nigellicus's reviews
1566 reviews

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

informative reflective

5.0

Having been recently diagnosed with adhd (also autism, if you must know) I finally have a better undedtanding of why I've always struggled to read non-fiction. I've sort of assumed it's because it bores me, and that this makes me a bad person. Now I think it's because the tendency of non-fiction to be so interesting keeps sending my brain off in different direction. Two consecutive sentences can contain at least two different things that are intersting in different ways, maning it can tale ten minutes to get past those sentences, and I'll still feel like I haven't actually absorbed them. Fiction is easier, because it's the story I'm interested in. Obviously the writing and the characters have to be good, or else I won't care about the story, but they're in service to the story, and that's what I want to follow.

John Berger's little book is, obviously, packed with interesting things to say about art - so my brain kept wandering off in odd directions and tangents - a lot of which I seem to have absorbed from other sources down the years, clearly it's a hugely influential book, but here they are all together, a foundation for looking at and thinking about art that culminates in an analysis of publicity and advertising that rings true still today, though I wonder if he wrote about the image and art and advertising in the digital age. Also, though he makes wry references to the subject, the relationship of artists to, y'know, money, which keeps them from starving. 

Mystery by Peter Straub

adventurous emotional mysterious tense

5.0

Tom Pasmore becomes a young detective and discovers that the rich, priveleged society he lives in is rotten to the core. Linking modern (well, it's set sometime in the 60s) corruption and crime to a murder from the 1920s uncovers a lot of secrets, some of which he might ptrefer were left covered. I've loved this book since the first time I read it - the young, bookish hero with the unhappy family life, invalided for more than a year by an accident he can barely remember but which shapes his entire life, the mysterious neighbour the old clippings of past misdeeds that haunt the present, the trip to the holiday resort by the lake where danger starts to close in - it's all wonderful, compelling stuff that captures the essense of the muder mystery genre and imbuing it with atmosphere and a complex, pleasing story.

Koko by Peter Straub

adventurous dark mysterious tense

5.0

Ten years after they participate in an atrocity in Vietnam, four veterans reunite at the dedication of the War Memorial to talk about a fifth, Tim Underhill, who appears to be murdering people in South East Asia, and to decide whether to go over there to find him. 

This is my nth reading of this monumental thriller, and I honestly can't remember if I ever fully realised that while the book has a secret hero, it also has a secret villain, that the real monster at the heart of the book, Harry Beevers, is right out there in the open in all his self-regard and mediocrity, tolerated humoured by the others when surely the only rational response to someone who did what he did and got away with it is to put a bullet in his head. In that sense Koko, the serial killer, is the sanest, m

Jaegir: Beasts Within by Gordon Rennie, Simon Coleby, Carl Critchlow

adventurous dark tense

5.0

War on Nu-Earth is hell, but it's where Rogue Trooper calls home, where he runs around killing Norts. from the Nort point of view, things aren't much different, but they've also got the nasty leftovers of geentic experiments to deal with in between investigating numerous war crimes. Rough and tough sci-fi war epic, a fresh take on an old favourite. 

Judge Dredd: Trifecta by Rob Williams, D'Israeli, Henry Flint, Al Ewing, Simon Coleby, Carl Critchlow, Simon Spurrier

adventurous dark tense

5.0

An insanely complicated plot to take over the city needs an insanely complicated counterplot. But is there one? Dredd, the Simping Detective and Dirty Frank, the latter two have or have had their own strips which I am not familiar with, are all part of the story in an inter-title crossover. It's a lot of fun. 

Day Of Chaos: Aftermath by Michael Carroll

adventurous dark

5.0

The feel-bad vibes continue in Mega City One in the aftermath of Day Of Chaos. 

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner

challenging informative reflective

5.0

A demanding and challenging book on writing that makes no apologies for assuming the reader is aiming at a high level and pulls no punches in its assertions about what is required. In that way it's refreshingly no-nonsense and unashamedly intellectual in its approach to literary aesthetics. You don't have to agree or even like his ideas of fiction, but it's a powerful model to work around or against, and it demands and rewards attention and thought. If writing manuals seem to you to be either too cuddly or too prosaic, this is certainly what you're looking for. 

All Art Is Ecological by Timothy Morton

challenging reflective

5.0

Interesting take on how to cope with the ecological crises, the upshot of which seems to be, don't stress about it, you're already coping with them just by being alive. It's an unusual take, I think, and I'm not sure it has much practical use, except maybe in the way it relates to art, which, given the title is fair enough. It resonated, certainly, but his dismissal of truth in favour of truthiness lands differently in the age of disinformation, and the usual finger-wagging about finger-wagging made me roll my eyes, but it's a rich dive into thought, perception and responses, and I didn't really understand at least half of it. 

Irish Lake Marvels: Mysteries, Legends and Lore by John Dunne

informative

5.0

Handy little collection of lake based myths and legends. As usual this sort of thing suffers, because so many of the stories are repetitive or fragmentary. Particularly annoying are the little Christian add-ons to classic tales. Sometimes it works, as in the Oisin story: that comes to its proper end, but later he meet St Patrick and tells his tale, that works as an addition. Mostly though it's 'a Saint turned up at the very end and so they all went to Heaven, completely undermining the pathos of their tragedies and suffering.' Saints are really annoying. There's one good monk story, though, and some of the more interesting stuff turns up much more recently than the ancient legends, like the British officer who tried to flush out a lake monster by setting off an explosion, or the guy who took a picture of a lake monster and whose Dad was pals with Aleister Crowley. Indeed, the richest vein comes in the final section of assorted ephemera, poitin stills, Barisal guns, rare trout species, and the coda about water quality is well taken, but has been largely ignored, alas. 

Europe at Dawn by Dave Hutchinson

adventurous dark mysterious tense

5.0

Having finished Europe In Winter I dived in to Europe At Dawn without pause. Rudi has stopped being exasperated, now he's angry. Angry Rudi doesn't get even want revenge. Angry Rudi is trying to Sort It Out. But first, a Scottish diplomatic aide has her life derailed by a folk group and a martyr's head, and a young refugee on a crowded Mediterrannean island fishes something out of the sea that will change his life. Long boats set sail down the canals of England, Heathrow airport gets stranded in another dimension, almost sparking a war and causing numerous logistical headaches, and two guards on a deserted railway line see wolves in the trees, even though a disease wiped out all the wolves years ago. The final volume of the series delivers on expectations. Quotidian lives slipping into strangeness and falling apart. Unconnected events and stories sit enigmatially side by side until the end draws them all together to make a sort of sense of them all. And Rudi just tries to do his best to make sure it doesn't all go horribly wrong. Wronger. An excellent ending to an excellent series.