more books what i read

greetings

well, merrily (or indeed happily) my rejuvenated passion (or plain enjoyment) for reading appears to be a long term thing. as i now have (considerably) more "free" time, and am less (or "fewer") of a travelling nature i've found that i presently find just sitting and reading (with some quality vibes on) most agreeable, look you see. as such, or as a consequence, there's another two (2) books what i have gone done read. 

following the norm, or if you will, standard pattern on finishing reading this number of books (two) it is time to put some comments on them here. as always i presume that such an action shall add precisely, give or take, zero value to the life of anyone, but you never know. so as to pursue the "norm" further, here comes an image of the books, followed by some spoiler free comments, and then there's every chance of some of them spoiler things cropping up. 

deciding to take on another Ben Hope novel off of Scott Mariani (for he is the only one that writes them) was a bit of a gamble i suppose, but as it turns out The Golden Library was quite enjoyable. i had picked up The Drift quite some time ago but never got around to reading it, as much as i have been (for the most part) impressed with the novels off of CJ Tudor. this one was quite good, but tends to have an overall feel of the author concentrating more on a narrative trick, less on a comprehensively great story to tell. and now a glorious *** SPOILER WARNING *** for you all for the rest of this. 

commencing where i did with reading this, as i possibly alluded to in the last post of this nature, and that's The Golden Library off of Scott Mariani. as you can likely see from the supposedly psychedelic image of the cover somewhere near this text. for provenance this was likely bought at Tesco, but maybe not as a "book of the week". usually these Mariani novels get sold even (or "fewer") cheaper at Tesco the first week they are out, so long as you purchase an edition of the daily mail or similar newspaper. 

plot? Ben Hope is just chilling in a posh, luxurious mansion in Switzerland, as one does, ahead of his sister's wedding when his future brother in law's sister goes "missing" somewhere in a rural province of China. so off he, and his future brother in law, go to either find or rescue her.......

quite a bit of my educational (or scholarly) career - not all of it, but a significant percentage - was built on the idea that my presumptions, assumptions and very much off the cuff, on the fly thoughts on a subject were likely to be far more interesting and probably close enough to correct as to suffice instead of using any form of traditional research or fact checking. it never occurred to me, bar one or two isolated incidents, to continue this approach in any sort of employed, paid for capacity. bravo, then, to Mr Mariani for showing this to pretty much work with his curious if not overtly outlandish "assumptions" of what China might be like, how law enforcement and what have you works there and so forth. so formulaic is this novel, like so many in the series (but certainly not all), that i suppose the location doesn't matter that much, but still, some effort into accurate descriptions might have been a nice gesture. 

to my surprise i really enjoyed this one. perhaps i am just in a (more) better frame of mind for relaxing and reading, but all the same i had a distinct sense that the pacing of this one was miles better than the previous, say, three or four. it's all preposterous stuff in it, of course, from the premise to the unlimited resources the protagonist has and on to the rather fortunate conclusion, but still it's fine reading. yes, the one after this is sat in a pile waiting to be read. as far as i can tell one would have had to read most, if not all, of the other novels in the "expanded universe" of Ben Hope for this to make sense. should you have done that, well, i suppose there's no advice i can give. 

so far as i am aware it is that we, people who read, have been threatened with the return of Dan Brown later this year (2025). i think his new one is called The Secret Of Secrets or something, and is due in the ninth month. considering how the overwhelming majority of the Ben Hope novels could feasibly be described as "a bit Da Vinci Code but with more violence" it will be wonderful if the new one from Mr Brown turns out to be "a bit like a second rate Scott Mariani novel". 

from what i can remember The Drift off of CJ Tudor has been sat on my pile of "to read" books for two years, possibly three. i do feel quite bad about that, as there's at least two of hers i remember enjoying a lot. yes, provenance fans, i am certain i got this one from Tesco as a "book of the week" club, costing £4 or £4.50, depending on how much they charged then. strangely i can recall buying a second copy off of Sainsbury's. that one was for William, who(m) i had taken shopping, and he expressed an interest in reading it. not sure he finished it, but he certainly started it. 

and the plot? we are presented with stories from three perspectives. this is during a time when the world is ravaged by a "mystery virus", or if you will plague. like the one we kind of had, i suppose. you know, and remember, that one, which saw people go and do most peculiar things to procure bread at a decent price. getting back to the subject, and the three stories told are of groups of people being trapped - one is in a cable car, one is in a quasi mysterious lodge like building and one is in a crashed bus. as each story progresses we, the reader, may or may not get close to understanding how each story connects or is linked.......

do you recall that i put a *** SPOILER WARNING *** earlier? yes? good, remember that as you read on here. the narrative trick here is that each of the three stories involves at least one common person. so, if you will, it's all a "time displacement" narrative, with you reading three different stories at the same time. should it be so that you've not read the novel but have read this, well, whoops, sorry, that is really all there is here, that's the "big twist". you don't get anything about the virus ("plague"), the reason the novel has the name it does is rather mundane and, well, here we are. it took me a while to clock that was what was going on, and when i did i kind of felt a bit deflated, immediately recalling this style or if you prefer trick, was done fairly recently (and possibly better) by Michel Bussi in Black Water Lilies, my review of which will be somewhere on this blog. 

yet it remained a thoroughly engaging, interesting and rewarding novel to read. this i more or less attribute to the phenomenal writing style of CJ Tudor. even when her novels have not been as great as one had hoped (i think it was Annie Thorne that was a let down, maybe Other People whilst Chalk Man and Burning Girls were masterpieces) the writing draws you in enough to keep reading. her next novel, which looks like it may well be vampire in nature, also sits on the shelf and i will almost certainly be reading it. 

i did have some idea that whilst i wrote this a greater sense of my feelings on the novel would become a bit clearer. not really. at both i feel somewhat impressed by the deployment of an elaborate narrative trick and slightly disappointed that the narrative trick was the true substance of the novel itself. ultimately i would kind of wave this novel around in an english class, for it really is a great example of how one can use a different to the usual narrative style. by no means is that a criticism. 

as it happens i'm about 200 or so (give or take) pages away from finishing reading the second of two novels what i have commenced since the ones featured here. so it's entirely possible that quite soon i shall have read more books this year than i managed in the whole of the last (2024). can't think anyone will be particularly keen or eager to know this, but still, now you do. 

many thanks as ever for reading all of this. or just looking at the pictures.

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!