I've often wondered about the precept of this book myself. As a translator, how can you stop yourself from using your own experiences and beliefs to colour, or filter, the languages that you are supposed to be interpreting and translating in an objective way? How can they, honestly? How can a Serbo-Croat translator at the Hague cover up their natural disgust for some of the atrocities perpetrated in Bosnia? Is it possible?

Of course, we all think. These people are trained professionals. And then le Carre introduces us to Salvo, a fearsomely gifted linguist specialising in African dialects. Salvo is seconded to the intelligence services for a mysterious summit, and soon discovers that its subject is a country very dear to his heart: the fabulously wealthy (in resources) and ruinously corrupt Democratic Republic of Congo. And as he gradually uncovers the truth behind the summit, and his suspicions about the motives of its attendees and organisers grow, he begins to let his moral conscience guide his actions.

I associate le Carre with Smiley and his Cold War ilk, which is possibly why this is the first of his novels that I've actually read. It's not the formulaic thriller I had expected: from the development of Salvo's character and his gradual shift from the gentrified immigrant to the idealist and crusader, there are subtle undercurrents and themes that make thought-provoking points. One or two of the characters, perhaps, could have benefited from more depth - Salvo's wife seems little more than an upper middle-class cypher, for example - but the novel has a quick pace and presumably the author has had to sacrifice a more rounded world to make way for a few more thrills. That's not a criticism. It's a thriller, albeit one with an absolute minimum of guns, and an enjoyable and thoughtful one.

My first review, don't laugh.

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley paints a picture of a system of society where the inhabitants are conditioned to be happy and somewhat superficial in order to ensure the stability of a World State. The novel takes place in the future when technological advances have allowed the cloning of human embryos, which are placed into five separate castes. The different embryos of these castes are conditioned for work purposes to ensure the thriving of the ever growing population and the success of the society. Superficial happiness is given to each member through the drug soma and the practice of casual sex.

After reading this book, I think I developed more of an admiration for Aldous Huxley rather than the book itself. I admire mostly the fact that Huxley wrote this novel in the 1930’s and that practices of genetic engineering and cloning have come to pass already in this 21st century, causing this story to be a true case of pure science fiction. I feel like Huxley was a genius in an imaginative way and this gives me a lot of respect for him.

I’ve noticed that the book itself has obtained some very good reviews and I’ve wanted to read it for a few months now. After reading the book though, I have to admit that I was a little bit disappointed with the plot. It seemed like it didn’t progress or answer many questions. It was like a look into a world; seeing how it operated what it was comprised of – nothing more nothing less.

For such a brilliant idea I wish that Huxley could have thought up a better story for such an advanced world. Personally, I loved the part of the story where John Savage talks to Mustapha Mond, the World Controller and it turns out that the World Controller isn’t brain washed and knows full well what is going on. Seeing how both characters possess contrasting views of the World State that they are in was the most enjoyable point of the novel for me. It’s hard not to agree with them both, because they both make strong valid points. In John’s case he is pointing out what it means to be human while Mond takes things from an impersonal leadership stance where stability is the only thing that matters. This brings me to another observation. Huxley created each character so diverse so that the reader could see things from every angle. He created the model citizen (Lenina and Henry), the socially inept (Bernard), the socially adept (Helmholtz), the anti-social (John Savage), and the society’s controller (Mond). It’s almost as if Huxley produced this world and these people but didn’t know what to do with them.

Quite honestly, I think this is one of those classic books that is somewhat overrated. As far as the book goes, I say it’s a manifestation of the fact that Huxley was incredibly bright and had some amazing ideas. The world Huxley tells of and the characters are the most interesting aspects, but as far as the plot goes, it can’t compete. The idea was smart; the plot wasn’t so much.

First and foremost, if you haven't read the first two books of this trilogy (The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye), I wouldn't start with this one. Without all the back-story there's a lot to miss. That being said, I think this might have been the best of the three.

We're back in London, after the downfall of the Lovelace affair, and Nathaniel/Jonathan Mandrake, is now Information Minister. The Commoners are growing restless, the war in America is going poorly, and Bartimaeus has been kept in service for so long that his powers are all but gone. The government is beginning to split into factions, everyone is always looking over their shoulders, and the lower magicians seem to be plotting something.

It turns out the elusive Hopkins is returned. Finding him becomes top priority. In the meantime, Mandrake also learns that Kitty Jones is not, as he had thought, dead. Finding her then becomes his top priority. And just when it seems like things might be falling into place....everything comes apart.

The entire government is kidnapped, the streets overflow with commoners who've noticed a lack of government response, and Mandrake and Kitty have fallen into the middle of a most sordid plot.

This was the quickest read of the trilogy, for me, and even though I knew it was winding down, in the end I harbor hopes that perhaps there will be another story someday.

_____

This is a huge series. By which I mean, all of the books are huge. I still remember feeling as if it took forever to read the first one. I had the second one out so long that it got moved to lost by the library system. The third one though, I think it was a pretty quick read, at least comparatively.

The stories are immense. The detail, the plots, the characters. If you try to blow through these books you'll miss more than half of it, but they're well worth the time.

While this was my favorite of the series, I really do mean what I said: read them in order.

P.S. I intended to copy all three of my reviews over here. Except that I can't find two of them. I'm quite sure they ought to be there, and yet I can't find them anywhere. And it's been a long time, so I don't really think I could recreate them either. So I'll just state that all three were good reads. I'd probably rate them all a 4/5.

Set in one day, this book describes the ever-so perfect life of neurosurgeon Henry Perowne, and how it is interrupted by an encounter with a man named Baxter. Although the back cover review mentions the Iraq War and a threat to London, don't be fooled. Nothing like that happens in the book - it's just setting the scene for the atmosphere in central London that day. This is not really a book for those who want a plot. Very little actually happens. Instead, we are with Perowne at work, at home, at his squash game, in the fishmarket, and I won't deny that Ian McEwan writes very beautifully, as another reviewer points out. The book just didn't grab me and make me want to read on, and was made all the more difficult by McEwan's very dense writing style and huge paragraphs and chapters (I read at bedtime and I like a book with good finishing points).

Additionally, I found it extremely difficult to empathise with Perowne or his family - the talented poet daughter, talented jazz musician son, and talented lawyer (journalist?) wife - I like characters with flaws. I'm sure others will be able to analyse this better, but I'll bet that a writer of McEwan's calibre had a reason for making the characters rather difficult to like. The part where he visits his mother is quite touching, and there are some great lines like where Perowne is speculating about what his daughter's boyfriend will be like, and a line near the end that made me think of Saddam Hussein: "They'll all be diminished by whipping a man on his way to hell" - suck on that, TB and GWB.

The most rewarding moment of the book for me was at the end when Matthew Arnold's lovely poem Dover Beach is reprinted. The last verse of this poem seems to hint at the overall message of the book, which appeased me some. I may have enjoyed this book more if I'd read it on a long flight or in any other confined space, and I do think the writing merits a second read at a later date to see if I find it any more enjoyable, but at this time, I have to say that Saturday was not for me.

After reading reviews of Louise Welsh's first book The Cutting Room, I added her to my mental list of authors I needed to try out. However that list is a very long one, and the Bullet Trick only emerged as a contender when I put it in the options for the staff book group where I work. I usually put about four books on the list and normally one stands out but this time we were torn, and actually not that enthusiastic, however as I passed other members of the group in the corridors at work I kept being told "i'm really enjoying this, but I don't think I would have picked this up normally", also "she writes like a man!"

Both of these sentiments I totally agree with. Apart from McIllvaney's Laidlaw and Ian Rankin's Rebus books I don't think i've ever gone out of my way to read something classified as "crime". Although i'm a librarian i'm not that keen on genre labelling and I think The Bullet Trick could live without being stuck on a dedicated Crime shelf as it was in my local library. It is certainly a compelling book, a definite page-turner and I felt plenty of edgyness and tension, to the point that I considered putting the book down before I went to sleep as I was worried I was about to read something that was going to keep me awake a little longer than I wanted!

The story moves between Glasgow and Berlin, via London. The main character is a Glaswegian conjurer who has seen better days. A series of events, lead him from London to Berlin and then back to his home town of Glasgow, where he reaches an all time low. It is the Berlin story, that is told as we are following his downward spiral in Glasgow, that provides the real tension. The characters are particularly well written and it is the portrayal of the main protagonist that had me agreeing with the sentiment that it felt like it was written by a man. But basically that just means that Welsh is a good enough writer to create a totally believable character of the opposite sex.

I enjoyed the story, the style of writing, and I particulary liked the characterisation, but I have a small, but nagging feeling of disappointment with regards the ending. Can't put my finger on it, and it certainly wouldn't stop me recommending the book, but maybe I just expected a little bit more. However, this is an enjoyable and compelling enough read to leave me wanting to try more of Louise Welsh's work.

I dare you to read the first two pages and not want to finish the rest of the book.

Part Victorian murder mystery, part fantastical alternate history with a liberal dash of lexigraphical acrobatics, The Somnambulist combines a labyrinthine plot with haunting characters and an unreliable narrator which coalesces into an unexpected crescendo no one could anticipate.

The Somnambulist is a bald, mute giant of man who when pierced with swords does not bleed. His almost constant companion is Edward Moon, often referred to as the conjurer, with whom he conducts a magical act and solves the most mysterious of mysteries. When drawn into the enigmatic and horrifying deaths of two lechers, seemingly unconnected except for the implausible nature of their deaths, these crimes, however, and their monstrous solution are just the first strands in unraveling the gordian knot that is threatening the city of London.

At times like taking a midnight stroll through densely fogged streets and hearing ominous footsteps behind you, or standing slack-jawed at a bawdy freak show, or laughing raucously at a local pub Jonathan Barnes' The Somnambulist is reminiscent of authors of such note as Mary Shelley, Neil Gaiman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe and Michael Chabon.

This books is essential for all you Word Nerds out there as I learned 9 new words during the course of the book! [coruscating, sybaritism, postprandial, risible, penury, cognoscenti, minatory, ratiocination, eldritch] Their inclusion is not abrupt as in a Mad Lib, but fit seamlessly into the otherworldly elegance of the prose.

A solid 4 and a half, with its only caveat being that the end leaves you thinking "What the Deuce?!"

The 2nd novel from Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, The Viscount Who Loved Me is set in the 1800s London and tells of Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest son of the Bridgerton family. He thinks that he is going to die young like his dad, who died from a bee sting. The burden of being the eldest and having to take care of his family made him a womanizer instead of finding the one woman to love.

When he decided that it was time to get married and have children to carry on the family line, he vowed that he is not going to fall in love with his future wife. She would be someone there just to be a proper and caring wife, to tend and care for the family, so that when he dies, there would not be too much grieved. But in time, he slowly realises his vow cannot be kept when he met Kate Sheffield, supposedly the elder sister of his "chosen" wife-to-be, Edwina Sheffield. Try as he might, the more Kate irritated him, the more he seemed to desire her.

He couldn't believe what was happening to him. How could he not just choose pretty blonde haired and blue-eyed Edwina who had all the good qualities of a wife, but let his mind always swayed to "plain" auburn haired and hazel eyes Kate, who was always arguing with him? And Kate didn't want her sister to marry the rake, whom she felt Anthony was, so she tried to stop him from getting near her. But was she doing that for her sister or was it because she wanted him for herself?

Yet another Julian Quinn novel which brings the story to life.

Deep in the basement of London's Museum of Legends and Antiquities, newly unearthed treasures wait to be prepared for exhibit or to unleash their evil curse... it all depends on the artifact. Theodosia Throckmorton, eldest child of the head curator, seems to be the only one who gets the chills when these calamitous relics are unwrapped. Despite her many protests, her father declines to wear gloves when touching this foul items or wear the amulets of protection that she has lovingly researched and made for him.

Theodosia, though only 11, knows more about Egyptology, magic, and curses than any one else in early twentieth century London. But that may be because her parents keep forgetting to send her to school and she spends all of her time in the museum, reading, researching and sleeping in a sarcophagus. Not only is her dad the head curator, her mom is in charge of all the expeditions to exotic lands and the retrieval of the ancient treasures. With parents like these, you'd think they'd understand Theodosia's unique talents, but alas, they think she is overly imaginative and prone to confabulation.

With some help from her brother, a secret society, a little magic, and her own ingenuity and sneakiness she is able to disrupt the pending chaos started by her mother removing the Heart of Egypt from its hidden tomb and encouraged by some very unpleasant Germans.