Poision Flower - Thomas Perry

Poison Flower is the seventh book in Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitefield series.

I’m a huge fan of the Jane Whitefield books, having previously blogged on how much I enjoyed the series and how Perry is a masterful suspense writer. So I was eager to read about Jane’s latest adventures.

Overall, I have very mixed feelings about the book and as a fan felt quite disappointed. The narrative was a bit choppy and the part of the Jane helping someone ‘disappear’ was dealt with in a rather desultory and mechanical manner.  

The second half of the book was Jane in ‘revenge’ mode, with the twist being that instead of making someone disappear she is actively seeking someone on the run. There was a distinct lack of suspense as the ending was quite rush and Jane seems to get her revenge in a rather quick and easy manner.

Some of the violence and torture scenes in the book made me think that I had accidently found myself in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series!

Plus the main ‘badie’ in the book could have done with some character development, apart from the fact that he is a psychopath we don’t really know (or are made to care) exactly why?

I really, really wanted to like this book, but kept thinking that in this seventh book Perry has really struggled to keep Jane  developing and growing as a charater.

I think it gets hard for any author to keep a series consistenly fresh and a character going after so many books without at some point having them 'jump the shark' (see for example of Patricia Cornwell and Charlaine Harris).

For me, the only author who has done this consistently is thriller writer  Jeffrey Deaver. Across his various series (Lincoln Rhyme and Kathryn Dance), Deaver delivers books that keep his characters growing, developing and always has original but believable storylines.

I am hoping that Deaver continues to deliver, as am about to read his latest Kathryn Dance book "XO".

When has a series, jumped the shark for you?

All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Modern World Piers Moore Ede

Lately my reading has taken a serious turn and a complete world away from Young Adult fiction.

Piers Moore Ede’s wonderful book, All Kinds of Magic, is one man’s spiritual journey to find some sort of meaning in life beyond the material.

Fed up with his life in the London, the book details his travels to India and Nepal, seeking out the Sadhus (wondering holy men), the whirling dervishes in rural Turkey and the birthplace of Sufi poet Rumi.

Ede also attends some of the largest spiritual festivals in India including the Deepam Festival and finally ends his trip with an exploration of shamanism in South America.

Throughout his travels, Ede struggles with the tension between what he experiences and the rational side of his brain.

I loved the ease of this book, Ede’s writing is beautifully nuanced and he distills the struggles with his own faith and understanding in such a thoughful and courageous manner. 

He is always aware of the often contradictory nature of his journey: a Western white man searching for answers in the East.

I found the book a welcome relief from the often shrill and adversarial debates ignited by Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) et al.

The book also opened up a whole world of spiritual ideas for me, like Sufism and the poet Rumi, to further explore. 

Seize the Day: how the dying teach us to live

I’ve always read books to not only better understand the exterior world, but also my own interior world.

In doing this, I tend to read a lot of non-fiction books including biographies, autobiographies and cultural histories.

But I usually stay well away from the self help genre as I’ve always found these types of books paint a rather simplistic view of the world.

Also, I’m not really interested in the “top ten steps’ to be healthier, smarter or more successful etc.

However, after reading a thoughtful review I decided to read Marie de Hennezel’s Seize the Day: how the dying teach us to live.

Despite the title, de Hennezel’s book isn’t really a ‘self help’ book in the traditional sense and certainy doesn’t follow the genre’s standard structure.

Rather it details her experiences as a psychologist working in a palliative care home in Paris. She writes with compassion about her patients, the staff who work there and essentially what drives her to do the type of work she does.

I found great comfort in this elegantly written book, especially as I was dealing with a recent death in the family that involved palliative care.

The patient’s stories are deeply moving and told with great humanity. Moreover, de Hennezel reveals that despite each person's unique history what connects them all is the underlying theme: the need to accept death as part of life. And it is often the families of the dying patients who struggle with this acceptance.

For de Hennezel her role is to just be there for a patient, as a witness to their death but also their life. She writes about these experiences with such a strong, clear and passionate voice.

This was a deeply moving book that helped me better understand some of my own feelings, experiences and emotions.

Like all great books, it doesn't provide any easy answers because there really are no such things in our complicated exterior and interior worlds.

Young adult fiction reading spree

Over the past month or so, I’ve been really getting into my young adult (YA) fiction.

In fact it’s all I’ve been reading, so here are some highlights so far:

Started my YA reading with another dystopian teenage book, Veronica Roth’s Divergent.



This is the first in a planned trilogy, and like the Suzanne Collin’s Hunger Games, focuses on a female protagonist who lives in a future world where humanity has been split into factions.

In this new world, there are five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue: Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).

It's an interesting premise and after a rather slow start it builds up to an exciting storyline. Overall, it is a little Hunger Games-lite but I did find myself involved and will be looking for the second book, Insurgent, out in May 2012.

The only disappointing thing is the rather stereotypical romance, but then again I’m not the target audience so I need to hold my cynicism in check!

Another great fun series is Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, which is a contemporary retelling of the Greek myths involving modern day teenagers as ‘demi-gods’ – half bloods.



It’s got action, monsters, Gods, Goddesses, mythical creatures and yes a bit of usual romance thrown in. So what’s not to like?

Plus there is so sly humour running through out Riordan’s novels, like having the entry to Hades being LA.

I’m up to the third book in the series, The Titan’s Curse and it’s really reignited my interest in Greek mythology too.

There has been a bit written about why adults are currently flocking to YA fiction, like Alyssa Rosenberg's piece in the Atlantic Monthly and Laura Miller's analysis in Salon.

For me, one of the main reasons I enjoy YA fiction is that it's a genre that is filled with great story tellers.

Put simply YA authors like Suzanne Collins, Patrick Ness, Eoin Colfer, Rick Riordan know how to tell a captivating story filled with memorable characters.

Maybe it's the fact that young adults tend to have less attention span than adults and thus far less likely to put up with endless paragraphs of detailed description, character development and scene setting.

Sometimes, when I read 'literary fiction' and get stuck on a chapter that is all exposition rather than story telling, a little voice in my head yells 'TELL ME THE STORY, pleeeeease!".

That being said, my little secret is that I can't stand teenagers in real life!

Indeed, I prefer them confined to the pages of book as there really nothing more nightmarish than been stuck on a train with a group of teenage girls.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I’m always wary when people who behave terribly, often in the workplace, are described in a slightly forgiving way as ‘complicated’.

Aren’t well all complicated human beings? Does that mean we can all behave as intolerable bullies?

At times, Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Steve Jobs tends towards this “oh he is complicated’ rationale to explain away Job’s awful behaviour in the workplace and in his personal life.

But fortunately, Isaacson as a biographer is able to distance himself from his subject and call Jobs out on his distortions of reality and at times deluded behaviour.

This does stop this book from being a hagiography, though it would have benefited from just a little more distance between the author and his subject.

Overall, this biography is a fascinating testimonial of how one person completely moulded a company to his will and in doing so forced a whole lot of industries to change.

I found the later chapters the most interesting. They focused on the development of the iPhone and iPad and Isaacson provides a detailed account from inside Apple on how Jobs and his team created these game changing products.

Isaacson also traces the often antagonistic relationship between the two titans of the tech world: Jobs and Bill Gates. He also clearly explains the divergent philosophies of Apple and Microsoft/Google, that is the clash between the 'closed' and 'open' system.

I would have liked more about the relationship between Google and Apple, but I guess that topic could take up another book.

This book is worth reading because it not only provides an indepth and fascinating account of one of the key innovators of our time, but also gives you a better understanding of the players in the tech world like Intel, Microsoft, Google and also entertainment industry too.

In the end, Isaacsons's biography reveals to us some of the brute realities of the inspiring tale of Steve Jobs, who built a company where 'technology and creativity' intersect.