re:View – The 2015 Bookshelf
March: Worlds of (Mostly) Meh

Well, March wasn’t my best month for reading. I only (just) made it through four books, and one of them was a graphic novel so comparatively quick to read. That’s what happens when I pick up a book that doesn’t draw me in – I go into procrastinate mode and do everything else instead. (Although I did make a bunch of pretty DIY t-shirts in all that time I didn’t spend reading books.)

Anyway, with some delay here’s the Bookshelf for a rather meh-y March.

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re:View: A Bookshelf special – the complete Discworld reviews, in memory of Sir Terry Pratchett

My first Terry Pratchett book was The Wee Free Men.

[In fact, reading back through my reviews I just realised that this is a fact I’ve mis-remembered for years. My first Discworld book was The Truth. But somehow, even though I enjoyed it, it didn’t stick; maybe I wasn’t ready. When I read The Wee Free Men some time later, however, that stuck – so much so that it made me read the entire series and actually became my first Discworld book in my memory. So we’ll go with the heart over logic version for the sake of this article.]

A good friend had been recommending Pratchett’s young adult books for years, and when I couldn’t get round to reading them she eventually just bought me two as a present. That’s a very effective way to force me to read a book as I can’t leave books lying around unread for long, or give them away without at least checking them out.

So I read The Wee Free Men, and then I immediately read A Hat Full of Sky. And so began the biggest reading journey of my life. Straight after those two, I read the remaining Tiffany Aching books. Then I read every Discworld book involving the witches. Then I moved on to the Death storyline. Then I went back to the beginning and read all the remaining books in chronological order.

Four years later I had made my way through 40 Discworld books and my world was changed forever.

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Terry Pratchett, by Paul Kidby

Terry Pratchett passed earlier this week and in his memory I wanted to make something. You know, paint a picture, build a statue – whatever. But I’m no good at drawing or sculpting or building things. I do all right with words, though. So these are my reviews of all the Discworld, and an account of most of my reading journey of the past five years, collected here as a tribute to the man who created this beautiful world and shared it with everyone willing to open their minds.

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Farewell, Sir Terry, and thank you for giving us a whole world of magic

The world has lost a very particular something today. If you look closely, you can see that a fine coating of sparkles is no longer there. It was swept away by the departure of a man who has added a little bit of magic to a lot of people’s lives.

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Image from www.dignityindying.org.uk

Sir Terry Pratchett has left us. The news spread today like a shockwave, certainly in my social circle, which is filled with people who love him and have grown up with his books. The first reaction, from most people I spoke to, was simply: No.

NO. It cannot be. After spending years, if not decades, in the company of his books, travelling his worlds and meeting his characters, nobody seems to be able to imagine a world without him yet.

Texts, emails, Facebook messages started flooding in and out. Have you heard. Very sad news. Noooooo! I can’t even… And each message, each person adding their voice to this gathering wave of mourning, brought more tears.

Meanwhile the people who aren’t familiar with the Pratchett phenomenon looked at me somewhat blankly, feeling visibly awkward about the fact that I was crying in the office about the death of an author as if I’d lost a friend or family member.

Because it is more than the death of a hugely loved author. It is the loss of a man who has given me worlds, universes, a whole different layer of reality where I have spent hours, weeks, probably moths of my life and where I’ve met creatures and characters who have become so real that I have long ago accepted, as a personal truth, that they really do exist. They are real because Terry Pratchett, with his incredible imagination and his unmatched gift of language, has not just created them but brought them to life.

Discworld, for me, is a place. It’s somewhere I can go anytime and hang out with old friends – Granny Weatherwax and the witches, Rincewind and the wizards, Sam Vimes and the City Watch, the dwarfs, the trolls, the lot of them – and after 40 books spent in their company, they really are old friends to me. Going into Discworld is as real as going on a holiday – flying out to Sardinia or to Spain, where we tend to go in the summer. True, it doesn’t involve quite so much packing and travelling (and it’s certainly improved by the absence of the Ryanair Factor), but it really is the same thing. Discworld is a real place for me; it exists without a doubt.

And that’s why Terry Pratchett means more to me than a favourite author. Great authors give us wonderful books that we read, and return to, and that we take things from and treasure forever. But never in my life have I come across any other author who has given me a whole world. So far, with him still being active and writing several books a year despite the grip of Alzheimer’s tightening on him, this world has been endless. No matter how many books I read, I thought, there will always be more. After all, I still have quite a few of his non-Discworld works to get through.

But now his death has put a border around this endless world – or maybe a rim that you might fall off if you venture to the very edge. And that breaks my heart, because now there will be an end to reading his books. Even if I take it slowly, each remaining unread book now a treasure, I will arrive at the last book written by Terry Pratchett. The sand is slipping fast through that particular hourglass on Death’s shelves.

I will miss his wisdom, his wit, his imagination and most of all his incredible understanding of what makes us human. His books are largely categorised as fantasy, but I’ve always found that they are first and foremost about humanity. Terry Pratchett wrote about human nature with the insight of a philosopher, the warmth of a father and the wit of an Englishman. I have always considered him one of the great philosophers of our time, a hero whose superpower was to see right into the soul of human beings.

I’m unbelievably sad for this amazing human being we have lost today, and so, so grateful for all the magic Terry Pratchett has given to so many people around the world. And I’m grateful that he was allowed to go to sleep surrounded by his family, with his cat snoozing on the bed (probably positioned to cause the greatest possible discomfort to everyone, as good cats do), escaping from Alzheimer’s before it had a chance to destroy his wonderful mind.

Farewell, Sir Terry. Thank you forever for giving me a world. I hope your onward journey is safe and joyful, and involves at least one pint with Death in the pub at the end of the black desert under the endless night.

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Check Mort by Paul Kidby

re:View – The 2015 Bookshelf
February: the apocalypse and beyond

Perhaps unsurprisingly, January’s reading journey to dystopia has led me on into the apocalypse. I guess the two often go hand in hand – certainly in the case of Maragret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, which forms the central part of my February reading.

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re:View – The 2015 Bookshelf
January: a journey to other worlds

New year, new bookshelf! After finally picking up The Handmaid’s Tale I fancied some more alternative reality kind of stuff, so my reading journey throughout January took me from dystopian to prehistoric to post-apocalyptic worlds…and back again. Also as a new feature this year I’m trying to do Bookshelf on a monthly basis. I’ve still got quite a bit of otherworldly reading lined up so expect a similar theme for February.

As well as the books below I also read Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, which has certainly been my book of the month and is, quite possibly, already my favourite book of the year. It’s so good it has earned its own dedicated review post. Check it out here – I really can’t recommend this book enough.

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re:View – Station Eleven, the first must-read book of the year

I usually do my reviews in batches, but here’s a book that deserves its very own post. I read it purely because it was Waterstones’ book of the month for January and by the time I had read the free first chapter on their website I was drawn in enough to order the book straight away. That says a lot for the first chapter; usually I stay well clear of the latest books being hyped by the booksellers.

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Couldn’t pick my favourite cover so you get them all…

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is the story of a theatre company travelling across a post-apocalyptic North America performing Shakespeare’s plays for communities of survivors, interwoven with an account of a pandemic that wiped out civilisation and the first twenty years of the surviving one percent of humanity dealing with the aftermath. What starts out as a collection of seemingly unconnected subplots following different characters’ lives, spanning the continent and some forty years in time, eventually comes together as a powerful narrative of surviving the end of the world and being catapulted into a new reality where all the rules have changed.

Mandel’s writing is poignant and perfectly timed, creating a page-turner that moves deeply without being sentimental. She imagines a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is filled with dangers but strangely inviting, and populated with characters and relationships that are fragile, flawed and utterly human. What I loved most about this book is how it explores the practical day-to-day realities of surviving in a worldwide ground zero, where resources are as sparse as law and order, where despair breeds fanaticism and where a moment of mercy could cost your life.

It makes you stop and think about just how fragile our civilisation really is; it makes you wonder whether you’ve got what it takes to survive, all the while also reminding us just how difficult it would be to re-build a world that’s even remotely as safe and comfortable as the one we’re used to.

Devastating and yet beautifully optimistic, and filled with literary beauty, this is without a doubt my favourite book of the year – and I’m confident enough to say that already in January.

Pens: 5 out of 5

How I got off my arse and got fit and healthy…one burpee at a time

Around a year and a half ago I hit a physical low. Five years into a busy office-based job, my life consisted of long, stressful days at the office complete with London commutes from hell, which usually ended with me curling up on the sofa drained of all energy, with a big meal and a glass of wine for comfort. And repeat.

Of course the pounds started piling up. Within two years I’d gone up three dress sizes. I also developed stress-based IBS – the kind where you go to your doctor every two weeks because you’re in too much pain to go to work, and they send you home with the helpful suggestion to just be less stressed at work. Most days my pain was so bad I couldn’t have worked out if I’d wanted to, and looking like six months pregnant from the IBS bloating didn’t help. My usually mild asthma got ridiculous, to the point where I couldn’t walk up the road for ten minutes without struggling for breath. I also caught colds at a rate of one a month.

In short, I felt terrible inside my body.

Then one day in September 2013, I had this thought. A series of thoughts, in fact:

  • I am 28.
  • I shouldn’t feel this run-down.
  • My parents, at 55, are fitter than I am. Hell, my 75-year-old granny can out-walk me.
  • And my body is probably trying to tell me something with these chronic illnesses.

The solution, of course, was the dreaded mantra: lose weight and get fit.

A diet was out of the question, because I just can’t not eat full, regular meals. My blood sugar goes all over the place if I cut down or skip a meal. (Yes, I got tested for all that stuff and it’s not diabetes, just metabolism-related apparently). And besides, I wanted more than a quick diet. I wanted a full body and life change.

So I went and got fit.

I started walking to work and back – forty minutes, twice a day. Rain or shine, heatwave or snow: no excuses.

Being as unfit as I was I didn’t even consider embarrassing myself at the gym, so I tried Nike+ Kinect Training for the Xbox. The game is certainly a good starting point for extreme couch potatoes. It assesses you and adjusts to your level of fitness – however low – and gently ups you week after week. And it gives you proper workouts, not the standard sensor-based games of wave-your-arms-and-jump-around-a-bit.

It was hard work. Honestly, it was freaking hard work AND IT HURT. It hurt in every muscle of my body and it hurt in my lungs. But I stuck with it, doing cardio and weight exercises four to five days a week, for at least half an hour each. And within weeks, I could feel it doing me a whole lot of good. The pounds fell off me. Flab tightened up.

By the new year, after three months of Nike+ Kinect Training, I reached a level where the exercises weren’t much of challenge any more. So I shopped around for a new workout.

And what I found changed my life.

Sticking with Nike because I liked their approach, I tried the Nike+ Training Club (NTC) app. It is quite possibly the best app ever made, giving you a ton of free workouts for everything from cardio to serious weights and exercises tailored to specific body parts. It has video instructions for every move, times you and talks you through each workout. I can tell you, with this app, my workouts got serious.

Nike Training Club - easily the best app I've ever tried
Nike Training Club – easily the best app I’ve ever tried

Within six months of working out with the NTC app three to four times a week, my body changed more than I ever could have dreamed. I got abs. I got a killer waist. I started building muscles all around my arms and shoulders. Fat just disappeared. My whole posture changed: I sat and walked more upright and my whole body was stronger and more energised.

By now I’ve shrunk out of all my clothes, my dress size dropping from medium/large to XS, my waist tightening from size 31 to 26 and, yeah, I also dropped two bra sizes – but tell you what, small boobs suit me just fine! I’ve never felt so happy and at home in my body. Of course shape is a matter of taste (and I do have some friends who now feel the urge to feed me). But as I’m only 164cm (5’4″) tall, I think this is just the right size for me. And another first: I have full body confidence – that’s a whole new world of being me.

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July 2014, after nine months of workouts: Hello waist and skinny jeans!

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2014 results: core sorted. 2015 goal: sixpack.

But most importantly, I’m healthy.

While I was busy transforming my body, my health improved beyond anything I could have imagined. I even got fit enough to start running, which I had never even considered possible before. It has helped me get leaner and improved my breathing to the point where, after five months, my asthma is now confirmed as ‘under control’. I still get stomach aches after a particularly stressful day at work, but they’re a lot less frequent and severe and a light workout usually deals with the problem. I also haven’t had a cold in more than a year.

Most amazingly, I found that no matter how stressed out and tired I am when I get home from work, a run or a workout will leave me feeling a lot more relaxed and energetic – meaning I can actually do something fun or productive with my evening.

I’m proud of all this because, before I started working out, I hated the very word ‘exercise’. I emphatically did not run and you wouldn’t have caught me dead in a gym. (In fact you still won’t catch me in a gym, because all I need for my workouts is a stretch of road or two square metres of floor space.) But I figured that if I really wanted to make my body better – in the sense of healthier and lasting for a few more decades – I just had to start looking after it.

Now I run five miles twice a week, I do strength and toning workouts twice a week and I eat a load of healthy food, in sensible portions. Getting to this point wasn’t easy – there were many moments when I hated the exercises, hated the pain and hated myself for choosing to do this. But it got easier every week and today I actually crave these workouts; they’re fun and you feel amazing afterwards.

I’m thirty in April and my body finally feels about right for my age. And I’m planning to keep it that way.

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My body + this: the only gym I’ll ever need.

re:View – The 2014 Bookshelf VI

Just to tie up the loose ends, here’s the last of the 2014 Bookshelf – books new and old by some of my favourite authors. While some of these guys never fail to impress (Ellroy, Pratchett, I’m looking at you!) others didn’t exactly blow me away this year.

I’m currently reading Ruth Ozeki’s All Over Creation but this will be one for next year’s shelf. Which means my Goodreads challenge closes at 106% or 55 of 52 books.

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re:View – The 2014 Bookshelf V

This summer I went on a bit of an Edith Wharton binge after being stuck on a journey without a book and finding a collection of her complete works on Kindle. I think by now I’ve made my way through all the novels and most of the novellas, but I’ve still got thousands of pages of stories, poetry and non-fiction ahead of me. This is my favourite author after all. Which means I will read EVERYTHING by her. Eventually.

So here’s the 2014 addition to the Wharton bookshelf. Now somebody just needs to go and publish shiny editions of all her books. Folio Society, I’m looking at you.

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re:View – A Vision of Fire doesn’t spark any hope for Gillian Anderson’s literary career

Let me start by saying that I never, ever wanted to love a book as much as I wanted to love this. Having spent my life looking up at Gillian Anderson as a role model, inspiration and feminist icon, I really desperately wanted to add her to my list of favourite authors. Which is probably why the disappointment was quite so crushing when I read her first novel. Although, to be fair, she co-wrote it with author-ghostwriter Jeff Rovin, so I’m not sure who to pin the bad writing on.

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Billed as “a science fiction thriller of epic proportions” by the publisher, A Vision of Fire is really more of a spiritual drama of little thrill, very little sci-fi and limited proportions, I’m afraid. There’s a little bit of psychology, a little bit of medicine, and a whole lot of dabbling with mysticism from various eras and corners of the globe, but it fails to come together in a coherent narrative. There are some good ideas in there, but they are too vague, dealt with in passing, and not given a chance to develop any real depth or complexity.

The writing is clumsy and seems a bit forced, lingering too much on unnecessary details and not giving enough attention to the important thoughts. The characters are one-dimensional stereotypes and the story is pretty predictable and completely fails to engage. Anderson has said from the outset that the book – eventually to be extended into the “Earth End Saga” – will be adapted with her in the lead. And it actually very much reads like she thought up her perfect screen character and then constructed a story around it.

Much as I love all of Gillian Anderson’s other work to date (as an actor, screenwriter, director, producer…), I just can’t find anything to like about her literary collaboration. It may have worked if the authors had skipped the novel and gone straight to screenplay – and yes, of course I’ll be watching the movie – but I’m certainly not holding my breath for the sequel to the book.

That said, she’s still one of the most awesome women on the planet.