Tom's treasures of fiction, poetry, literature and more...

Hello again. For today's post I am cross-referencing Vikas Swarup's novels that I have read to bring to light my thoughts on having recurring characters. In Six Suspects  (2008), the novel introduces us to a whole variety of characters who crop up more than once and form connections with other characters. For example we have Champi, Munna's sister. When we are first introduced to Champi is earlier on as a minor character in Munna's backstory, him being one of the 'Six Suspects'. Later on however, she meets reappears in Eketi's backstory and the two appear to form a bond which is explored somewhat towards the ending of the novel. We then get the crossover between Shabnam Saxena and Larry Page as their stories start to become entwined. Saxena is mentioned throughout and not just in her sections. Having the characters appearing in other people's backstories provides the opportunity to link them all at the end with ease. I liked this flowing in and out of th...

It is the end of the month so this is where I reveal some stuff I have read throughout the month. Let's get into what I have been reading throughout July... 1: Stuff on social media. Lately I have been seeing a lot on social media which I am finding is repeating. A lot of the stuff is people, politicians, media companies and more doing bad things. Often I am unsurprised. However, I never take things at face value. Someone told me you cannot trust social media yet also told you could trust most UK newspapers, reeling off several. I must admit that I disagree because I have seen lies, misinformation or bias from UK newspapers and news channels. That is just how I see it and my opinion is mine. Other can disagree (or agree) with me just so long as they are willing to accept me having an opinion. Social media can be eye-opening for me. Even if sometimes it's just funny cat videos that brighten up my day. 2: Bus timetables online. I have been reading a lot of bus timetables this mon...

Hello all. After having watched all the episodes of Death in Paradise series 2, I am going to be rating them all and ranking them from my most favourite to least favourite just as I did with the series 1 episodes. First of all though, it is confession time. I struggled a little in trying to rank the series 1 episodes of Death in Paradise . Series 2 was much more exciting to me. Anyway, let us get into it. 2, 1, 7, 5, 3, 4, 6, 8. 1st place: Episode 2 - An Unholy Death. To me the best episode is the second one where religion and sin collide in this excellent story. I love the idea of this phantom nun that people claim to have seen. It is no surprise that this annoys Richard who wastes no time in dismissing such a claim. The episode was filled with moments that made me gag. The secrets were all juicy! What an episode this was! Nothing failed to disappoint me. I will never forget it when someone tried to strangle the Mother Superior, sister Anne. Oh crikey! Then later on in the episode ho...

Deceit, revenge and silencing continue as I review series two of Robert Thorogood's Death in Paradise . Immediately we open up with a wealthy man being stabbed in the back in episode one. Seeing the floral love heart with the knife through it really felt symbolic of the episode in a way. Richard struggled to muster up a loving feeling for the voodoo festival of love relating to Erzulie, the goddess of love while Camille was set up on a date by her mother. The loving theme present throughout the episode was contrasted with a theme of hatred evident with the bickering family of the deceased. I enjoyed this episode, seeing the family's problems and secrets. Funny how the ex-wife screamed at the discovery of his death but not the current wife. Their characters added to all the family backstory which provided me with clues to solve this case. The best bit though was the doctor finding the victim because I thought that regardless of who the killer was, the doctor could not be immedia...

Finally the end of June is coming. That means it is time to disclose on some of the things I have been diving into. I thought I had posted this on Friday but it obviously did not post so have it now! I will post again later for the first post of June. 1: My French... The continual French learning never ever ever stops! Reading, typing, listening and speaking tasks all help to improve my understanding of the language. I do not even spend a lot of time doing it; five or ten minutes per day is what I like to accomplish. 2: The Adoption Papers  (1991) by Jackie Kay. As Jackie Kay was author of the month for May, I read her poetry collection The Adoption Papers  (1991). You can check out my review on the blog post to see what my thoughts were on the collection. Searching for tags such as 'BIPOC' or '1990s' can help you find the post easier. 3: Bus websites and timetables. There are some bus routes which I use (when I need to) that have been given updated timetables, with som...

Today I am reviewing Jackie Kay's short story collection Reality, Reality . I absolutely loved reading this collection! It was funny, heartwarming, sad and at times confusing with the stories all offering something different. I read the first story 'Reality, Reality' and immediately I was confused. The writing was not bad but I found the character had an odd personality. I was a little unsure what was going on. However, most of the stories did not confuse me. I did get a little confused over what happened in 'The White Cot'. For me, I was reminded of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892). I found that Sam and Dionne's relationship was a little worrisome to me. I liked them together but I worried how it would end. I am glad that Jackie Kay took on a story in which I was unsure what to expect next. This short story though had something in common in several of the stories. I found with a lot of the stories there were couples who were often...

It is time for another book review... For this review, I am looking at Don Paterson's poetry collection 40 Sonnets  (2015). This is a fun collection that shifts tone from the somewhat serious mellow tone of his last collection I reviewed - Rain  (2009). This collection offers something different. Obviously it offers 40 different sonnets but they are not just 'sonnets'. The sonnets here are also unique and varied from one another. First of all, they are structurally different from one another. A lot of you probably have a certain view of how a sonnet should look and be structured, which could well be based from having some of Shakespeare's sonnets. But sonnets can be so much more and unexpected at times. Paterson's collection also allows his thoughts and his queries to be highlighted. I like how his poem 'An Incarnation' is his side of a phone call conversation in which he seems to be asked he is who he is meant to be. I found the whole poem rather comical. I...

They keep coming... Yes, another review for a film of my favourite Shakespeare play. This time the film is the 2010 version directed by Rupert Goold. Here is a confusing film that delivers one your worst nightmares! I give to you the three witches of Macbeth, dressed as masked nurses! Every time we see them, there is always a horrid act. This includes one of the witches cleaning a large knife, or even when the three witches first meet Macbeth and Banquo, a witch holds up a patients heart. This is after the patient's death of course. I meticulously noticed that these three sinister sisters continued to appear throughout the film, even in the form of other guises to that of the masked nurses. Aside from masked nurses, witches or however they are perceived, the king and other characters are soldiers. This film is based on the idea of a war which is to be won. With soldiers shooting guns and planes heard from above, this film is a bloody and violent depiction of the Scottish play. The ...

Welcome people. After reviewing the first two books in Darren Shan's Zom-B  series, I decided to take to the third book, Zom-B: City  (2013) like narrator and protagonist B took to London. In this novel we see B roaming the streets of London to determine what state the outside world is in since the zombies attacked. Throughout the novel we meet a varied range of characters including Coley, Timothy Jackson and Sister Clare to name a few. A small number of the characters I liked; most of them I did not. One character who I met in the first novel, raised suspicions then and here in this novel, they made me loathe them. I will not give away the spoiler of who, in case anyone wants to read the series... The characters are what made this novel excellent because of how often characters made me react. Depending on the character (no spoilers given), I winced, I shuddered, I cringed, I became discombobulated and even I felt sick. The only character I liked, aside from B was Timothy Jack...

I am here again with more Zom-B scariness from author of the month Darren Shan. This time I am reviewing his second novel in the 12 part Zom-B series -  Zom-B: Underground  (2013). SHHH! Secrecy, cover ups and deception are sprawled throughout this horror novel. As zombies and B's racist dad plagued B's world in the first novel,  Zom-B  (2012), it transpires how actions can have consequences. This novel demonstrates how one person's deception and dishonesty can cost them a lot, sometimes including their life. The novel carries on from the first novel. However where that was in the streets, homes, school and so forth, this second novel was underground. Reading this, I discovered that being underground does not equal safe and out of harms way from the zombies, or anything for that matter. B's previous life was when B was just a normal school kid with no worries. Most of B' previous life has gone. Except the day B met the mutants. These hooded creeps gave me a huge ick...

Saw? Scream? Halloween? It? These are four well known and popular horror films. Are these my favourite horror or do I prefer something a little different? Stay tuned for today's blog post as I reveal my favourite horror films... 1: Ghostbusters (2016) directed by Paul Feig. This film starring Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig as the leading characters was incredible! I found it funny, I found it cool and I found it highly engrossing. I absolutely loved it and could not get enough of the film! Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig are such a power force together as a group of four fierce leading women. They all worked well together, had perfect connection and wonderful humour. Out of all the films I have watched, this is one of my favourites. 2: Scooby-Doo (2002) directed by Raja Gosnell. Now you may or may not consider this a horror film but this comedy horror film was so fun and sinister in equal measure. I am a massive Scooby-...

Welcome to today's blog post readers. Today I am reviewing my first Darren Shan work, Zom-B  (2012) as he is author of the month. His first novel in this twelve part series was a disgusting, creepy action-packed story when zombies start to attack. Not everyone believes the zombies are real. The protagonist known as 'B', is one of them. B's influencing problem is her father. Aside from the zombies, B's father is the other main distraction in the novel. B struggles with what B' father says. B knows he is extremely racist and Darren Shan has highlighted this very well in his novel. I can see in this novel that Shan has emphasised this racist idea of 'us vs them'. While it is clear that B tries to be so different from this racist that we see with B's father, sometimes B almost as if gets trapped. B does not want to be racist though at times is. I dislike B for that and it does disgust me. However, I can see how B's father is far worse. He is racist, ...

Hello everyone and welcome to another review. This time I am opening up on a tragic tale of knives, youngsters and gangs. Here I am looking at another work from my author of the month, Bernardine Evaristo. Her chilling novella takes place in London and is an epistolary; meaning it is told though form of letters. The narrator is that of a teenager called Jerome who ends up wanting to join a gang to feel safe. Unfortunately for Jerome, the harsh realities soon hit him. It is his mother though who I worry about most. The pair of them love each other dearly despite their constant arguments. For me Evaristo is challenging when something needs to be challenged and here is no exception. Her novella is street smart, sharp and heated. It is just what is needed for those who want something quick or short to read. For me the novella is unusual in what happens. However, I still like. For me it deserves an 8/10. Until next time, Thomas.

Hello to all the hes, shes theys and zies. I wanted to do an opinion piece on how and why I think Atwood's work can be useful to us in society. Take her 1985 classic  The Handmaid's Tale , when Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president, the novel rose in the bestseller charts as the handmaids were seen as figures of resistance against Trump's regimes targeting women. This tells us something about her work. Notice how Trump became president in 2017 until 2021, and his presidency caused a rise of interest in Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale . Then two years later The Testaments  (2019) was published, winning the Booker prize. There must have been a clear interest in a sequel all of a sudden because The Handmaid's Tale  was published in 1985. It took thirty-four years until we arrived at the sequel. Though her book also rose in prominence again, I think because of the book banning in the United States of America. Some people saw her book as "bad" or ...

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. I am back once again to deliver my thoughts on yet another Margaret Atwood novel. This time I decided to dive into Margaret Atwood's The Testaments  (2019). After having re-read and reviewed The Handmaid's Tale  (1985), I thought it was only right to read the sequel book and review it. First of all I wanted to say how nervous I was at what was going to happen in this novel. The ending of The Handmaid's Tale  left me with fears over what had happened to the protagonist and I had so many unanswered questions. I thought The Testaments  would give all these answers and in some way they did. But there were finer details which had not been accounted for, stuff that I could not work out. That is not to say, I did not enjoy the book. Far from it! I loved The Testaments  and there are multiple reasons why. The most important is this gender divide and how things changed in Atwood's dystopia here. In the first book, the men had all the...

I am back again to bring yet another fascinating review and am keeping with the LGBTQIA+ theme. For this one I am diving into what quickly became my favourite book when I first read it - Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other  (2019). From the first page, the first sentence even, I knew there was something special about this and as I read it I could easily understand why it won the Booker prize in 2019 (alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments 2019)  I think the first thing I noticed was Evaristo's use of punctuation and capital letters because without giving too much away, she rather tends to challenge the grammatical rules with which we are familiar  with as I found on page one:     ‘to her right is the bend in the river as it heads east past Waterloo Bridge towards the dome of St Paul's’. ¹ This not only drew me in to Amma's world but also Evaristo's world as a writer. I find that her craft is such a joy because of the way she structures her words, sentenc...