Just so you know, from tomorrow, I’m going to be living without decent Internet until late November 2010. As a result, things will be slowing down for me on the web. Reading will continue at the normal pace but I may well not be able to put reviews on the site until near Christmas although I’ll still be writing them as I go along.

In addition, and perhaps more importantly, while downloads for the spreadsheet can continue unchanged, I’ll probably not be able to offer the same level of support as previously. I will get to you if you email me at arukiyomi AT johnandsheena.co.uk However, if you rely on comments though, things may take longer than you are happy with.

Thanks for your patience… and don’t delete my RSS feed in the meantime!

As promised… in fact, even more than I promised…

Version 4 is packed full of new features and it blows anything released before out of the water. Don’t believe me? Well, see the feature list and if that doesn’t grab you, check out a few screenshots. If you’re still not convinced, there are four screencasts too.

And if you trust me enough to ignore all that, and just want to get your hands on it right now:

Choose your flavour…

oh… yeah, I almost forgot. Check out Arukiyomi’s Affiliate Club to find out how you can get paid for, frankly, doing nothing.

Context: Finished this off on Trinity Beach just north of Cairns which is mentioned often in this novel.

REVIEW

A very, very long time ago, I was a teenage boy. At that time, I read Shute’s masterpiece, On the Beach, and loved it’s melancholy and dead-end conclusion. I was interested then in reading Alice and finding out how it compared and how I’d react to his writing after so long.

(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this as we took our first flight on the double-decker A380 from Dubai to Seoul. Very nice.

REVIEW

Never heard of this until, scanning my copy of the 1001 list at a flea market, I came across the title. It seemed a bit obscure and, for the life of me, I cannot recall ever even hearing about the ‘sensational’ film that was supposed to have been made from this. Probably just as well. I’ve no idea how they would do it. This has dolphins talking English and people talking Dolphinese and, in a word, it’s bonkers.

(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this while we were meeting the church staff for lunch at our immense church in Seoul, South Korea.

REVIEW
This is the most amazing book. It’s the fourth by McEwan that I’ve read and I think he’s finally cracked it. All the other three (Amsterdam, Enduring Love and Atonement) all begin superbly but have mediocre endings. They all seem to trail off about halfway through. Amsterdam might be the exception but still it didn’t live up to my expectations. On Chesil Beach is superb from the very first paragraph and ends magnificently. This was beaten to the Booker by Enright’s The Gathering which must be phenomenal to have taken the prize that year.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Packing our final bags for emigrating to Papua New Guinea

REVIEW

This is a moving portrayal of life in India shortly after the reign of Indira Ghandi when, in the eastern Indian hills bordering Nepal, Maoist rebels began making their voices heard in Delhi. It’s definitely a melancholy book but also, in some ways, a tragicomedy, principally because the characters are crafted, for the most part, in an almost Dickensian way. Thus, it kept me guessing what Desai’s true views of the situation really were.

It’s a little like Mistry’s A Fine Balance meets The God of Small Things with a touch of Scott’s Staying On thrown in. I enjoyed it a great deal.

(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this as we cleared out our stuff from our lovely flat in Bar Hill.

REVIEW Heard a lot about this novel and watched most of the film with that woman who won that Oscar. Anyway, polished this off very quickly. It’s one of those books you can read in a rainy afternoon when you’re wishing you were somewhere else and need a novel to make you realise where you are is lovely.

Freud writes this in a way that transports you into the mind of a small child travelling in a foreign country with parents who don’t quite tell you the whole story. I should know because my parents carted me off to the Middle East when I was 5 for six years and I didn’t have a clue what was going on but was fascinated by pretty much everything I encountered.

(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this while waiting for the Newcastle CLC church to start at the Life Centre.

REVIEW
Another offering from Morrison to compare with Beloved and Jazz. To be honest, she’s not shaping up to be my favourite writer at all. On the whole, I was disappointed in this. However, I did find the characters in this one stood out a little more to me from the haze of Morrison’s usual overweighty metaphors.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Finally finished this off at our friends’ lovely house in Beamish, County Durham.

REVIEW
This was an amazing book and I can’t think why it isn’t better known. For me, it was a novel premise. It’s effectively a travel book but with a difference. The difference is that Mak’s itinerary is determined by the historical order of key events in 20th century European history. Thus, as WW1 unfolds, he starts in Sarajevo and ends up on Flanders’ fields. I found that by making the connection between historical event and location, the book raised itself above many other books I’ve read of European travel and history.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Weeded my mate’s allotment while reading this.

REVIEW
The final part of the Regeneration trilogy picks up with Billy Prior getting cleared to return to the front in France and his return. Alongside this narrative unfolds more of W.H.R. Rivers’ story, only this time there’s much more from his anthropology days in Melanesia than in the previous books and Barker cleverly works the Melanesian into Rivers’ day to day work in Britain.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this while we went to Derwentwater in the Lake District camping with some good old friends.

REVIEW
Picking up where Regeneration leaves off, Barker’s second book of the Regeneration trilogy was, I thought, in many ways an improvement on the first. The story of shell-shock deepens and while Regeneration showed the response of the medical profession to this condition, Eye tells the story of society’s response, in particular that of the Army itself.

(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this the lovely warm conservatory overlooking our friends’ garden in Flackwell Heath.

REVIEW
Benedict Allen would, these days, have his own TV series and have put a number of others out of business. While Bear Grylls seems to shun community and forage and fend for himself, Allen’s life work has been to make himself dependent on the communities he visits to survive. I like this idea of travel and that’s why we often hitchhike and couchsurf when we travel. By making yourself vulnerable to the people you travel amongst, he reasons, you remove barriers and allow them to open up to you. It’s a mutual process of self-discovery for both host and guest. It’s a good thing to bear in mind as we prepare to leave the UK for Papua New Guinea on Tuesday.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this while we visited our friends’ lovely house in Newcastle.

REVIEW
I’ve had this on my shelf for a very long time and imminent emigration to Papua New Guinea brought it rapidly to the front of my to be read list as my books headed into storage, to friends or to the guy who buys books off me on Cambridge market. Very glad to finally get into this trilogy which I first saw on the shelf of a friend of mine In Seoul back in 2006… the same friend that inspired me to get back into novels.

This novel focusses not on the First World War battlefields that we’re so often reminded of but on the effects of those battlefields on the minds of their victims. Dr Rivers, the main character of the book, pioneered our understanding of what is now apparently called combat stress reaction but was then known as nothing at all. We more commonly call it shell-shock. The novel is moving, intricate and written with a great deal of insight into the human condition than many I’ve read for a while.
(Click to read more…)

Context: England were justifiably knocked out of the World Cup while I was finishing this off.

REVIEW
Now this I enjoyed. Here’s a book that is perfect for someone who wants small doses of philosophy and reflection on the human condition embedded in several spoonfulls of sugar. All in all, Tractors makes for a very entertaining read and one which makes you think about the cultures we come from and how they shape our responses to what life deals us. Why it was taken off the 1001 books list earlier this year is something of a mystery to me now.
(Click to read more…)

Context: While I read this, I was provided with an opportunity to strip the varnish and refinish an oak table in our living room. I thought it looked pretty good.

REVIEW
And so I finish the last book in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Strangely, I don’t remember the phrase “his dark materials” appearing once in any book so I’m none the wiser there. Pullman’s a writer with an agenda and, as The Amber Spyglass comes to a close, that agenda comes more and more to the fore. Overall I was disappointed with the series. There’s no doubt he can tell a story but there’s no way he even comes close to the seemingly effortless narration of Tolkein or Lewis, writers he’s often been compared to.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Took this on an 8 mile walk around Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire when we stopped for a pub lunch.

REVIEW
Everyone’s seen at least one of the Bond films. But how many people do you know who’ve read a Bond novel. Fleming wrote 7 in all and, although I won’t be reading more than this one I don’t think, I always like to see the genesis in a novel of an idea or a character who’s had a great influence culturally. It’s another reason why the 1001 list is worth reading from.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Finished this in the midst of scanning hundreds of photos wihle whittling stuff down to store for the next period of emigration.

REVIEW
For once, a book by Peter Ackroyd didn’t have me looking to see how many pages I had left to go. This novel isn’t bad, but I can see why it was removed from the 1001 books list. In fact, why on earth was it on there in the first place? Anyway, I liked this one for the way that Ackroyd worked hard to include all sorts of little details about 19th c. London life which made for a very readable account.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Finished this off as I flew from Cleveland, Ohio to Dallas, Texas for some training for work.

REVIEW
Right from the start, I knew that this was an unusual novel. In terms of both the subject matter and the style of writing, I could tell that Edgeworth had a remarkably unique insight into the world of the Irish in this work.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Finished this off as we visited some friends in Cleveland, Ohio.

REVIEW
This book spirals downwards in a debilitating circle of debauchery as George Duroy aims to satsify his lust for power and possession. He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. It’s basically a manual for how to get ahead in business and politics.
(Click to read more…)

Context: The blossom was out in force as I worked my way through this one.

REVIEW
I kind of wish I’d take Palaniuk up on his advice in the opening line. This book was a bit of a puzzle to me. I couldn’t really figure out what he was trying to achieve. It was a bit like a piece of modern art that everyone raves about, but secretly, inside, no one thinks is any good. I’ve read enough Easton Ellis not to be too impressed with Palahniuk’s offering here.
(Click to read more…)

Context: Read this as the sun set over Parker’s Piece in Cambridge as I waited for my wife, sister and her kids to emerge from Parkside swimming pool.

REVIEW
Not since school have I read a work this long in verse form. It takes a bit of getting used to. But Pushkin has used a formula for his stanzas which he rigorously adheres to. Once in your stride, this isn’t so difficult to read. What’s harder is following the storyline as it leans back and forth in this convoluted tale of love unrequited on both sides at different times.
(Click to read more…)