Tag: Based

George Eliot – Silas Marner | Review

May 15, 2020
Authors A-E (By Surname)Fiction

Title: Silas Marner

Author: George Eliot

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 290

Rating: 3/5

I basically picked this book up because my friend Dave has written a musical based on it and so I wanted to see what the fuss is about. I’ve also never read any Eliot before, and so it seemed like a good excuse to finally get started.

Unfortunately I didn’t particularly enjoy it, and in fact having seen the musical, I think I enjoyed that more than the book. With that said, I also understand the hype, and I do think that Eliot is a very talented writer. She got a little bit screwed over by the times that she lived in, really. And in fact, for a book of its period, I think it’s aged rather well. Let’s put it this way – I enjoyed it way more than I enjoy reading Jane Austen.

So would I recommend it? I don’t think that’s a fair question here because I went into it reading for a different reason than most people would have. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed it and I’m glad that I picked it up, but I don’t think that’s a good call for a general reader. Even if you’re a fan of the classics, you should proceed with caution.

But yeah, I liked the story itself, even if it did take a while to play out, and I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Raveloe and the development that Marner himself goes through between the start and the end. I still kind of feel as though the story could be condensed and that it would probably work better as a movie (or a musical), but hey ho. I read it.

Learn more about Silas Marner.

Peter James – Dead Man’s Time | Review

May 14, 2019
Authors F-J (By Surname)Fiction

TitleDead Man’s Time

Author: Peter James

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 504

Rating 3.75/5

 

 

Dead Man’s Time is another installment in James’ Roy Grace series in which we follow the Brighton-based detective as he investigates a crime spanning 90 years. It all goes back to a murder that took place in New York City in 1922, and I quite liked the way that the two different time periods came back together, especially towards the end. It was kind of anticlimactic in a way, but it was also the only real ending that could have happened.

It’s also interesting how the bad guys in this book aren’t actually all that bad, although they do their fair share of bad things. If anything, the main bad guy in this is the one who had it in for Roy Grace and who was out to get him and his family, a story line that took place in tandem with the main story but which wasn’t necessarily a part of it.

The main story, though, basically follows what appears to be a burglary gone wrong in which an old woman is tortured until she’s on the brink of death. They also take all of her art, her antiques and her valuables, leaving Roy Grace stuck trying to track it down in a race across time across Brighton and, later on, elsewhere in the world.

 

 

I don’t think that this is Peter James’ best book, but then I’ve read quite a few of them by now and you’re always going to find some books that are better than others in any series. It’s still worth reading though, and while you don’t need to read them all in order if you don’t want to, you will get a little bit more from the story if you do. Not from the crime at the centre of it perhaps, but certainly from the back story. When I read it, there were characters there that I knew would be dead or in jail a few books down the line.

What I will say is that even though I’ve read over a dozen of James’ books (including two 500+ page books in the last couple of weeks), I’m still enjoying them, and I’m probably going to pick up another 600-pager next weekend as I’ll be spending a lot of time travelling. James’ writing is sleek and easy to absorb, and at the same time it’s not intimidating. I don’t read his books and wonder how anyone could have ever written them. I just read them and enjoy them and then look forward to the next one.

So would I recommend this? Of course I would, but I would suggest reading through them in order if you can just so that you don’t spoil yourself for some of the storylines that come in alongside the mysteries. And it was cool that James included references to charities and other organisations that support some of the issues raised.

 

 

Click here to buy Dead Man’s Time.