Karl's Reading List

Published by Walker Books Ltd: Vauxhall Walk, London, 2008. Book 1 in the 'Chaos Walking' series. Followed by 'The Ask and the Answer.' I knew of this book. I knew it had also been made into a not-very-well-received movie. I knew that it was set on a planet where all of the men uncontrollably broadcast their thoughts and the women had disappeared. I knew it was a Young Adult novel and part of a well-loved trilogy. I didn't know it would be so gory and heavy. There is a lot of death in The Knife of Letting Go, including much loved supporting characters, and even (keeping it a little vague to avoid spoiling too much) some characters that most books would avoid killing in order to keep the audience from disliking the narrative too much. The main character even has an arc where he is unable to kill people, and as a result, things keep getting worse. Considering this to be a weakness, he eventually pushes himself to kill - a horrific moment in the book that I felt sure w...

Published by Triad/Panther Books: Frogmore, St Albans, 1976. First published by Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1952. This is a very famous, and very short, book that is also the second Pulitzer Prize winning book I have read! To be fully transparent, I am currently also listening to an audiobook version of The Age of Innocence, but this was short enough that I finished it over two days, whereas Innocence still has hours of listening time to go. The Old Man and the Sea has a very simple story: an old man (Santiago) has not caught a fish in eighty-four days. On the morning of the eighty-fifth day, he sets out, hooks a large fish, and determines that he will stay in pursuit until he catches it. The fish swims out to sea for a couple of days before the two finally 'fight', and then the old man must attempt to return home with the fish. There isn't much more to the story than that. He also talks to a young boy at the beginning and end of the story. Some tourists mistake the bones of his fis...

Published by Fabbri Publishing: Barcelona, Spain, 1991. First published by The Thames Publishing Company, 1857. When I recently reread Lord of the Flies it noted that William Golding wrote that book after having read this one. Apparently he decided that this book was too happy, and that it wasn't realistic, so wrote the far heavier version he is known for. I had a copy of this book on my shelf, so felt it only appropriate to see what I thought, myself. The Coral Island is, as Golding pointed out, a far more positive experience than Lord of the Flies. There are only three boys who end up shipwrecked on the island (with all the adults adrift in a separate boat and possibly ending up elsewhere), and two of them - Ralph and Jack - have had their names repurposed for the main characters in Golding's book. The third book, Peterkin, does not appear in Lord of the Flies, but perhaps his 'P' name inspired the character of Piggy - the third 'lead' of Flies. Whereas Flies...

Published by WIPF & Stock Publishers: Eugene, Oregon, 2025. Grant Romoser-Claunch and his family have been through hell. Their son, Simon, was diagnosed at a young age with cancer, and this book contains Romoser-Claunch's reflections on, and processing of, the diagnosis and following treatments. It is a deeply moving account, which - as the parent of a son whose age is similar to Simon's at the time of treatment - hits home a little harder than perhaps it would otherwise. At one point, when the hospital has just informed the family of the cancer's return, Romoser-Claunch writes: "During dinner Simon - only just having turned two years old - prophetically roared, "I'll beat it again!" Filled with pride and hope, trusting and believing it to be true more and more each time he said it, we all cried and erupted with cheers and affirmations." (page 104) Wow. I tear up a little even writing that out.  I can't imagine going through such a journey. T...

Published by Wordsworth Editions Limitied/Classics: Hertfordshire, 1993. First published 1818. I don't think this needs a lot of introduction. Frankenstein is a very popular book, having been continually in print since it was first written in 1818 by a then 18-year old Mary Shelley. A young scientist, mad with power, creates a creature and brings it to life, only to be overwhelmed by what he has done and reject the creature, leading to the monster growing up alone, isolated, and resentful.  The question "Which one of the two is the real monster?" has been asked ever since the book's publication, a fact not helped by the public association of the term 'Frankenstein' with the monster, when it is the name of the scientist - it's almost as if the question could be "Which is the real Frankenstein?" However, in the book the creature is a little more monstrous than I had anticipated: he is lonely and misunderstood, but he is also quick to violence, and ...

Published by Lawrence & Gibson Publishing Collective: Aoetearoa/New Zealand, 2023. Taking a break from looking at potential Level 2 texts, this is a potential Level 1 text instead! At the heart of Turncoat is an extended metaphor, an allegory, in which Māori culture and worldview is represented by the book's portrayal of humanity as a whole, and non-Māori culture - aka, the European-centric worldview - is represented by literal aliens, who invaded in past centuries and have now interbred with humanity to the point that most humans look just like them. Our main character, Daniel, is one such human, who understands and operates in Alien culture (called the Hierarch) all the time, but still seeks to influence the Hierarch to honour the original covenants they signed with humanity all those years ago. The metaphor isn't subtle, and at times it purposefully (often humorously) becomes incredibly obvious, particularly for readers from New Zealand. So, in place of Captain Cook bein...

Published by Marshall Cavendish Ltd: Old Compton St, 1987. A facsimile reproduction of an edition published in 1933. First published 1819. Ivanhoe is an interesting one... I actually thought I'd read it a number of years ago - it appears on my 2018 list as a completed book - and at the time I enjoyed it. However, when I decided to re-read it, I realised that the book I have previously read was an abridged version of the story, and so I made sure that this time around I hunted out the full text. It was a much longer, slower process to read than I remember it being last time... Perhaps an abridgement is actually the right choice for the average reader! In terms of story, Ivanhoe makes the interesting choice on not mainly focussing on the titular character! Getting more 'screentime' than Ivanhoe are characters including the Saxon 'swineherd' Gurth, the jester Wamba, the Saxon thane Cedric, the mysterious 'Black Knight', the Jewish moneylender Isaac, his daughte...