Category: Book Reviews

New Reading Challenge: 2020

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What a horror story 2020 was eh? Who would have thought at this time last January we’d all end up living in a world of travel restrictions, infection apps and no pub. No pub! Inevitably, without my favourite writing spot, my prose turnout dropped a bit this year… But three weeks of furlough did give me time to read lots of books, and I achieved my new Reading Challenge for 2020: reading 52 books in the year.

Reading Challenge 2020

We know I like to record every book I read. It’s good to read widely and to treat reading as entertainment just as worthy of your time as gaming, scrolling and Netflix. As an author, you pick up tips and learn more about your own place in your genre (or out of it). A challenge helps to push you to read more and to try new books for new experiences.

You even got a preview of what’s been on my hit-list when I posted my mid-year reading roundup in the summer. I hope you’ll still enjoy scanning a half-interested eye down the full tally.

Challenges of 2021

I know a lot of creative people have struggled this year. In the all the upheaval and ever-changing rules, your mentality recalibrates from creative to survival mode. It’s nothing to beat yourself up about. Usually, I make resolutions for the new year. But this January all I’m resolving to do is take things as they come. I’ll roll with the punches and deal with things in a positive way that might inspire others to do the same.

Who knows, I might even squeeze some writing in. I’ve got a doozie of an idea about a Victorian séance, and it would suit chapter titles named after tarot cards…

Watch this space! And now, to our headline act, the Reading Challenge 2020.

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Black is the New Black: The Best Goth Characters

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They’re creepy and they’re kooky – mysterious and spooky. It’s… the best goth characters in fiction.

Goths are rarely the main characters in books and films, but they’re persistent scene-stealers, grabbing attention with killer fashion sense and morbid jokes. What makes a good goth character? Well, apart from a complexion that a Victorian recluse would envy, you can expect brooding philosophies, gallows humour and decadent lifestyles, in any combination. Gothic characters are great avatars for seeing the world through a darker lens, for indulging our dark sides and for ignoring what everyone else thinks.

Let’s shadow our eyes, lose our smiles (unless there are pointed teeth behind them) and meet the best goth characters in films and books.

Wednesday Addams – The Addams Family, Charles Addams

Drawn by Charles Addams, Played by Christina Ricci and Voiced by
Chloë Grace Moretz

The Addamses are all creepy and kooky, but it must be said the girls of the family fly the gothic flag the highest. But while Morticia could have topped the list with her funeral-ready chic, it’s her Wednesday that out-goths the rest of her clan.

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How to review a book

Liam Smith Leave a comment

This year, I’ve been listing every book I read in this What I’ve Read diary. Each page invites you to scribble some notes about the book, as well as give it a star rating. Which begs the question: what makes a book good? Just how do you review a book?

My What I’ve Read diary was a present from Millenial Maize

There are lots of parts to a book, and not just pages either. Things like characters, settings, events. More nuanced things too, the things that exist between the lines and which we’ll be looking at today. Style. Theme. Even truth. They all add up to something more than the sum of their parts. Let’s ready our critical scalpels and look inside the anatomy of a novel. At the things which make a story good or bad. Let’s learn how to review a book.

Why review a book?

Reviewing a book isn’t about criticising it. It’s about thinking analytically about its composition, and the choices that went into it to making it. There are some brilliant novels out there in the world and it’s important to recognise the hard work, choices and sacrifices that went into them. Reviewing a book – even if only in your head for a day after finishing one – is part of experiencing and respecting it. And about understanding what makes it good – or bad – compared to the bazillions of other books out there.

As we learn how to review a book, with some simple questions, we’ll see the amount of crossover between them. If writing a book was as easy as working through this like a checklist, everyone would be doing it!

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Best Books 2020: A Summer Reading Review

Liam Smith Leave a comment

Welcome, friends, to the creaking halls and torchlit chambers of my blog. Advance as puffs of dust burst from the thick carpets and fleeting shadows flitter in the peripheries of your vision, and follow the trail of incense and ghostlight to the library. Today we are pawing through the most infamous and noteworthy volumes that I have read this year so far.

Best book you’ve read so far this year

Night Shift – Stephen King (1978)

I’ve read 34 books so far this year. New books, old books, novels, memoirs. Nothing’s been better than this classic collection of terrifying vignettes written in King’s signature conversational style. His imagination is boundless and his ability to do justice to his ideas makes Night Shift the King of all books I’ve read so far this year.

The tales that have wormed into my head and stayed the longest include The Ledge, where a crime boss finds out who his wife has been cheating with, and has the unenviable soul edge his way round the outside of his penthouse on a five-inch ledge, Children of the Corn, where a couple driving through the dustbowl discover a cult of children who worship in the cornfields, and Battleground, where a boxful of toy soldiers attack a trained assassin in his apartment.

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Reading Challenge 2019: All the Books I Read

Liam Smith Leave a comment

As well you know if you’re a returning reader of this blog, I make a note of every book I read. It’s a hallowed, time-honoured tradition that I started last year eons ago. When I first started, I found that watching that list get longer and longer inspired me to read more books, to increase the size of my tally. It became something of a reading challenge.

I also found I read more widely. I tried a few non-horror fantasies and dramas, and I liked broadening my reading-range and picking up some ideas along the way. I’ve actually started something this year; every payday I stroll to the bookshop* and get myself a new book – usually by someone I’ve not heard of, and purely based on the title, cover and blurb. Cos if you don’t judge a book by its cover, you’re lying.
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