and give birth to aliens who begin to have mind control over everyone? It’s a bit of a far fetched idea, but The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham is a deservedly classic and well loved novel. The reason for this is the way Wyndham tells the story, not just because he uses the first person but his characters act and react as if they really were in a small terribly English village of the 1950s. With so much that we know and trust already there, when use of subtle but clear explanations by Wyndham describe the strange we are just as willing to go with it.

“Mrs Brant had gone into Mrs Welt’s shop one morning to find her engaged in jabbing a pin into herself again and again, and weeping as she did it. This had not seemed good to Mrs Brant, so she had dragged her off to see Willers. He gave Mrs Welt some kind of sedative, and when she felt better she had explained that in changing the baby’s napkin she had pricked him with a pin. Whereupon, by her account, the baby had just looked steadily at her with its golden eyes, and made her start jabbing the pin into herself.”
― John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos

You might argue that because it’s science-fiction we are more open to unusual ideas, but does that mean we can just accept anything? I’m a big Doctor Who fan and over the years that programme has sold us the most absurd concepts, but is there a limit? In one episode first shown in 2014 we were asked to believe that the moon turned out to be an egg of a giant space creature. The episode was set in the future and at the end it hatched and immediately the new creature laid a new moon for us (I don’t care about spoilers here, the episode is terrible and again it’s been 10 years, almost). Elsewhere other creatures were said to be single celled organisms that couldn’t possibly be. At the time there was much derision over this with the makers trying to play the whole thing down claiming because it was science-fiction it didn’t have to be scientifically accurate. Whilst this is technically true, it still needs to have some credibility.

I whole heartedly agree this was an idea that should never have got passed the first writer’s meeting, but why do we find it so ridiculous? Especially compared to other things we maybe thought were clever? In 2005 it turned out the London Eye was a large alien transmitter, but we bought that one. So why is the moon as an egg too far? Like most things in writing I guess it’s a case by case issue. The context needs to be taken into consideration, can you do more silly things in a one off novel than in an ongoing series? It doesn’t seem a good enough explanation. Maybe some ideas just can’t be sold, no matter how hard you try. There’s a good lesson there.

Buy The Midwich Cuckoos – by John Wyndham

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2019 In Reading Part Two

My reads, not the books that came out this year…

This is the second part of my look back at some of the books I’ve read this year, including the end of the world as we know it and turn of last century Kenya. Again I’m trying not to give too much of the actual plot away as I like it to unfold as I go along so don’t want to spoil it for you, instead here is a general outline and how I felt about it.

The Day Of The Triffids – John Wyndham. I bought this second hand in 1995 and started it then; for some reason I couldn’t get into it and I decided to have a break. Nearly twenty five years later and it was time for the break to be over! When I started it again I failed to understand why I had such difficulty with it the first time. It’s gripping! I had in my head what I thought I remembered happening in it and was amazed to discover that not much of it was in the plot, I’d invented a whole load of other things. I was convinced they went to Paris at one point, where that came from I’ll never know but I was looking out for it for quite some time. I guess it’s set at the time it was written, the very early fifties (nearly seventy years ago!) and tells of that world changed overnight. It’s bleak reading but the narrator takes you through his story in such away you really feel for the characters, and want to know what they make of the various massive issues they now have to contend with. It’s also quite realistic in how they deal with what is happening, with plenty of human faults on display and some good as well as bad choices made by all. There is a logic to a well thought out plot and I really enjoyed this so I’m not annoyed I put it down so long ago as I think I got so much more out of it this time.

“Nobody is going to be muddle-headed enough to confuse ignorance with innocence now – it’s too important. Nor is ignorance going to be cute or funny anymore. It is going to be dangerous, very dangerous.”
― John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids

The Double – Fyodor Dostoevsky. I’ve not much of Dostoevsky’s cannon left to read so I’m savouring what is left as much as possible. However it’s been a while so I allowed myself to read this one now. To be honest I don’t think it’s his best work. It starts of well enough but the style of narration began to get a little wearing. The “Hero” of the piece, as he is called, is somewhat annoying and I can understand why he’s having such a tough time of things. The concept (given in the title of the book so it’s not a spoiler) is that Golyadkin meets a duplicate of himself, the only difference is this one succeeds at everything whereas the original one is failing. This leads to problems. Not just in the actual plot but also as the prose becomes a bit too wordy it’s hard to not lose focus. It’s deliberately vague in places and you only really have the not very pleasant Golyadkin to give us opinions on what is happening. I did get through it and there are some things to enjoy, but it was a bit of a struggle. A further note is that in 2013 Richard Ayoade made a film of the book and it’s brilliant. I watched it after I read the novel, something I rarely do, but because I’d struggled with it I wanted to see what others made of it. There are some changes, it’s not set in mid-19th Century St Petersburg but in a dystopian version of the 1980’s – ish and the main character is very likeable. I’d recommend reading the book if you like Russian literature, but after go and watch the film.

“Sorrow is concealed in gilded palaces, and there’s no escaping it.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Double

The Making Of Modern Britain – Andrew Marr. This is a follow up to the excellent A History Of Modern Britain. Whilst the first book deals with events from after the Second World War finishes (very thoroughly and with insight that helps you see the whole history given in isolation but also as part of the big picture – go and read that as well) this one keeps to the early part of the 20^th Century. It’s subtitled “From Queen Victoria to VE Day”. Over all it’s a chronological account of that exact period, first dealing with an overview of each sub era and then breaks it down into the nitty gritty trying to help the reader see what it really would have been like to have been living through these events and the general changes to British culture and politics. There is a huge amount to learn here and the writer’s style is easy to digest, but not lightweight. For lovers of history I’d recommend both this book and its brother.

“My dream is that by returning to our not-so-distant history, I might remind readers why, with all its faults, this is a lucky place to be living in, and one we can be quietly proud of.”
― Andrew Marr, The Making of Modern Britain

Out Of Africa – Karen Blixen. I vaguely remember the very long film and that is love story. This is the real account of Blixen’s life and it’s not remotely about romantic things at all. Well not romantic in the “woman falls for man” kind of way; it does however show some very pleasant sides to what living on a large farm just outside of Nairobi before the First World War would have been like. It sounds brilliant, although I wonder how much of it is seen through rose tinted glasses as I’m sure it was a lot more hard work than Blixen makes out. She seems a very nice person who values the natives and their culture just as much as she does her role as the farm manager. She writes about individual members of the tribes who live on her land and work for her as well as anecdotes that happened during her time there. She is never condescending but shows real interest in differences in their way of life to hers. It’s a dense read, you can’t really get through it quickly but is well worth the effort to see Africa through Blixen’s eyes.

“No domestic animal can be as still as a wild animal. The civilized people have lost the aptitude of stillness, and must take lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it.”
― Karen Blixen, Out of Africa

Buy The Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham
Buy The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Buy The Making Of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr
Buy Out Of Africa by Karen Blixen