I'm a Bookworm

[image: www.coverbrowser.com]

La Possibilité d’une île was written by the French novelist Michel Houellebecq and was first published in France in 2005. It plays on a lot of the themes that make Houellebecq a writer who speaks with a voice that the modern generation can hear and understand: modern alienation & loneliness, scientific advances, comedy, and lots and lots of sex.

The scene flips back and forth between 3 different scenarios. The first is a man living in our own time called Daniel. He is a comedian and really bored and alienated from his life. He can’t enjoy himself which is ironic considering his life’s work is to entertain other people.  He tries sex, love and cults, all with underwhelming results.

The other two scenarios are versions of Daniel in the future, who have been preserved through a breakthrough in technology that allows humans to live forever.  Carbon copies of individuals are made which replace the current bodies when they die. In other words, there are only a finite amount of humans, and they are constantly replicated. However, the eternal cloning process makes each successive copy less and less like the copy before. For example, the new humans lose their feelings, their memories, and they lose contact with another, becoming more and more isolated, almost like a diluted cup of tea that eventually runs clear and is only water.

I don’t think I would recommend this book, although Michel Houellebecq is one of my favorite authors of all time, and one of the few real, authentic voices of postmodern Western society. The reason: the book is extremely successful in portraying the two future worlds — bleak, emotionless, isolated and silent. His efforts were so successful that I got bored and wanted to do something other than read the book.

I would absolutely recommend two of his other novels, however, which are called Platform and Atomised.

- The Reader

Hey all,

I thought I’d write about mash up books this week. You might be familiar with the concept of mashups in music; when the lyrics of one song are mixed with the music from another song, and this is kind of a similar idea.

The idea is to take a book that is in the public domain, and add a twist to it. The most high profile example of a mash up book to date was published in April this year. Its called ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’, and was written by Seth Grahame-Smith.

It is set in the same time period as Jane Austen’s original novel, but in an alternate universe where zombies wander the countryside. As such it loosely follows the plot of the classic novel, albeit with some minor deviations like important messages not getting delivered because the carrier was eaten alive {now that would be a valid reason for a postal strike!).

The book was a surprise hit, reaching 3^rd place on the New York Times Best-seller list, and there is a graphic novel in the works as well as rumours of a blockbuster film. It seems likely to open the floodgates for an invasion of novels in a similar style, and I am quite excited by the possibilities!

I might even try writing one myself for National Novel Writing Month, although all the good ideas might have gone by then – Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters came out last month!

Bookworm

Picking up from last weeks post on sequels not written by the author, I thought I’d talk about a book I’ve seen advertised all over the place this week. It’s a follow up to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, originally written by Douglas Adams.

The first few books were adapted from a BBC radio series of the same name, but were arguably much more popular than the series. I first discovered them when I was at school, and I really loved them; reading all 5 in a matter of months. They were clever, engaging, and often hilarious. So understandably I am really excited that another sequel is coming out.

Unfortunately Douglas Adams passed away in 2001, while working on plans for a sixth book, so writing duties have been taken over by Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series of books. I’ve never actually read those books, and I’m probably a bit old for them now…, but I’ve heard really good things, and I’m sure that the new author will do a good job of continuing Douglas Adams’ legacy.

The book is called ‘And Another Thing…’, and its coming out on the 12^th October; the 30^th anniversary of the first book. I haven’t been able to find any information on my travels about plot or anything like that, but then I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you anyway!

Image Source: 6of3.com

I’m going to try and get a copy soon after it comes out, so check back for a review in a couple of weeks. If you haven’t read any Hitchhikers Guide books, I really recommend you try them out; they are genuinely brilliant. I just hope the new one can live up to my expectations.

Are you a fan? If so, how do you feel about it being taken over by a different author? Let me know what you think of the book if you read it below.

I got an iPod touch for my birthday, and there is a great little app for it called Stanza – it lets you download e-books and read them on the iPod. Now I’m normally against fancy gadgets replacing books, but the great thing about Stanza is that it gives me free and easy access to loads of books in the public domain (books whose copyrights have expired because the author died more than 50 years ago).

So anyway, I’ve been reading some great old classics, trying to work my way through a 100 Greatest Books article I found somewhere. One of the books I’ve recently really enjoyed is Dracula, by Bram Stoker.

Of course I was familiar with the vampire mythology and the general outline of the story from various films and pop culture references, but I found it really interesting to get down to the source material behind the various film adaptations and other twists on the vampire theme. The story is laid out in a collection of diary entries and letters from the various characters, and this lends it an air of authenticity, as if Stoker had simply found a bundle of documents relating to the case.

The reason I’m writing this post is because I’ve recently found out that an official sequel to Dracula has been released, written by the original authors great grand-nephew, Dacre Stoker, in conjunction with a notable ‘Dracula Historian’ (best job ever?).

Of course there have been loads of follow-ups to Dracula, of varying degrees of quality. In my opinion the most ridiculous of these is the 1991 novel Dracula Unbound, which asks the question; ‘What if Dracula had a time machine?’.

The new novel keeps well away from that kind of thing, and is actually based on Bram Stoker’s original notes from the first novel. It is set 25 years after the events of the original, and the protagonist is the son of Jonathon and Mina Harker, two of the main characters in the first novel.

Anyway, it looks to be a really interesting read and I’ll definitely be checking it out.