Outside of a Dog

Bonden reviewed Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand by Marcus Chown

Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand (2019, Diversion Publishing Corp.)

All a bit pointless

1 star

Fancied a non-fiction read and I enjoy well-written science books so was looking forward to this.

It's not at all what I was expecting. It's not an in-depth look at one aspect or discipline of a science, it's a collection of eye-opening statements with fairly humdrum explanations. For example: "Babies are powered by rocket fuel!" which sounds intriguing but then the explanation is really that rockets and babies process energy in essentially the same way, which is clearly self-evident.

Disappointing.

Bonden reviewed The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Historian (EBook, 2005, Little, Brown and Company)

To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history....Late one night, exploring her father's library, a …

An OK read, but not a great one

2 stars

Content warning Spoilers ahoy!

Kostova has clearly tried to breathe new(undead) life into the classic Vampire novel, concentrating on historians unearthing their existence. It's an interesting idea.

But it never really hits the spot. There's long (some might say overlong) sections when we spend a ridiculous amount of time gallivanting all around the Near East and Eastern Europe in search of a folk song or snatch of letter, which miraculously turn up in the collections of a succession of stereotypical Wise Old Men simply in order to move the story along. So many coincidences get increasingly hard to accept.

And when Vlad makes only his second major appearance, he's dispatched with ridiculous ease which only leads you to wonder why it took 600+ years to kill him.

It has it's moments. Kostava is at her best when describing the people of the Eastern European regions she's clearly familiar with but it wasn't enough to save the novel for me.

Bonden reviewed Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

Mirror & the Light (Hardcover, 2020, 4th Estate)

‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’

England, May …

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

5 stars

Completing The Mirror And The Light is like waking from a dream. I've read the entire trilogy one after the other and absolutely adored every page of every one. All three are written in a very idiosyncratic style, almost like a stream of consciousness but as if Cromwell is observing his own life at one remove. I've seen people turned off these books by that stylistic choice but to me it worked perfectly, at times it was like I was reading prose in the style of poetry - a constantly shifting perception of events, past influences and a haunting history melding together in a blur of emotions and ideas. Beautiful.

The entire trilogy has made it into my personal top 3 (I tend to lump book series together as one entity), second only to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. It's been a long time since a (series of) book(s) moved me …

Completing The Mirror And The Light is like waking from a dream. I've read the entire trilogy one after the other and absolutely adored every page of every one. All three are written in a very idiosyncratic style, almost like a stream of consciousness but as if Cromwell is observing his own life at one remove. I've seen people turned off these books by that stylistic choice but to me it worked perfectly, at times it was like I was reading prose in the style of poetry - a constantly shifting perception of events, past influences and a haunting history melding together in a blur of emotions and ideas. Beautiful.

The entire trilogy has made it into my personal top 3 (I tend to lump book series together as one entity), second only to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series. It's been a long time since a (series of) book(s) moved me and affected me quite so much. Brilliant.

User Profile

Bonden's books

User Activity