Book Addicts Main

Just a quick reminder that this month we are reading and talking about The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides.  Both fantastic books and both discussions have just started so there’s plenty of time to join in.

In December we can look forward to 1984 by George Orwell and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

Both The Virgin Suicides and Into the Wild will also have a book-to-movie discussion included.

Also this month we are featuring the Richard and Judy New Writers Club book, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama, which is described as Jane Austen in India.  I have reservations that anything should be compared to Jane Austen but we’ll see.  Grab it and check it out for yourself, it looks like quite a quick read, and is apparently the start of a new series.

The December book for this New Writers Club is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.  Don’t even get me started on the trouble I went through to get this book with the cover I wanted lol.  First edition was out in June, second edition with hideous cover came out in October, and quite honestly I wouldn’t want to read a book with a cover like that, so I made it my mission to track down a copy of the edition with the cover I liked (it is btw now out of print but you might still be able to find it in individual bookshops)  I know I know, don’t judge a book by its cover :p

Paranormal Social Club

The votes have been counted and the results are in, and November’s PSC book is Pleasure Unbound (A demonica novel) by Larissa Ione.  A book that is apparently full of wit and wicked hot demons!  First book in a brand new series, so come and join us.

What I’ve been reading

What I’ve been reading recently includes The Time Traveler’s Wife both in print form and as an audio book and I have to say that it is the best audio book I’ve “listened to” in ages.  The narrators were superb, completely faultless and utterly compelling.  I was just blown away and listened to it for 18 hours!!! There is also an abridged version but I just hate abridged books.  Just started on The Virgin Suicides for the book group and just finished the third instalment of David Wellington’s excellent vampire series, Vampire Zero.   Horror is not usually my thing and these are classed as horror/thriller.  I discovered them accidentally when browsing on Amazon and the second one was recommended to me.  I liked the cover, then discovered it was a sequel and hunted down the first book.  Kept them on the shelf for about a year lol before finding them again (there’s a lot of books there and a chair in front).  Read the first and the second and then couldn’t wait for the third one to be published here and ordered it from the US.  The vampires are not sexy, they are bloodthirsty fiends.  There are no superpowerful female characters, and no other type of supernatural creatures at all.  There are just cops and state troopers doing the best they can with what they have.  There is quite a lot of death and blood and gore but nothing to give you nightmares, they are really pretty exciting!  The books are:

13 Bullets
99 Coffins
Vampire Zero
23 Hours (is due out next year)

99 Coffins is an interesting book because it is billed as a historical vampire novel and it’s set in Gettysburg, so there is a lot in it about the civil war including flashbacks and historical references.

A bit more about the author I think is in order too since he’s very generous with his writing.  If you go to his website you will be able to read approximately six of his books online for free.  Yes, FREE.  Some of his books including 13 Bullets started off life as online serials which he wrote as a kind of test to see if it would work.  He has also written three zombie novels in the same way which are all available to read for free on his site, as well as for purchase in printed form.  Monster Island, Monster Nation, and Monster Planet - I think the titles might be an indication of how bad things get lol.  There is also another couple of books on there too, one called Plague Zone which features a Seattle librarian as its hero, and Frostbitten, a werewolf novel, which I am currently reading inbetween everything else, and it’s the first of his books that I’m reading for free on his site.  I’m about a third of the way through and I’m liking it so far.  Interesting take on the werewolf mythology.

Oh yeah and I forgot to upload a new audio to my phone so I got caught on the train yesterday with nothing new to read, so I started listening to American Gods again. It’s not Mr Gaiman narrating this time but the dude who is reading it is just perfect.  Another audio I would highly recommend.  I’m slowing collecting all of his audio books, so far I have six - The Graveyard book, Fragile Things, Stardust all read by the author, and Good Omens, Anansi Boys and American Gods.  On some of them there are some great interviews with Neil Gaiman which are just such a bonus to listen to.  The Anansi Boys is read by an British Comedian/actor called Lenny Henry who is very well known here but maybe not be so well known overseas.  He is just brilliant with all the Caribbean accents and really brings a unique flavour to the book.  I would of course, recommend them all

And now I need to go read more…

In case you don’t know already, let me preface this post by telling you all that I am a BIG Neil Gaiman fan.  So it is with great excitement that I have to tell you to run out and buy the audio book version of his latest book - The Graveyard Book.  This is one of his children’s books, or as Mr Gaiman likes to call them, a book for all ages.  The printed book comes in a range of cover options, and was released a few weeks ago.  The audio version was released on Thursday (30th) and I downloaded mine from Audible.co.uk yesterday.

Why am I so excited about this?  Well I’ll tell ya.  It’s because this particular book has Neil Gaiman himself as the narrator.  He doesn’t always do this (Stardust yes, American Gods and Anansi Boys no) so when I saw he was the narrator I snapped it up.  The main reason being he has such a wonderful voice for reading aloud, and he’s a natural storyteller, so even if he was reading a shopping list it would be interesting, but since he’s reading one of his own books, it is a delight!  It is also one of those rare opportunities to hear the author read the book the way they intended it to be read, so I would thoroughly recommend this audio book to everyone who loves to listen to a good story being read by a wonderful author.

Also available in printed form with a variety of covers including the one on the left by Dave McKean.

Here’s some info about the book:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.  He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.  But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family. . . .

Happy Halloween!

First things first, I need to remind everyone who is a Book Addicts Book Group member that you only have until Sunday 2nd November, to vote for the books you want to read with the group next year.  So get voting people if you want to be heard.

Ok, so now on with November book group information.

We are reading three books this month, all very different.  Here are the details.

Stephen King - Eyes of the Dragon

Hosted by Snapesgirl

Discussion starts officially tomorrow but may kick off earlier.

Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler’s Wife

Hosted by Ginger

Discussion starts officially on the 8th November.  Please try to read as much of the book as you can before the discussion gets under way.

Jeffrey Eugenides - The Virgin Suicides

Hosted by Forgotten

This one will start around the 15th of November, and once again, please try to read as much of the book as possible before the discussion starts, or at least endeavour to make a start!

Click on the book covers for more information about the books.

Ok, this is not a site about TV shows, nor is it a site about Richard and Judy, but I do have an interest in the show where it concerns books and the book club, so I have been monitoring the ratings.

Here’s the latest:

Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan’s new chatshow on digital channel Watch has averaged just 47,000 viewers since it launched a fortnight ago, with its lowest rating episode pulling in only 21,000.

The show, Richard and Judy’s New Position, launched with a big publicity campaign on new UKTV channel Watch at 8pm on Tuesday October 7, when it attracted 100,000 viewers.

However, for the following four days Richard and Judy’s ratings dropped quite dramatically, to 53,000 on the Wednesday, then 45,000 on the Thursday, 37,000 on the Friday and 32,000 on the Monday.

Ratings improved on Tuesday October 14, to 53,000, but then fell again to 48,000 the following day and 44,000 on the Thursday, perking up slightly on the Friday with 46,000.

Madeley and Finnigan’s new Watch show fell to its lowest ratings so far on Monday last week, October 20, with just 21,000 viewers tuning in.

Things picked up on Tuesday last week, with 49,000, but fell again to 33,000 on Wednesday before jumping to 58,000 on Thursday - the show’s best performance since its launch night.

However, things again deteriorated on Friday when the show gained just 35,000.

The final edition of Madeley and Finnigan’s Channel 4 daytime chatshow attracted 1.5 million viewers on Friday August 22.

On certain days since it launched, Richard and Judy’s New Position was beaten by other multichannel services such as The Military History Channel, Discovery Knowledge, Zone Reality and the Crime and Investigation Channel.

When the ratings for time-shift channel Watch +1 are added in, the show hit a high of 143,000 for its launch night, with its worst performance coming on October 20 with just 31,000.

UKTV defended the show’s performance, saying it needed time to grow.

“We are very proud of Richard & Judy’s New Position,” the UKTV controller, Matthew Littleford, said.

“It’s a great show - extremely well made, full of the inimitable Richard and Judy magic and a very high calibre of guests. We’ve already had the likes of Helen Mirren, Samuel L Jackson and Josh Harnett and have some fantastic bookings coming up,” Littleford added.

“Like all great shows, from The One Show to the Big Breakfast, it takes time for a show to bed in and we are very confident that ratings will rise as awareness about the show grows.”

A UKTV spokeswoman said that since its launch, the show had reached 2,272,000 people and had brought 304,000 new viewers to the UKTV network.

She added that its ABC1 profile peaked at 80.3% on Thursday October 9 and had averaged 56.6% at 8pm since its launch.

In terms of 16- to 34-year-olds, Richard and Judy’s New Position peaked at 34.4% on the same day and had averaged 18.9%.

Watch is not available on Freeview but can be seen on both Virgin Media’s cable TV service and Sky’s digital satellite offering, where it is on the front page of the electronic programme guide.

The show was not helped after “technical delays” meant Watch was put in Virgin Media’s premium XL channel package instead of its standard L package for a full week after its launch, meaning more than a million cable customers were unable to access it.

Watch finally launched on the L package on October 15. (from the Guardian)

In my opinion, this is a disaster especially for the very well loved and influential Book Club.  People aren’t watching the show, people are therefore not feeling the connection, or the Richard and Judy love, and therefore this is hurting the book club!!!

The first title in the New Writers Book Club (Mudbound by Hilary Jordan) is not even in the Official UK Top 50!  Perhaps the Daily Mail should have kept their book club separate instead of hooking up with R & J.  What a disaster it has been so far.  (Yes I know that’s only the first book, but you know, by this stage the book would have been in the top 10 with the old book club).  Where is the promotion?  Where are the in-store displays?  I’ve seen the book in one shop and that was a supermarket three weeks after it was published!

The other problem is that the Richard and Judy Book Club forum is still down!  Apparently it will return in time for the Christmas book selection but will anyone care by then?

DO SOMETHING

This is not a criticism, this is a cry for help.  Do something before you screw up years of hard work and lose the supporters you had who are now 1. cut off from the show unless they subscribe to satellite or cable TV packages, and 2. cut off from the only official outlet they had for discussing the books!

We have been reading and discussing Mudbound on our forum, and we enjoyed the book overall.  We will soon start our discussion of The Marriage Bureau for Rich People, even though on the face of it, it’s not really the kind of book we would usually pick up.  We are at least willing to make an effort and give it the benefit of the doubt.  I have one sitting right here on the desk.

Forum Admins, Richard and Judy producers, get your act together before you lose the support of your loyal members and fans!  btw if you need any tips drop me a line!

Published all over the Amazon site today was the announcement that they are probably laughing all the way to the bank about and why not!

“Someone” sent Oprah an Amazon Kindle as  gift and guess what, she loves it, and has given it her blessing.  I guess that means tears before bedtime for the Sony Reader and the Iliad book reader.  Here’s what she said

This summer, Oprah received a gift that she says changed her life. “It’s absolutely my new favorite favorite thing in the world,” she says.

Meet the Amazon Kindle™, a wireless portable reading device with instant access to more than 190,000 books, blogs, newspapers and magazines. Whether you’re in bed or on the train, Kindle lets you think of a book and get it in less than a minute.

Although the Amazon Kindle costs $359, Oprah looks at it as an environmentally friendly investment. “I know it’s expensive in these times, but it’s not frivolous because it will pay for itself,” she says. “The books are much cheaper, and you’re saving paper.” New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases are $9.99 or less, unless otherwise marked.

As a special offer for Oprah Show viewers, Amazon.com is giving $50 off the price of Kindle. Enter the promotional code OPRAHWINFREY during the checkout process at Amazon.com to receive the discount. This offer is valid through November 1, 2008 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

Code for $50 off the price of Kindle: OPRAHWINFREY

Go to Amazon.com to learn more and order your Kindle today!

Plus, you will receive an additional 10 percent off the price of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (regularly $9.99 Kindle/$17.63 hardcover). No promotional code is necessary.

The above was taken from Oprah’s website

Kindle already has over 5000 customer reviews on the amazon.com site.  I can’t wait to see what happens now - especially if she announces the next Oprah book club book will be an Amazon Kindle book!

My big question is though, when will amazon.co.uk start selling a UK version of the Kindle complete with built-in wireless delivery of ebooks from Amazon?

Please do whatever it is you are doing in the US with this and please don’t partner up with any telecommunications companies in the UK or you just lost your #1 customer.  Keep it simple and keep it free.

No UK Kindle before Christmas

Well this is a blow, but as per my previous post, not very surprising as I knew they would have problems here with the sheer number of WiFi carriers (not a problem in the US as there is only one apparently)

This is the latest from the Frankfurt Bookfair:

Amazon will not launch its Kindle e-book reader in the UK until after Christmas as it attempts to sign up Wi-Fi partners around Europe, it has been revealed.

Rumours that Amazon.com was poised to launch the device in Europe—with the Frankfurt Book Fair the launch venue—have been circulating. However, fair-goers hoping for an early sighting of the popular device will be disappointed. Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon in the UK, said it was not yet clear when the Kindle would launch in the country. He said it was likely to be some time next year, given the complexity of signing up the many partners needed to support Europe-wide Wi-Fi access.

“The Kindle is based on wireless technology. If you need agreement with carriers in the US, there is one carrier. In Europe it is a minefield as there are so many operators. If you buy a Kindle in the UK and want to read it on the beach on holiday in Spain, unless we have signed deals in Spain it is not going to work on that beach,” he said.

The Kindle, which enables the download of books wirelessly from the internet, uses a free wireless service called whispernet provided by the Sprint EVDO network. The device has become popular in the US, and is expected to sell around 380,000 units this year.

Sony launched its e-reader in the UK in an exclusive deal with Waterstone’s last month. However, McBride was sanguine about the competition. He said the e-book market remained small and he was not concerned about losing first-mover advantage. “This is us building long-term business growth routes in the UK and it is not that important for us to enter a green field,” At a seminar held in Frankfurt yesterday Amazon.com promoted the Kindle device to international publishers, saying they could use it to get their books to US users. When asked about a European version, the e-tailer declined to comment on the “speculation”.

If you buy a Kindle in the UK and want to read it on the beach on holiday in Spain, unless we have signed deals in Spain it is not going to work on that beach,” he said.

What he means is surely that the downloading of books won’t work, not that the Kindle won’t work since I expect that most people going on holiday would have downloaded the books to the device before they left home - or at least while waiting around at the airport - not wait till they were on the beach.  And what about all that sand getting into your Kindle?  Surely that’s not very practical.  With a paperback beach read you just shake and go, with an electronic book reader?  I’m not sure I would risk it to be honest.

Expected sales of 380,000 Kindles?  Even at a quick fag packet calculation, that’s a cool US$133 million in sales.  So much for “the e-book market remaining small” uh huh.

Mudbound is about people, relationships, and racism set in a 1940s Mississippi backdrop. If you have read any American history or any fiction based in the South during this time period, then some of the issues in this book will be quite familiar to you. I appreciate that not everyone will be aware of just how bad the racism was at that time, or that from the 19th century into the 1950s, most US states enforced anti-miscegenation laws, so in that respect this book might be a real eye-opener if these things were unclear or unknown to you beforehand.

Mudbound is the name of the farm but it is also a metaphor. All the people in the book are stuck, some of them are trying to climb out of the mud and others are being sucked further into the mud, others are quite happy rolling around in it. The novel has a multi-narrator point of view, meaning that it switches from character to character for each chapter. There are six characters that are allowed to tell the story, and the concept of who has a voice and who is allowed or not allowed to use it, is definitely interesting, especially relating to what happens to one of them during the course of the novel. I would say that you do have to pay attention to the chapter titles, especially at the beginning, so you are clear on who is speaking. The beginning of the book for example, I assumed was voiced by Laura (since the story implied it was about Laura and Henry)until she turns up in page 6 and I realise that it’s actually the younger brother who is speaking in this first chapter. Pay attention to the chapter headings to avoid any confusion!

The book is narrated by Laura, her husband Henry, his brother Jamie, and the tenant farmers; Hap and Florence, and later their son Ronsel when he returns from fighting in WWII. By far the most interesting narration comes from Florence, Ronsel and perhaps Laura. Henry is a character that held no interest to me and all through the book I was hoping Laura would leave him and run off with Jamie or just go back to her parents house if only for the indoor plumbing! I’m really glad that Pappy, the grandfather, was not given a voice, as I think those chapters would have made my skin crawl.

Despite the multi point of view, I really believe this is a book aimed at women. I don’t think it’s a book that would speak to the majority of men. It is basically the story of what happens to city-dwelling Laura, when her husband uproots her from her comfortable existence in her family home in Memphis, and deposits her unceremoniously in the mudbound farm of the same name. In 2008, it’s really hard to put yourself in Laura’s shoes, to understand how accepting she was of everything and how little choice she had, and how much she was required to obey her husband. Personally I would never have put up with Henry, and would have refused to go live in a shack in the middle of nowhere, especially considering this came completely out of the blue. Henry had never shared his ambition to be a farmer with Laura until the day he announces he has bought a farm!

All of the southern white characters are racist to some degree. Some are more racist than other, ranging from Pappy who is so full of hate it is palpable, to Jamie who is a little more open-minded than the rest about some things, but who still believes interracial sex is wrong. Remember it was still against the law - between 1913 and 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws! It can be a little hard to read, and it is truly offensive in some parts and incredulous in others, but what happens in the book is really quite mild in comparison to what happened in reality.

The ending was a little predictable and that was a disappointment. There were also some not so subtle hints of what was to come dotted through the book, so that even from the first few pages you already knew what to expect and really it was just a matter of reading on until they happened. The problems with the end of the book make it seem anti-climactic after the “tragic climax” making it feel almost rushed in an attempt to tidy up any loose ends quickly. Yet this is a very readable worthy book with some important messages about racism and humanity as well as some real insight in to life in the Delta sixty odd years ago.

Is it a good choice for the first Richard and Judy New Writers Book Club? Well, it has already won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded biennially to a debut novel that addresses issues of social justice. It was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick for summer 2008, a Borders Original Voices selection, a Book Sense pick, and one of twelve New Voices of 2008 chosen by Waterstone’s UK, so yeah I think it was a good choice and a pretty safe bet.

I read the hardcover edition of this book as I had a gift voucher for Waterstones and they had this in stock and I didn’t want to wait another week for the paperback. (In hindsight this was a good choice as I still haven’t seen it in any bookstores around here!) I give this book 7 out of 10 for being an engrossing and compelling read.  Points deducted for lack of originality and some predictability.

Rating:

If you liked this book, then I would recommend The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, In The Fall by Jeffrey Lent; or if you would like to try some non-fiction; There is a River : The Black Struggle for Freedom in America by Vincent Harding.

As reported in the Telegraph yesterday, the ratings for the debut show of the new program, Richard and Judy’s New Position, was only 100,000 viewers.  This is indeed a far cry from the 1.5 million viewers who tuned into Channel 4 to watch their farewell show in August.

Their latest chat show, Richard and Judy’s New Position, is broadcast on new UKTV channel Watch in an evening slot.

Little Britain star David Walliams and Hollywood actor Samuel L Jackson were the first guests, but they failed to bring in the viewers.

In the same 8pm timeslot, BBC1’s Big Cat Live was watched by an audience of 4.8 million, while 4.3 million tuned in for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on ITV1.

I am one of the 1.5 million who watched the final show on Channel 4 but unfortunately not one of the 100,000 who watched the first show on Watch.  The reason for that is simple and I think it’s the case for a lot of other people - I don’t have satellite or cable TV - so it would be impossible to watch Watch, even if I wanted to!  I think this is a very bad move, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that where Watch is and what Watch is, has really been a bit unclear and not promoted well at all.  Watch is of course not a new channel as such but a renamed channel.  It used to be called UKTV Gold+1 but someone at UKTV has taken some kind of weird medication and renamed all their channels (who can forget Dave!) so now we have Watch, which probably no one can find, and Alibi which used to be so clearly defined as UKTV Drama *sigh*

What really concerns me most of all is that the show is the driving force behind the Book Club.  If no one, or ok, “less people” are watching the show then does that follow that less people will be buying the books, and therefore less people will be reading (again).  Maybe bookstores will come to the rescue with suitable promotion, and punters will see large R & J Book Club displays and flock to the cash registers anyway, but I worry that without being able to tune in and watch R & J and a host of celebs endorsing the books, people will lose that personal connection they believe they have and the book club will die a slow and painful death.  That makes me very sad.

So Richard and Judy’s New Position is now well and truly launched, with the first book being reviewed last night and no doubt 100s of enthusiastic book lovers rushing to their book club site to talk about it… but uh oh, now, yes right now is the time when they decide to do a little “site maintenance” and the book club forum is no longer there.

In fact the exact message I got tonight was:

yup, so whatever they’ve done, they seem to have taken the forum down to do it, and just when people are bursting to talk about the new books.  It’s a mystery to me, but you know, as a forum Admin, even if you are doing a bit of “site maintenance” you really should have the courtesy and common sense to have some kind of reassuring message displayed when you reach the site - especially for the none techies - and not one that basically says there’s no website there.  Ah well, meanwhile, we are still talking about the first of the New Writers Book Club books - Mudbound by Hillary Jordan - and have to say, that the book is really quite good and is being well received by our members.  Surprised to not see it plastered all over WH Smith, Waterstones and especially Tesco as yet but I guess it’s really only been out in paperback for a week or so and several months in hardcover.  Maybe they’ll be more on the ball for next month’s book, and who knows, perhaps the forum will also be available by then!

The latest newsletter is now available. Inside this month’s newsletter are the details of the three books we are discussing this month with the Paranormal Social Club:

Information about the November and December groups can be found in the newsletter and on the forum and we are also starting a new strand to the book group; the Richard and Judy “new writers” books , starting off with the three books announced for the rest of this year:

We are also looking for suggestions for books for next year’s discussions, announcing the new reading challenges for 2009 and of course, for all these new books, we will be looking for hosts!

In the Writing Group we have a Halloween themed writing contest and in the Movie Club, the movie this month is The Jane Austen Book Club.

To download the newsletter in .pdf format either navigate to the

> Book Addicts Book Group > Newsletters page or click here