5 Best Books … Ghost Stories

Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston runs the meme: “5 Best Books”. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is Ghost stories. I don’t read a lot of fantasy-type books, but a ghost story every now and then is fun. Here are my 5 Best:

The White Devil by Justin Evans

A ghostly thriller about an American boy who spends a year at a private English school, where the poet Byron used to study, too. As he resembles Byron, he is recruited to play the main part in a play about this poet

But killings start to happen and the boy keeps seeing a ghost. It becomes rather scary when he realises his best friends are the next on the killer’s list.

Here’s my review.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Julia and Valentina are 20-year old twins who inherit a flat in London, near a grave yard.

Some time after they arrive, Julia and Valentina become aware of the ghost of their aunt Elspeth, who is still present in the apartment. They talk with her a lot (via an Ouija board). During their stay in London, the relationship between Julia and Valentina deteriorates because Valentina has had enough of being told what to do by her sister.

Valentina then plots a way to be independent of her sister. Here’s my review.

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Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Lara (27) is at her great-aunt Sadie’s funeral (whom she’s never met), when a girl of her own age asks her to stop the funeral because her necklace has gone missing.  No one else can see the girl and soon Lara discovers it’s the ghost of her great-aunt, in a younger form. She wants Lara to help her find her necklace as she can’t be laid to rest without it.

Sadie’s ghost keeps bothering her so in the end, there is no other option than to go looking for the lost necklace. What she finds is a thief and crook, love, and a better job.

Here’s my review.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The famous old story about Ebenezer Scrooge whose idea of Christmas is “Bah! Humbug!”. He’s got money enough but doesn’t want to spend it and has no interest in the miserable circumstances his clerk is living in.

Then just before Christmas, he is visited by 3 ghosts and they show him how great his past was, how miserable his current life, and how he will end up if he doesn’t better his life.

Just when Christmas starts, Scrooge changes into a better person and hands out goodies to the poor calling “Merry Christmas” to all who wish to hear.

Changeless by Gail Carriger

There are a lot of ghosts in this book, except they aren’t featured much. In fact, they have disappeared!

This is the second part of the Parasol Protectorate series. Alexia Tarrabotti is mystified by the sudden cessation of supernatural powers: werewolves and vampires can only take their human forms and ghosts have disappeared altogether.

Alexia travels to Scotland in a dirigible (a kind of zeppelin) to try and find the cause. My review is here.

What ghostly books are your favorites?

5 Best Books … About Hope

Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston runs the meme: “5 Best Books”. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is Hope. What follows is a list of very different books in which hope is an important topic in some way or another.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

A great book about the troubles of an Oklahoma family in the 1930s. They are driven off their land, and seek work in California, just like several 100s of thousands of other people. Work is scarce, pay is low.

During the trip to California, and after arriving, the family, who are 12 to start with, slowly fall apart, and in the end there are just 6 left. The book ends when there is no more work, no more food, and it has rained for days. Still it ends with some hope: the family are still ready to help other people who have greater needs than themselves.

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The Road by Cormac McCarthy

.In a post-apocalyptic world, a man and a boy are travelling on foot. They are cold (there are ash clouds above them all the time,  they cannot see the sun) and hungry.

They hope to get further South (maybe they expect it to be warmer there) but they encounter body-hunters (for food!) and thieves/murderers along the way. They are both not sure whether it’s better to be dead or alive, but they struggle onwards anyway.

So bleak! And so beautiful!

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The Obscure Logic of the Heart by Priya Basil

Anil and Lina both have an Indian background, but Lina is Muslim and Anil is not. They are very much in love, but Lina doesn’t want to disappoint her parents. For some time has a secret relationship with Anil while her parents think she’ll accept their choice of husband.

Anil keeps hoping Lina will tell her parents and marry him.

It’s a great book full of dilemmas and lies.

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State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Marine Singh works for a pharmaceutical company in the US. When a colleague of hers is reported dead in the Amazonian jungle, she is sent to investigate.

It’s a remote place where another colleague has been based for years, doing research with the native people. She isn’t exactly keen to see Marina show up.

While the book itself is not really about hope, it’s me, the reader, that kept hoping Marina would get home safely again. The jungle is full of dangers and she doesn’t get much cooperation from the people there.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

A virus has escaped from a research facility and affected people feed on anything they come across, including other people.

It doesn’t take long before groups of people have barricaded themselves in while the affected run free and prey on the healthy people.

A group of healthy people then wants to travel across the country in search of other survivors.

They keep hoping for a better life in which they can live safely and have enough food. Great book, a bit like The Road in the sense that people keep hoping for better, against the odds.

What books about hope are your favorites?

5 Best Books … At University

Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston runs the meme: “5 Best Books”. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is Back to School.

I have a confession to make: it’s rather easy for me to find five books for the 5 Best posts every week. You see, I have a Shelfari account (it’s like Goodreads) and for each book I read, I give it some tags (e.g., crime, literary fiction, Scotland, etc.). So I check a tags that corresponds with that week’s 5 Best topic, and I choose from the books that come up.

However, I noticed I don’t have a tag for “school”. Not a problem, as I do have one for “university”. That counts too, doesn’t it?

Norwegian wood

Another confession: I marked this book as a favorite but I can’t remember very well what it’s about. So I looked up my shelfari review and it says:

Watanabe is a 19 year old student who lives on a university campus in Tokyo. Two years after a friend of his died, he meets up with the friend’s then girlfriend, Naoko. They start a friendship, but soon Naoko has to spend some time in an psychiatric institution. Watanabe wants to wait for her, but also meets another girl, Midori, who is doing the same classes as him. With her, he also starts a friendship. Midori is elusive in her own way, and Watanabe is fascinated by both women. Eventually he has to chose between them.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

A very good book about Alzheimers. The main character is Alice, a 50-year old psychology professor who starts forgetting things and becomes disoriented.

The book describes very well (as far as I can imagine) how Alice experiences the small inconviences that Alzheimers bring her at first, until the point later in the progression of the illness where she does not realise that anything is wrong with her. Also, the behavior of the people around her, like her husband, children and colleagues seemed very believable. An easy read, interesting book.

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Moo by Jane Smiley

This book is about a university in Iowa. Because of its agricultural focus, it called “Moo”. We follow the activities of several people, students and staff, and their relationships.

The book is quite fun, especially if you know about academic life, it’s satirical. My only complaint is that there are many characters. This makes it difficult to remember who is who and what we read about them last time they were mentioned.

It’s a wonderful story about life at a university from the viewpoints of all people involved.

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Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

A time-travel story back to the wrong time.

Kivrin, a university researcher from 2054, goes back to the year 1320 to investigate medieval life in England. Soon, her colleagues in modern times realise something has gone wrong. Has Kivrin really ended up in 1320, or is it maybe a different year?

Kivrin, meanwhile, learns to understand the language of the people in the hamlet where she is staying. When the villagers get ill, she tries to save them. But will she be able to go back to the present time? I really enjoyed this book a lot. It was interesting, well-written, and absorbing.

Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot

A easy, quick read about a former teenage pop-star who now works as a caretaker in a student flat. When a dead girl is found, the police think it’s just an accident. But Heather does not believe that and starts her own investigation.

The sequel (Size 14 is not Fat Either) is very similar, so this series is especially interesting when you read your first book in the series.

It’s a quick, fun read from the perspective of a university caretaker.

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What books about academic life are your favorites?

5 Best Books … Genre Reads

Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston runs the meme: “5 Best Books”. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is genre reads.

The books I mention in 5 Best are often literary fiction or dystopia/SF, since those genres are my favorites. So for this week, I took a different, genre: non-fiction. I used to say I never read non-fiction, but since I have a blog, I can easily check that, and it’s not true! I don’t read loads of it, but every once in a while I read a memoir, travelogue or other non-fiction book. I read enough to be able to compose a top-5. Here they are…

The To-Do List by Mike Gayle

Procrastinator Mike Gayle decided enough is enough and he made himself a to-do list of over 1200 (!) items which he vowed to clear within a year.

The book follows his progress and highlights the most interesting items on his list, the people he met while carrying out the items or the situations he had to overcome to be able to fulfil his goals.

It is a fun read and in the back of the book are all 1277 items listed. An inspiring book!

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

A very different book is the story of the childhood of Jeannette Walls. She comes from a very deprived background. Although her parents were educated people, they were always on the run from debt collectors.

As the parents refused to accept welfare their kids missed out even on the basics, such as warm clothes and food. They lived in bitter poverty and the children regularly had to eat food that was discarded by others in rubbish bins.

Jeanette Walls does not condemn her parents but writes it as it was.

Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost

A really nice travelogue. Troost visits China as a tourist. Although he is an experienced traveller, initially he feels as lost in China as I think I would be.

Without complaining, and with humor, he tells about all the strange things he encounters in China: food, crowds, air polution, etc.

If you want to experience China without actually going there, this is a great book. My review is HERE.

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I Is An Other by James Geary

This is a non-fiction book about metaphors.

A metaphor is used when you use unrelated words to describe something. For instance, “My job is a jail” or “She had a bright idea”. A job isn’t literally a jail and an idea can’t emit light.

The psychology behind using metaphors is explained for various areas of our life, such as advertisements, science, innovation, stock market and politics. There is also a chapter on Aspergers and metaphors. Easy to read, full of great insights.

My review is HERE.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from California to a farm in Virginia and challenge themselves to eat only food produced on their own farm for a year.

The book tells about their agricultural year, their reasons behind the challenge, the American agricultural business and how local produce would make life healthier, cheaper and the country a better place to live in.

The book is written in a friendly way, with very little (but some) condescension. There are some recipes and a lot of references to other books and articles propagating local food. It’s inspiring too!

What non-fiction books are your favorites?

5 Best Books … Re-reads

Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston runs the meme: “5 Best Books”. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is 5 Books that I’ve re-read.

I re-read books regularly. Well, I did until I became a book blogger and had too many books to read for the first time, even. No, it’s not quite true, I do try and re-read a book every now and then, but it happens less often than it used to.

Here are some books that I’ve re-read in the last few years:

The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

I loved reading this series. And I was lucky, because before the third book was translated into English, I had already read the trilogy twice, in Dutch.

I didn’t care too much about the movies, they were OK, but I loved the books.

It’s a mystery about a woman, Lysbet Salander, who is a computer buff but also rather strange. She helps a journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, solve a mystery, but in the second and third book she herself is accused of a crime.

This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes

This was my first book by A. M. Homes and since then, I’ve read most of the others. I.Love.This.Book. I don’t think I can even say exactly why.

It has something to do with the fact that the main character, who has everything one could ever wish for, in fact has nothing to live for. During the book this changes almost completely around.

The events in the book are slightly improbable but such fun to read. I think I could re-read this book quite regularly and still not get bored.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

This was the first book I read by Murakami (is there something about first books that become favorites?).

It’s a surrealist book, but only very lightly so, the events almost seem possible in the real world.

The story is mysterious and as a reader, you are never in control with Murakami. You have to go with the flow and just see where the story will end. Here’s my review.

Beyond Sleep by W. F. Hermans

W. F. Hermans is a Dutch writer, and this book my all-time favorite book. I have re-read it so often!

The story: A PhD student in Geology goes on a summer trip to Norway to prove a theory. He is suspicious of his fellow team members and of the Norwegian professor who did not provide him with the aerial maps that he was promised.

I love the writing and the story. Nothing goes well for Alfred and somehow, that’s funny! (Sorry, Alfred!).

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

A book about nature. Three people play a main role in this book.

I loved the story of Deanna especially. She’s a biologist who spends a year living in a remote cabin in Appalachia, studying wildlife. But she cannot get away from human contact completely, to her great annoyance.

There’s also the story of Lusa, city girl turned farmer when she married a country boy who subsequently died. She tries to keep the farm going even though her in-laws would love her to up and leave.

I read this book twice, but I don’t think it will be long until re-read 2.

What books have you re-read?

5 Best Books … About Real People In Fiction

Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston has started a new meme: “5 Best Books”. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is 5 Books about real people in fiction.

I don’t actually like to see real people in fiction. In fact, I do avoid it, if I can. Why? Because I’ll remember things about these people that aren’t true. They will not really have said or done exactly what’s in the book, but I may remember it as something they did. And I don’t like that.

But of course, I do sometimes inadvertently come across real people in a novel. If it’s someone I hadn’t heard about in the first place, I don’t actually mind so much, because I can treat it as fiction.

So, here are a few books in which real people make their entrée.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

In this book, the main character, Harrison Shepherd, spends some time in Mexico where he works for Rivera and Kahlo, painters (that really existed). They take in Lev Trotsky, the communist, after he is on the run from Stalin (this also really happened). Shepherd works as a secretary for Trotsky for a while, still at the Rivera house.

I wasn’t too interested in these real-life people but the book itself was good. It’s about America in the 1950s and includes the “communist threat” where lots of people were arrested for supposedly being communist.

A big tome, this book, but I found it worthwhile.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The story takes place in Delft, in the Netherlands, so it was interesting for me as a native Dutch. The famous painter Johannes Vermeer is a secondary character who paints his maid, Griet and falls in love with her. He paints her – and this painting and the painter really existed.

This is 17th century Netherlands in which nothing is said out loud but everything is implied. Griet has to decide between marrying a butcher’s boy or stay at the household of Vermeer.

The book is written in a very sparse style, very beautifully. It’s slow paced and very atmospheric.

The Women by T. C. Boyle

In The Women, T. C. Boyle describes the relationships of the famous architect from the first half of the 20th Century, Frank Lloyd Wright, with the four main women in his life.

A lot of the story focuses on the repeating situation where he leaves one woman for the next: How does this affect the woman left behind and how does the new woman fit in his well established life.

It’s a little bit dull (not really a book for “5 Best”), but it stayed with me for a long time. If you have a particular interest in the architect, you’ll like it a lot.

Jpod by Douglas Coupland

A humorous book about the life of a computer programmer in Canada called Ethan. He works at JPod, a company that make computer games. We read about the working life of him and his co-workers and of his marihuana-growing mother, his often-drunk father, his Chinese criminal “friend” Kam and other interesting characters.

There is a body that needs hiding, a JPod boss that needs rescuing from a factory in China, a lesbian mother (“I’m not a lesbian!”, “No, of course not, mom”). In the end, everyone quits their job at JPod and starts working for Douglas Coupland, who Ethan meets on his trip to China.

So, in this book, the author himself makes an appearance, which I thought was very funny. Well, the whole book was funny. I loved it!

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I’m afraid this is a little cheat. The “real people” in this book are not real. But they also appear in a different book by this author: Black Swan Green.

In Cloud Atlas, one of the main characters stays at the Belgian house of the composer Vyvyan Ayrs whereas in Black Swan Green, the main character meets the daughter of the Ayrs.

I thought this was great! I love it when characters appear in different books. And actually, somehow I did think Vyvyan Ayrs was a real person (I remember googling him after reading the book).

Cloud Atlas is a complex book, made up of several loosely linked stories from the past to the distant future. I loved it, but it’s not an easy read.

What fiction do you like that has real people in?

5 Best Books … About Love

This meme is organised by Cassandra of Indie Reader Houston. Every week, a different topic is suggested by Cassandra and participants list what they think are the 5 best book for that topic. Click HERE to see the topics for the next few weeks.

This week, the topic is 5 Best Books About Love. 

I don’t read a lot of books where love is the main ingredient, but there are enough books where it does play an important role in the story…

Click on the titles to see my review (only organge titles have reviews behind them).

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

In the late 18th Century, a Dutch clerk, Jacob de Zoet spends some time in Japan, where he falls in love with a midwife, Orito. She reminds him of his fiancée back at home.

He is fascinated by her and would like to get to know her better, which is not officially allowed and very hard to achieve.

Very well written, interesting era and location, beautiful book.

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Ferney by James Long

Mike and Gally are looking for a new house in the English countryside when Gally falls in love with a dilapidated cottage. With the cottage, it seems, comes an old man, Ferney.

There is something odd about Ferney. He seems to know things that he could not know. Soon it becomes clear that Gally and Ferney have a long history in past lives. In fact, they used to live in the house that Gally and Mike bought.

An intriguing story!

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The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnival

Historical Fiction in 1920s China. 17-year old Russian girl, Lydia, is living in destitute circumstances with her alcoholic mother. She steals whenever she can, and one day ends up in a back street where she is attacked by some Chinese men. A young Chinese, Chang An Lo, saves her life and they fall in love.

Of course, their love is forbidden, which makes for a great and adventurous read (and if you like this, there are a few sequels, too).

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Rosie Meadows Regrets by Catherine Alliott

Rosie Meadows regrets marrying her good for nothing husband. When he dies, the story becomes a whodunnit, but it’s also the story of a widow starting a new life in the country side where she meets a new man.

Things don’t go easy for Rosie, though.

It’s written very fluently and very often I felt compelled to keep reading. Definitely a book for when you have a lot of time, plane, beach, illness, etc.

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Soulless by Gail Carriger

This is such a fun book about vampires and werewolves and a bit of steampunk.

Set in Victorian London, Alexia Tarabotti is a preternatural, whose touch will temporarily take away the supernatural powers of vampires and werewolves.

Alexia kills an unregistered vampire and both she and Lord Maccon of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry are looking into the case. Such a pity they can’t stand each other! Lord Maccon is a big, Scottish werewolf and they come across each other the whole time during the investigation.

A real pity they can’t stand each other! Yes, they really can’t!  A very funny and original book (with a few sequels, too).

What’s your favorite book about love?