Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K Dick

A cultural great, I had images and an atmosphere in my head that I was expecting to find, in the end it was quite different from what I had imagined. Less cool, affected sci-fi, more thoughtful, quiet thriller. 

We find ourselves in a world where a large proportion of the population have left earth and live with human-idential android slaves. In some off-world colonies androids rebel and come to earth to live in hiding. We essentially follow a police contractor as he tries to find and 'retire' androids masquerading as humans. Meanwhile we get a look into his world, the way of life and his hopes and worries. 

It as similar themes to Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan, but less clear, there are lots of different ideas swimming around; categorisation of people, slavery, animal/human/sentient life. It's a thriller with a lot to unpack, I guess that's why it's part of the cultural consciousness.

Spring, Ali Smith

 This was brilliant, genuinely unlike anything I have ever read. Part dream-like and then unexpectedly connected to the modern world. Intrigued to see how it will fit with the other 3 in the series.

The Things We've Seen, Agustín Fernández Mallo

From reading the blurb was really excited to read this, it's described as 'a mind-bending novel for our disjointed times' The novel itself is both disjointed and connects and refers to itself repeatedly. It feels trapped inside the format of a book, like it should cover a whole room with the reader able to draw lines connecting the various threads and thoughts which are continuously picked up and dropped. 

It's somewhat self obsessed and egotistical, both the the narrator and the book itself in a way. It feels like walking through someone's thoughts while they are asleep, seeing their dreams and the associations they spark. It's sometimes confusing and hard to follow, but I think that is the effect the writer was going for. 

These two pictures were from when I received the book from a friend, after carrying it about for weeks it now has a lovely scrubbed white patina. 

Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag

I loved this, it was fascinating and very applicable to so much we see in art and media. 

Regarding the Pain of Others is centred on the representation of suffering in photography primarily, but also painting and cinema. Sontag questions why these images exist, what they try to achieve, what they do achieve and the act of creating and looking at them. It is really readable and understandable and verbalises a lot of the discomfort and questions I think we have all sensed when presented with images of the pain of others, whatever the cause.

The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks

I bought this because I'd seen the book around so much I was curious as to what it was like, it has a mysterious sort of title and blurb, not horror but certainly not cheerful. 

Frank is a dangerous sixteen year old who lives on a small island off Scotland, linked to the mainland by a bridge, he lives with his father, has one friend in the town and a collection of relatives with strange stories. He is our narrator, showing us his world and describing his history.  

It draws you in and the breadcrumbing and reveal of backstories is really successful. As is the way Banks describes and shows Frank's way of seeing the world and the macarbre rituals and totems he creates to control and predict it. Banks has created a complex inner world and creates atmosphere effortlessly. My only complaint is the ending, which I wasn't a fan of, and even less of the page or so of rationalising from Frank. Well worth reading, but better without the last chapter. 

Brújulas que buscan sonrisas perdidas, Albert Espinosa

I loved this, I bought it at the airport on a whim and I' very glad I did. It's the story of someone trying to come to terms with death and remembering their childhood. It is written in a really distinctive style and feels powerful.

 

If This Is Home, Stuart Evans

This was a great novel, easy reading, intriguing and a great sense of place. Evans writes the feeling of returning to a town you have outgrown but that is full of nostalgia really well, as well as the teenage experience, naively vowing never to ‘end up like that’ with the naive, surface level view of life that adolescents seem to have. 

The protagonist left his hometown at the age of 18 with the intention of never returning, around 15 years later he is compelled to go back and deal with the reasons and people he left. It isn’t either a thriller or a mystery/crime novel but it has touches of both. It manages a slow reveal while still questioning how much home and roots affect who you are.

This was a proof copy from 2012 when I worked in Waterstones