Cramlington Book Club

In our month of remembrance it seemed fitting that I read not one, not two but three books about war. The first being  The War of The World  by Niall Ferguson. It was well researched and well written with some brilliant parallels drawn, but the money went over my head and I found it slightly too focused on World War Two. Sea Glass  (a book nothing to do with war) about a newly wed couple and a mill strike in New Hampshire 1929 was next up by the late Anita Shreve. I loved the pace, writing and emotion that Shreve packed in to the pages and am now on the hunt for the other novels she has written all set around the same house the newly weds moved into.  My first Blog Tour of the month was  Paris In The Dark by Robert Olen Butler. Set in Paris during the first World War this well researched book is based around journalist cum spy Kit investigating a series of bombings taking place in the City. It's not Kit's first time gracing Olen Butler's pages and hopefully it won't

Definition of Hydra . (Entry 1 of 2) 1 : a many-headed serpent or monster in Greek mythology that was slain by Hercules and each head of which when cut off was replaced by two others. 2 not capitalised : a multifarious evil not to be overcome by a single effort. Hydra is the second book in the Scott King series, the first being the recently read Six Stories . It is however unconnected to Six Stories and can easily be read as a standalone should you wish. Investigative journalist Scott King finds himself drawn to the 'Macleod Massacre' involving 21 year old Arla Macleod bludgeoning her family to death four years ago in an unprovoked attack. Convicted and being held in a mental health institution she agrees to speak to King who finds himself thrown in to a dark underworld of deadly forbidden 'games', online trolls, and creepy black-eyed children. King sums the book up perfectly when he states "this is not a whodunnit - we know who dun it. What we don't kno

I love Tom Hanks. Big, Turner and Hooch, The Burbs, Sleepless in Seattle, Forest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, Cast Away, I have grown up with Tom Hanks. Toy Story, Cars, The Polar Express, my children have grown up with him! He produced my favourite ever TV series (Band of Brothers). I so wanted this book to be good. I so wanted his writing to be as moving, as funny, as heartbreaking as his acting.  But was it?  The physical copy of Uncommon Type (hardback for me) was just beautiful. A gorgeous burnt orange hue with a ribbon book mark, pictures of typewriters at the start of every story (for it was short stories we were dealing with) and the kind of inside cover you wished you could print out and use as wrapping paper. The paperback, a pale pastel blue is equally beautiful and a glamorous edition to any bookshelf.     Each short story features a typewriter, sometime obviously, sometimes a mere slip of a mention. (True or False President Woodrow Wilson used

Murder amongst the meat aisle? Read below to find out. The Cost of Living , The Blurb:  "After a young woman is brutally attacked on her way home from the local supermarket, checkout girl Bea is determined to find out who’s responsible. She enlists the help of Ant, the seemingly gormless new trainee – but can she really trust him? Customers and colleagues become suspects, secrets are uncovered, and while fear stalks the town, Bea risks losing the people she loves most." To describe the book as a cosy crime novel would be spot on as the violence was minimal yet the warmth of the characters really shone through. In Costsave, Ward has created the perfect backdrop complete with an overflowing well of characters all available for use in future books. I loved meeting them, discovering their problems and considering whether I thought they were capable of murder! Bea is a strong central character who I took to immediately. More to the point her investigations felt realistic,

Well I for one will now be studiously studying the person next to me at the checkout buying bleach! Good Samaritans , The Blurb: "Seth Beauman can’t sleep. He stays up late, calling strangers from his phonebook, hoping to make a connection, while his wife, Maeve, sleeps upstairs. A crossed wire finds a suicidal Hadley Serf on the phone to Seth, thinking she is talking to The Samaritans. But a seemingly harmless, late-night hobby turns into something more for Seth and for Hadley, and soon their late-night talks are turning into day-time meet-ups. And then this dysfunctional love story turns into something altogether darker, when Seth brings Hadley home… And someone is watching… " I applaud the mind of Will Carver for coming up with this sick, twisted, disturbing, thriller. Just how dark this book is, is revealed in the opening chapter where the reader is informed about the effects on a human body bathed in bleach (not pretty). We are then informed however that it's o

I'll just put it out there and state this is quite simply the best book about war. Ever. A visit to relatives one weekend gave the opportunity to raid their bookshelves where I stumbled upon the 200 page or so All Quiet On The Western Front . I could do that in a weekend I thought so I put aside the book I brought and dived in.  And boy next time I emerged was I shellshocked from the heartbreak I had just read. Remarque describes the book as: "Neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped (its) shells, were destroyed by the war." I have read quite a few war books in my time yet none of them has touched me quite as much as this has. The quality of the writing was such that I never once stopped to think, yeah but I'm reading from the viewpoint of a German soldier. I never once tho

"AUTUMN 1915. The First World War is raging across Europe. Woodrow Wilson has kept Americans out of the trenches, although that hasn’t stopped young men and women from crossing the Atlantic to volunteer at the front. Christopher Marlowe ‘Kit’ Cobb, a Chicago reporter and undercover agent for the US government is in Paris when he meets an enigmatic nurse called Louise. Officially in the city for a story about American ambulance drivers, Cobb is grateful for the opportunity to get to know her but soon his intelligence handler, James Polk Trask, extends his mission. Parisians are meeting ‘death by dynamite’ in a new campaign of bombings, and the German-speaking Kit seems just the man to discover who is behind this – possibly a German operative who has infiltrated with the waves of refugees? And so begins a pursuit that will test Kit Cobb, in all his roles, to the very limits of his principles, wits and talents for survival." This isn't the first time Kit has graced the pag

I had read Shreve's The Pilot's Wife a few years back (excellent) and so was looking forward to reading Sea Glass  with its most beautiful cover (I just love the colours and the light.) Based around the fictional mill town of Ely Falls, New Hampshire in 1929 tyewriter salesman Sexton and his new wife Honora move into a derelict house with not much more than a suitcase full of dreams and a picnic basket full of hope. The Wall Street crash, Sexton losing his job and a dangerous strike by the destitute mill workers quickly follows leaving Honora needing much more than her 'lucky' sea glass to pull the couple through. Honora's hobby of collecting sea glass was beautifully woven into the story, from very early on where Honora found her first piece that she kept for luck, to the devastating scene with Sexton in the kitchen, to the final find of sea glass. One of the characters in the book points out that no matter how much you batter it, sea glass does not break and t

Described as an overview of the various wars that occured during the 20th century I knew this was going to be a 'heads down concentrate' kind of book and I wasn't wrong. It started with one of the most excellent introductions I have ever read that could easily be published as a piece of work on its own. I just loved how Ferguson drew out similarities between H G Well's War of the World and World War One (and later Lord of The Rings and World War Two). Yet with subheadings like "Diasporas and Pales" much googling of word meanings was needed. The language Ferguson used however was at times outstanding, where he describes World War One as a "gargantuan abattoir featuring cavalry charges by armed and armoured vehicles" or where he describes it as an "industrialized siege where trains would transport men to and from the front lines like shift-workers" or where he describes the wounded men being offered a cigarette "they inhale only to e