Before You Know Kindness - Chris Bohjalian

Why did I choose this book?
I was looking for a book for my ABC-challenge and this writer was recommended to me on the LibraryThing site because of the other books I've read. So I went to the library to see if there were any of his books there, and I found this one.

About the author:
Chris Bohjalian is the bestselling author of nine novels, including Midwives (a Publishers Weekly Best Book and an Oprah's Book Club selection), The Buffalo Soldier, and Trans-Sister Radio, as well as Idyll Banter, a collection of his magzine essays and newspaper columns. His work has been translated into seventeen languages and published in twenty countries. He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter. See his website.


The Story:
Every summer the Seton family meet in their country house in New England. They play tennis, swim and they've started a vegetable garden. But they also have secrets. John is an animal rights activist, but his brother in law has started hunting. When the vegetable garden is ruined by deer, and Charlotte finds her uncles gun in the boot of his car she decides to shoot the deer, but instead shoots her own father. An accident that changes the lives of all the members of the family. But was it really just an accident?

Review:
What I liked most about the book is how the girls are struggling to come to a decision about wether to tell the truth or not. This is really too big a decision for a child of their age, but they feel they can only confide in each other. When both reach a different decision it seems like the end of their friendship.

Rating:

Finished!

I finaly finished Before You Know Kindness. It took me a long time to read it (nearly a month!). Not because I didn't like it, I did actually like it a lot. But I just was too busy with other things and had very little time left to read. And in the evenings (when I do most of my reading) I was just too tired (went to bed early a lot in the last month). But now it's finished. Review will follow shortly.

I'm going to start on River Thieves now, another book for my ABC challenge. Hopefully it won't take as long as the last book!

Update

Not a lot of time for reading these past few days. I'm still reading Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian. It's a really nice book, but I cannot find the time to read more than a few pages a day. Hope to read a bit more over the weekend. We're visiting family and have to make a train journey of two hours to get there (and back), so should be able to get some reading done then!

Update

Change in plans: I've decided not to read The Virgin in the Garden for my abc challenge. I've started reading it a few times now, but I just can't get into it. So I'll have to find another B book. But first I'm going to finish some other books from my TBR list. I've started in Beowulf last night. It's quite difficult, but I'm sure I can finish it, if just because it is only about 75 pages. And I'm going to get started on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

New book

I've been to the library today to get some books for my daughter, but I just couldn't resist... So I've found the next book for my ABC-challenge; River Thieves by Michael Crummey. Never heard of either book or author, but the reviews on the back (one of them by Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall, which I liked a lot) sounded very promissing. It is about a struggle between the whites and the indians in Canada in the early 19th century.

The Clerkenwell Tales - Peter Ackroyd

This story is situated in London in the 14th century. According to the introduction, the characters in this book are also to be found in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. But to my shame I have not yet read this book, although it has been sitting on the shelf for some years now. Maybe a good book to read for the letter C of my abc-challenge... Maybe.

Why did I choose this book?
I like historical novels. I mostely read books set in the time of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. But this time I decided to go even further back in time. Looking at all the authors starting with A in the library, this book first struck me because of its cover with medieval type pictures on it. Then I read it was about 14th century London, about the King and the church and a conspiracy with large consequences, and I was sold.

About the autor:
Peter Ackroyd is an English writer born in 1949. He has always shown a great interest in London. He started his career as a writer of poetry, but later moved on to writing fiction. His book Chatterton was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987. He has also written non-fiction books for both adults and children and has been involved in television documentaries for the BBC.

The Story:
A nun, who has been born illegitimately under the convent of Clerkenwell, starts having visions about the downfall of King Richard II and of fire and death in London.
Then the sect of the Lollards sets about to bring fire and explosions to religious sites in London. What they don't know is that they are used by another group that wants to bring about the downfall of King Richard II and put Henry Bolingbroke on the throne.

Review:
Each chapter, like in the Canterbury Tales, is told from the perspective of a different person. This is a nice idea, although it does make things a bit complicated to follow, especially in the first few chapters.
I never really got into the story. All the time I was thinking; "when is it going to start?" Even when I was in the last few chapters. Some chapters were really good, making you think; this is it. But then the next chapter would be about something completely different and I would be thinking; "what has this got to do with the story?" There were a lot of characters, and it was hard to see the connection between some of them.
The story itself was rather complicated itself with one secret group of people infiltrating another secret group of people. The goal of the Lollards was rather obvious; to damage the Roman Catholic Church. But the goal of the other group was a bit confusing. They wanted to help Henry to the throne, but that seemed to be happening anyway. Richard has already abdicated before the plot is finished, so why go through all the trouble and risk of using the Lollards? I still don't understand.
What I did like about the book is that it paints a very good picture of medieval life. You can almost hear the sounds and smell the smells! There is a lot of detail about medieval costums; how people dressed, what medicines they used, how their churches were used, the way justice was served, etc. Which is nice, but at the same time diverts the attention from the main story.

Rating:

ABC-Challenge

I've chosen the first two books for my abc-challenge; The Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd, and The Virgin in the Garden by A.S. Byatt. I just went to the library and chose two books that looked/sounded good. Both writers are completely unknown to me. I've never even heard about them, let alone read anything they've written.

I've started reading the first book last night, and it looks promising. It is a medieval adventure set in London.

First post

This blog is about books. I love reading books, and hardly a day goes by in which I do not read, even if it is only one page.

Since November 2005 I've been adding the books that I've read to my LibraryThing catalog. This is a great way of keeping track of the books you've been reading. I've made the choice not to add all the books that I own, but just the books that I've read in since November 2005. Only thing is I would like to add more information about the books and I can't in LibraryThing. That is why I'm starting this blog. The idea is to write a little something about every book I've read. And add some more book related information when and where I want to.

I'm also a memeber of BookCrossing. There I read about the so-called abc-challenge; read 26 books from authors that you've not read before, with names starting with each letter of the alphabet. The idea is to do this within a year. I'm not sure I can do that, but I am going to start my own abc-challenge. The extra challenge I put myself is to do it in alphabetical order. So I'm going to start with the A and end with the Z. I will keep you posted about how it's developing here!

I've also thought about doing a numbers-challenge; read a book with a number in the title. I'm not sure if it is possible to find books with each number, but I'm going to try. First one: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?