January Books List

A round up of the books I read last month:-

(1) Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Horror / Thriller: "Is it possible to ever fully know anyone? Even those we love the most? What tips someone over the edge to commit a crime?"

Stephen King's short stories collections are always excellent and Full Dark, No Stars is no exception. Here we have four truly twisted horror tales of what drives someone over the edge and the inevitable consequences of their actions.  The first story, 1922, is a chilling account of what happens when a farmer disagrees with his wife over the sale of their land and feels very much inspired by Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'.  The second, Big Driver is one of the most horrific abuse stories I've ever read, yet absolutely thrilling, I was egging on the main character to get her revenge the whole time!  Fair Extension is brilliant, very dark and just pure evil.  It reminds me strongly of King's 'Needful Things' which is probably why I enjoyed it so much.  Lastly, A Good Marriage is my favourite story from this collection and details how a wife finds out about her husband's gruesome dark past and is one that I'm not surprised is being turned into a film.  My edition also had an extra bonus story tagged along the end called Under The Weather which was cool and very 'King horror' but just felt way too brief for me to really get into it.  [4/5]

(2) Saga Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Science Fiction / Fantasy: "When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe."

One of my New Year's resolutions is to read more graphic novels and what better place to start than with the cult Saga series.  Volume 1 introduces the reader to our two star crossed lovers, each from a different race and caught up in a horrific war.  However, against all of the odds, they manage to have a baby and now must do everything they can to keep the family safe.  Full of crazy subversive characters and imaginative artwork, this is one series I'll be looking to continue with shortly.  [4/5]

(3) The Ticket That Exploded by William Burroughs

Science Fiction / Contemporary Literature: "A prophetic vision of a world in which technology has gone haywire, Agent Lee's sole mission is to investigate and subvert the methods of mind control being used by The Nova Mob."

You have to be in the right (or wrong) frame of mind to read Burrough's classic 'cut up' technique of literature which is really just a series of disjointed paragraphs, little punctuation and pages of streams of consciousness.  If you can get your head around all the word vomit, you'll find a strange, sci-fi ish storyline which is depraved, crazy, and utterly random with some downright bizarre characters. Like The Soft Machine before it, it's a tough one to read, but there are some awesome choice quotes and conversations scattered amongst the chaos which kept me going and grinning like an idiot at the end. [3/5]

(4) The Complete Fables by Aesop

Classics / Short Stories / Mythology: "This is the first translation ever to make available the complete corpus of 358 fables".

Not gonna lie, I didn't read all 358 fables in the Penguin edition but I did dip in and out of this book throughout the month as part of a series of discussions that my literary book club were holding. Some of the fables are fascinating and give a unique insight into how superstitious the ancient Greeks were, but others were very silly or made absolutely no sense to me.  It was interesting to see where so many stories like the infamous tale of The Tortoise and The Hare originated from as they are still so ingrained into many childhoods today. [3/5]  

What have you been reading lately?

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