Outcast and Oath Breaker - Michelle Paver

I was working as a children’s bookseller when Michelle Paver sold her six-book series Chronicles of the Ancient Darkness for a record-breaking advance of just under £2 million, so I vividly remember the hype that ensued! The first in this highly anticipated Stone Age series was immediately a modern classic, with everyone and his grandmother racing out for a signed copy. Wolf Brother began the tale of Torak, a young Wolf Clan boy who becomes violently orphaned and left to fend for himself, when he befriends a wolf cub. Each consecutive book has seen Torak face more trials and tribulations in his journey toward adulthood.

Outcast and Oath Breaker are the fourth and fifth books in the Chronicles of the Ancient Darkness. Following on from the end of the last book, Soul Eater, Torak has been branded with a tattoo by the Soul Eaters, mages corrupted by power and dark magic. Carrying their evil mark, Torak is suspected to be in league with the Soul Eaters and is cast out from the Raven clan, the place he had begun to call home. As he flees, Torak finds himself not only in a fight for his life, but for his very sanity as his link with the Soul Eaters triggers his descent into madness. In these two books, Torak must battle the impending ecological disaster that will shake the very core of his world, and face the death of someone very close to him.

Perhaps the best asset to Paver’s series is her attention to detail. She has spent several years meticulously researching prehistoric life, spending time with Inuit and Sami tribes living in the wilds of Finland and Greenland. But it is this research that gives her story such realism, such depth. Interestingly, I have been enjoying this series far more than Clan of the Cave Bear, where I personally felt that Jean Auel had become too bogged down in the details of prehistoric life. The society that Paver has created is that of the hunter-gatherer, but the people she describes are surprisingly, yet believable advanced, socially and spiritually as well as technologically. I can imagine myself being quite at home in the world she created (aside from the evil Soul Eaters of course!).

Her characters are also completely believable, each with their own story and own journey. By far my favourite character is Wolf, the cub rescued by Torak, whose love and devotion to the boy provide the true heart to this series. Wolf has his own journey, often separate to Torak’s, but their fates are always linked with the bond they share as wolf brothers. My favourite parts of the story are often from his perspective, with Paver using unique vocabulary to describe how Wolf sees the world around him, such as Fast Wet and Bright Beast-that-bites-hot. Wolf’s journey in Outcast and Oath Breaker is especially touching, as he discovers his own desire to be part of a wolf family, along with a shocking revelation about his friend, Tall-Tailless.

This is an excellent series, but I implore you to read it as such. Though Michelle Paver does make a considerable effort for new readers, true enjoyment of these stories comes from following the saga from its beginning. I can only guess what struggles Torak will face in the forthcoming concluding chapter in this epic journey. I do hope Torak finds peace at last!

The Happy Prince & other stories - Oscar Wilde

Read for: Challenge with Rhinoa

Sadly I was never given this delightful little book to read as a child, and it was not until Rhinoa bought me a copy that I finally had the chance to experience the fairy tales of the infamous Oscar Wilde. Tales in this collection include The Devoted Friend, The Remarkable Rocket and The Selfish Giant, but I will briefly mention my two favourite stories.

The Happy Prince is the heartbreakingly beautiful tale of a golden and jewelled statue of a prince overlooking a city, where he mourns the injustice and poverty he sees before him. He is befriended by a swallow who has delayed his migration (because he fell in love with a reed!) and persuades the bird to distribute his jewels and gold to the poor and needy. The swallow grows to love the Prince but realises that he must leave before the winter grows too cold. I cannot describe how much I loved this story. I won't reveal the ending to those who do not already know it, but needless to say, I shed more than one tear (while reading the book in the bath!).

The Nightingale and the Rose is the story of a nightingale who overhears a student saddened because he is unable to give a red rose to his beloved, to win a dance with her. The nightingale searches for such a red rose, but discovers that the only way to produce one is if she is prepared to sing the sweetest song all night and impale herself on the rose-tree's thorn staining it with her heart's blood.

Wilde's fairy tales are far darker than I imagined, but I have seldom read such beautiful writing. I highly recommend this collection for anyone who enjoys fairy tales, and will definitely be reading it to my baby cousin in a few years. Thanks Rhinoa!

Too busy to blog!

Craziness. I haven’t been this busy in years! There’s me complaining about not having a life when I’m working offshore, and now I finally have an onshore job there’s not enough time to do everything! So I really shouldn’t complain. but unfortunately it’s really cutting into my reading habits, and I had to abandon blogging for a little while, just to save the time to read a bit. Things are calming down a bit now, well rather its more organised chaos so I should be able to keep an eye on my blog more regularly. Phew. This having a life malarkey is really exhausting! So apologies for not having the time to comment on everyone's blogs recently, I am slowly making my way through all your posts!

On the up side, I have just booked my flights to the States for May. I’ll be flying to Minnesota and spending a week there for a good friend’s wedding, then driving (hopefully, if I can afford a rental car) west through several states including Montana, where I hope to do some horse-riding, and Wyoming (Yellowstone!) and then ending up in Washington, where I can explore the forests of the Olympic Peninsular, the bookshops and café’s of Seattle, and have time for a quick visit to Vancouver Island to see some orcas. Ambitious for three weeks? Possibly, but I can’t wait! I have the travel bug, and as I was planning on going to the wedding, it seemed silly to spend all that money and travel so far without making the most of it. I will however, be taking a week off my book buying ban while in Seattle, so I can grab those elusive US publications not available over here! So I’m planning some stops along the way and am very open to recommendations if fellow bloggers know the area!

Wordle

Anyone have a play with Wordle? I found it on Eva's blog at A Striped Armchair and have wiled away many a tea break playing with this fun little gadget, creating wordclouds. Below is the wordcloud created using my blog's url...

The Last of the High Kings - Kate Thompson

Last of the High Kings is sequel of sorts to Kate Thompson’s first novel, The New Policeman. While Kings does reintroduce us to the Liddy family, it can also be read as a stand-alone tale, and is a very quick read at that.

This is the tale of JJ Liddy and his family, and their beautiful home in Kinvara, Ireland. JJ is not the most reliable of men, perhaps because of a journey he made in his youth, to Tir na n’Og, the land of eternal youth. JJ returned from that land to become a musician, marry Aisling and build a life with their four children, Hazel, Jenny, Donal and Aidan. All of their children are special in their own way, but Jenny is particularly unique. She never wears shoes, often forgets to go to school, and spends much of time up on the mountainside, having conversations with a ghost and a goat, the latter of whom turns out to be a puca. Both the ghost and the puca have their own stories, which come together in the most surprising and frightening of ways, leaving not only the Liddy’s but the whole of humankind in danger. It is left up to Jenny to decide the fate of all involved, with the help of Aengus Og of the Tuatha De Danann, and to discover where her true destiny lies.

The best word I have seen describing Last of the High Kings, and I can’t remember where I saw it (!), is whimsical. This book is full of whimsy! And whimsy of the subtlest and gentlest kind. There’s that word gentle again, I seem to be either using it a lot recently, or reading a lot of gentle books… My point being, Last of the High Kings is a nice book, in the truest sense of the word. In all honesty, I thought this would be a silly, fun read, and don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but I was pleasantly surprised by the book’s intelligence, warmth and humour. I became very fond of the Liddy family, especially Jenny’s somewhat forgetful and wonderfully capricious father JJ, and her calm, gentle (there’s that word again), musically inclined brother, Donal.

I highly recommend this as a wonderful read for child and adult alike and particularly enjoyable for anyone with an interest in Irish history, folklore and faerie.

Looking for Alaska - John Green

Read for: Dewey's Books Challenge

"I go to seek a Great Perhaps." - Francois Rabelais’ last words

Culver Creek, one hundred and thirty six days before…

From the moment the reader is introduced to Looking for Alaska’s protagonist, Miles Halter, we are graced with a charming, naïve and idealistic fifteen-year old, with a penchant for remembering famous figures’ last words. Miles becomes entranced by some of these words, and decides to attend his father’s former boarding school to seek out Rabelais’ Great Perhaps.

So we follow Miles to Culver Creek in rural Alabama. There he meets a motley crew of teenagers; his roommate, Chip, amusingly and appropriately referred to as the “Colonel”, who gives a skinny Miles the nickname “Pudge”; Takumi, the mild-mannered and loyal Japanese rapper; and Lara, the beautiful and sweet Romanian. And it is here, on his first day, that Miles meets Alaska. Sexy, impulsive, and dangerously alluring Alaska. This small group of friends orbits around the enigmatic young misfit, getting themselves into all kinds of harmless mischief, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, breaking curfews and scheming pranks. For Miles, Alaska is unobtainable but addictive, and he is drawn closer and closer into her web of chaos. She catches his attention from the off, the voracious reader bestowing him with the mysterious last words of Simón Bolívar…

"How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"

After. A shocking event occurs half way through the book that shatters this little world and causes the circle of friends to spin into a whirlwind of emotions; guilt, anger, love, betrayal and grief. Most of all, they learn about loss. The loss of childhood, the loss of before and the shock of after.

There is a beautiful, poignant symmetry to this book. We begin one hundred and thirty six days before, and end one hundred and thirty six days after. In that time, all our characters have traversed a long and difficult journey from adolescence to adulthood, learning about life and love along the way. Interestingly I read this book directly after Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book which, though a completely different story and style of writing, has many parallels in theme to Alaska.

Devastatingly compelling, quietly philosphical and ultimately brutal, Looking for Alaska is possibly the best young adult book I have ever read, and is a remarkable debut for the effervescent John Green who seems to be popping up all over the place (see his blog here). I'm not sure my words will do justice to how I felt about this book. After finishing it, I could not even think about reading another book for over three days (very unlike me), and I still find myself thinking about Alaska now. An absolute joy to read.

A deeply personal coming-of-age tale of what to do when the unthinkable happens. And the ultimate question, as Alaska herself asked. How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?

Other blog reviews:
The Hidden Side of a Leaf
The Written World
Things Mean a Lot
Becky's Book Reviews
Stuff as Dreams are Made on
Books & other thoughts
Muse Book Reviews
Valentina's room
Melody’s Reading Corner

The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book was my final read of 2008 because I had seen so many great reviews, and wanted to end the year on a high note. I was not disappointed. However, due to the fact that I'm very behind in all my reviews and that there have been so many great reviews of this book already, I'll keep this short.

When we meet Nobody Owens, he is a baby, and his parents have just been murdered by a mysterious assailant. The boy wanders from the scene, and into a graveyard, where he is adopted by the dead who are buried there, and another who is not dead, yet not among the living. Over the following pages, we watch Nobody, or Bod for short, grow into a young man, with no fear of the dead and full of curiosity about the living.

I didn't love The Graveyard Book. Well, not right away. I wasn't sure about it at all at first, and I can't put my finger on the moment that I fell for it. And boy did I fall. The word that springs to mind whenever I think about the Graveyard Book now is "gentle". There is an absolute gentleness about this book, despite its rather gruesome opening chapter. There was so much that reminded me of The Jungle Book, the inspiration behind this story, of a young boy's innocence, and of his friends' and family's attempts to shelter him from the unknown and fearsome world outside. I really grew to care about Bod and his journey, I wanted him to find the truth that he needed, but to be safe. He became family and I wanted to protect him.

This is at its heart, a ghost story. But one not about a ghost. Bod is a living, breathing human, and above all, this story is about him. It is about the wonders of childhood, and the loss of it. It is about the excitement and fear of the journey. I have some strong memories of childhood, but there is also a great deal that I have lost, events and moments that I cannot get back, and sometimes that leaves me with a terrible sadness. The transient nature of our lives. I wish that perhaps I had written more as a child. But many of my abiding memories come from the stories that I read, or were read to me. The Graveyard Book could have been such a story, and I wonder how much I would have loved it as a child. As an adult, I shall continue to appreciate it for another example of Neil Gaiman's beautiful writing. And perhaps more wistfully, I shall lose myself in more memories of the past.

Other blog reviews:
Stainless Steel Droppings
The Written World
Stuff as Dreams are Made On
Things Mean a Lot
Rhinoa's Ramblings
Books & Other Thoughts
Melody's Reading Corner
You Can Never Have Too Many Books
Bold.Blue.Adventure
The Hidden Side of a Leaf
Valentina's Room