the last day of a condemned man (victor hugo)

i thought i was going to like it, but i actually loved it. a passionate cry against capital punishment where the focus on the content is actually not an excuse for not looking after the form: it's really beautifully written... and so exciting! i love that chapter where the title suggests you are going to know the past of the prisoner and therefore the details of his crime, but then it's left blank, thus making the story universal. worth getting an edition with a prologue explaining the period and the reaction of the public when it was first published. not essential at all, but an interesting read.

Rating: 8.5/10

the innocence of father brown (g.k.chesterton)

i actually thought this was going to be a longer story and not a collection of short ones, not sure why. nonetheless, i actually welcomed the format: perfect for my holidays. i love how in every case the irrational solution seems in the end to be the only rational one. but that kind of becomes a pattern and you are expecting it in every story. and it happens in every story. but it's well written, and funny and highly enjoyable, if you happen to like detective stories (which i do). i only wished there was at least one that was longer than 15 pages, as there doesn't seem to be much character development at all, everything revolves around the priest and his shrewdness; which is fine, but it doesn't make me run to the library to find some more father brown collections of stories.

Rating: 7/10

salambo: high priestess of ancient carthage (gustave flaubert)

"the best historical novel of all time", says the dust jacket. well, if it's by flaubert, and it's "the best historical novel of all time", then i think it's only fair i gave it a chance. i couldn't finish it. not long after i started reading it i remembered why i don't like historical novels that much: it always seems like the story itself is an excuse in order for the author to show us how much research he has conducted. the rather lengthy and numerous descriptions of buildings, tools or garments seem to be the main focus of the book, and not the story itself. maybe historians  marvel at the accuracy of the data, but for me this is just dull academic wank.if at least it was interesting academic wank... but no, it's dull, dull, dull!!! maybe the second part is really exciting. i will never know.

Rating: 2/10

greybeard (brian aldiss)

i really enjoyed the first half, it was really fun, with all the stoats and the village and the rafts and the risk of an attack from the north... and the idea itself, i loved the concept of a humanity with no more children. but then it all kind of lost momentum. i think my biggest disappointment was that i wanted it to move forwards and the story actually moved backwards. it kind of picked up at the end again, i really enjoyed the scene when the two main characters actually meet and play hide and seek... and then the wee girl tells the boy's mum he has drowned, that was awesome! but, as a whole, just a so-so.

chasing the sun (richard cohen)

thank you, book, for keeping me company all these months. i certainly felt a bit sad when i finally finished it. one of the most comprehensive studies of the subject, and a total joy to read. i loved learning about astronomy, calendars, the composition of light, shadows, atomic energy... and how the iconography of the sun has been adopted and used in literature, in art, in religion... even in politics. if only i could remember all the information contained here! pity about the first and last chapters, though, when the author goes all personal and tells you about his travels to see the sunrise from this amazing point or when he goes to the ganges to witness some sun rituals and sunsets. i don't really care, just tell me more about what might happen if a black hole hits the sun or how stars die. however, those two (short) chapters don't manage to spoil the brilliance of the other 600 pages. the perfect gift, thank you simon.

Rating: 10/10

the autobiography of alice b. toklas (gertrude stein)

this was a strange one for me. i love the playfulness of the title: is it really an autobiography? but it's two different people! and i love the period in history, and the subject matter. but somehow it didn't work for me. i didn't like the style (even though i learnt to tolerate it), i found all the 'and then i did this, and then i saw that, and afterwards i did something else' rather tedious. and the name dropping too. here i had some amazing historical characters in front of me, and i finished the book without knowing anything about them. especially about the relationship between gertrude and alice. but i quite liked the bit about the war, and the final paragraph, as well as some witticisms here and there; but as a whole, i'm not really convinced. i'm glad i've read it, though.

Rating: 5/10

the devil's paintbrush (jake arnott)

entertaining and easy to read, it makes a good holiday book, but it's not incredibly well written. even though it features aleister crowley, the occult, victorian britain and homosexual relationships in the army, the story failed to grab me. i felt kind of detached from it all. but maybe it was because i was feeling rather ill when i was reading it. nonetheless, i can't blame only my illness, as i felt more or less the same when i read 'the long firm'. so maybe there's something in arnott that just doesn't work for me... oh, and no, the devil's paintbrush is not satan's cock. damn.

Rating: 5/10

cain's book (alexander trocchi)

even though i've never cared much for beat writers or junkie stories, and would have never chosen to read this if it hadn't been for my bookgroup, i really got into it at the beginning. i quite liked the style it's written in, and the characters... but then i got bored. it was just meeting person after person, dipping briefly into their lives and then forgetting about them. which is ok, but i wanted more of a story connecting all the characters. but i liked the whole atmosphere, and how junkies weren't glamourised or victimised at all, it was all very matter-of-fact: for them getting a fix was like going to the cornershop to get some eggs. and the book as a whole is way better than most bukowski, keruac and the like.

Rating: 6/10

sarah lucas - modern artists series (matthew collings)

even though i've always liked her photographic portraits more than her sculptures, i have to admit that her views on them, and all the her explanations about the creative process of each individual work, made me appreciate them more. i loved the comparisons with duchamp and koons and all her thoughts about life and her own work, as well as (obviously) her omnipresent themes of death and sex. i felt rather disappointed by the introduction, though, i thought it was empty art-critic's wank, but i'm very happy i kept on reading, because the rest of the book is well worth it. i love it when an art book makes you see more things than you originally saw in an artist's work. that's how it should be.

Rating: 8/10

the moonflower vine (jetta carleton)

there's something about stories set in rural america that attracts me like a magnet. blame capote, mccullers and the like. and if they are so superbly written like in this case, then they're just a total joy to read. it's sweet and full of emotions, but not sentimental or cheesy. i love the pace, and the topics, and how the big chapters are divided, focussing on one character each. it's not until you reach the last one that you have a more or less complete glimpse of what what's really going on. a truly beautiful read.

Rating: 8.5/10

let the right one in (John Ajvide Lindqvist)

i loved the beginning, especially the pissball (the pissball idea is amazing!) and all the bullying, or, rather, how the wee kid deals with it: the pig squeal as a kind of spider sense to protect him from major harm, his escapades to stab trees... and, of course, his relationship with eli. but the rest? the (swedish) film is much better. yes, they give you more background and more detailed information about the peripheral characters, but that's not necessarily a good thing. in this case i much preferred being kept in the dark. it's not incredibly well written, so it kind of drags towards the middle, you simply don't care about the other characters (the drunkards, the policeman...) and you just want to get to the end. and the end is not that good either, i felt kind of detached. so, yeah, one of these strange cases in which the movie adaptation is much better than the book.

Rating: 6.5/10

we have always lived in the castle (shirley jackson)

i can't think of any other word to describe this book than ms dundas's omnipresent 'wondrous'. it's absolutely appropriate. i love the atmosphere it creates and the strangeness of it all, the self-invented magic, the sociopathic feelings, the unreliable narrator, everything. i enjoyed every single line. and how it's everything but pretentious, it's just a perfect little gem of a book. mind you, it might be a case of either loving it or hating it, who knows, it might only work if you buy the premise in the first place. nonetheless, if you don't like it, well, you are a fool.

Rating: 10/10

monsters: a bestiary of the bizarre (christopher dell)

probably my favourite xmas gift this year. just wonderful. the focus is on the illustrations, which are nice and big, and the truth is that i didn't expect the text to be that special, but i was proved wrong. it's incredibly well researched and it covers not only the western world but also asia and other parts of the planet. it even mentions the cuélebre, from my region!! twice! it's true i wanted the chapters to be longer, i wanted to know more, but as i said before, the text accompanies the illustrations in this book, and not the other way around. and it gives you an extensive bibliography for further reading.

Rating: 9/10

caballeros de fortuna / knights of fortune (luis landero)

i really enjoyed reading this, it's really well written, although i have to admit i couldn't help but feeling disappointed when the story followed some characters and left some others behind for a while. i know that's always the case in choral stories, but i just wanted to follow the lives of the two kids, especially the 'holy' one. he was, by far, my favourite character. i loved everything about him: his conception (fathered by a 'saint'), his childhood (brought up destined to be saint, like his father), his love story with the teacher, almost mistaking her for a madonna... just my cup of tea. and the confession! that bit was really funny. i liked the other characters, too, but i just wanted the story to follow the holy kid and forget about the rest.

Rating: 7/10