Wuthering Heights

Title: Wuthering Heights

Author: Emily Bronte

Number of pages: 279

Started: 23 August 2008

Finished: 31 August 2008

Opening words:

1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.


Plot summary:

In a house haunted by memories, the past is everywhere! As darkness falls, a man caught in a snowstorm is forced to shelter at the strange, grim house Wuthering Heights. It is a place he will never forget. There he will come to learn the story of Cathy: how she was forced to choose between her well-meaning husband and the dangerous man she had loved since she was young. How her choice led to betrayal and terrible revenge - and continues to torment those in the present. How love can transgress authority, convention, even death. And how desire can kill.

Summary taken from Amazon.


What I thought:

I hate to say it but this really is not my kind of book and it reminded me of all those tings that I hated about being forced to read books at school. I did plough through it to the end, but I found the language a bit flowery, not very accessible and that I didn’t really see what about the plot people think is so marvellous. Perhaps a re-read sometime or going back through it with a guide written by someone who wants to pass on the book’s appeal would make a difference. But for me, this was not an enjoyable read.

The Birds and other stories

Title: The Birds and Other Stories

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Number of pages: 242

Started: 14 August 2008

Finished: 22 August 2008

Opening words:

On December the third the wind changed overnight and it was winter. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft. The leaves had lingered on the trees, golden red, and the hedgerows were still green. The earth was rich where the plough had turned it.

Plot summary:

The idea for this famous story came to du Maurier one day when she was walking across to Menabilly Barton farm from the house. She saw a farmer busily ploughing a field whilst above him the seagulls were diving and wheeling. She developed an idea about the birds becoming hostile and attacking him. In her story, the birds become hostile after a harsh winter with little food -- first the seagulls, then birds of prey, and finally even small birds -- all turn against mankind. The nightmarish vision appealed to Hitchcock who turned it into the celebrated film.

Summary taken from Amazon.

'How long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew . . . '

A classic of alienation and horror, 'The Birds' was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's sense of dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte Verità' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .

Summary taken from Fantastic Fiction.

What I thought:

I liked this book, but not as much as the other Daphne du Maurier books that I have read. It was a series of short stories, all in some way showing the darker side of life. In some ways there were no clear endings to some of the stories, but perhaps that was part of the point and helped to set the tone.

A reasonable read, not as good as her others, but if you like short stories then these are good ones to try.

84 Charing Cross Road

Title: 84 Charing Cross Road

Author: Helene Hanff

Number of pages: 230

Started: 10 August 2008

Finished: 13 August 2008

Opening words:

October 5, 1959

Gentlemen:

Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialise in out-of-print books. The phrase 'antiquarian book-sellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive. I am a poor write with an anteriquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except in very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes & Noble's grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies.

I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?

Very truly yours,
Helene Hanff

Plot summary:
84 Charing Cross Road is a 1970 book by Helene Hanff, later made into a stage play and film, about the twenty-year correspondence between her and Frank Doel of Marks & Co, antiquarian booksellers located at the eponymous address in London, England.

Summary taken from Wikipedia


What I thought:

This was a very speedy read. It actually only took me couple of hours to read the book – there were actually two books in this volume, the other being The Duchess of Bloomsbury, which took a bit longer to read.

84 Charing Cross Road is a charming correspondence that took place over many years between a British bookseller and an American customer. It is just a gentle read of what they wrote to each other (and a few letters that others chipped in when they could). A pleasant read.

The Duchess of Bloomsbury was the follow on story of when Helen Hanff came to London for the first time - which was after her correspondent had died and the bookshop itself had closed. It was a readable and charming insight into London and one woman’s finally achieving her ambition of seeing the England that she had previously only dreamed of and seen through books.

Strangers on a Train

Title: Strangers on a Train

Author: Patricia Highsmith

Number of pages: 256

Started: 29 July 2008

Finished: 9 August 2008

Opening words:

The train tore along with an angry, irregular rhythm. It was having to stop at smaller and more frequent stations, where it would wait impatiently for a moment, then attack the prairie again. But progress was imperceptible. The prairie only undulated, like a vast, pink-tan blanket being casually shaken. The faster the train went, the more buoyant and taunting the undulations

Plot summary:

The Psychologists would call it folie a deux...'Bruno slammed his palms together.' Hey! Cheeses, what an idea! I kill your wife and you kill my father! We meet on a train, see, and nobody knows we know each other! Perfect alibis! Catch? From this moment, almost against his conscious will, Guy Haines is trapped in a nightmare of shared guilt and an insidious merging of personalities.

Summary taken from Amazon.

What I thought:

I’m not sure what I thought of this book. When I concentrated on it I enjoyed reading it, but when I was reading it on the way to and from work I found it more difficult to get into it. It had an interesting and thought provoking plot and had some really good insights into what makes people tick and th consequences of the decisions we make. There is nothing to criticise about it, at time I just drifted a bit though. It was worth reading though and had some really satisfying parts to it.

One Good Turn

Title: One Good Turn

Author: Kate Atkinson

Number of pages: 527

Started: 18 July 2008

Finished: 28 July 2008

Opening words:

"He was lost. He wasn't used to being lost. He was the kind of man who drew up plans and then executed them efficiently, but now everything was conspiring against him in ways he decided he couldn't have foreseen. He had been stuck in a jam on the A1 for two mind-numbing hours so that it was already past the middle of the morning when he arrived in Edinburgh."

Plot summary:

It is the Edinburgh Festival. People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a road-rage incident - an incident which changes the lives of everyone involved. Jackson Brodie, ex-army, ex-police, ex-private detective, is also an innocent bystander - until he becomes a suspect.

With Case Histories, Kate Atkinson showed how brilliantly she could explore the crime genre and make it her own. In One Good Turn she takes her masterful plotting one step further. Like a set of Russian dolls each thread of the narrative reveals itself to be related to the last. Her Dickensian cast of characters are all looking for love or money and find it in surprising places. As ever with Atkinson what each one actually discovers is their true self.

Synopsis taken from Random House.

What I thought:

I quite liked this book, it was very readable and easy to get through. It did, however, have a very convoluted plot, with connections all over the place and people’s paths crossing, unknowingly, on a number of occasions.

This book has been described as ‘literary’, but I’m not entirely sure that I know why. It makes various references to works of literature, but surely that does not in itself make this book literary? I think describing it like that might actually put some people off, as it might give the impression that it is very intellectual, whereas it is actually an easy read.

The plot itself was quite good, if you could keep up with all the connections in it, although perhaps a little far-fetched, by the end. But worth reading and I might give another of her books a go.

The Kraken Wakes

Title: The Kraken Wakes

Author: John Wyndham

Number of pages: 240

Started: 17 July 2008

Finished: 21 July 2008

Opening words:

The nearest iceberg looked firmly grounded. Waves, with the whole fetch of the Atlantic behind them, exploded upon it, just as they would upon solid rock. Further out there were other large bergs, also stranded by the falling tide, and looking like sudden white mountains. Here and there among them smaller ones were still afloat, with the wind and the current driving them slowly up the Channel. That morning there were more, I fancy, than we had ever before seen at one time. I paused to look at them. Blinding white crags in a blue sea

Plot summary:

Ships are sinking for no apparent reason, carrying hundreds to a dark underwater grave. Strange fireballs race through the sky above the deepest trenches of the oceans. Something is about to show itself, something terrible and alien, a force capable of causing global catastrophe.

Summary taken from Amazon.

What I thought:

I enjoyed this book, not as much as the other John Wyndham’s but I did enjoy it nonetheless. It did keep making me think of The War of the Worlds and the invasion of beings more intelligent than us. It had that standard theme of how do you get people to deal with their inertia and be willing to deal with a crisis etc and whilst not as good as some of his others, it was a thought provoking read.

Jamaica Inn

Title: Jamaica Inn

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Number of pages: 267

Started: 14 July 2008

Finished: 17 July 2008

Opening words:

It was a cold grey day in late November, The weather had changed overnight when a backing wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after two o'clock in the afternoon the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills, cloaking them in mist. It would be dark by four. The air was clammy cold, and for all the tightly closed windows it penetrated the interior of the coach. The leather seats damp to the hands, and there must have been a small crack in the roof, because now and again little drips of rain fell softly through, smudging the leather and leaving a dark blue stain like a splodge of ink. The wind came in gusts, at times shaking the coach as it travelled round the bend of the road, and in the exposed places on the high ground it blew with such force that the whole body of the coach trembled and swayed, rocking between the high wheels like a drunken man.

The driver, muffled in a greatcoat to his ears, bent almost double in his seat; in a faint endeavour to gain shelter from his own shoulders, while the dispirited horses plodded sullenly to his command, too broken by the wind and the rain to feel the whip that now and again cracked above their heads, while it: swung between the numb fingers of the driver.

Plot summary:

Jamaica Inn tells the story of the 23-year-old Mary Yellan, brought up on a farm in Helford in the early 1800s, but who is forced to go live with her Aunt Patience after Mary's mother dies. Patience is the wife of the keeper of Jamaica Inn, Joss Merlyn. On her arrival at the gloomy and threatening inn, she finds her aunt under the thumb of the vicious Joss, and soon realizes that something unusual is afoot at the inn, which has no guests and is never open to the public. Mary tries to squeeze the truth out of her uncle during one of his benders, but he tells her, "I'm not drunk enough to tell you why I live in this God-forgotten spot, and why I'm the landlord of Jamaica Inn."
Summary taken from wikipedia.

What I thought:

I really enjoyed this book. It’s quite melodramatic but very engaging and I think I particularly enjoyed it because it was set in the part of Cornwall where I was staying at the time and so some of the places I had actually just been to. I thought it was a dark and foreboding plot that did really well at conjuring up images and a sense of doom. Really good read.