Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins
Book
In May 1997, the world watched as Garry Kasparov, the greatest chess player in the world, was...
computing technology science biography
The Wood for the Trees: One Man's Long View of Nature
Book
From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-and-bluebell wood through...
The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
Book
From one of our greatest science writers, this biography of a beech-and-bluebell wood through...
Before Pictures
Book
Douglas Crimp is the rare art critic whose work profoundly influenced a generation of artists. He is...
A A. Milne: His Life
Book
A.A. Milne is one of the most successful English writers ever. His heart-warming...
Aiming High: The Life of Ski and Travel Pioneer Erna Low
Mark Frary and Roger Lloyd Pack
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Erna Low, born in Vienna in 1909, was instrumental in starting what has become a multimillion pound...
An Author and a Gardener: The Gardens and Friendship of Edith Wharton and Lawrence Johnston
Book
In August 1937 a small group of Edith Wharton's intimate friends gathered to pay their last respects...
Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis
Alan Crawford and Tony Czuczka
Book
Shortlisted for International Affairs Book of the Year in the Paddy Power Political Book Awards 2014...
Ross (3284 KP) rated She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be in Books
Jun 15, 2020
Prior to starting this book, I was only aware of Barker from his work with Dacre Stoker on Dracul, the prequel-cum-biography telling a variation of Bram Stoker's life story. This book is very different, though it also tells someone's full life story.
Jack Thatch has had a tough life already when we meet him, his parents dying in a car crash when he was very young, and he spends his childhood living with his Aunt. A chance meeting with a mysterious girl in the cemetery on the anniversary of his parents' death haunts him and each year he returns looking for her, and the mystery continues. This carries on, with a new chapter telling the events of each subsequent year, and the "burned but not burned" bodies that appear on the same day.
There is a little of a Stephen King feel about the book - telling of a young boy growing up and telling every detail of his life and his friendships and gradually letting the paranormal elements of the story build up.
The first third of the book is excellent, setting the scene and sewing the seeds of the mystery to follow and introducing the cast of characters and their interactions and conflicts. This part of the story rattles along with decent pace and the reader can get a good feeling of momentum.
The middle third ground to a halt for me. The chapters became longer, the story being told felt less important and the reduction in pace was a bit of a kick in the teeth.
But the final third this book gets going again in superb style. This could well have been an excellent story in its own right, but definitely benefits from the lengthy build-up. We gradually have one group of characters grow and come into conflict with another, all building up to an inevitable meeting.
This is a great, but long, story of special abilities, how they could impact someone's life and be abused by those in power, and how they will eventually become out of control.
Dancing Bees: Karl Von Frisch and the Discovery of the Honeybee Language
Book
We think of bees as being among the busiest workers in the garden, admiring them for their...