Monday 29 May 2017

Life In A Haunted House by Norman Prentiss


Life In A Haunted House by Norman Prentiss
Self-published in America on the 15th May 2017.

Where to buy this book:
Buy the ebook from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

How I got this book:
Received a review copy from the author

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Brendan has always been fascinated by the low-budget horror films of Bud Preston. Imagine his surprise when he moves to a new town and discovers a high school classmate is the daughter of his favorite director. Melissa Preston’s home contains exciting secrets about such strange films as THE STONE STAIRWAY and THE DUNGEON OF COUNT VERLOCK. But Brendan’s film-fan obsessions threaten to undermine his new friendship...before he can truly understand what it means to spend LIFE IN A HAUNTED HOUSE.

Life In A Haunted House has a fabulous schlock horror cover which manages to both perfectly illustrate the novel inside and to imply something completely different to the actual story. I'll try to explain that contradiction! Our young protagonist, Brendan, is so much a fan as to be obsessed with the b-movie horror films of director Bud Preston and I love that this book cover looks just like one of those film posters. However the Life In A Haunted House storyline is a multi-layered coming of age tale, far more sophisticated and deep than the artwork would suggest.

Brendan is the perpetual school new boy and misfit. His chance encounter with equally isolated 'weird girl' Melissa looks as though it will allow both children to actually experience friendship, bonding over the discovery that Melissa's house was where Bud Preston shot all his films. However first Brendan needs to learn that using someone to further your own obsession isn't the same as being their friend, however tempting the immediate acquisitions might be.

Prentiss has written a sympathetic and utterly convincing portrayal of the intersection of these two lives and I found it easy to believe in both Brendan and Melissa. Their interactions with parents and other children provide a strong framework and, if I were a horror film fan, I suspect I would have recognised many of the scenes and settings, at least by type. Life In A Haunted House does have a strong horror streak depicted mainly through scenes that border on reality. I can imagine this novel having wide appeal and being recommended by word-of-mouth to horror fans and enthusiasts of quirky cult fiction.


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Books by Norman Prentiss / Horror fiction / Books from America

Sunday 28 May 2017

The Giant Secret (1899AD): Finding Christopher by David Alan Webb + Free book


The Giant Secret (1899AD): Finding Christopher by David Alan Webb
Self-published in America in 2017.

Where to buy this book:
Download this story free from the author's website

How I got this book:
Received a review copy from the author

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In an Appalachian valley, a young German couple has just buried their second stillborn, their dreams of raising a family in America gone, when a monster is sighted on their land. An investigation turns into a rescue, and their lives are changed forever, as they discover that reality is stranger than they had ever imagined... and that sometimes we find our heart’s desire where we never thought to look for it.

I enjoyed this mostly gentle tale of an immigrant couple in 1890s America. We don't learn much about their daily life, but the relationship between Hans and Ava is endearingly tender and convincing. The supernatural story element is also well done, nicely underplayed and believable in the context of Webb's world. Having finished Finding Christopher, I was disappointed that the book only consists of around forty pages. The title implies that it is the first of a series, but for me this felt more like reading a prologue, albeit one that, as yet, does not have a novel following on. I thought it would be more satisfying as the beginning of a longer work as I was nicely into the flow of the prose as our story ended!


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Books by David Alan Webb / Short stories / Books from America

Saturday 27 May 2017

Walk! Dartmoor by Kate and Alan Hobbs


Walk! Dartmoor by Kate and Alan Hobbs
Published in the UK by Discovery Walking Guides in January 2016.

How I got this book:
Bought the paperback at Haytor Information Centre

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Kate and Alan Hobbs have reviewed and refreshed their Walk! Dartmoor classic guide book for its new 2016 edition. 40 fully detailed walking routes with OS maps and gps waypoints for you to enjoy adventuring on Dartmoor. Walk! Dartmoor with Kate and Alan Hobbs covers walks of varying length across Dartmoor - from the dramatic high moors, gentle riversides, idyllic country lanes, unspoilt villages, to sites of ancient archaeology and former industries, and all with spectacular views. This user friendly illustrated guide has a summary of walking routes and is rated by time, effort, distance and hills, as well as the availability of refreshments en route and the vertigo risk. Each walk is described in full and there are timings listed in the book to help with navigation and progress. Walk! Dartmoor contains a 1:40,000 scale Ordnance Survey map for each route.

Hopefully as this post publishes itself Dave and I will be making good use of our copy of Walk! Dartmoor. We bought it last summer and have already done one of the walks (Number 18: Lustleigh and Becky Falls). This weekend we are camping around Buckfastleigh way so will get to see a different part of Dartmoor by following a couple of the suggested Walk! Dartmoor walks.

I like that the book has clear instructions in both text and Ordnance Survey map sections. It also includes good information about walk lengths, ascents and descents, and difficulty ratings so we can be confident that we will indeed be able to finish our chosen walk. Interesting sights and sites en route are highlighted too so we don't miss out on appreciating the significance of what (to a non-book-carrying visitor) might just appear to be a pile of stones! Bought on a whim, this book has certainly justified its purchase and I would happily recommend it to any other walkers planning to visit Dartmoor.

Etsy Find!
by F Wyllie in
Exeter, England

Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by Kate Hobbs and Alan Hobbs / Sport and leisure / Books from England

Tuesday 23 May 2017

Nest In The Bones by Antonio Di Benedetto


Nest In The Bones by Antonio Di Benedetto
Individual stories written in Spanish from the 1950s to the 1970s. Published in this collection in America by Archipelago Books today, the 23rd May 2017. English language translation by Martina Broner.

Featured in WorldReads: Argentina

How I got this book:
Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Philosophically engaged and darkly moving, the twenty stories in Nest in the Bones span three decades from Antonio di Benedetto's wildly various career. From his youth in Argentina to his exile in Spain after enduring imprisonment and torture under the military dictatorship during the so-called "dirty war" to his return in the 1980s, Benedetto's kinetic stories move effortlessly between genres, examining civilization's subtle but violent imprint on human consciousness. A late-twentieth century master of the short form and revered by his contemporaries, Nest in the Bones is the first comprehensive volume of Benedetto's stories available in English.

Generally I find I have quite an affinity to South American fiction because I love its mystical elements. In Nest In The Bones however I was frequently completely baffled as to what was going on. I love Di Benedetto's prose. He employs beautiful metaphors and turns of phrase which bring particularly the Argentine scenes vividly to life. My problem though was that a significant proportion of the twenty short stories in this collection felt like middles of stories rather than the full tale. I appreciated the scene as I was reading, but on finishing had no real idea of the point of what I had read! The selected stories are representative of Di Benedetto's work over three decades and I did find those later in the book much easier than the earliest examples. I don't know if that is due to differences in his writing or that I was getting more accustomed to the style. All in all, this was an interesting collection and I enjoyed the insights into Argentine and Spanish life, but I didn't think I got as much from reading the book as I had hoped to.


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Books by Antonio Di Benedetto / Short stories / Books from Argentina

Sunday 21 May 2017

ReejecttIIon: a Number Two by Daniel Clausen and Harry Whitewolf


ReejecttIIon: a Number Two by Daniel Clausen and Harry Whitewolf

Self published in February 2016.

Where to buy this book:
Buy the ebook from Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

How I got this book:
Bought the ebook from Amazon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

'By reading ReejecttIIon, it’s likely you’ll discover: colorful short stories, funny flash fiction, hilarious cartoons, riveting reviews, wondrous anagrams and other assorted skits and titbits of under-achieving literary genius.
If you’re lucky, you might come across sci-fi tales about the privatization of words, horror stories about hair and ruminations on indie writing. It’s also possible that you’ll find commentary on the hazards of greedy literary agents and stories about washed up movie directors who receive financial backing from space aliens.'

Daniel Clausen's second ReejecttIIon compilation was written in a transatlantic collaboration with Harry Whitewolf resulting in an even more eclectic mix of work than its predecessor. The two books are connected in title, but otherwise are essentially separate. You could happily read the second without having read the first and, indeed, that might even help! ReejecttIIon - a Number Two includes short stories, book reviews and cartoons that are inventive, funny and thought-provoking although I admit I did find their appeal rather hit and miss.

The hits for me ranged from the social media satire I've Never Heard The Like to science fiction Show And Tell. I loved the creepy atmosphere of Your Relationship With Edward Grey and the B-movie inspired Science Fiction Theater Presents. Fred's Dreads is a fun idea and I wondered how much of this story might have been autobiographical. For me, the most timely stories considering the current General Election campaigning are The New World and especially Word Tax, both of which I think everyone should be forced to read before they are allowed into a voting booth!


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Books by Daniel Clausen and Harry Whitewolf / Short stories / Books from America and England

Saturday 20 May 2017

Accommodation Offered by Anna Livia


Accommodation Offered by Anna Livia
First published in the UK by The Women's Press in March 1985.

I registered my copy of this book at BookCrossing

Where to buy this book:
Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy from independent booksellers via Alibris
Buy the book from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk

How I got this book:
Bought at a Torquay charity shop

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When her lover leaves her, Polly, with some trepidation, advertises two vacant rooms in her house. The two women who move in seem sympathetic: bus conductor Kim, and awkward, gangling Sadie, a wanderer haunted by memories of her African childhood. But in spite of their shared experience as lesbians, differences begin to emerge. Fortunately the household is watched over by the Liberty Boddesses of Hortus, prepared to risk divine censure if they can help straighten things out.

I loved the humour in this Irish story of friendship set in 1980s London. The Liberty Boddesses are great fun and their scenes are reminiscent of the way ancient Greek gods and goddesses would influence the lives of mortals on earth. The central story is that of Polly, Kim and Sadie who find themselves sharing a house. That the trio are lesbians is an important aspect of the book, but I liked that Livia doesn't only define their lives by their sexuality. Instead Accommodation Offered explores themes of race, gender and mental health. It is a multi-layered novel which can just be read lightly as a humorous story of friendship, albeit one with dark edges. Or it can be more deeply thought-provoking asking questions about the assumption of a white-male-dominated society. Livia writes vibrantly of ordinary 1980s London describing squats and condemned houses, buses that still had conductors and streets that were still communities. Most of all though, this is a novel of women coming to terms with their present situations and their pasts, and discovering how not to lose all hope.


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Books by Anna Livia / Women's fiction / Books from Ireland

Saturday 13 May 2017

Self Service Check-outs Have No Soul by Andy Carrington


Self Service Check-outs Have No Soul by Andy Carrington
Self-published in May 2017.

Where to buy this book:
Buy the ebook directly from the author

How I got this book:
Bought a copy from the author

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Human anxiety / disillusionment in the machine age

There's a real sense of melancholy about Andy Carrington's newest poetry collection, Self Service Check-outs Have No Soul. The visceral anger of his earlier work is muted by nostalgia and resignation as he perhaps comes to terms with his predictions and warnings being ignored. Society instead craves ever smarter gadgets and machines seemingly oblivious that with such inventions we are slowly making ourselves redundant. I particularly liked the poems Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area for its humour, The Digital Age Killed Everything for its incisive snapshot vision, and Real Postmen because the getting of real post still, for me, is more satisfying than receiving its email equivalent.


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Books by Andy Carrington / Poetry / Books from England

Friday 12 May 2017

My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst + Giveaway + #FreeBook


My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst
First published in the UK by Eveleigh Nash in 1914.

One of my Essential General Election Reads 2017 and my Book Of The Month for May 2017
I registered my copy of this book at BookCrossing

How I got this book:
Won a copy from Penguin Think Smarter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


With insight and great wit, Emmeline's autobiography chronicles the beginnings of her interest in feminism through to her militant and controversial fight for women's right to vote. While Emmeline received a good education, attending an all-girls school and being, she rebelled against conventional women's roles. At the age of fourteen a meeting of women's rights activists sparked a lifelong passion in her to fight for women's freedom and she would later claim that it was on that day she became a suffragist.
As one after another of the proposed feminist bills were defeated in parliament, Pankhurst was inspired to turn to extreme actions. While she was the figurehead of the suffragette movement, it advocated some controversial tactics such as arson, violent protest and hunger strikes. Even today there is still debate about the effectiveness of her extreme strategies, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in Britain. Her mantle was taken up by her daughters and granddaughter with her legacy still very much alive today.

I saw the Carey Mulligan film, Suffragette, which includes story elements based on this memoir so I already had an idea of the treachery of the Edwardian era Liberal Government in addressing women's suffrage and of the state-sanctioned torture meted out to the women who fought for their - and consequently our - political rights. What the film struggles to put across though is the decades of peaceful and legal struggle that pre-dated the famous militancy of the immediate pre-war years. Explanations of that and why it was always doomed to fail forms the greatest part of Pankhurst's memoir.

Pankhurst describes her involvement in the suffrage cause from 1889 until 1914 when the outbreak of the Great War caused a truce to be called. She speaks directly to the reader in a calm matter-of-fact style which effectively contrasts with many of the horrors described. I was appalled at the condescension and open misogyny of the time. Everyday Sexism is still prevalent today, over a century later, but being faced with the ingrained attitudes experienced by Edwardian women showed me just how much has been achieved. I was surprised that this memoir was written with an American audience in mind, but found this helpful as Pankhurst does not assume her readers will be completely au fait with British political systems. Instead she clearly explains arguments and quotes speeches so I could easily appreciate her anger and frustration at being deceived and lied to year after year after year. Indeed, according to Pankhurst it was Establishment men who first explained to the WSPU that they would need to become violent in order to be taken seriously. Historically in Britain men achieve great social and political advances through violent means, so women who stuck rigidly to peaceful and legal methods could not possibly be as serious!

Reading Emmeline Pankhurst's memoir was saddening, but also incredibly inspirational. Her rhetoric and speeches stirred up some of the excitement in me that the original suffragettes must have felt as well as anger at realising this nation's Conservative political elite has much the same disconnection from the vast majority of Britain today as Asquith's Liberals did back then - but at least a few of them are female! My Own Story is a rallying cry to stand up for our heartfelt beliefs and remains just as relevant. Irresistible historic movements grow from tiny roots - theirs was suffrage, ours is environmental destruction - and we must use our votes wisely and at every opportunity.

There's still time to Register To Vote in the General Election on June 8th. Visit http://gov.uk/register-to-vote before May 22nd.

And now for the giveaway!
The prize is my paperback copy of My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst, carefully read once and with a BookCrossing label in the front. All entries must be made through the Gleam widget below. The Giveaway is open worldwide until midnight (UK time) on the 26th May and I will draw a winner on the 27th. The winner must respond to my email within 7 days or the prize will be forfeit.

Emmeline Pankhurst biography giveaway

Good luck!

Etsy Find!
by The Manchester Shop in
Manchester, England

Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

Search Literary Flits for more:
Books by Emmeline Pankhurst / Biographies / Books from England

Monday 8 May 2017

The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli


The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli
First published in Arabic as Had a'iq ar-ra'ays in 2013. English language translation by Luke Leafgren published in the UK by MacLehose Press in April 2017.

Featured in WorldReads: Iraq

How I got this book:
Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Where to buy this book:

The Book Depository (PB)
Wordery (PB)
Waterstones (PB)
Amazon (PB)

On the third day of Ramadan, the village wakes to find the severed heads of nine of its sons stacked in banana crates by the bus stop. One of them belonged to one of the most wanted men in Iraq, known to his friends as Ibrahim the Fated. How did this good and humble man earn the enmity of so many? What did he do to deserve such a death? The answer lies in his lifelong friendship with Abdullah Kafka and Tariq the Befuddled, who each have their own remarkable stories to tell. It lies on the scarred, irradiated battlefields of the Gulf War and in the ashes of a revolution strangled in its cradle. It lies in the steadfast love of his wife and the festering scorn of his daughter. And, above all, it lies behind the locked gates of The President's Gardens, buried alongside the countless victims of a pitiless reign of terror.

I found The President's Gardens to be a traumatic book to read both in its emotional impact and, especially, in its graphic depictions of wartime violence and the aftermath of torture. This is definitely not a novel for the squeamish or faint-hearted. That said, I feel rewarded by the read and appreciated the opportunity to discover an Iraqi perspective on the years of warfare instead of American and British views. Al-Ramli has a beautiful prose style, meandering at times, with emphasis on character and motivation over action and pace. I was often swept up into deep philosophical discussions or portrayals of everyday village life or descriptions of the stunning eponymous gardens. These gentle scenes are then shattered on the turn of a page to reveal the true horrors of life under Saddam's regime or as a prisoner of war in Iran.

It was this duality of life that I found most difficult initially to grasp and I think this is why it took me a good quarter of the book to really get into the story. The first scene, of nine heads delivered in banana crates, is incredibly powerful. Al-Ramli then drops down several gears to begin a story of childhood friendship and I struggled to reconcile these and other threads, attempting to do so too soon instead of allowing the writing to lead me. The President's Gardens is harrowing and shocking, but also surprisingly humble and understated. I liked that we get to know the characters well and I could always understand their reasons for particular actions and choices. Ordinary people living through extreme times makes for fascinating literature, particularly so in this novel as so much of the background is essentially true and so recent.


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Books by Muhsin Al-Ramli / Contemporary fiction / Books from Iraq

Thursday 4 May 2017

The Road To Wigan Pier by George Orwell


First published in the UK by Victor Gollancz in March 1937. Canongate audiobook narrated by Jeremy Northam published in 2012.

One of my Essential General Election Reads for 2017.


How I got this book:
Bought from Audible

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A graphic and biting polemic that still holds a fierce political relevance and impact despite being written over half a century ago. First published in 1937 it charts George Orwell's observations of working-class life during the 1930s in the industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His depictions of social injustice and rising unemployment, the dangerous working conditions in the mines amid general squalor and hunger also bring together many of the ideas explored in his later works and novels.

When I first finished listening to my audiobook of The Road To Wigan Pier I felt completely steamrollered. It is a truly astounding book. I think, had I encountered it 80 years ago, it would have been life-changing, but even now there is still so much that is completely relevant and it is interesting to see how much of Orwell's future prognosis has come to pass. In fact, thinking back over Orwell's words again, four years after my initial listen, I realised that great swathes of the British people have moved closer in social situation to their 1930s counterparts. We might have the sixth richest economy in the world, but the majority of us only catch glimpses of that wealth from afar, not actually getting a genuine share.

 I am sure that much of my enjoyment of The Road To Wigan Pier was due to Jeremy Northam's excellent and impassioned narration. The second part moves from social observation to political ideology and, had I been just reading, I possibly would have got lost and given up. However, having this audio edition made it feel as though the different ideas and perspectives were being explained just to me(!) and I now have a far better understanding of the politics of the time.

Etsy Find!
by The Art Of The North in
Hebden Bridge, England

Click pic to visit Etsy Shop

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Books by George Orwell / Sociology / Books from England

Tuesday 2 May 2017

The Idea Of You by Amanda Prowse


The Idea Of You by Amanda Prowse
First published in America by Lake Union Publishing on the 21st March 2017.

Where to buy this book:
Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy the ebook from Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk
Buy the paperback from Speedyhen
Buy the paperback from The Book Depository

How I got this book:
Received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

With her fortieth birthday approaching, Lucy Carpenter thinks she finally has it all: a wonderful new husband, Jonah, a successful career and the chance of a precious baby of her own. Life couldn’t be more perfect.
But becoming parents proves much harder to achieve than Lucy and Jonah imagined, and when Jonah’s teenage daughter Camille comes to stay with them, she becomes a constant reminder of what Lucy doesn’t have. Jonah’s love and support are unquestioning, but Lucy’s struggles with work and her own failing dreams begin to take their toll. With Camille’s presence straining the bonds of Lucy’s marriage even further, Lucy suddenly feels herself close to losing everything

The Idea Of You explores the emotionally charged subject of miscarriage as seen through the eyes of an affluent London career woman, Lucy. It is a real tearjerker of a novel and Prowse misses no opportunity to draw out her readers although without becoming too mawkish or sentimental which is a fine line to tread. I did struggle to empathise with Lucy as I don't think we got a rounded picture of her personality. As a non-maternal woman myself, I could appreciate her feelings of inadequacy when faced with others' judgement (real or imagined) on her childless status, however her incessant neediness and selfishness did wear on my nerves. To me she frequently felt much younger than her given age. This is the second of Amanda's books I've read where one of her lead characters irritates me immensely, yet the books are such compulsive page-turners that I keep reading nonetheless. It's a bit like meeting up with a group of friends where you know one will wind you up, but that potential negative is outweighed by the positives of spending time with the others!


Search Lit Flits for more:
Books by Amanda Prowse / Women's fiction / Books from England