Karl's Reading List

Published by Wordsworth Editions Limited: Hertfordshire, 1996 (1994). First published 1858. Book 3 in 'The Chronicles of Barsetshire.' Preceded by ' Barchester Tower. ' Followed by 'Framley Parsonage.' The third Barsetshire book I've read, and the third in the series - meaning I've finally started going in correct chronological order! Doctor Thorne moves the focus of the series from the town of Barchester to nearby Greshambury, home of the Gresham family. Well-off and slightly snooty, the Greshams do however make room in their household for Mary Thorne, the niece of the titular Dr Thorne, and allow her to grow up with their children. Frank Gresham - the son and heir of the family - develops a crush on Mary, and gushes out an over-the-top proposal to her in a beautifully dramatic scene; Trollope is at his most comical in moments like this. However, Mary is from an unknown background, and (more shockingly) is poor(!) and Frank must marry rich in order to s...

Published as an ebook by Shadow Dragon Press: Tijeras, New Mexico, 2026. Comedy is hard to write. What seems hilarious to one person can come across as just-plain-dumb or confusing to another.  Or, just not that funny. Dr Gnoll is meant to be a comedy. It is loosely a parody of James Bond, particularly 'Dr No.' It is also billed as a humour-filled parody of "everything from spy movies, role-playing games, and video games." I appreciate what the authors are intending to do here. I just didn't find it that funny. The 'humour' comes from wordplay (such as Dr Gnoll being a gnoll, James Bond's Q becoming "Kew", and the lead female being called Maxine Charisma), some innuendo (particularly regarding the MacGuffin rod that Dr Gnoll is after, and the way it is described once Dr Gnoll has it), and then very out-of-place references to the fictionality of the world being described.  This latter element is a little jarring at times, as it is referenced s...

Published by Corgi Books: London, 1988 (1985). First published 1983. Book 1 of the 'Discworld' series. It has finally happened! I have reread the first Discworld novel! Discworld being, of course, the series of 50-plus fantasy/satire books written by the late Terry Pratchett, composing a huge cast of characters that grow and develop throughout the years in their own sub-series-within-a-series. The Colour of Magic introduces the Discworld for the first time: a flat, circular world, balanced on the back of four giant elephants that themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle that swims through space. Pretty much every magical or mythological character you can think of exists on the Discworld somewhere, and as the series progresses, Pratchett uses this fantasy lens to poke fun at various aspects of our reality. Such a huge undertaking as a 50-plus book series satiring reality through a fantasy lens, however, is likely to be one that finds it rhythm over time, and this holds tru...

Published by Everyman’s Library/David Campbell Publishers, Ltd: London, 1993. First published 1939. Congratulations to The Grapes of Wrath on becoming my first unfinished Pulitzer Prize winner. There were moments I thought TheAge of Innocence would be it, but Grapes pushed on in by dint of its slow pace, casual blasphemy and coarse characters. Innocence at least had pace, suspense, and clean language. Grapes was long, slow, and often felt grubby. One of the main characters was also a preacher who gave up on being a preacher because he couldn’t stop sleeping with young women who joined his congregation. I persevered with it longer than I should have, due to it being quite well known, but in the end decided to give up on it officially after about 100 pages – out of a 500-plus-page book. In making this entry I have also made a decision, which I plan to apply to both Booker and Pulitzer books from this point on. If I have tried one of those books and given up on it, I will still...

Published by Hicks Smith & Sons Ltd: Wellington, Auckland, revised edition 1954. First published 1947. We three had a few days in a friend’s bach this week, and as is the case when in a new location, the first thing I did was check out the bookshelf (especially as I was struggling with The Grapes of Wrath, which I gave up on soon afterwards). Anyway, out of the fairly meager offerings available, I chose this book on the basis of it being a) not too long, b) not too dark, and c) not a hunting or fishing guidebook. I didn’t really know what I was getting into – particularly as the dust-jacket was missing - but it turned out to be quite unique, and fairly enjoyable. From N to Z is a slightly satirical look at New Zealand, by an author writing in the late 1940s (and revised in the early 1950s). He begins by telling us that “No attempt was made to make it a truthful description of New Zealand and therefore it qualifies as a Guide Book.” (pg 9). This gives the author leeway to ex...

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 in an omnibus edition by Penguin Classics: London, England, 1998. First published individually 1865. 'The Centenary Edition' includes 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' with commentary and short stories. You know, I've never read Alice in Wonderland before!  The closest I've come is a memory I have of a relief teacher in primary school reading out an excerpt from the chapter 'A Mad Tea Party', including the unanswerable riddle about a raven and a writing desk, a clock that tells you what day it is, and a story about sisters in a treacle well who draw treacle. It is very odd, but I remember thinking that the puns were clever, and thus, my impression of the Alice stories have been - from childhood - just that: odd, but clever. Maybe I had built it up too much in my imagination. This first Alice story is certainly odd! But clever...? Maybe...? The edition I read has many endnotes, many of which try to ti...

Published by The Folio Society: London, 1976. First published 1855. Book 1 in 'The Chronicles of Barsetshire.' Followed by ' Barchester Towers. ' This is the third Anthony Trollope book I have read, and is the second of his Barsetshire Novels I have read, though in fact it is the first in that series. Barchester Towers , being the second book in the set, was the only one of his that I owned when I first read it, and fortunately worked as a stand-alone. It is interesting returning to Book 1, now, though, as I have more insight into the motivations of various characters in that second book! But anyway, for those who haven't read either: The Warden follows the story of Septimus Harding, the titular Warden of Hiram's Hospital, as well as a precentor in Barchester Cathedral. Hiram's Hospital was set up generations earlier based on a bequest from a John Hiram, who asked that twelve elderly men would be looked after in the role of "bedesmen", with the War...

Published by Oxford University Press. First published 1864-1865. Some books take longer to read than others. This book took me quite a while. I have read it as my main book, read it as an occasional book, put it down for periods, picked it up again.... overall I think it's taken me four distinct periods of time to get through, with the last period (back as my main book) taking eleven days. It is an older book, written in a slower style, and having previously read Barchester Towers by the same author, I was aware of that going in. And yet Can You Forgive Her? was a much harder read.  In saying that, the book was still enjoyable. Mostly.  At other times (particularly when my brain wasn't in a 'slow-and-steady' place) attempting to read it was a struggle, even boring. So, do I recommend this book? It depends. How good are you with slower paced reads? How much do you appreciate texts from another era, with social norms far different to your own? Do you enjoy satire touchin...

Published by Corgi Books: London, UK, 2003. Originally published 2002. The twenty-seventh Discworld novel (all of which can be read as standalone entries), Night Watch follows Ankh-Morpork watchman Sam Vimes, who has (throughout the numerous Discworld novels he has appeared in) been repeatedly promoted until he has become Commander (a role he sometimes finds tedious). When the book opens, Vimes is helping his colleagues bring the psychopathic Carcer to justice. However, due to a lightning strike on the Library of the Unseen University (home to the wizards of Ankh-Morpork) both Vimes and Carcer are accidentally thrown back in time. Carcer quickly kills the man who taught young Vimes the ropes and who overhauled the Night Watch, leaving Vimes to fill the role himself and become his own role-model. This becomes more difficult as a rebellion against the ruler of the city is brewing, and Vimes knows it won't end well. Discworld is an interesting mix of fantasy and satire, often basing i...

Published by Te Herenga Waka University Press: Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. Eleanor Catton has the privilege of writing one of the few Booker books I can actually say I enjoyed! She is also a Kiwi author, which works well for the current reading challenge I am a part of. Birnam Wood is Catton's third book, and follows a group of 'eco-activists' who plant gardens in 'wasted spaces' throughout various cities, using reserves, the sides of motorways, unsuspecting people's backyards etc. The group calls themselves 'Birnam Wood' after the wood from Macbeth, which "moved"... Birnam Wood the group consider themselves to be planting 'moving' gardens. Through a series of circumstances, the founder of the group, Mira, meets Robert Lemoine, a shady American billionaire, who offers the group the chance to scale their operations way up (by planting the property of the recently knighted Sir Owen and Lady Jill Darvish), and possibly even be...

Published by Flame Tree 451: London, UK, 2013. Originally published 1796. Dickens needs to be read at a particular pace, but when I get on the right wavelength I love his writing. This book opens with a section over a page long which just describes the London fog, and yet it is a beautifully written section that even manages to say something about the various locations and characters that the fog rolls through.  Bleak House  is a great mix of comedy, tragedy, light romance and biting satire, as indeed many of Dickens' best works are. This particular novel focuses on a never-ending court case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, to which all of our main characters are linked in some way. A mysterious figure known only as 'Nemo' is found dead, and something about his handwriting seems to link him to the cold and distant Lady Dedlock. Meanwhile, Esther Summerson, a young woman of uncertain parentage, navigates her new life as ward of and housekeeper to John Jarndyce, as well as perhaps som...

Published by Marshall Cavendish Ltd: London/Barcelona, 1987. First published 1857. Book 2 in 'The Chronicles of Barsetshire.' Preceded by ' The Warden. ' Followed by ' Doctor Thorne. ' I quite enjoy picking up a book and having no idea what to expect. With older novels this can also extend to not knowing whether an author was well-known in their day or what genre to expect. This is the first Anthony Trollope book I have ever read, and all I knew about him before reading was that I sometimes saw books by him for sale at the annual Founders Park Book Fair in the classics section. With Barchester Towers I had only the cover to give me further insight; the cover has a picture of an elderly clergyman and a woman on the cover, so I felt confident it had something to do with at least one clergyman. I was right on the clergy front, but what I didn't expect was that Trollope is very funny! Elise will attest that I sniggered or chuckled out loud at various times throu...

Published by Transatlantic Press: Amersham, Bucks, UK: 2012. First published 1726. Another book that I picked up as I was researching for Worlds and Journeys.  Gulliver's Travels is a true classic, but also one that has a number of versions of it, most of which cut out the vast majority of the original story. Anyone familiar with the various movie versions will be aware that Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput, where the inhabitants are all miniscule compared to Gulliver, but less well known are the subsequent lands he visits: Brobdingnag, where Gulliver is now the only small-scaled person in a land of giants; Laputa, a flying island populated with impractical scholars who make life difficult for their ground-based subjects; and the land of the Houyhnhnms, sentient horses who rule a relatively peaceful society while the humanoid 'Yahoos' are the beasts of burden. Other lands briefly visited by Gulliver include Luggnagg, where a small population of immor...

Published by Penguin Books Ltd.: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1975. First published 1973. Like the previous book I read ( Three Men in a Boat ) this book also 'is what it says on the tin.' The Siege of Krishnapur is set in the (fictional) village of Krishnapur during the Indian mutiny of 1857. One of the British residents, known as 'The Collector', has been worrying that something like this may occur and has fortified his property and the surrounds with mud walls and other defensive elements. When the mutiny finally strikes Krishnapur, the British population retreat into this area and must defend against wave after wave of Indian attack. The book focusses almost entirely on the British element of the story, with Indian characters playing very minor roles. This might be a sign of the times in which Farrell was writing, however as with his other (retroactively awarded) Booker prize-winning work Troubles , Farrell has a very subtle edge of almost satirical humour wea...

Published by Fabbri Publishing Limited: Barcelona, Spain, 1991. First published in 1889. Well, no one could accuse the title of this book of being misleading. The plot of Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) is that three men - George, Harris and "J" (our narrator) - along with J's dog Montmorency, go on a boating holiday up the River Thames.  That's it. No extra plot. Just a boating holiday. And then it ends and they go home. But Jerome dresses this plot up with tangent after tangent, humorous anecdotes picking apart the contemporary society he was living in. Almost any single thing that happens to the three friends causes the narrator to be reminded of a story which must then be commented on in detail. Some of these drag on a bit long, but a number are so ridiculous that they had me giggling out loud from the absurdity of it all. Make no mistake, this is a funny book, although at other times it is just 'dumb' and at other times it morphs into a m...

Published as an audiobook by Naxos Rights International Ltd./Naxos Audiobooks, 2008. Narrated by Neville Jason. Originally published in 1938. This is a apparently a very well-known version of the King Arthur legend, and is the basis for the 1963 animated Disney movie of the same name. Elise suggested that we find an Arthur version, I suggested this one, and we gave it a go. If you've seen the Disney movie (I have, Elise has not so far) you would know that its quite different to many versions you've heard before: Merlin refers to modern (by 1960s standards) knowledge, Arthur is known generally as 'Wart', much of the runtime is spent transforming Arthur into various animals in order to teach him life lessons, and Merlin also does battle against 'Madame Mim', rather than one of his more traditional enemies like Morgan le Fey. So, going into the book I expected it to be somewhat different, but still to have a recognizable 'Arthurian' story to it. The book is...

Published by Corgi Books: London, 2006 (1997).  First published 1996. I remember Hogfather being one of my favourite Discworld novels when I was younger, mostly because of one scene in particular. The wizards of Unseen University become aware that there is an 'excess of belief' in the world (because, unbeknown to them, the 'Hogfather' - who is Discworld's equivalent of Santa - has been 'killed'). This excess of belief, coupled with the wizards being in a fairly magical location, means that as they discuss hypothetical beings who could conceivably exist - such as a 'hair-loss fairy' or the 'god of hangovers' - these beings begin to spring into existence. The wizards joke about this, positing the existence of an "odd-sock monster" who eats one sock from pairs put into the laundry. Then, when the odd-sock monster inevitably springs into existence, the wizards discuss going into the laundry area to look for it, while also admitting some...

Published by Corgi Books/Random House Children's Books: London, 2011 (2001). Surprisingly, this is only the second Terry Pratchett novel I have ever reviewed on this blog. I say surprising because I have enjoyed Pratchett's works, particularly his the novels set in the satirical fantasy world of  Discworld  for years. This book is the first one written by Pratchett to be aimed at a slightly younger audience than the 'main' Discworld books, and bases the plot around a parody of the Pied Piper story. Maurice is a talking cat, given the power of speech (and intelligence) around the same time and in the same location as a group of rats he now works with. The rats received their intelligence after eating rubbish left outside the Unseen University (a wizarding school). How Maurice received his intelligence is left a mystery for much of the book - but will be fairly obvious if you think about it. Now Maurice and the rats, with the help of a 'stupid-looking kid' who pl...

Published by Viking/Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd: Auckland, New Zealand, 1987 (1973). First published 1872. This is one of the earliest 'New Zealand' novels, in that it was written by someone who had lived in New Zealand for a while and is set, in its early chapters at least, on a backcountry station that seems to be somewhere in the South Island. However, this setting is quickly abandoned as the protagonist, Biggs, seeks out new pastures 'over the range' and stumbles across the hidden land of Erewhon.  In a very Victorian style, Butler uses this setting as an excuse to poke satirically at English culture of the day, rather than have much in the way of plot at all. In fact, the plot could be summed up in a few sentences: Biggs believes there might be more land over the ranges, and upon crossing them finds Erewhon. He ends up living with an Erewhonian family, falls for one of the daughters, Arawhina, constructs a hot air balloon and escapes the country with Arawhina at his sid...