Author: Michael @ Knowledge Lost

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Posted May 20, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Thriller / 0 Comments

Title: Into the Darkest Corner (Goodreads)
Author: Elizabeth Haynes
Published: Myriad, 2011
Pages: 403
Genres: Thriller
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Cathy’s relationship with Lee seems good to begin with, but as his true self starts to emerge, the more she is pushed into the darkest corner. This is a story of a very abusive relationship and the chilling effects it has on Catherine. Lee is controlling, abusive and thinks he is smart enough to get away with it; but can he?

Written in two parts, Into the Darkest Corner slowly unfolds the destructive relationship between Cathy and Lee. It also includes the story four years after, showing the damage done to Cathy which has left her isolated, suffering from OCD and post traumatic stress. The two different time periods are written in a slightly different format showing the chilling tale of a woman slowly slipping into her darkest corner, then showing her trying to recover from all the damage. The two different writing styles are what makes this book so haunting; it’s like watching a car crash, you can see Cathy’s happy and party-like attitude slowly dissolving.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s dark, chilling and very disturbing; it was sickening at times but still an exciting novel to read. I had real pleasure reading something so dark; not often do you find a book so disturbing and yet so enjoyable to read. While I think this book was really good, I couldn’t recommend it to anyone that might freak out or identify with Cathy too closely. This is not a light book and definitely not for overly emotional or the faint of heart. I was really impressed with Elizabeth Haynes’ debut novel Into the Darkest Corner and I can’t wait to read her next book.

The Hardest Working Fake Author

Posted May 19, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

Richard Castle may be the hardest working fake author around. What seems like a great marketing strategy has seemed to take off on its own. While the Nikki Heat books seem to show up in the TV show Castle, now there is a new series to help people get a better understanding of Richard Castle’s best known character (according to the fans in the show) Derrick Storm. I’ve read a few of the Nikki Heat books now; and while I find them to be gimmicky, as a fan of the TV show, it was nice to read a book that tells a story that you don’t see on the show. Well that was with the first book Heat Wave; when I read Naked Heat, I did think it was so similar to the show that I felt like I knew the story already.

So most people may already know Richard Castle is the fictional author and protagonist of the TV show Castle and is portrayed by Nathan Fillion. Heat Wave was the first book released by this fictional author; it was released on September 29, 2009, and debuted at #26 on the New York Times Best Seller list. In its 4th week on the list, Heat Wave broke into the top 10 at #6. Now they have started a Derrick Storm series (not just the graphic novels) which takes a new direction from this marketing strategy; not promoting the show so much. A Brewing Storm tells the story of a spy coming out of retirement to help find the kidnapped stepson of a high ranking politician. While the book is short, it was interesting to get a better sense of the character that makes Richard Castle a bestselling author (in the show).

Richard Castle isn’t the only TV author to release a book; Hanky Moody of Californication has also released a book called God Hates Us All. Later this year Richard Castle will be releasing two more Derrick Storm books as well as the forth book in the Nikki Heat series; Frozen Heat.

The Red House by Mark Haddon

Posted May 18, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: The Red House (Goodreads)
Author: Mark Haddon
Published: Jonathan Cape, Random House, 2012
Pages: 272
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: ARC from Publisher

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

It’s hard to review a book like this; Mark Haddon is a very talented writer and he has some brilliant techniques employed into this novel. However, I can’t help comparing this book to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and ultimately I think this book lacked something to make this book great. With the huge success of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I can’t help but think that Mark Haddon has gotten overly confident with his writing. While it was refreshing and enjoyable to read a book with so many interesting writing techniques; I never really connected with the plot or the characters. I was so excited about reading another book by this author and I feel I made a rookie mistake by going into a book with such high expectations.

The Red House is the story about a well off physician, Richard, and his new family (recently married a woman with a sixteen year old daughter) taking a vacation. Richard invites his sister Angela and family to join them as they hadn’t seen each other since the funeral of their mother, fifteen years ago. Angela’s husband Dominic and three children are not as well off as Richard and took advantage of the offer as they wouldn’t be able to afford a vacation any other way. Together for a week in a rented cottage in Wales starts to show the cracks in everyone’s relationship and exposes just how dysfunctional the family really is.

Mark Haddon is contently switching between narrators in this book, I think I counted eight different points of views throughout this book (might be more) and one of those was an all-seeing third person narrative. With the narrative always changing and each character only giving a glimpse of an insight, this book started off a little confusing and hard to keep track of all of the main characters. One thing I’ve found that Haddon did in this book as well as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time that I really liked was that he wasn’t afraid to expose the inner voice of each character and allowing the reader an insight into the flaws and thoughts of each one of the characters. There were also a lot of references to pop-culture within this book that was quite enjoyable to read; especially all the references to each book the main characters were reading.

The Red House was actually a nice easy read and I was surprised how fast I got through this book; this could have been all the blank pages throughout the book. While I never really connected with this book the writing styles used throughout this book were interesting and almost experimental at times. Some of it worked and some of didn’t, I think Mark Haddon was overly confident when he wrote this book and it seemed to come through in the novel. I’m sure many people will love and enjoy this book and don’t let my opinion stop you from reading it. For me I struggled making that connection and I tried and tried to enjoy this book but it just didn’t quite get there.

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

Posted May 16, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Dystopia, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: Super Sad True Love Story (Goodreads)
Author: Gary Shteyngart
Published: Random House, 2010
Pages: 334
Genres: Dystopia, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

While this may be a story of a modern relationship; there is so much more in the novel worth exploring. This Dystopian American back drop mixed with some very interesting concepts; including the fact everyone is ranked based on their Finances, Personality, Attractiveness and Fuckablilty, makes this a fresh and different style of novel. Gary Shteyngart offers a witty and very humorous novel but this book goes much deeper than this; I found many interesting concepts in this book, which were well thought out and made for an opportunity to make in-depth conversations based on this book.

By reading this review you are denying the existences of this review.

Question Tuesday: Why a Book Blog?

Posted May 15, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments

I’ve been writing in my cultural blog for a few years and I love exploring everything to do with Art, Culture, Literature, Philosophy and even Poetry. But I’ve found myself writing more and more about literature, so rather than overloading Knowledge Lost with literature posts I started this book blog as a way for me to do all my bookish posts and to document my literary journey. While I do have dreams of becoming a book critic, this blog was more of an outlet for all my literary thoughts and a good place for me to practice my reviewing and writing. I do plan to continue posting on my cultural blog and you will probably see some posts that will show up on both blogs but this blog will be very bookish and hopefully the perfect outlet for me to talk books with myself and others.

Knowledge, Truth & The Encyclopédie

Posted May 14, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Culture / 5 Comments

Often when we think of the concept of ‘truth’, we tend to think about knowledge. Nowadays we have been getting a little lazy when looking for truth, by using Google or Wikipedia; before these tools we often went to the encyclopaedia. In 1750 France, two people took on a task to change the way we think; the project was called Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres, mis en ordre par M. Diderot de l’Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Prusse, et quant à la partie mathématique, par M. d’Alembert de l’Académie royale des Sciences de Paris, de celle de Prusse et de la Société royale de Londres (Encyclopaedia: or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts, by a Company of Men of Letters, arranged by M. Diderot of the Academy of Sciences and Belles-lettres of Prussia: as to the Mathematical Portion, arranged by M. d’Alembert of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, to the Academy of Sciences in Prussia and to the Royal Society of London).

Originally the Cyclopedia which was a project by Ephraim Chambers in 1728 but this was abandoned and Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert set out to create an entirely new encyclopaedia. Apart from editing and compiling Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert were contributors; Diderot helped with economics, mechanical arts, philosophy, politics and religion and d’Alembert with contemporary affairs, mathematics, philosophy, religion and science. Some of the most notable contributors of this project also included;

Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton for natural history
Baron d’Holbach for science (mainly chemistry and mineralogy), politics and religion
Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt for economics, literature, medicine and politics
Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle for mathematics
Jean-Jacques Rousseau for music and political theory
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune for economics, etymology, philosophy and physics
Voltaire for history, literature and philosophy

Modern society owes a lot to the age of Enlightenment and this Encyclopaedia project; not only did it change the way we find knowledge in the search for truth but it also created a global standard of cataloguing and preserving our knowledge. In the words of Denis Diderot himself;

“The goal of an encyclopaedia is to assemble the knowledge scattered far and wide on the surface of the earth, to expose its general system to our fellow men with whom we live and to transmit it to those who will follow us, so that […] our sons, by becoming more educated, might become at the same time more virtuous and happy.”

While this was not the only encyclopaedia at the time or even before (Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopedia in London and Novalis’ Enzyklopädie in German) the Encyclopédie project seems to be the one that is more often referred to when looking at the history of the encyclopaedia. This could be effects of the Age of Enlightenment and its reputation with knowledge and truth, or it could be the fact that it is often referred to as the intellectual preparation for the French Revolution. However I think it was more to do with the famous “preliminary discourse” written by Jean Le Rond d’Alembert which explored the structure of the encyclopaedia articles as well as the background of the learned men that wrote each article. The significance of this is the ability to check the credibility of each article and quite possibly the start of referencing.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Posted May 13, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: The Sense of an Ending (Goodreads)
Author: Julian Barnes
Published: Jonathan Cape, 2011
Pages: 150
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Hardcover

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

When I see a book that is only 150 pages, I automatically think the book won’t have much to offer, but then I remember some great novellas like, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and now Julian Barnes’s A Sense of an Ending. Winner of this year’s Man Booker prize A Sense of an Ending is the story I always wanted an angsty book about the teenage years to be like. I think back to Catcher in the Rye and think The Sense of an Ending is everything that classic should have been, all Catcher left me with was the need to slap Holden repeatedly.

The book follows the story of Tony Webster forty years later who receives an unexpected letter which leads him to remember his life forty years ago. The obsession with girls he had, his very first relationship and the memories of talking about philosophy, classical music and literature with his friends. This book is beautifully written, it was a real pleasure to read; it was intelligent, witty and I’d highly recommend it to everyone.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Posted May 11, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Young Adult / 0 Comments

“How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” — Simón Bolívar

Title: Looking For Alaska (Goodreads)
Author: John Green
Published: Puffin, 2005
Pages: 221
Genres: Young Adult
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

I don’t think I’ve ever started a review with a quote, but these famous last words really are relevant to this book. Looking for Alaska tells the story of Miles; a kid obsessed with memorising famous last words. He is leaving a school where he has no friends to go to a boarding school. The reason; well according to Miles it is because of François Rabelais’ famous last words “I go to seek a Great Perhaps”. At this new school Miles experiences a lot of firsts, first friends, first cigarette, first kiss, first love and first heartbreak.

Alaska is the beautiful girl that Miles has a crush on and I can see why; she is a great character. She is an outspoken book nerd who, while she can get rather emotional, is the kind of female friend every high school boy dreams of having; obsessed with sex, flirting and teasing but ultimately one of the guys. But the thing I liked about Miles and Alaska (as well as the other characters) is their emotions and the way they act seem so familiar. It is easy to connect and understand what they are going through. It is hard to get the emotions right, and make them feel real; I know most YA books miss this completely but John Green makes it look so easy.

I really connected with Looking For Alaska, and I could probably talk about the awkwardness of the characters (including the awkward blow job), the views on religion and philosophy and even the pranks and mischief they get up to; but I will leave that for the readers to discover. I think the main thing I took away from this book is the fact that John Green wrote a book exactly like the stories I’ve attempted to write when I was in high school. The feeling of loneliness, being a geek, having a crush; Green captured this perfectly and he showed me how an expert writes a YA book about love and lost. I know I’ve been on a bit of a John Green kick lately, I’ve even been watching his YouTube channel constantly but I don’t think this will stop anytime soon, I can’t wait to read another one of his books.

Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan

Posted May 9, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Horror / 0 Comments

Title: Talulla Rising (Goodreads)
Author: Glen Duncan
Series: Bloodlines #2
Published: Knopf Doubleday, 2012
Pages: 368
Genres: Horror
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Glen Duncan’s back with the follow up to the brilliant 2011 novel The Last Werewolf. I’ve been looking forward to see how the story continues as I personally felt the last novel left off with a bit of a cliff-hanger. Talulla Rising continues the story, now from the point of view of Talulla Demetriou; an exciting strong female protagonist, whom I loved simply because she is both kick-ass and full of inner torment. The novel kicks off with a brief look back at Talulla’s life before being turned, a slightly too small of a glimpse but enough to give you an idea of the type of woman she was before becoming a werewolf.

Like the last novel, Talulla Rising continues the memoir style; not only is there a focus on the inner struggle between the human and wolf side but now Talulla has her mother’s side thrown into the mix. WOCOP (World Organisation for the Control of Occult Phenomena) have taken Talulla’s newly born son and she is racing to save him before he is used in a horrible blood-drinking ritual. While she is trying to get her son back she is still getting hunted by WOCOP (as Glen Duncan puts it in the book, think CIA meets Keystone Kops meets Spanish Inquisition) as well. As the story progresses you get a sense of just how twisted this organisation.

Talulla Rising is a fast paced, exciting novel; dark, gritty and over sexed. I really love how Glen Dunan takes a popular genre that has been selling well and makes it literary and enjoyable to read again. If the constant excitement of this novel doesn’t keep you going then the dark humour throughout this book will. From the slight pokes of other authors in literature to Talualla remembering that her first human tasted like onions and whiskey; the humour in this book was pleasing. But when it comes done to it, in the end, the thing I loved the most about this book and the one that come before this, is the internal struggle; there is something about that that always pleases me. I’m looking forward to seeing how Glen Duncan wraps up this trilogy when he releases By Blood We Live; hopefully next year.

Question Tuesday: What Is Your Reading History?

Posted May 8, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments

Welcome to a new section from my blog which I like to call Question Tuesday; each Tuesday I’ll be asking a question relating to reading and book blogging. I have a lot of questions already I want to cover but I want to leave it open for others to ask me questions as well via comments or via twitter. The first question I’m going to cover is my reading history.

While my parents go through phrases of reading a lot and not reading at all (depending on how busy they are), I was never much of a reader when I was young. I think I would read a book a year, and only because I was told I needed to read. It wasn’t till 3 years ago that I started reading (a lot). It all started with a radio segment (The Culture Club on Triple J) where they drew similarities from songs currently on high rotation with poets (mostly from the romantic era). This started my love for reading; the gateway books were Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! by Craig Schuftan (the author was responsible for The Culture Club) and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Now I’m playing catch up; trying to read all the classics as well as newer book. I’ve set myself a goal of reading at least 100 books a year in the hope that sooner or later I might actually be caught up.