reading – A Boy Named Stew

Why I didn’t enjoy Ready Player One (the novel)

A while ago, I asked for recommendations of books. I asked people to tell me what their favourite book is. Several people named Ready Player One by Ernest Cline which conceptually I liked the idea of, so it was one of the first recommendations that I read around 5 months ago. It has been turned into a film by Steven Spielberg which has just been released and so I have been thinking about the book again.

Now, I may be a grumpy old man. I may not just get what kids like these days. However, this book is not something I enjoyed, and there are a few reasons for this. I know from reading reviews on Goodreads that there are others who feel the same way. I also know that there are those who absolutely adored it. I don’t like or want to ruin stuff for anyone, so I’m not going to tear it to complete shreds like I would have done if I had written this immediately after reading the book.

The film might be significantly better than the book, I don’t know. I’d imagine it will be as it’s Spielberg. I don’t intend to watch it. You may enjoy the film, the book or both but I feel that I need to get out my thoughts on why I didn’t enjoy it. This will probably contain spoilers, although it is my opinion that the book could not be spoiled more than Cline has already done so by misusing the intriguing concept he came up with.

The first thing that annoyed me about the book was that it is a mystery book where the reader has no chance of solving the mystery. I love detective stories. I love trying to solve the mystery but always coming up short because the criminal or the detective or both is/are much smarter than I am. This is fine, and it is all part of the enjoyment. The mysteries in Ready Player One cannot be solved by the reader. There are no clues which will allow you to do so. Even if your knowledge of 80’s culture is as good as Wade, the main character, you stand literally no chance of solving the puzzle. When he (or one of the other characters) works out the next step, it comes completely out of the blue.

For a novel where the main premise is solving a series of mysteries, all the suspense got drained for me because I knew it would be something entirely random. This is partly because it is set in a virtual reality world called the Oasis and we have absolutely no idea what is in it unless the author tells us about it. He doesn’t drop any clues about how to solve each mystery. The planet which the protagonist needs to travel to in order to solve the puzzle has not been presented to us, so we have no idea it exists and therefore no idea what the solution could possibly be.

Another thing that annoyed me is that it is a sci-fi novel, although rather than inventing its own universe, it appropriates it from the 1980s. It is basically nostalgia porn. It plays on the fact that people who love that culture will love references to it in the book. Which they do, but it doesn’t mean there’s any substance there at all. It doesn’t add any meaning, depth or insight to the novel. It annoyed me in the same way that all the references to celebrities in Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis annoyed me, so much so that I was unable to read another of his novels for several years.

The book also has a love story, but I never cared if the characters get together or not. Lots of other factors might have combined to create this apathy in me. I might not have cared because I was struggling to get invested due to the other elements of the book that turned me off. However, it seems to me that there is minimal depth of character or character development. The characters don’t have much internal conflict. They have their goal of solving the puzzle and by and large they are focused on it to the detriment of everything else, except when Wade becomes a love-struck teenager. I could not give a hoot if they got together, or even if they died horribly. I struggled to have any empathy for the characters at all.

I feel that this is a story where fairly early on you know what is going to happen and there are few surprises and relatively little of interest. There’s effectively a deus ex machina in the fact that Wade knows literally everything. Some of the puzzles require photographic memory and knowledge of the most obscure things. He twice quotes a film near perfectly in order to solve a puzzle. I have seen some of my favourite films hundreds of times and couldn’t even quote 50% of one of them. How he knows two random films back to front stretches believability.

I haven’t even started to pick apart the quality of the writing and as it’s been a while since I read it and I have no desire to look at it again, I don’t want to criticise this aspect without feeling confident in what I’m talking about, suffice to say that it didn’t feel like it was written well.

I loved the idea of the book. A futuristic virtual world, obsessed with the past as the modern world has fallen apart. Clinging onto some hope of a better time and a better place. I wanted to like the book – I absolutely love dystopian novels but I really struggled with Ready Player One. I feel the execution of the concept really let it down.

2016 Reading Challenge

Natalie challenged me to do the 2016 reading challenge on 9gag

I love reading and I love challenges, so here goes! This required me to read 42 books. As I read over 60 last year, albeit aided by the fact I was spending two hours a day on a train, I thought I should be able to manage it!

I only just managed it with a few weeks to spare. I found that it forced me to read books that I perhaps wouldn’t have read otherwise, which is a good thing. However, having to find books that fit certain categories meant that my pile of books to read (which is currently about 3 feet tall) didn’t get much smaller. As such, I won’t be doing a similar challenge next year as I want to try to get through as much of this pile as possible.

Below is a list of all the books that I picked and which category I picked them for. However, I will just list my 5 favourite books (in no particular order) that I read as part of this challenge and why.

Iain Banks – The Wasp Factory
I know people who have liked Iain Banks/Iain M Banks for years. I can’t believe it took me so long to read one of his books for the first time. I borrowed this from the library and it was so good that I bought a copy from a charity shop straight after so that Jo can read it too. You really get into the mind of the character, and it is really engaging. The ending really surprised me as well, and it’s always nice to get that engaged and still to not know where it is going.

Nathan Filer – Shock of the Fall
This was recommended to me by my sister-in-law and she picked a good one! It was partly inspired by the Wasp Factory – which Filer notes at the end of the book – and I had been able to tell that as I was reading. It was a very powerful book, and out of everything I read this year, was the most difficult book to put down.

Khaled Kosseni – The Kite Runner
A lot of people apparently hated this book. It was a book chosen as one about a culture I did not know about. The story involves a boy who moved from Afghanistan to America as a young child and goes back as an adult to deal with a problem. Again, I loved how you totally get into the mind of the main character. All of them are well written and you really start to feel for them. A great thing for a book to make you do.

Caitlin Moran – How to be a Woman
This was a book written by a celebrity, and is not a how to but an analysis of feminism and the problems that are still faced by women in society. It is also funny. I enjoyed reading this for both reasons.

Agatha Christie – Cat Among The Pigeons
I didn’t realise this was a Poirot book until I was part of the way through it. It was frustrating at times, but this was only due to dramatic irony. Christie is obviously a world class crime writer and I really enjoy whodunnits.

And the award for the worst book I read this year is tied between James Dashner – The Maze Runner and Kristen Simmons – Article 5. Avoid both at all costs.

A book based on a fairytale – Vivan Vande Velde – The Rumpelstiltskin Problem. Read while on holiday between 24 September and 1 October.

This was interesting. A guy who found problems with the story of Rumpelstiltskin and rewrote the story several times to deal with the problem. It was nice, but difficult to read all in one go due to the stories being so similar.

A National Book Award winner – Let the Great World Spin. Started on holiday between 24 Sept and 1 Oct. Finished 3d October,

This was really good. It is written in about 15 sections, each of which is from a different person’s perspective. They don’t all tie up neatly. Reading the second one, I was very confused about how it could possibly link to the first as it changed completely. Nevertheless, it was really good, really enjoyable.

A YA bestseller. Suzanne Collins: Hunger Games. Started 19th Jan, finished 3rd Feb.

I had wanted to read this for a while. Even though it is just Battle Royale. Which apparently the author had never heard of when she started writing this. It was engrossing and easy to read. Went through the 450 pages in no time when I had a chance to read. Will definitely be reading the others.

A book you haven’t read since high school: Lord of the Flies. Started 10 February, finished 17 February

I studied this for GCSE English and remembered enjoying it. It turns out I didn’t remember much of it. There’s so much that I’d forgotten and so much that I am sure I wouldn’t have understood fully when I was younger either. This was quite enlightening and might even tempt me to re-read Wuthering Heights which is my most hated book.

A book set in your home state – HE Bates – The Darling Buds of May. Read during November

Apparently this is set in Kent, although I didn’t notice any references during the book. It was quite short but pretty enjoyable. I’d forgotten pretty much everything about the TV show so wasn’t sure what was coming. There are questionable morals within the book but it is really well written and easy to read.

A book translated to English. Jonas Jonasson. The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden. Started 10th May. Finished 24th May.

I had read the 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed out A Window and Disappeared which I loved. This was possibly even better. The style of writing is really easy and fun to just dive into.

A romance set in the future – Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse 5. Started 19th September. Finished 23rd September.

Not set in my future as such, but the future from when this was written. It was a bit confusing. I had only read one book by Vonnegut before – Welcome to the Monkey House – but I liked it so much that it made it onto my list of favourite books when I wrote it in 2014. I had recently read it, so that is probably why it was on there. This seemed different to me, although I’ll probably re-read it at some point to try to fully digest it as I did get a wee bit lost.

A book set in Europe – Milan Kundera – The Joke. Started 31st October. Finished in November.

This was a bit difficult to follow at first due to the changing perspectives but once I got my head around it, it was really good. Kundera has a good grasp on how to write a satirical novel. It was also a little frightening that a joke can be taken so out of context and cause so many problems for one person. Quite relevant now Darth May has enacted her snoopers charter.

A book that’s under 150 pages. Thomas Pynchon. The Crying of Lot 49. Started 22nd April, Finished 29th April.

This is a book that inspired Radiohead who I was obsessed with when I was at university. I have been intending to read it since then but only just got around to it. It’s good. It’s not what I was expecting, but it’s good.

A New York Times bestseller. Nick Hornby – Slam. Started 1st September. Finished 3rd September.

This was so easy to read. I love Hornby’s stuff and initially I wasn’t sure if I’d get into this one but after a few chapters I was hooked and blasted through it. Lovely stuff.

A book that’s becoming a movie this year. Marvel: Civil War. Started 18 February. Finished 23rd February.

I love comics! Yeah! A way to get an extra graphic novel on this list. I only started reading them properly a few years ago, and then it was primarily Batman. It’s nice to read a wider range, although I get lost by all the characters and stories that there are.

A book recommended by someone you just met – Upton Sinclair – The Jungle. Started 17th October. Finished 31st October.

This was recommended by a guy in Foyles who looked at the other two books I had in their 3 for 2 offer and helped me find something which he thought I would like. It was really interesting to see a depiction of how the working poor lived in early 20th century America. There are a lot of similarities to problems that are inherent in the culture these days and it is disheartening to see that over 100 years later, we haven’t – as a culture – managed to solve them yet.

A self-improvement book. Nigel Watts – Teach Yourself Writing a Novel. Started 18th July. Finished 23rd July.

I have been wanting to write a novel for quite some time. I’ve had the outline of an idea and this helped motivate me to do some more work on it and gave me ideas of the technical things to think about.

A book you can finish in a day. Neil Gaiman. How the Marquis Got His Coat Back. Read on the morning of Friday 22nd April

I love Gaiman’s style. It really draws you in. I don’t think I’d read any of the Neverwhere books before but it wasn’t too difficult to understand what was going on. I recommend for an hour long read.

A book written by a celebrity. Caitlin Moran. How to Be a Woman. Started 29th April. Finished 10th May.

I really enjoyed this. I like to think I’m liberal and egalitarian but it was great reading this to get more of a female perspective and all that.

A political memoir – Barack Obama – The Audacity of Hope. Started 12th July. Finished 19th September.

This was enjoyable, especially so because it was written before he became the candidate for President. It filled me in on his previous life, and some of the workings of the US election system. The bit when he met Michelle was also quite cute.

A book that’s at least 100 years older than you. William Shakespeare. Taming of the Shrew. Started 6th June. Finished: 7th June.

We saw this on 11th June. I read it in two days in advance. I enjoyed it, although the male/female dynamic in the play is awkward.

A book that’s more than 600 pages. Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace. Started 3rd January. Finished 15th July.

Full Blog Post as it is on my bucket list.

A book from Oprah’s Book Club. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 100 Years of Solitude. Read during November.

I had read this when I was much younger. It was difficult to follow with all the Spanish naming conventions and everyone having very similar names. I liked it though, but I lost the flow of the whole novel at times.

A science-fiction novel. HG Wells – War of the Worlds. Started 23rd July. Finished 2nd August.

HG Wells lives down the road from me. Or he used to. His house is still there. And I guess it’s not literally down the street. You have to go round the corner as well. I’ve wanted to read this for a long time – ever since I heard the David Essex soundtrack back when I was around 8, and I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed it. I felt it was a much easier to read than The Island of Doctor Moreau which I had read earlier this year. Two thumbs up.

A book recommended by a family member. Nathan Filer. The Shock of the Fall. Started 11th August. Finished 16th August.

I asked my sister-in-law Hannah to recommend a book and she picked this. It reminded me of the Wasp Factory which I had read a week or so previously, and I discovered that in the interview at the back, he mentioned Iain Bank’s Frank. It was good, and the first book to make me cry in a really long time.

A book that is published in 2016. JK Rowling. Harry Potter – all three Pottermore Presents books.

These were fun if not the extra stories that I was hoping for. It was nice that some character details were filled in, and it was cool to hear some bits from JK Rowling on the decisions she made in writing the books. It was also nice to have a recap of some of the key story points (as they tie in with certain characters biographies) shortly before going to watch the play in November.

A Graphic Novel. Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club 2. Started 20th July, Finished 22nd July.

It was interesting, if a little odd at times. It was maybe trying to be a bit too meta and to push the conventions of graphic novels in general (such as being able to read what people were saying). It also didn’t really show how it got from the end of the original novel to this. Not bad, but not great.

A book with a protagonist who has your occupation. Rosy Barnes. Sadomasochism for Accountants. Read while on holiday between 24 Sep and 1 Oct.

There aren’t many books or stories with accountants in at all. The only other one I can think of is The Producers. I quite like my job. I’m good at it, but I’ll be the first to admit it isn’t very exciting or interesting to people who don’t do it. The idea of taking accountants and putting them in a fetish club scenario was quite amusing. I quite enjoyed this book. It was good holiday reading.

A book that takes place during summer. The Great Gatsby. Started 16th August. Finished 23rd August.

I read this for the first time last year. As soon as I finished reading it, I thought that I wanted to read it again. This gave me the perfect excuse. It was better second time around, definitely. I did struggle every time a character said “of” and not “have” to not then rip up the whole book, though.

A book and it’s prequel. James Dashner. Maze Runner and Kill Order. Started 4th October. Finished 17th October.

These books are so badly written. I really don’t know what to say about them. The most annoying this is that there are a few interesting ideas but there is never any payoff. You never get to understand what has caused this world to be. That’s on top of all the poor storytelling, lack of emotional connection with the characters. I am annoyed by the person on Goodreads who suggested these two books for this challenge.

A murder mystery. Agatha Christie. Cat Among The Pigeons. Started 15th March. Finished 21st March.

I didn’t realise this was a Poirot book when I started reading it. It was enjoyable yet frustration. The employment of dramatic irony just made me want to jump into the book, shout at characters and tell them what was going on!

A book written by a comedian. Simon Pegg – Nerd Do Well. Started 3rd September.

This was another autobiography and I found it really interesting. There were some fiction bits in amongst the anecdotes which were ok but I found superfluous to requirements. The discussion about decisions made whilst making some of my favourite TV shows and films was enjoyable and there was also a lot of discussion that would be more suited to a film studies lesson – which I enjoyed.

A dystopian novel. Kristen Simmons. Article 5. Started 23rd February. Finished 11th March.
This was easily the worst book I’d read so far. It made me hate the main character which is never a good state to be in. It was similar in style and target audience to the Hunger Games but didn’t grip me in the same way and was much more poorly written.

A book with a blue cover: Ray Bradbury. We’ll Always Have Paris. Started 28th April. Finished 10th May.

A book of short stories, some of them were brilliant and engaging.

A book of poetry. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Started 14th January. Finished 19th January.

I read Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare biography over Christmas. Whilst going to a performance of every one of his plays is on my bucket list, I hadn’t paid much attention to the poetry before. I was quite surprised. It was more engaging than I expected it to be, and also it was interesting to note that not everything rhymed when it was supposed to, so it showed how much the English language had changed in the last 400 years.

The first book you see in a bookstore. JK Rowling – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Read 5th – 10th December.

This is probably the first book everyone sees in any bookstore for the latter half of this year. Each book shop seems to have about 50,000 copies of it.

This book is the script to the play. I didn’t want to read it until after I had seen the play. This was a good idea, because the script on it’s own isn’t anywhere near as good as seeing the play, and I can understand why some fans weren’t too impressed by it. I didn’t like the time travel element but this is mainly because I don’t like time travel but I understand what it was trying to do. I think I’d have preferred a new story entirely but enjoyable nonetheless.

A classic from the 20th Century. Brideshead Revisited. Started 2nd August. Finished 10th August.

I had no idea what this book was going to be about but the name had always intrigued me. In feel, for some reason it felt like an English Great Gatsby. Unlike some classics, I found it quite easy to follow and enjoyed it.

A book from the library. Iain Banks – The Wasp Factory. Started July 29th. Finished August 2nd.

I can’t believe I hadn’t read this before. It is awesome. If you’ve not read it, I recommend it. The way it reveals information piece by piece is very well done. It’s a really well written and well structured book. And the end. Did not see that coming.

An autobiography. John Cleese. So Anyway… Started 27th May. Finished: 14th June.

This only really goes up to the start of the Pythons. Enjoyable, you really get a sense of who John Cleese is.

A book about a road trip. Terry Darlington. Narrow Dog To Carcassonne. Started 21st March. Finished 20th April.

Technically a book about a boat trip. A retired couple who – against pretty much all advice – sail a narrow boat across the channel and to the south of France. Enjoyable and stylistically the writing reminded me a bit of how my dad writes.

A book about a culture you are unfamiliar with. The Kite Runner. Started 23rd August. Finished 1st September.

About Afrghanistan and a boy who leaves to go to America and returns a man. A lot of people said they didn’t get on with this buy I’m not sure why. It pulled at the heartstrings well and while some bits seemed predictable, there were twists and turns. I found this easy to read and would definitely recommend.

A satirical book. Voltaire – Candide. Started reading 23rd September. Finished early October.

I read this whilst on Holiday. I’ve forgotten what I thought about this.

A book that takes place on an island. The Island of Dr Moreau. Started June 20th. Finished July 18th.

I picked this partly due to it’s significance in Orphan Black. It was good, but at times I struggled to get into it.

A book that’s guaranteed to bring you joy. Bill Bryson. The Road to Little Dribbling. Started 12th September. Finished 19th September

I assumed this would bring me joy as I’ve really liked Bryson’s other work and I like his writing style. It was still amusing in places but he has turned into a bit of a grumpy old man now.

Bucket List Item 13: Read War and Peace

I put Read War & Peace on my bucketlist when I made it a number of years ago. I can’t remember exactly why I put it on there. I think it was probably at least one of the following things:

1. The fact that I love reading and I wanted to put something related to reading on the list.
2. I’ve enjoyed the Russian literature that I have read.
3. Despite now having been there and being a bit underwhelmed by it, I have had a fascination with Russia for several years.
4. It is supposed to be a difficult book to read and I wanted to prove that I could do it.
5. I want to be able to say pretentiously to people that I have read it.

Jo bought me a lovely hardback version of the book for my birthday last year (now almost a year
ago), which I finished reading earlier this year. It took me several months to read. It’s a long book. But not only that, it’s a heavy book. That meant that it wasn’t too easy to transport and therefore I didn’t read it on the train which is my usual reading time. I ended up reading for a quarter of an hour every night before bed.

There are almost 600 characters and it isn’t really suited to this style of reading, especially with my concentration span. I would often forget who people were when I began reading the next day, let alone a few weeks later if they had gone out of the narrative for a while. As such, there are passages which I remember vividly – Pierre’s father’s death and the game of cards are two of them – and yet others which I barely remember happening at all.

This was brought out when we recently watched the BBC dramatisation of the novel. There were bits that I definitely don’t recall at all. Then again, there are bits which I am fairly sure Tolstoy didn’t write but were included because they were naughty bits and the BBC wanted ratings. It was really useful to see how it was condensed down to a 6 hour series, and I think I’m quite a visual person and being able to see the actors made it easier for me to remember which character was which, rather than getting lost in all of the words in the book.

I think I will definitely attempt to read it again at another point. I don’t think I got everything that I could out of it, however it won’t be for a while as my pile of books to read is almost as tall as me.

My 10 favourite books

My good friend Lisa (the one who looked so delighted at throwing ice water over me) challenged me to do the 10 favourite books list.

Now, my life is run almost entirely by lists. I have a list of things to do today, of which writing this is on it. It almost certainly wouldn’t get done if it wasn’t on the list.

I can also get quite obsessive about lists as well. Coming up with my 10 favourite movies took the best part of a couple of months. You’ve got to get these things right. Well, I do.

“Books, records, films… these things matter.”

It’s seriously the sort of things that will bug me if I get it wrong, so you may well see this list edited at some point in the near future.

So, I would like to thank Lisa for challenging me and taking up a large part of my weekend as she knows I’m crap at backing down from a challenge. However, as it has been spent thinking about something that I love, it’s really not all bad.

I’ve been reading since as long as I can remember. One of my first memories is attempting to read the Narnia books and having to stop frequently to go to ask my parents what a certain word meant. I never did make it all the way through the whole series.

I really enjoy being able to hide away in my own little world with a book. Or rather, to hide away in someone else’s little world which we are sharing for however many pages the book covers.

I am perhaps far too excited about the fact that my new job means commuting for 2 hours a day which I will be able to dedicate to reading.

Reading is important to me. When I was in Porto recently, I went to a very pretty bookshop called Livraria Lello. (The picture here is someone else’s as you can only take photos for 1 hour a day). I chose this over more traditional tourist attractions – although admittedly Porto is slightly lacking in them as the train station is number 6 on Trip Advisor’s list – because there is a certain beauty about books and visiting a pretty bookshop is something that appeals to me.

This is even though I’ve only bought one or two physical books in the last two years. The year that Amazon went really heavy on their promotion of the Kindle, I was suckered into buying myself one for Christmas.

I thought I would hate it as books are really pretty and smell nice. I was wrong. I absolutely adore it and it is one of the best purchases I have made. Not only for the fact you can get lots of classics for free or close to it, but for the fact you can carry around with you hundreds of books effortlessly. It has a built in dictionary so I look up more words (even the effort of picking up my phone to search the internet for a word’s meaning is enough to disrupt my flow when reading a book). It is really lightweight and much easier to hold than a weighty tome. If I want a new book, I can get it in seconds. The main downside is being unable to share books with people, but I’m sure I can cope with that.

I am currently reading a proper book (A Child of the Jago, since you asked) and it is nice to do so occasionally, but I feel that by the time I retire they will be almost obsolete.

Anyway, in alphabetical order (because attempting to put them in order of preference would take another week), here are my 10 favourite books:

Bill Bryson – Notes From A Small Island

Bryson’s writing helped ignite a love of travel in me. This book in particular made me realise that there are awesome things around me and is possibly part of what prompted me to go driving around England last year.

Douglas Coupland – Girlfriend In A Coma

Chosing a Coupland book is hard because the older stuff is in my opinion superior to his recent output and I read it all quite a while ago now. I picked this one simply because it is what inspired my screen name monkeyinacoma.

Roald Dahl – George’s Marvellous Medicine

Dahl is one of my favourite authors and it is difficult to narrow it down to one book, however this is the one that I read over and over as a child, so much so that it fell apart.

Nick Hornby – High Fidelity

Sometimes, a book will become a favourite due to the time of your life when you read it. I think this is one of those books. It made me feel like I was actually coping quite well with my life in comparison whilst at the same time wanting to be Rob Flemming.

Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

This was a toss up between Brave New World and 1984. I read them both for my A-Level English and was amazed at how much better they were than anything we had been made to read in English previously. I really enjoyed the dystopian themes in both novels which appealed to the moody teenage version of myself. I think these two books are what made me fall in love with reading again after spending many of my teenage years focussed on computer games. I prefer Orwell’s writing overall but Brave New World is in my opinion a more attractive piece of writing.

Rachel Joyce – The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

An old man writes a letter to a former colleague. On the way to the postbox, he decides to hand deliver it and begins a journey from Devon to Berwick-Upon-Tweed. I found this book so instantly likeable and there are themes of reconciliation and rejuvenation and finding a sense of purpose running through it that just seemed to resonate with me.

Andrew Kauffman – All My Friends Are Superheroes

Kauffman has a very definite voice and it is one I am envious of. His brain is also full of brilliant ideas that I wish I had. This is an exceptionally cute story where all the characters have a superpower (of sorts) and I was hooked from pretty much the first few sentences.

Frank Miller – The Dark Knight Returns

Batman is far and away my favourite superhero. He has been since I was 8. I’m not sure exactly what it is that attracts me to the character other than that I really want to be him. This was the first Batman graphic novel I read which was – to my shame – only a few years ago. I have since read a large number although none compare to this one. There are almost Shakespearian themes running through it with Batman and the Joker’s stories seeming to mirror each other in some way. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Chuck Palahniuk – Choke

I tend to binge on things. Last year, I read through Palahniuk’s back catalogue having previously only read Fight Club and Choke. Sometimes he can be a bit hit and miss (Pygmy being especially hard to make it all the way through). He has his thing of repetition and this can sometimes be awesome and sometimes a bit too predictable. I like author’s who have their own distinctive style and Chuck usually manages that. I picked Choke as it’s the only one of his books that I have read twice so far and there must be a reason for that.

Kurt Vonnegut – Welcome to the Monkey House

I only read this last month but it has made such an impression on me that it makes the list. It’s the first Vonnegut I’ve read and is actually a collection of short stories but even after reading the introduction, I knew I would enjoy it. The way Vonnegut talks about himself in that introduction made me warm to him instantly and the wit and charm in that introduction pervades through his writing which still seems fresh and original around 50 years later.