Monday 23 November 2015

A fictional week...

No book reviews this week I'm afraid thanks to the sheer weight and depth of Garth Risk Hallberg's City on Fire which I started last weekend and, at over 900 pages, can expect to be carrying around with me for some time yet!

Truth be told City on Fire is taking some time to get in to but the intimate relationship Hallberg obviously has with New York City is compelling and intriguing. I'm well over two thirds into the novel's intricate narrative which sees a number of plot themes converge around New Year's Eve in 1977. More next week, but in the meantime City on Fire has got me thinking; What is it about door-stop novels in 2015?




Readers of this blog will know that I devoured A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. Both come in at well over the length of a typical novel yet still leave you wanting more at the end. 

Perhaps fans of epic TV box sets like Game of Thrones no longer feel daunted by extremely long format drama? Has the e-book given rise to the super size novel now that hand-bags and ruck sacks are liberated from the heft of the hardback? 

Kindle is the obvious choice for reading novels of this size on the move or whilst waiting in a queue like me this week at The Royal Academy waiting for tickets for the Ai Weiwei show - great exhibition by the way and perfectly timed after reading Will Gompertz' Think Like An Artist




Thank you to everyone who liked and shared my review last week of Merciless Gods by Christos Tsiolkas. Although this particular book is a niche genre I'm firmly of the view that the short fiction format is thriving at the moment. Just as well there are so many quality short story collections to read at the moment as I expect I'll be yearning for something more bite size after City on Fire!

"He ascended through Brutalist atriums and Byzantine stairways" 

Garth Risk Hallberg 'City in Fire'




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