Modern Fiction Books > B Modern Fiction Books

Better second time around

Advantages: Atmospheric
Disadvantages: References to dancing and rattling bottles of wine

...book - bottles rattling and dancing in the cellar. I have to say that of Joanne Harris' three food books, I've much prefered Chocolate and Five Quarters of the Orange, and would strongly recommend starting with these 2 before reading Blackberry Wine, to build familiarity with the writing style. ...

bec54 23.09.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris

The Edge of Reason by Bridget

Advantages: funny, witty, surprising and entertaing forever
Disadvantages: "the same" as the first book about Bridget Jones

...of Reason So here Bridget goes again! Should you expect a whole new book, you might be disappointed slighty, as this is a follow-up on Diary of the same heroine. Actually Bridge, as her friends call her, has never been gone, has she? (Warning: This is a somewhat opinionated review and might not be all the objective, so if you don't wanna read that, just don't read further) In the beginning she finds herself on top of happiness and joy, sharing ...
...the core is identical. Bridget still is the unsure, lacking selfconfidence and self-underestimating 30-something who in a way can't really handle her life in an adult way. I don't man to be boring, but come on, an imaginary baby? Subsiding to the miracles (as expected) of Zen? That's not Bridget and be sure she will be back to her fags and chardonnay this instant! Main twists in the storyline This book however tries to portray Bridget as ...

jeaniecz 11.07.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason - Helen Fielding

Birds Without Wings - Read Alternate Chapters

Advantages: Emotive storytellling which draws you in
Disadvantages: Too many history lectures

As usual Louis de Bernierers' storytelling is masterful and his depiction of the village where the story is set is so effective you can almost hear and smell the atmosphere whilst reading. This book can easily be split into two parts, the 'real' story and the 'history lectures'. The 'real' story is about the search for love and the effect that unrequited love can have on people's behaviour. This is not constrained to romantic love between a man ...
...The other part of the story deals with the ongoing disputes and religious animosity between the Turks, Greeks, Armenians and the rest of Europe. To be perfectly honest I found most of these chapters either dull or too graphic in their descriptions of the suffering during wartime and ended up skimming these to make sure that I wasn't missing any plot developments in the story that I was really interested in. ...

siocled 21.11.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres

Rubies and Pearls.

Advantages: A wonderful British book.
Disadvantages: None at all!

Behind the Scenes at the Museum was Yorkshire mother of two, Kate Atkinson's first novel and this wonderful book it is definitely one to be celebrated. Kate Atkinson was born in York and she chose the old walled City as the location for the tale of teenage Ruby Lennox and her family. The book starts from the moment of Ruby's conception in 1951, a moment grudgingly obliged by her mother, Bunty. Ruby starts the tale as a growing foetus, a baby inside ...
...more unhappy…. Atkinson divides Behind the Scenes at the Museum into Chapters and Footnotes: the Chapters focus on Ruby and her direct family life with her mother and father and her sisters. The Footnotes tie up unexplained information mentioned within the chapters, exploring the history of her family over the previous two generations further, starting with Ruby's great-grandmother Alice, who supposedly died giving birth. Although I liked the footnotes ...

nickyturnill 24.01.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson

Name your child Homebase Nirvana

Advantages: Satirical humour is excellent
Disadvantages: Bit predictable in the ending

...generally very focused however in Blind Faith he has a wider and more difficult target as religion combined with the new supposed openness of the computer age are within his sights. Now I would never attempt to describe Elton writing as socially or morally deep, at least not the books that I have read from him, but for me this book had a lot more to say than some of his other work and certainly posted a few more questions in this readers mind. At ...
...dark portrayal of a future that matches the nightmare that Orwell wrote about in 1984 and certainly while reading this book I did think about some superficial similarities between Ben Elton views of the future of mankind and the one portrayed by Orwell. That is not to say that Elton literary content is a match for Orwell, no rather there are similarities in the subject matter not in the quality of the language used, Elton is very funny, Orwell was ...

atticusuk 19.08.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Blind Faith - Ben Elton