Two months worth of reading – and only a short while in which to record it – so her’s a a quick tour through my reading highlights this autumn.
Sarah Siverwood’s Double Edged Sword is a magical fantasy where our orphaned hero has to adventure into an alternative parallel London to sort the problems in the city of today – very readable and thoroughly engrossing – I had to stay up late to finish it! David Almond’s The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean was a difficult read – I liked the post apocalyptic story but found the phonetic dialect used to tell it quite hard to keep in tune with, and so felt as if I was having to re-learn how to read. An Act of Love by Alan Gibbons was a gritty tale of friendship and how people one feels one knows can end up going down such different tracks in life. The unsentimental and authentic feel to the portrayal of army life for Chris and the lure of brainwashing and terrorism for Imran kept me engrossed to the very end.
Paula Rawsthorne is a debut author- and if her first book is a sign of things to come I hope she keeps on writing. The Truth about Celia Frost is an intriguing novel about a girl with a major medical problem and how she discovers her own and her mother’s secrets. Do read it! Meanwhile Eoin Colfer is a name well known and loved for all his children’s novels. His first adult novel Plugged is a super hard hitting, funny surreal thriller full of violence, crimes and corruption set on the streets of New Jersey. It was a joy to read and I hope Eoin will continue to write for both adults and children.
I always buy the new Terry Pratchett as soon as it hits the shelves – and Snuff – his latest is a delight. Sam Vimes is setting his world to rights, even when he is supposedly on holiday in the countryside – and Terry’s ever present poking of fun but with a serious purpose, in this case to highlight the wrongs of racism, making you think whilst so thoroughly enjoying yourself! Another favourite author is Philip Reeve and I had the pleasure of reading a loose bound proof of his next novel for children Goblins – due in 2012. Read it when it comes out!
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