A Quick Personal Note On Brexit

From A Remain Voter

I had put the T.V. on as I was getting ready to go to work. I'd had BBC on in the the night before, and seen the desolate results coming in. But there's always hope.
     I stood behind the couch, about to grab my jacket and my handbag. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, stood in front of 10 Downing Street, a long side his family, about to make an announcement. He resigned. With Immediate effect.
     I didn't like the man. I knew he was taking the coward's way out. But the morning had made me tearful. It felt like something had been ripped from inside me.
     It's moments like that when you know you are living through history. Yes, in the wanting to write in a way that Terry Pratchett might note, every passing moment is history. But you know that this is monumental history; everything is about to change.
     You start to understand how people must have felt, in such moments as Hitler standing at the podium announcing his ambitions for Germany. How people felt knowing that change would not be good. I've heard several times over the past few months, with the Brexit vote and Trump's election and rising 'Populism' - it feels the same as it did when Hitler came to power.

Autumn Reading Challenge - A Book With An Orange Cover

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk




More Religion!

I keep picking up books which have something to do with Christianity. This is done by Chuck Palahniuk though, that dude who created Fight Club. It's about the right time for a smothering hug of nihilism.

Palahniuk's writing can be a bit confusing. That's how I spent a tram journey reading the book from the wrong direction. Most books start at page 1. Survivor starts at the final chapter. At the end the book. Once I figured it out, I quite enjoyed being the commuter reading from back to front.

Survivor's protagonist, Tender Branson, is recording his life story on the black box (which is really orange) of a plane plummeting in the direction of Australia. He is the surviving member of a suicidal Christian cult.

This the second novel I've read about a cult which has an orange cover. This is the second novel I've read about a cult (that I remember). So from now on, if I fancy a bit of cultism, I know to look for an orange cover.



Survivor contains all the usual elements of a Chuck Palahniuk novel. The role of masculinity is looked at quite strongly, with the protagonist's appearance being probed and prodded (quite literally at times) throughout. Tender Branson shifts through quite radical appearance changes. As a member of the Creedish Christian death cult, he wears the hand made woolen costume all the Creedish men wear. Outside the Creedish community, often referred to as the 'outside', Tendor's appearance is described with negative terms such as 'fat' and 'geeky'. As the last remaining (supposedly) member of the Creedish, Tendor is approached by an agent who ensures Tendor considerably alters his appearance to ensure the image the media need.

Tedor Branson enters the outside world at the age of 17, on a work placement set up by the Creedish (a work placement for the rest of his life), in which he cleans houses for rich people. This contrast of American classes is another typical Palahniuk. A lot of handy cleaning tips are given out though. I might keep my copy as a reference. It's useful knowing how to clean blood and hide a body without leaving a trace.

There's some good shop lifting tips in there too. Tendor Branson goes through a period of kleptomania. This appears to be a real trait the character has. As a survivor of the Creedish cult, Tendor Branson has a case worker who visits him. She weekly diagnoses Tendor with a different mental illness. Looking at mental illness is another area Palaniuk likes to explore. The use of the technique by Tendor's case worker seems to be quite useful for keeping Tendor alive in order to tell his life tale from a crashing plane.

Survivor is pretty much what you would expect from Chuch Palhaniuk as a commentary on the western world. And it's worth it.  

National Poetry Day

It's national poetry day, so here's a little something on the rough side from myself:


Behind the opaque curtain
finely tailored wool, black label ties,
unbuttoned blazers for comfort,
relax by their electronic frequencies

screaming background noises,
deep shattering tremors,
click, click, click,

moving pictures across walls.

Fingers accelerate across buttons.
They tingle with loss of feeling.

Recently polished leather shoes
point towards each other, underneath
the thickening cloud of laughter.
It smells old, dry and sour, strong
tobacco, the smell of cigars,
banned by the U.S.

Autumn Reading Challenge - The Lie Tree

This was my read for a book that was published in 2015.



Winner of the 2015 Costa book of the year award, first YA/Children's book to win since Philip Pullman's Amber Spyglass, I'd been wanting to read it for some time. I picked it up in Tesco a couple of weeks ago, quite excited.

I wasn't far into The Lie Tree when I saw why it won the Costa Book award. It's quite complex. Set at some point after Darwin's Origin of Species kicked off Victorian Britain's lust for delving into natural science, it questions the relationship between religion and science, as well as a female's place within society and science. It was interesting to read after Anne Rice's Memncoch The Devil (the previous book I read in the challenge). Memnoch the Devil was pretty much Anne Rice's own version of a creation story, telling of evolution from the point of God setting off the molecules to start earth, and thus, life. Religion has a strong focus in The Lie Tree. Faith, the protagonist (besides the obvious, being called Faith) is the daughter of a Reverend, who also happens to be a natural scientist. In a way this is the Reverand's story; in the same way, this is also the story of women cleaning up men's mess.

Faith has an interest in natural science because of her father, the Reverend. However Faith is also battling with how she is supposed to be seen in society as a lady/girl, how her mother perceives and wants Faith to be perceived in society, the ongoing notion that women are not as intelligent as men, and her own knowledge that she is far more intellectual than most people (the men especially), which leads her to feeling abnormal.

This is overall a great feminist tale. With a nice bit of a fantasy specimen thrown in.

The Girl With All The Gifts

This isn't related to the reading challenge. However the film of this particular British Dystopian Scifi Zombie Horror Thriller has recently been released in the cinemas. (Genre is only a concept).

The Girl With All The Gifts was only published in 2014. And I only read it after I received it for Christmas last year (thank you Neil & Becky). It's a novel I had been wanting to read for some time, having read reviews about this new twist on a dystoptian zombie survival genre, which was starting to run a bit dry and overworked. M.R. Carey certainly gave it a bit of a kick up the behind to get it going again.

Carey took his hand to scripting the screenplay for his novel, and joined with Scottish director Colm McCarthy (who's known for a whole load of hugely successful British programmes, like Sherlock, which I haven't really watched) and Creative England to produce the film adaptation of the novel. Since Carey joined the like of writers such as Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) in adapting their own work to screen, I don't feel I can slag off the differences of novel and film the way I would with some other adaptations. (I have some views on Jurassic Park too, but Crichton did what he did. I do love Jurassic Park though).

One of the elements that sets aside The Girl With All The Gifts is the source of the 'Zombie' infection and how it spreads. Dr. Caldwell, who is one of those characters who you're not really meant to like (in the novel anyway, I found her rather likeable in the film.She is played by Glenn Close though), spends her time in the story searching for both understanding of the source of the infection and a cure. The method Dr. Caldwell uses for her investigation is slightly controversial, however it is integral to the message of the story.



Without giving too much away, the protagonist of the story is a 'girl' called Melanie. We see her viewpoint of the world around her, and most importantly how she is aware that she is different, but the same as the soldiers, Dr. Caldwell and her teacher Miss Justineau. The film starts with Melanie in her cell counting, so we know Melanie is the important key in this story, as Dr. Caldwell knows.

Dr. Caldwell is more involved in the beginning of the film than she is in the novel. Melanie has already built a relationship with her in the film, so that when the action really starts to kick in, Melanie isn't quite as afraid of Caldwell as she is in the book. I think this is done well in the film though because it shows how Dr. Caldwell personally saw how important Melanie was, and it also made Melanie suspicious of her own circumstance.

There are, of course, other children like Melanie in the book and the film. Some other people, who were the cause of the action kicking off in the novel, were omitted from the film. Although I was a little disappointed, I did enjoy the zombies. The action towards the end of the film felt a little rushed, and particular events which happened in the novel didn't in the film. However, I still felt the reminder of Borderlands (the game), which I'd felt reading the novel. The very end I particularly enjoyed, especially for some familiar characters we got to see again.

Another, rather obvious difference, from the book to the film, are that the looks of both characters Melanie and her beloved teacher Miss Justineau have been switched. But it shows how, when it comes down to it, a lot of things aren't really important when it comes down to the end of world.

Autumn Reading Challenge - Memnoch The Devil

It's time for a bit of Anne Rice.

This novel covers 2 categories in the reading challenge:

A book that was published in 1995 & A book that was written by a woman and features a male protagonist.


Memnoch The Devil is also the Second book I've read in this challenge which is part of a series. But I've only read 3 books so far. (I've nearly finished the fourth).

At some point a few years ago, I decided I wanted to try and work my way through Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Interview With The Vampire is one of my favourite films, and certainly my favourite Anne Rice read. The Vampire Lestat, the second novel in the series did not leave me disappointed as a follow up. The Queen of the Damned, although the film was certainly disappointing (except for the bits with Jonathan Davis clearly singing) I thought was interestingly written. I enjoyed how it was sectioned into separate stories for separate characters, almost like a short story collection.

I became a bit sick of the character Lestat though and of the way Anne Rice writes. The Tale of the Body Thief, the 4th novel in the vampire chronicles, was a trial to read. I'd become a bit sick of Lestat in The Queen of the Damned. 

I picked up Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches trilogy at the time I was struggling with The Body Thief. This series was a lovely break from Lestat and the vampires, although set in the same world. It introduced some new supernatural beings. I really enjoyed the trilogy, however I still found myself getting annoyed by certain repetitive quirks in Anne Rice's writing style. Memnoch the devil suffered from this too.

The beginning of Memnoch the Devil surrounded itself with the intricate descriptions and knowledge of architecture and religious art, which Anne Rice likes to show off. I don't mind this, Anne Rice is great at descriptions and settings, but it can get a bit much. I also find that her characters tend to sound the same, using a frilly way of speaking I don't find believable. Everything always has to be 'delicious'.

The best thing for me about the novel, which is something a lot of people seem to have hated, is that the story barely concerns Lestat. The story is told from the perspective of Memnoch, who is the fallen Angel. This is Memnoch's story; how he viewed the creation of earth and the evolution of life; how he came to earth and questioned God; how he perceived God (or how, perhaps, Anne Rice, viewed God). I really enjoyed the way Anne Rice dealt with the subject matter of creation, evolution and religion.

Autumn Reading Challenge - A Book By A Famous Author You've Never Read

I picked this up for my scary read, but it wasn't very scary. I should've guessed that from the film, really, but I don't remember it. (Lois Duncan wasn't much of a fan of the film either, I read somewhere). My rubbish memory made for a nice read, because I couldn't remember anything that was going to happen.

Whether or not you've heard of Lois Duncan, you will recognise some of her work: Summer Of Fear, Daughters Of Eve and, of course, I Know What You Did Last Summer. I'm sure we've all watched the latter at some point, even if we don't remember, which is why I've chosen this one as the famous author I've never read.

Lois Duncan passed away just two months ago, June 15th, at the age of 82. Her YA fiction appears to have been pretty popular with the kids in the 70's and 80's, who enjoyed some female lead thrillers. She's left quite a legacy of work behind her, from what I saw on her Wikipedia page (not all my info comes from there; I read her obituaries on The Guardian and New Yorker sites, they're worth a read), and if her other books are similar in length to this one, it shouldn't take long to get through her catalogue.

Lois Duncan is also known for a book entitled Who Killed My Daughter? Lois Duncan's daughter was murdered in 1989. This is about her own investigation into the tragic incident.

I haven't really written anything about I Know What You Did Last Summer, but it's not a long read, and it's not a bad read. So why not honour Lois Duncan's life and career by checking out some of her work. Or you could just watch it. Halloween's just over a month away.

You could also try to think of something scary for me to read.