Nine books a-reading!

I have been uncharacteristically extravagant in recent days; normally I only buy books second-hand, to save money, but there have been a few good offers in Waterstones et al, and I have taken these opportunities to restock my bookshelves. Consequently, I am in the joyous position of having NINE shiny new novels waiting to be read:

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M T Anderson
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
Nation by Terry Pratchett
Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz
The Gift by Cecilia Ahern
The Lost Art of Gratitude by Alexander McCall Smith
Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes

The Anthony Horowitz is particularly exciting as it is the latest in my beloved series of Alex Rider novels - a brilliant collection of books about a teenager in the employ of MI5.

Exciting! If there is anything particularly notable in any of them, perhaps it will even find its way onto this blog...

Ten Doctors a-regenerating!

(Sorry, it's a day late... I was away yesterday.)

This Christmas will be, in many ways, a time of worldwide mourning, as something unthinkably sad is going to happen... David Tennant will be leaving the role of the Doctor forever!

While I have no doubts at all about the quality of his successor Matt Smith (a lead role in the marvellous Sally Lockhart Mysteries plus a play at the Royal Exchange - who can ever cast aspersions on his acting credentials?!), Tennant's departure will be very difficult to accept! I am undoubtedly going to cry like a little girl!

Eleven chills a-tingling!

There is something about the traditional, old-fashioned, round-the-fire ghost story that seems inextricably linked to Christmas. I suspect that's something to do with the dark nights, and the idea of a reunited family shutting the curtains and gathering around to share chilling tales...

In any case, I have, for the last few years, endeavoured to read a good ghost story over the Christmas period. It's usually the Victorians and Edwardians who understood the genre best (and the titles are always brilliant - who but Henry James could pen something like The Strange Romance of Certain Old Clothes?!) but the one modern writer who I think has properly inherited her predecessor's talents is the wonderful Susan Hill. This Christmas, I shall be reading her acknowledged masterpiece The Woman in Black, which is now most famous for its stage adaptation, one of the West End's most successful plays. From browsing the first few pages, I know it to be the story of a young man named Arthur Kipps who experiences something terrible in a lonely house on the moors and, years, later is compelled to relate the tale:

They had chided me with being a spoilsport, tried to encourage me to tell them the one ghost story I must surely, like any other man, have it in me to tell. And they were right. Yes, I had a story, a true story, a story of haunting and evil, fear and confusion, horror and tragedy. But it was not a story to be told for casual entertainment, around the fireside upon Christmas Eve...

I beg to differ, Mr Kipps! Tell on!

Twelve days a-counting!

Right, I have come up with a personal challenge to try and get me back into the habit of blogging: it's twelve days until Christmas, and on each day between now and then, I shall endeavour to write a post that has some vague relation to the number of days left...in a vague semblance of the 12 days of Christmas... Bear with me! It might be fun!

A new beginning? Not convinced...

Well it's taken me over a year, but I just might have found the inner strength to return to the world of blogging... We'll see how it goes.

Many things have changed in my life since my last post: the Ginger House, tragically, has disbanded; I'm now at the Royal Northern College of Music, doing a Masters in vocal performance; and, most significantly for this blog, I have read many more books and seen a lot more theatre. There is definite potential for some Confessions, methinks...

The last Last Word

The fantastic thing about these monologues has been the way in which each one is so different from the other two. The final one, A bit of Private Business, stars Bob Hoskins as a hitman waiting in a public toilet for his next target. Hoskins is so good at this sort of thing, and his comic timing is pretty much impeccable, making much of this monologue very funny indeed. But, in keeping with the other two, things eventually turn a bit darker...the man finds himself meditating on age, loneliness, and the feeling of a world moving on while some people get left behind, and the end of the piece is so surprising that it takes a little while for you to realise how significant it is - the hitman has outlined for us the black-and-white rules and principles of his world, but ultimately we see that, tragically, the things he believes in cannot be trusted any longer.

In summary, these monologues by Hugo Blick have been really quite excellent. Managing to balance comedy and tragedy is a tricky one, but each piece has done it, brilliantly.

The Last Word...again

I was wrong, it seems - the monologues are about imminent death, but not necessarily the death of the narrator, as in the first one; in the second one, Six days one June, it is the mother of the storyteller who is on the verge of dying. This one is very unsettling, about a forty-year-old farmer called Huw (played by Rhys Ifans, the master-portrayar of tortured souls) narrating what, at first, appears to be a Lonely-Hearts-type advert, but ultimately becomes a sort of confessional video diary as his story turns darker. Ifans manages to make the character both horrific and pathetic in equal measure; it's a very subtle, mesmerising performance that makes Huw's inevitable breakdown horribly enthralling, as he obsessively washes his face and gives way to wracking sobs.

Brrrr...not comfortable viewing! But thoughtprovoking enough to make it worth a watch.