Category: Random

Five Must Read Memoirs from Bibliophiles

Posted October 23, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top 5 / 26 Comments

As a book lover, I found that I get a lot of pleasure out of reading books about books. There is something about a book that revolves around other books that really works for me. Judging by the popularity of books like The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and more recently The Collected Works of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin I know I am not alone. I made a conscious effort to read more non-fiction this year and I quickly discovered a whole new genre that I enjoy; the bibliophile’s memoir. What could be better (also meta) than reading about someone reading, but be warned, it could also be damaging to your TBR list. So I thought I might offer five memoirs that people should read about reading and the reading life.

What I Think About When I’m Not Blogging – 18th October 2014

Posted October 18, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in What I Think About When I'm Not Blogging / 0 Comments

I am currently reading Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer and part of her English class, Jam has to write a journal and this got me thinking about journaling on the whole. I have always wanted to be able to journal but never really found an ability to do so; the words wouldn’t come out and I was never consistent enough to get any better. However, I am addicted to book blogging, I always want to talk about bookish things and I think I can work with that. I was talking to my wife about journaling. She is great at it; it comes naturally but she has been writing in a journal since she was ten. I do consider my blog here as a book journal that documents my bookish journey so why not expand on that a little bit.

My thought is to make a regular post about what I have been thinking about and my reading journey; a bookish stream of conscious just to see where this takes me. I would like to make this a weekly activity but it might only be semi-regular. I will start and see where I go. This might just fade out but if I make an effort then maybe I will be able to progress into journaling more frequently on and off this blog.

I have been fallen so behind on my book reviewing, it has taken over my book blog. I have thirteen posts to edit and schedule and five book reviews to write. The problem with being so far behind is that I don’t do any blogging outside of book reviewing. I don’t want every post just to be a book review; I want to explore all bookish thoughts and topics that come into my head. This is one of the main reasons to start with a post like this.

I have been lucky enough to be able to read a lot lately; I have been attending salt therapy to help clear up my sinuses and one of the requirements is no electronics in the room. This is giving me an hour a day where a have no distractions and I can read; sometimes I fall asleep but I normally force myself to use the time reading. I have so many books I want to read and salt therapy might be helping my reading life more than my sinuses.

I have worked out that I can get between 50 – 100 pages done in the hour of salt therapy and I’m there six times a week. This isn’t my only reading time but it has put a big boost to the amount of book I get through a week. Depending on the book, I often aim for the 100 pages each hour but if I love the book, I would rather read slower. The good news is I do think the salt therapy is helping; I’m starting to feel healthier. Anyway, maybe I should get back to Belzhar and I will see if this type of blogging takes off. If anything I hope to be able to turn my book blog into more of a book journal and explore more bookish thoughts.

Monthly Review – September 2014

Posted September 30, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Monthly Reading / 0 Comments

Now that September comes to a close, I would like to hear what people thought of Gone Girl. Did you read it? Did you like the ending? Did it keep you up all night? Or any other comments you want to make of this novel. Personally I was gripped and reading this to about 4 am, just to find out what happens. I know the ending is weird but there isn’t a better way to end it, that I’ve found.

Next month’s book we will be reading the some steampunk/fantasy with The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. I ‘m not sure what to expect, I am a little nervous. I don’t have the best track record when it comes to steampunk or fantasy novels. However I am hoping everyone reading this book will generate some interesting discussions. Also, as a reminder, in November we will be reading Tales of Terror and Mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle as part of the short stories theme and we will be looking for a book to fit the Christmas/Religious Holidays theme to wrap up the year. If you are not aware, the book discussion and everything else will be happening over on the Goodreads forums, so feel free to join in there.

I have had an amazing reading month, which is a nice change after reading only three books during my vacation. I have read sixteen books this month (which included four comic collections) and some of the highlights included The Odyssey by Homer, A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgård and The Circle by Dave Eggers. But my favourite of the month is a book, that is a top candidate for novel of the year was All That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon. For fans of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, I highly recommend picking up All That is Solid Melts into Air. What have you been reading this month and what were the highlights?

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Posted September 29, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Book of the Month, Crime, Thriller / 0 Comments

Title: Gone Girl (Goodreads)
Author: Gillian Flynn
Published: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2012
Pages: 442
Genres: Crime, Thriller
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

I’ve been trying to review this book for a while now and it has become a real struggle. I don’t want to give any spoilers for this brilliant book so I will try my best. Advanced warning: this review may have spoilers or turn out incredible vague. When I first saw this book I kept thinking this was just another YA novel but then I noticed this book kept popping up everywhere so I thought I better read what this is about and when I did, I had to read it right away.

When Amy disappears in suspicious circumstances all eyes fall to her husband as the primary suspect. Nick claims he is innocent but the evidence is not in his favour. Did Nick kill his wife? As this novel progressed any ideas of what happened will be shattered, any presumptions you’ve made about the characters will be wrong. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is a dark and twisted journey with so much unpredictability that you will be up all night trying to find out what really happened to Amy.

What I loved about this book was that you never really know what to expect. The book is told from the perspective of Nick and Amy, the diary of Amy tells the back story of their lives while the alternative chapters told from Nick takes the story from the disappearance. Slowly the pieces start to fall into place but there is always another curve ball just around the corner. The dark and psychological aspects of this novel remind me of something Jim Thompson would write but then the thriller and suspense of this book reminds me a lot of books like Before I Go to Sleep or Into the Darkest Corner.

Flynn did a brilliant job with this novel, it kept me up at night, made me want to skip work to read this book and in the end any spare time I had I was back in this book trying to find out what really happened to Amy. I wasn’t sure what I was in for and I didn’t know who to believe but in the end I enjoyed the ride. On reflection this book seemed incredibly basic with its plot but writing in a brilliant way that while reading you never have enough pieces to solve this puzzle. Highly recommend this book to any lovers of mystery and suspense.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books on my Spring To-Be-Read List

Posted September 23, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top Ten Tuesday / 45 Comments

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Books on my ~~Fall~~ Spring To-Be-Read List. I’m not sure what I’ll be reading but I thing these books will be involved. Because I couldn’t stop at ten, here are twelve books, I hope to read during this season.

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I Need To Read More

Posted September 16, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top Ten Tuesday / 30 Comments

It’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in on this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Top Authors I’ve Only Read One Book From But NEED to Read More. I have a very bad habit of trying plenty of different authors and never returning to them. It isn’t because I don’t like the author but because I like to try a bit of everything. Here are some authors I’ve really enjoyed but have only read one book by them.

Jane Austen (read Pride and Prejudice)
Charles Bukowski (read Factotum)
Italo Calvino (read If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
Joseph Conrad (read Heart of Darkness)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (read The Great Gatsby)
Gillian Flynn (read Gone Girl)
Graham Greene (read The Third Man)
Mary Shelley (read Frankenstein)
Evelyn Waugh (read Decline and Fall)
Edith Wharton (read Ethan Frome)

Recommend Me… Comics

Posted September 13, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Recommend Me... / 6 Comments

Recently I have started dipping into the world of comics and graphic novels after I heard that the most recent reboot of Ms Marvel was the first Pakastani-American Muslim superhero. This new change was exciting, and there was also the news that the new Captain American was going to be Falcon, an African American and Thor was soon to be a woman. Finally, when Archie died after he took a bullet protecting his gay friend, I knew that it was time to jump into the world of comics.

First problem I found was the sheer amount of comic book series out there. If I wanted to dive into the world of a particular superhero, I had no idea where to start, what is good and what is bad. I asked a fellow book blogger (Nylon Admiral), as I knew she was knowledgeable in the world of comics. I have been given a nice long list of Marvel Now comics to try and I am very pleased that they are mainly woman superheroes (the new Black Widow, She-Hulk, Storm).

However I think I am just getting started and I know I have plenty of great series to read. So I thought I would ask for some recommendations. Not just superheroes but I want to explore some interesting comics and superheroes. However I would like to dive into the world of some of the greatest superheroes as well. To help here are a list of comic books series I’m currently reading at the moment, and keep a look out for some reviews in the future.

Currently on my TBR

Afterlife with Archie by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (art by Francesco Francavilla)
Captain Marvel by Kelly Sue DeConnick (art by David Lopez)
FBP: Federal Bureau of Physics by Simon Oliver (art by Robbi Rodriguez)
Peter Panzerfaust by Kurtis J Wiebe (art by Tyler Jenkins)
Richard Stark’s Parker by Darwyn Cooke & Donald E. Westlake (art by Darwyn Cooke)
Rocket Girl by Brandon Montclare (art by Amy Reeder)
She-Hulk by Charles Soule (art by Javier Pulido)
Storm by Greg Pak (art by Victor Ibanez)
The Private Eye by Brian K. Vaughan (art by Marcos Martin & Muntsa Vicente)
The Punisher by Garth Ennis (art by Lewis Larosa, Tom Palmer & Dean White)

My Spring Reading List (for University)

Posted September 6, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in What are you Reading / 0 Comments

I’m back at university for another semester. This time I’m doing a course called Great Books part 1 (whatever that means). I’m actually very nervous and excited about this as I will be reading some very scary books. I’ve been doing an English Literature course part time and I feel like it will take me a very long time to finish this course. Studying online means I have a lot more flexible and that is hopeful for balancing my time between both work and study, however it also means it will take awhile. I thought I would share this list with you, not for sympathy but I’m hoping people might offer some advice (or encouragement) about getting through these books.

The Odyssey by Homer (translated by Walter Shewring)
Beowulf (translated by Michael Alexander)
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (translated by Nevill Coghill)
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

I think this is going to be hard, I don’t often read anything that was released before the 1800’s.

Monthly Review – August 2014

Posted August 31, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Monthly Reading / 0 Comments

As most people know, I have been on vacation to the United States. While this has a great six weeks off, it did come with some disadvantages. I may talk about all the bookshops I visited while in America in a future post but I am sad to say during this holiday I only managed to finish three books. While away, the book club read the true crime classic In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a book I read before vacation so I wouldn’t miss out. I wasn’t able to get involved with the discussions but it was good to see it happening while I was enjoying myself.

Looking at the Literary Exploration book club, it is great to see things happening without my involvement. It looks like next month we will be preparing for the movie adaptation of Gone Girl for our Thriller theme. Obviously I’m talking about our great book club but if you are not aware, the book discussion and everything else happens over on the Goodreads forums, so feel free to join in there.

While I’m not happy with the amount of books I read, I really did enjoy the three books anyway. Cannot pick a highlight from The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller and Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill; you’ll just have to wait for the reviews. What have you been reading and what have your highlights been?

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Posted August 30, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Book of the Month, Non-Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: In Cold Blood (Goodreads)
Author: Truman Capote
Published: Penguin, 1965
Pages: 336
Genres: Non-Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In 1959 a farmer from Holcomb, Kansas was killed along with his wife and two of his four children by a couple of two-bit thieves. This brutal crime spawned a desperate search for the killers who left bloody footprints at the murder scene. From petty crime to mass murder, In Cold Blood tells the story from murder to the gallows where they were executed by hanging.

In the Truman Capote literary masterpiece, it is easy to consider In Cold Blood a crime novel; it has shades of pulp and southern gothic throughout the book. However this journalistic investigation has often been cited as the first and best example of the non-fiction genre known as true crime. While there have been true crime books before In Cold Blood, this book did redefine the genre. Capote likes to call his book a non-fiction novel which he defined in an interview with The New Your Times as “a narrative form that employed all techniques of fictional art, but was nevertheless immaculately factual”.

However this is not just a book about the brutal murder of the Clutter family; we also get a Capote’s depiction of rural America. Outside the details of the crime, the author paints a descriptive backdrop of Kansas, the way he sees it. Religion, masculinity, femininity, the nuclear family and small town communities all play a big part in developing the scene. When he talks about the crime, the reader gets to explore the psychological motivations of murder and awaiting execution.

There is the issue of mental illness that needs to be explored when talking about In Cold Blood. It is almost like Truman Capote wants to challenge the reader to consider if Perry and Dick suffered from an untreated mental illness. There are shade of delusional, depression, schizophrenia and a sociopathic personality that comes through when talking about these two people but as this is 1959 I expect no psychological consult or treatment were given to these men; the court rejected the request.

I expected a true crime book but I feel like In Cold Blood was trying to do something similar to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I was very impressed with this book and I feel like Capote may have ruined true crime and even narrative non-fiction for the rest of the authors in these genres. Capote’s investigational skills and mastery over the written word is what makes this book a masterpiece.