Babel: Or the Necessity Of Violence by Rebecca F Kuang


I loved Babel: Or the Necessity Of Violence but it dealt with so many important issues in such a meaningful way that I have felt a little unsure about whether I can really capture it in a review.


I came to it because I have been trying to read the Longlisted and Shortlisted books for the Booker Prize 2025, and Babel: Or the Necessity Of Violence was high on my priority list after reading Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang last year and appreciating the way that she explored cultural appropriation. 


In Babel historical fiction meets fantasy fiction - set in an alternate 19th-century England, where the power of empire is fuelled by the magic of translation. This is literal - with silver bars that harness the lost meaning between words in different languages to produce extraordinary effects. Placed in a carriage they can increase the speed and comfort of the drive. Placed on a ship they can improve the quality of the journey and increase speed. The magic of the silver bars is created through the work of Babel’s translators, who inscribe them with paired words from different languages, capturing the untranslatable gaps in meaning to unleash powerful effects that only those fluent in both languages can activate.


The story centres on Robin Swift, a Chinese orphan brought to England, who is trained at Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation (Babel), where linguistic magic enhances colonial domination. Robin and his group of close friends, are treated as second class citizens even when their skills are required by the empire, slowly become aware to the moral contradictions of the system that saved then in many cases from poverty, but at the same time has enslaved them through dependence. They are each faced with a decision about whether they continue to serve the British Empire or fight it.  


Although one of the books main themes was undoubtedly the power of language and how it can be used as a tool of colonialism and imperial control, for me what forcefully struck me was the question contained in the title - the necessity of violence. Can meaningful change ever come without violence?  


Is violence necessary to create social change?


For me, this is the question that stuck with me the most throughout the book, and something that the characters are increasingly forced to reckon with. Robin and his friends all try different ways to push back against the system the Empire has created. They try working within it and consider how they can contribute to its reform before eventually turning to more drastic action. The book made me reflect on what I suppose is an age old question in the modern world - we can argue our position against injustice, call for change, try the path of logic and advocacy, but if the people who have the power to create won't listen because their power is derived from the system itself - then is there any choice but violence? 

Kuang didn't glorify violence in Babel, but she also didn’t shy away from the reality that history has rarely changed without it. It made me reflect on the women's suffrage movement, where women turned to arson, bombings, and hunger strikes after years of peaceful protest were ignored, and they were succeeded. During the industrial revolution violent strikes, riots, and worker uprisings were crucial in achieving improved working conditions through legal reform. I think history shows that in most cases change does require violence and relies on people willing to sacrifice themselves to bring it about. 


Friendships and family


Another theme throughout the novel that I continue to reflect on is that of friendship and how the characters rely on it in the face of oppression to give them hope and purpose. Robin and each of his friends are from different parts of the world and as they enter the world of Oxford they increasingly feel the contradictions in their day to day to day lives. At Oxford, they are treated as second-class citizens. The women are unable to live on campus or attend events without pretending to be men, and the men are attacked and ridiculed for the colour of their skin. 


This is where the contradiction lies. On the one hand, they are clear that their social standing is not that of other students at Oxford while on the other hand the Empire requires their skills to maintain and extend its power. On the other hand, they are crucial to the empire’s power. This forces them to grapple with their place in a society that values their skills but not their humanity. 


We are also able to see these same contradictions played out in Robin's personal life. As a child he was removed from his family and taken to England by a man who valued his skill and ability with languages. It was clear that he viewed Robin's 'success' as a personal triumph because he believes that he has raised Robin to overcome the inferior traits he associates with Chinese people. He sees Robin as an exception arising from the positive influence of the British Empire and is blind to any systemic oppression. He sees a successful experiment that has brought glory to the Empire, not his ward's humanity. 


But it was so inspiring the way that sharing many of these experiences brought the friends together and gave them the strength to cope with the challenges that were thrown their way. However, while Robin and two of his friends were immigrants to England, their third friend, a white British student, doesn’t fully understand the weight of their struggle, and this difference strains their friendship. 


This made me reflect on my own privileged position in Australian society. As someone with privilege, I recognise that disadvantaged cohorts and individuals often have lived experiences and insights about issues that I cannot fully grasp. That means that I need to try to listen and accept their truth without filtering them through the lens of my own privilege. This is something that we all need to do better with and is certainly the case for the friendships in Babel. 


A book that makes you reflect in these ways is well worth the read, and this comes highly recommended from me. 

February 2025: What I Read (featuring Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence)

 I was pretty lucky with my choice of books in February 2025. 


I am starting with the last book I read in February, because it was by far the best: 



Wow. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence by Rebecca R Kuang. I don't really even know where the begin with this one. Historical fiction meets fantasy fiction - set in an alternate 19th-century England, where the power of empire is fuelled by the magic of translation. This is literal - with silver bars that harness the lost meaning between words in different languages to produce extraordinary effects. Placed in a carriage they can increase the speed and comfort of the drive. Placed on a ship they can improve the quality of the journey and increase speed. The magic of the silver bars is created through the work of Babel’s translators, who inscribe them with paired words from different languages, capturing the untranslatable gaps in meaning to unleash powerful effects that only those fluent in both languages can activate.


The story centres on Robin Swift, a Chinese orphan brought to England, is trained at Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation (Babel), where linguistic magic enhances colonial domination. Robin and his group of close friends, all immigrants to England and treated as second class citizens even when their skills are required by the empire, slowly become aware to the moral contradictions of the system that saved then in many cases from poverty, but at the same time has enslaved them through dependence on the system. They are each faced with a decision about whether they continue to serve the British Empire or fight it.  


Although one of the books main themes was undoubtedly the power of language and how it can be used as a tool of colonialism and imperial control, for me what forcefully struck me was the question contained in the title - the necessity of violence. Can meaningful change ever come without violence?  


I will try to write a fuller review of this book - but I really enjoyed it, if enjoy is the right word for such a deep and thought-provoking book. 




I also read Stoneyard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. This was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, the winner of which was Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Having read Orbital last month, and having somewhat of a mixed reaction to it, I was keen to read another contender for the prize. This one wasn't quite as I expected. Much like OrbitalStoneyard Devotional was another moment in time novel that explored a period in the life of the unnamed narrator who has left her husband and life to become a nun in a regional religious community. Although an atheist, she is drawn to the opportunity to devote her life to service and introspection. The nuns of the community find value in this life of quiet seclusion, while three significant events that occur in the community ultimately give rise to question about whether one can contribute to society without taking positive steps for change. I enjoyed the story a lot but having read the description of the books I almost expected to be reading a mystery of some kind. I think I would like to try another of Wood's novels. 




The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yokohama Ogawa. While the maths involved in this story completely lost me, I don't doubt that there were probably a few meaningly metaphors in there that went over my head. Fortunately, this heartwarming story of three individuals brought together by chance but who have a meaningful and long-lasting impact on one another. It felt very intimate, and I applaud the ways that Ogawa was able to convey the complexities of the characters and their relationships in such a small book. I highly recommend. 




I also read The Ruin by Dervla Tiernan. I am a bit of a sucker for piece of detective fiction / mystery and this one came with good reviews. I did enjoy it - it was a quick easy read despite its page count but it's nothing to write home about it. I felt like it built for such a long time that when the solution to the mystery was revealed and the end game played out, it felt like an anticlimax for me. 

International Booker Prize 2025


The International Booker Prize Longlist for 2025 has been announced. In truth, I normally focus a little more on the awards when the shortlist is announced, but it grabbed my attention this time because I am about the start reading The Vegetarian by Han Kang, which won the International Booker Prize in 2016. 


Kang is a South Korean author, and her novel was translated into English by Deborah Smith. As someone who started eating a vegan diet in 2018, I am looking forward to reading a depiction of people's responses to the main character when she makes the same change to her diet. 


This year's longlist is:


  • The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
  • On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland  
  • There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert   
  • Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter  
  • Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches
  • Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson   
  • Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton  
  • Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda
  •  Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles  
  • Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes  
  • Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi   
  • On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott  
  • A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson 


Of the books on this year's longlist, the one I am most interested in is Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda. I enjoy speculative and science fiction, and this one seems to combine both genres in a very intriguing way. 


Taken from The Booker Prize's website, some of the notable observations on this year's longlist are:


  • "13 authors making their International Booker Prize debut, including three with their first books and eight with their first English-language publications 
  • Three previously longlisted translators, including one who is nominated for a record-breaking fifth time 
  • A classic of queer literature, first published in Dutch 43 years ago, marking the longest gap between an original-language publication and International Booker Prize longlisting 
  • Big themes in compact form, with 11 out of the 13 books under 250 pages, and eight under 200 
  • Books translated from 10 original languages, including, for the first time, Kannada which is spoken by approximately 38 million people as a first language, and Romanian 
  • 11 independent publishers behind 12 of the titles on this year’s longlist – the highest number ever" 

 You can read extracts from the books on the Booker Prize's website.

Six Degrees of Separation (Mar): from Prophet Song to The Passage by Justin Cronin

The meme is hosted by Books are My Favourite Best and is described thus: On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. Each person’s chain will look completely different. It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you.



This month we begin with Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, the 2003 Booker Prize Winner. I read this last year and really enjoyed it, although I am not sure that 'enjoy' is the correct word for a book so dark. Prophet Song is a dystopian novel set in Ireland, as it endures a violent slide into a totalitarian state and a civil war. Now, I think the world fears that it may offer a glimpse of a possible American future, but I like to think positively. 


It does immediately bring to mind The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, another dystopian novel about a totalitarian state. Atwood famously wrote this book using only the dark abuses that exist in our current world, combining them into one dystopian world full of horror and harm.


Trying but failing to keep move onto a lighter subject, I immediately thought of The Invisible Man by HG Wells. Elisabeth Moss being the obvious link here, having appeared in the tv adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale and the 2020 movie The Invisible Man. I am actually a big fan of old school science fiction, and I am partial to a bit of HG Wells, although The War of the Worlds is my personal favourite.




Now my mind is stuck on some of my favourite old school science fiction novels. The first is Nemesis by Isaac Asimov. I know that Asimov is probably more famous for some of his other novels, and I am very partial to the Space Ranger series, but Nemesis has just been one of those substantial science fiction novels with space travel, future civilisations and strong female characters that I can revisit over and over again. 


Then of course there is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. This is my absolutely favourite Wyndam novel - a masterpiece set in a post-apocalyptic world following a nuclear disaster where society has become deeply religious and anyone born with any slight difference is consider impure and immediately outcast. If you haven't read this - I highly recommend it. You can read my full review here, where I gave it full marks and declared it one of my new favourite books of all time. 


This takes us to my final book of this month's entry - which is The Passage by Justin Cronin. The Passage is an exhilarating and tense post-apocalyptic story that spans the decades before and after a virus has been released by the US Military and destroyed the world as we know it - you can read my full review here. I absolutely loved this book when it came out, it was everything you could want from popular fiction; fast-paced, action-packed, enthralling and with skilled writing as well. The Passage is the first in a series, and unfortunately for me it was one of those series that just dropped the ball as it progressed. I would highly recommend reading The Passage but give the later books a miss. 

Six Degrees of Separation (Feb): from Dangerous Liaisons to Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

I haven't participated in #6degrees previously, but as someone who suffers from FOMO, I couldn't help but want to join in. 


The meme is hosted by Books are My Favourite Best and is described thus: On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book. Each person’s chain will look completely different. It doesn’t matter what the connection is or where it takes you – just take us on the journey with you.



February's #6degrees begins with Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Now I'm not going to lie, I haven't read this. Perhaps I should add it to my TBR list for 2025, but we'll see. My research does tell me that it's an epistolary style novel written in 1782, depicting all the depravity of the French nobility just prior to the French Revolution. 


This takes me directly to another epistolary style novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, which I have reviewed here. I absolutely loved this book. The beauty of Frankenstein is just how human Frankenstein's monster really is. He is a man who desires love and companionship. In his early years of being he seeks friendship and family. He wants people's approval and notice in order that he can become the man that he feels that he is. He is then deeply wounded by the sudden and cruel realisation that he is fated to a life of nameless isolation, where he will only ever be met with abhorrence and rejection. His grief and despair at this realisation force him to seek the assistance of the man that he himself despises, his creator, Viktor Frankenstein. It's also a true classic, having played a significant role in the development of the horror genre, as well as having an important place in romantic and gothic literature, and to a lesser extent science fiction as well. 


Speaking of monsters, another epistolary style novel but this time with the greatest vampire of all time: Dracula by Bram Stoker, which I have reviewed here. Creepy creepy creepy. But in a good way of course. I loved this book and there were times as I was reading that I nearly wanted to put it down because it was creeping me out so much. I do admit though that I loved the first half of the book at Count Dracula's castle so much more than the second half. 



So, while we are on a vampire theme, how can I go past Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, which I have reviewed here. Controversial I know. So many people disliked these books but when I first read them, I absolutely loved them and consumed them as fast as I could. It isn't until more recently that I reflect more poorly on them for the disconcerting depiction of a relationship that in real life would easily be considered one of domestic violence by way of coercive control. Although initially I loved it, now I worry about what lessons a younger generation takes from it about what a romantic relationship should be. 


What should a romantic relationship be like? Well, while I think it's easier to identify what it "should not" be like, what it "should" be like is much harder to pin down - what works will be different for everyone. But how can you go past Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The slow build to true love - now that's romantic. Elizabeth and Darcy coming to know each other over time, and in the process coming to know themselves. Sigh. 


This takes me to my final choice, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. How did I get here? Not because of the common thread of romance, but because if someone asked me what my favourite book was and made me choose just one, I would be choosing between Pride and Prejudice and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. And I think that Rebecca would just win out. I have tried to review Rebecca in the past, but I just can't do it justice. From the very time I read that opening line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" I was hooked. The characters, the prose, the plot - it just gets me every time. 





January 2025: What I Read


I started 2025 off on a bit of an audiobook roll. I'm not usually one for audiobooks, but I was having trouble sleeping and there was just something so relaxing about spending the evening in bed listening to an audiobook. 

And I wasn't just on an audiobook roll - it was an Agatha Christie audiobook roll. I've always been a die-hard Christie fan, ever since I was in high school. I will always remember that The Mysterious Affair at Styles was my first introduction to Christie and I've never looked back. I've read all of her books now, and many of them I have read many times over. What's wonderful is that I have discovered on Spotify Premium that I can listen to any number of Christie audiobooks which, circling back to where this post began, was how I started my 2025. 

Of course, I had to start with The Mysterious Affair at Styles and then I moved onto Death in the Clouds. These were both narrated by High Fraser, the actor who played Hastings in the David Suchet Poirot adaptations. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was narrated by David Suchet himself.

Here we go with my first piece of controversy for the year - but I prefer the narration of Hugh Fraser to David Suchet. There is something so mild but compelling about the way he narrates. Perhaps I've watched the television series too much, but his voice just feels to comforting. 


For my first read of the year, I started with Orbital by Samantha Harvey. There is just something about books that are nominated for the prize that I seem to be attracted to. It's so unusual for me not to enjoy the winner or even anything on the short list or long list. This isn't an exception - I did enjoy it..... but.

First - what is Orbital about? In Orbital, Samantha Harvey recounts a single day aboard the International Space Station, exploring the perspectives of six astronauts as orbit Earth and their thoughts drift between the vastness of space and the fragile beauty of the planet below. I think ultimately, this is a story of what it means to be human and the juxtaposition of our small lives with the vastness of earth and space. 

What I found challenging was the lack of plot. I don't mean this as a criticism. The story isn't meant to have plot. It's a beautifully written reflection on what it is to be human, but perhaps my personal taste makes me lean toward more plot driven fiction. The language and the imagery invoked though was beautiful and I do recommend the book. 



Last for January 2025 was The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I had been seeing this book everywhere - there must have been an absolutely huge marketing push. And it worked - when I saw what the book was about it seemed exactly up my alley. It's blend of historical fiction, spy thriller, and speculative fiction - with some romance tossed in for good measure. It is the story of an unnamed civil servant who employed to "acclimatise" a time-traveling Victorian explorer to modern life. In the background is the sinister government program that they all understand so little about but clearly is not quite what it's meant to be. 

I did enjoy this book, but like many others who have reviewed it before, it didn't quite live up to its potential. The book was probably trying to be too many things at once and the pace was a little confused - with a slow build followed by a very quick and slightly confusing reveal toward the end. I wish that it had lent more into its spy thriller persona.

Having said that, I still couldn't put it down and when I learnt how it was written, all was forgiven. This is the author's debut novel and written during the covid pandemic and send to her friends in short pieces in order to keep them entertained through what we all know was a challenging time. This, to me, makes explains the odd pace and repetitiveness that crept in. Still - I would recommend this if you are after a fun and quirky read.  

2024: The Year in Books


To recap my 2024 of reading, I need to first reflect on the past. 

Reflections on the Past 


When I was younger, still in my 20s and before I had any children, reading was my passion. I purchased many books, read frequently, and started my first blog, Page Turners. Page Turners was like my first baby. I poured all my energy into designing it, publishing reviews, building a following, and participating in the book blogger community. My highlight was being interviewed on the ABC Book Show about my review of The Timeless Land by Eleanor Dark. 


But then, in 2012, I had my first child, and everything changed. At first, sheer exhaustion prevented me from reading and blogging. But inevitably, my priorities shifted as I entered a new phase of life. Suddenly, my passion was parenting one, and later two, young children. I had to manage family life while working full-time. We moved homes, helped our children through day care, preschool, and primary school, and now my eldest is on the cusp of starting high school. 


Over that time, we lost several loved ones, travelled, and lived through a pandemic along with the rest of the world. During that phase of my life, my reading suffered. I still read books, but far fewer than before. Often, I re-read books, which I found easier to dip in and out of whenever I found the time and inclination to read. 


Reflections on the Present 

That brings us to 2024. Finally, the stars seemed to align. I started a new professional role that was far less stressful than any of my previous roles. This left me with more mental space and, literally, more time to pick up my reading habit again. I was also inspired by a colleague who is a voracious reader. I had already read a little more than usual in 2023, but everything seemed to click in 2024 when I finally found the time and inspiration to start reading again. 


Another piece that clicked into place was finding Page Turners again. I had thought I lost it due to some issues with the web address I had purchased in 2010. But through sheer luck, I found all my posts from 2009 to 2015 sitting in the back end of Blogger, waiting to be explored. While I wasn’t sure I was ready to start blogging again, I knew I didn’t want to risk losing all my work, so in 2024, I made it a labour of love to transfer all of Page Turners posts into this new blog, Aidanvale, named after my home and representing a new phase for me. 


The Books of 2024 


Now that we have covered the context of 2024, it’s time to reflect on the books themselves. I read 41 books in total. Perhaps not the biggest number compared to how many books I used to read, but quite an achievement for me in my current phase of life. I still re-read seven books—old favourites that I have read many times in the past and will continue to re-read in the future.


If you were to try any of those, I would recommend reading the Barforth Trilogy by Brenda Jagger, historical fiction that explores the experiences of women through three generations. Seventeen books were written by Australian authors, something I deliberately tried to prioritize. Most of these were from the Rowland Sinclair series by Sulari Gentill. I highly recommend this series to anyone who is a fan of Agatha Christie, Kerry Greenwood, or Richard Osman. There’s nothing like some cozy detective fiction. I hope they adapt this series into a television show. 


My Favourites of the Year 


To be honest, none of the books I read in 2024 would go straight to my “favourites of all time” list. However, as evidenced by the fact that I finished the entire series in 2024, the Rowland Sinclair series was definitely a favourite. Other favourites include: 


Devotion by Hannah Kent: Kent’s writing transports you. It offers a sensory experience of the natural world and the emotional lives of the characters. In this case, it explores the love story between two young women who are transported across the world to start new lives. 


March by Geraldine Brooks: This novel is written from the perspective of the father in Louisa May Alcott’s March family while he is away from his family, fighting in the Civil War. It is a dark yet emotional tale of a love that cannot be. 


The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins: This is the origin story of President Snow as he begins his ascent from poverty to the presidency. I’ve always loved The Hunger Games and how Collins explores human responses to social, political, and personal circumstances. 


Most Overrated 

Lastly, the most overrated book I read in 2024 was Butter by Asako Yuzuki. This was based on the true story of a Japanese female serial killer. I believe the author had grand plans to convey a message about how women are treated in Japanese culture, particularly regarding body image, but it fell flat for me. The pacing was inconsistent, and the story took too many odd tangents. I had read a lot of positive reviews before picking it up, but ultimately, it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Review: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, the real-life inspiration for detective fiction


"Since Whicher was sure that the murderer was an inmate of the house, all his suspects were still at the scene. This was the original country-house murder mystery, a case in which the investigator had to find not a person but a person's hidden self. It was pure whodunnit, a contest of intelligence and nerve between the detective and the killer. Here were the twelve. One was the victim. Which was the traitor?"

~ Quote from The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

For a non-fiction book, Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher has many different, but equally interesting layers to it.

Firstly, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher provides detailed insight into the development of the profession of police detective. The book centres around one of the first murder investigations in 19th century Victorian England to significantly capture the public's attention - what is known as the murder at Road Hill House. One morning on a day in 1860, the inhabitants of Road Hill House, the Kent family, awake to find that young Saville Kent, aged 3, had been taken from his nursery during the night only to be found in the outdoor bathroom, brutally murdered.

What follows is an account of the investigation and resolution of that crime by Detective Jack Whicher. Detective Whicher was one of the original 8 Scotland Yard detectives. Whicher used his controversial methods to dig deep into the secrets of the Kent family and in doing so threatened many Victorian values and norms that were held dear by the population.

This is another layer of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - the examination of Victorian society through this singular case study of the murder at Road Hill House. Summerscale explores the roles of things such as family, privacy, gender roles and class distinction in the lives of the people of 19th century England, as they were reflected in the media coverage and popular opinion of this singular murder.

Finally, and most interestingly, in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Summerscale goes so far as to claim that this murder and Jack Whicher's investigation of it had a significant influence upon the development of detective fiction as its own unique genre. Summerscale claims that prior to this public murder, detective fiction only took the form of short stories but that after the public attention it received, detective fiction began to evolve into longer pieces of fictions. She argues that the case had a profound effect on authors such as Wilkie Collins, Henry James and Charles Dickens and that the influence of Mr Whicher's personal characteristics and investigation methods can be seen in fiction from the 19th century to the present.

So, in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Summerscale sets out to achieve a lot and I would say that she is largely successful. I certainly found for arguments about the effect the murders at Road Hill House had on detective fiction the most interesting aspect of the book. Sadly, the tension surrounding the actual murder itself wasn't maintained throughout the entire book and I found my attention wavering from about two thirds of the way into the book. It may have been more effective in achieving its aims if it has been a little shorter and more directed.

Although it is essentially a book focused on a single murder in Victorian England, by looking at this murder in such depth Summerscale is able to bring so much more of interest to the attention of her reader, and I admire her for that.


5.5 / 8
Enjoyable, and worth reading if you have the opportunity.

I did a brief post about this around a month or two ago and a lot of people had read the book and enjoyed it. I would love to know how people feel about Summerscale's opinion on the role that this single murder played on the development of detective fiction as a genre. If you have read the book, do you think that she has over-estimated the role it played, or were you convinced by her arguments?

Originally posted 30 October 2011

Review: Dune by Frank Herbert

I have always wanted to read Dune. I have a weakness for good old fashioned science fiction, and I had recently read some Asimov books that I had really enjoyed. I also remember as a child listening to my father talking about how much he enjoyed reading Dune.

So, when it came time to choose my next book I thought that the time had finally come for me to pick it up and give it a read.

Dune is a difficult book to summarise but I will do my best.

The story is full of political intrigue. The Atreides family are awarded a lucrative contact mining the planet Arrakis for melange, a drug that also happens to be the most valuable resource in the universe. The contract had previously been held by the Harkonnes family who also happen to be Atreides family enemies.

With the support of the Imperial Majesty, the Harkonnes rebel against the loss of their valuable contract. Duke Leto Atreides is killed and his concubine Jessica and their son Paul escape into the dessert on the planet Arrakis where they are supported by the native population called Fremen.

The Fremans see Paul as someone sprung out of a legend. Paul takes on the mantle he was destined to wear, that of Muad- Dib, essentially the Messiah of the Fremans. His goal is to take back Arrakis from the Harkonnes and turn it into an ecologically sustainable planet.  In the end he gets even more.

Sigh.

I was really ready to enjoy this book and maybe that was the problem.

It had the makings of a great book.

The story is epic. It is set in a future imperial space empire. The planet is populated by giant worms that consume everything in their path. There is political intrigue. There is romance. There is love.

And yet…. I don’t know.

I just got lost. The books focus seems to lean toward philosophy and religion. It takes itself very seriously. So seriously in fact that I think the story just got lost in amoungst all the religious and philosophical rhetoric. By the end of the book I didn’t really understand Paul’s motivations. I didn’t enjoy reading all of Jessica’s inner reflections. I had lost sight of what everyone was trying to achieve in amoungst all their ponderings and discussions and…… snore.

I might be out on a limb. I know a lot of people love this book and I have obviously missed something. I even wish that I could think of something more interesting to say about it. There are probably some significant themes in the books that I could identify (Climate change? Cultural respect?) I just can’t really even bring myself to think about it that much.

I am glad that I finally read it, I can honestly say that. I only wish that the story had grabbed my interest a little more. 

 4 / 8 stars

Alright, but I wouldn't recommend it.


Originally posted 25 June 2015 Page Turners

Review: The Children Act by Ian McEwan

I’ll bet a lot of reviews about Ian McEwan novels start out like this but there is no getting away from it. Ian McEwan is polarising. 

Yes, there are readers who will either love his books or loathe them. 

A more common phenomenon, I think, is that there are readers out there who love some of his books and loathe others. I am certainly in that latter camp. Atonement took me many attempts and a long time to get into it but when I did I loved it. The same could be said for Enduring Love. Saturday and Solar, on the hand, I have never been able to finish, no matter how many times I have started them.

So, it was with great trepidation when I started reading Ian McEwan’s latest book, The Children Act. 

What it had going for it from my point of view was the subject matter. The protagonist of this short novel is Family Court Judge Fiona Maye. Fiona is a woman who has made many sacrifices to reach what is now the pinnacle of her career as a well-respected Family Court Judge. 

The reader is introduced to Fiona as she faces a crisis in both her professional and personal life. Professionally, she is facing one of the most personally challenging matters of her career. Adam Henry is a spirited and intelligent 17-year-old boy who suffers from Leukaemia. He is also of the Jehovah’s Witness faith. Without a blood transfusion Adam is sure to die and yet his parents are refusing to consent to the lifesaving treatment on the basis of their religion. Although Adam is not yet of an age at which he is considered at law to be mature enough to make such a decision, he supports that of his parents. The Hospital brings a case before the Family Court seeking authority to perform the blood transfusion and it falls on Fiona to decide what is in the best interests of young Adam.

In the meantime, Fiona’s marriage of 30 years is falling apart. The book opens with a personal scene in which Fiona’s academic husband is asking for her permission to conduct an extra-marital affair. He feels that there is widening rift between them that Fiona won’t accept or deal with and he thinks that the best way for them to deal with this rift and still maintain their marriage is for him to be honest about his desire for infidelity. Fiona, although willing to accept to a certain degree her culpability in this rift between them, is offended by his suggestion and her marriage seems on the brink of collapse.

I loved so many things about this book.

The story felt so real and authentic. I believe that this can largely be put down to the quality of the writing. Just thinking of the opening scene of the book I feel as though I can picture every inch of the room that they are sitting in. The chaise lounge, the piano, even the soft lushness of the carpet upon which they “pad”. McEwan crafts everything so beautifully with just words.

What also lends the story that air of authenticity and reality are the lengths that McEwan has obviously gone to research the family law, the family law courts and the roles of the various parties to the legal disputes that come before the courts. I am not a Judge by a long shot, but I am a solicitor and have worked in domestic family law and I am currently working as an international family lawyer.  

I have spent a lot of time in court rooms, sitting at the bar table in front of the Judge and making my own submissions and I could feel myself there again reading this book.

When I read Fiona going about her daily life I felt as though I was though I was having a glimpse of what goes on on the other side of the Bench. More specifically, I appreciated the way in which McEwan portrayed a Family Court Judge who finds herself in the shoes of those that she regularly passes judgement on. It is her professional role to be objective. She needs to be able to objectively view both sides of the family law dispute, apply the law and pass judgement, all the time keeping her personal views and opinions to herself.

Juxtaposed to this is her own failing marriage in which she is forgivably unable to be anything close to objective about. Fiona is able to recognise that professionally she would advise against and think poorly of certain actions that she herself takes in response to her husband’s request for fidelity.

Fiona is able to recognise that some of her husband’s criticisms or (if we are going to be kinder) observations of her recent behaviour may be true and that she may have some level of culpability in the rift that has formed in their marriage, she is still too angry to be able to really sit down and reflect on her marriage in any way that might be close to being considered objective.

In many ways, Fiona acts against her own self-interest and I think that in a way this is a theme of The Children Act.

Her husband too, acts against his own self-interest. He declares that he still loves Fiona and that he wants their relationship to work and in the same breath suggests that the only way forward is for him to conduct an affair with another woman, sanctioned by Fiona. He is able to justify this to himself of course but one can’t help but wonder at his naivety. On a slight side note, this one aspect of the story instigated some lively debate between my husband and I about fidelity inside marriages and whether or not he had the right approach in requesting permission to have an affair. Fiona and her husband hadn’t had sex for 7 weeks, which seems to be one of the driving forces behind her husband’s desire to commence a relationship with another woman.  7 weeks seemed a little too soon to me to be running off into the arms of another woman.

Even Adam, the young man who wishes to refuse the lifesaving blood transfusion has his own reasons for acting in a way that seems to totally against his self-interest. He doesn’t want to die but he think that it is the right to do according to God’s law. In this storyline, McEwan deals superbly with the moral, ethical and legal issues raised in this scenario. As a family lawyer I really found McEwan’s portrayal of legal intervention in these religious issues interesting. I also did my Honours Thesis on the rights of the child in relation to consent to medical treatment so from that point of view it was also really interesting to see how the fine line between personal autonomy and the law was dealt with in The Children Act.

Everything about this book seemed nuanced, from the characters to the various themes throughout the book and I can’t help but admire how deftly McEwan achieved all of this in such a short novel.  




6 / 8 stars
Really enjoyable and well written. I would recommend it.


I would love to know what you though of this book? Was there a particular story line that caught your attention over the other one?



Originally posted 16 June 2016 Page Turners


How do you choose what to read next?

It's one of the problems of being a book hoarder - how do you choose which book to read next?

I haven't been reading much lately. What I have been reading definitely hasn't been anything taxing.

I think I've read about a quarter of Agatha Christie's bibliography, and I've read the Harry Potter and Twilight series at least times each. I'm expecting baby number 2 and so between the morning sickness, work and looking after my toddler those books have been just about all I can manage.

 Now that I'm starting to feel more like myself, I've started to read a little more widely. A little while ago I read An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy. More recently I re-read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (oh my goodness, how amazing is that book!).

I am currently halfway through The Children Act by Ian McEwan. I have a love-hate relationship with Ian McEwan. Some of his books I love. Some of them, I don't love at all. I must say that, so far, I am really enjoying The Children Act. It is well written, easy to read, and I feel very drawn to the protagonist, a Family Court Judge. It helps that I am currently working in a very specific area of international family law, so its content is spot on the sort of issues I have to consider at work on occasion. I feel like I am actually having an insight into what it is like being a Judge. Soon, though, it will be finished.

So here is the question - what do I read next?


My bookcase, circa 1898.

I have shelves and shelves of books. There are a lot of books on those shelves that I haven't read yet. I look and look at the shelves.

Sometimes I pull down a book and start reading it. Usually, though it doesn't grab my attention, and it ends up back on the shelf while I aimlessly continue to peruse in the hopes of finding something that grabs my attention and keeps it.

Just tonight I pulled down The English Patient and Song of Solomon. No luck. Neither of those are my next read. I am clearly not someone who plans ahead with their reading. Not usually anyway. Right now, though, for whatever reason, I am struggling to choose books.

So many books. So little idea what to read next.

How do you decide what to read next?



Originally posted 1 April 2015 Page Turners

Review: The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

Here I am after another long absence. In that long absence, amoungst changing nappies and giving baths, I have managed to do some reading.

A couple of months ago I read JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. As a big Harry Potter fan, I was curious to see what else she could produce and whether it would live up to the expectations I held after her previous success.  

Sadly, for me, it didn't. Whilst I can intellectually see what Rowling was trying to achieve, the narrative pace was just too slow for me. I was reading the book because I had to read the book, and it felt like pulling teeth. Until the end, that is, when all of a sudden, I found that I had been hooked and couldn't put it down until I had finished it. Did that end make up for the first 3/4 of the book that was as dull as staring at a brick wall? Not for me.

The story is based around the small town of Pagford in rural England. When one of the members of the Parish Council, Barry Fairbrother, passes away local politics becomes nasty as a local election is called to see who will take the position. Factions form according to whether candidates are supporters of or detractors from the local housing estate "The Fields".

We see this drama unfold through the eyes of a host characters from a range of ages, backgrounds and political views. There is Krystal, a young girl being raised by a drug addict mother in The Fields, trying to keep her family together. Tessa, the school counsellor who has to act as a barrier between her teenage son and her husband, also the Principal of the local High School. Parminder Jawanda, a local doctor who sits on the Parish Council, supports The Fields and is in love with Barry Fairbrother.

That is only to name three of the many characters JK Rowling has filled her book with. I found that with so many characters, the bulk of the first half of the book was spent just introducing them and it became very difficult to remember who everyone was and how they were all related to each other. This distracted from what else might have been going on in the early parts of the story, although to be fair from I could detect it wasn't much.

I read The Casual Vacancy as part of an online book club that I participate in and everyone seemed to have a similar response to the book as I did.

Everyone found that they had to push their way through most of the book and most people found that their attention was finally hooked toward the end of the book when all the threads of the story came together for the final tragedy.

It wasn't until we all started discussing the book, however, that I really began to appreciate just how much JK Rowling had managed to cover in The Casual Vacancy. She dealt with so many social, economic and moral issues of relevance to everyone in a first world country that it made it even more of a shame that the book was so uninteresting. I say this because the more that we discussed the book, the more issues we discovered that the book had got us thinking about; issues such as social services, housing, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, parenting and relationships.

So, I propose to do something a little different for the review of The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. I am going to post some of the discussions we had a book club, to give you some idea of how we collectively responded to the story. 

Where there are spoilers, it will of course be identified, and I will be changing some things to protect my friend's privacy. 

I understand that for a lot of people these discussions will not be relevant unless you have read The Casual Vacancy yourself and for that I apologise. I hope that this short review will suffice for now to indicate what my thoughts about the book are. 


photo 4stars.png

 4 / 8
Alright, but I wouldn't recommend it.


Originally posted 1 March 2013 Page Turners 

Review: Blind Faith by Ben Elton

He worked in the DegSep Division of NatDat. DegSep was short for Degrees of Separation and it existed in order to establish and catalogue the connections (no matter how tenuous) between every single person, every other person and every single thing that happened. 
~Blind Faith by Ben Elton

The "he" referred to here is Trafford, the protagonist of this comic dystopian novel. Blind Faith is set in a future where the world as we know it has been wiped out by a disastrous flood brought on by mankind's carelessness toward the environment. In its place is a world ravaged by plagues, where only 50% of children survive past their 5th birthday and vaccinations are illegal because they contravene God's Will.

In fact, there is now a single world religion in which the entire population participates with blind faith. In this religion, people are told that they are the embodiment of God and that to respect God they must worship themselves. Privacy is seen as a perversion and everything one does is recorded and shared with everyone else via all forms of social media. People must blog daily and place footage of everything from childbirth to sex to shaving their bikini line on You Tube for everyone else watch. This is a world where it is sinful for women to have natural breasts, g-strings are every day dress and McDonalds is the fanciest restaurant around.

Trafford, a conservative man who wears shorts as long as half way down his thigh, secretly despises the world in which he lives and desires the ability to reason for himself. Blind Faith is the story of Trafford's attempt to reason for himself and share his knowledge with the rest of the population.

Blind Faith is essentially a warning. Firstly, it is a warning against the dangers of climate change. In this future, the earth has been abused to such an extent that is has responded with a devastating flood, that has killed a significant proportion of the world's population, changed the geography of the planet and bought with it ravaging diseases.

Secondly, and what struck a nerve with me, it is a warning against what might come as a result of the increasing fascination with sharing our lives and thoughts via social media (blogging for example!). Elton creates a world where people have become so engrossed with themselves and sharing every minute of their lives that they have come to see themselves as the embodiment of God on earth and therefore deserving of the worship of others.

As I was reading the book, I couldn't help but wonder whether or not this was too much of a leap, a little too unbelievable. I can see the dangers of social media. I don't use twitter, and I don't use Facebook. I don't have an interest in sharing every little thing with every other person who pretends an interest (or even has a real one). If there's something I want to share with someone, I would hope that I could be close enough to that person to share it with them in a more personal way. Yet I found myself wondering as I read the book whether mankind would really take it so far? Scarily though, the more I think about it the more I wonder if it isn't a possibility we should give some thought to. The book has made me wonder why it is that we want to share so many details of our lives in such a public way and what effect this could have on our collective psyche. Already in places like America they allow video cameras in the court room and televise trials. In Australia we see footage on the news of videos people have taken on their mobile phone of incidents they've witnessed where their first response is to pull out their mobile and film it rather than just experiences it or assist in any way. 

I was forcibly reminded of Blind Faith a couple of week ago at the football, when below me in the crowd I witnessed a fight and almost the entire stand around them stand up and pull out their mobile phones to film the fight as if it was entertainment they would laugh over with friends later that night. Could it be that sharing so much about ourselves makes us feel more important than perhaps we should feel? Might we become suspicious of those that don't share their thoughts and actions with others via social media? How far could this go? I don't know the answers to these questions, but Blind Faith certainly raises many of these questions in the reader's mind.

Although some of this might sound serious, Blind Faith is really a comedy. The world of the future is outrageous. Every time I read some newly uncovered aspect this this future world, like Trafford's conservative shorts that reach halfway down his thighs, I found that I had to share it with my partner so that I had someone to laugh with. This outrageousness is, I think, Blind Faith's biggest strength.

Its biggest weakness for me, however, was the way in which Elton delivered his messages. Elton had a definite agenda he wanted to address in relation to the dangers of social media and climate change and as I read the book I felt as though I was being hit over the head with it so to speak. Although it was a funny book, I can think of other works of dystopian fiction dealing with the same issues in a more subtle way.

So, I enjoyed Blind Faith. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I can see that I have got something out of reading it. It's funny and outrageous, although in the end I think that this distracts somewhat from the book's message.



5 / 8 stars
Good and worth reading if you have the opportunity, but there's no need to prioritise it.


Have you ever given any serious thought to the danger that social media might pose to our world in the distant future? How do you think that blogging might contribute to this, if at all?

Originally posted 8 January 2013 Page Turners

Review: The Twelve by Justin Cronin

One of the things I was looking forward to most this year was the release of The Twelve by Justin Cronin. It was worth the wait. I couldn't put it down.

The Twelve felt very different to The Passage. It felt to me to be more of a thriller than a piece of paranormal speculative fiction (or whatever else you might classify it as).

Also, where The Passage seemed to deal more with the experience of the individuals in the aftermath of the virus, The Twelve dealt more with the state of the nation following the release of the virus. We see people spread across the country living in different outposts, attempting to establish themselves in a manner they can sustain in the face of the adversity they now face.

Where some of those new cities are facing their challenges with respect for the human race, there is another city being established and controlled by the 'red-eyes' where this is not the case. The Homeland, as it is called, is run by people who have infected themselves with the virus but have not flipped, and they see themselves controlling the world in conjunction with the virals. In this way, an interesting question is raised in The Twelve: how can the virals sustain themselves when they have almost eaten their entire food source? It's a question I am surprised I never really considered while I was reading The Passage. In The Twelve we see one solution imagined by humans who are willing to betray their own race.

The characters I came to know in The Passage had all gone in their separate directions, and yet I still felt attached to them all. I was invested in their lives and read with bated breath to see what had become of them now.

I do have to say I was rather frustrated that there was so much about The Twelve that I didn't understand.

*SPOILER ALERT* Why didn't the red-eyes flip? Why was Lucius Greer so attached to Amy, was he her familiar? What is this ship they were talking about? How was it that Amy came to be talking to Carter, as if in real life? How is it that Wolgast came back into the story as a viral? Why didn't Alicia flip and who is talking to her at the end of the story? My questions could go on and on. *END SPOILER*

I hope very much that these questions are answered in the third book. If not, I am going to need someone a lot smarter than me to explain it all to me. 

Ultimately, the pace was fast, and I couldn't stop reading. If I were to be honest with myself, I think that a big part of why I couldn't put it down was my commitment to The Passage rather than the contents of this book, but I still loved every minute of it.



7 / 8 
Brilliant, couldn't put it down. Recommend that you buy it. 


So, who else has read The Twelve yet? I am dying to hear what you thought of it after all the anticipation. Were you as confused about a lot of what happened as I was?



Originally posted 30 November 2012

Review: Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood (Australian)

Kerry Greenwood's Earthly Delights was an easy and enjoyable read.

Earthly Delights is a detective story. The protagonist Corinna Chapman is a straightforward woman who runs her own successful bakery. Like a lot of detective stories, there are a series of mysteries to be solved. Who is the stalker who is threatening all the owners of Corinna's unit block? Is Corinna's new bloke Daniel more than he seems? Why has a junkie ended up dead in Corinna's back yard?

Whilst I can tell you the main mysteries that Corinna was faced with in Earthly Delights, I must admit that for me, months later, the plot is pretty forgettable.

Perhaps some of the plot was lost in amoungst the larger-than-life characters. In Earthly Delights we have a baker, a dominatrix, a Wiccan, a professor, an old married couple, a social worker helping the homeless, computer geeks and stupid young girls. Although this provided great variety, it still struck me as a bit too far-fetched that you find so many unusual individuals all living within a stone's throw of each other and all being involved in one way or another with each other. What else struck me about the characters is that even though each appeared so unique on the surface, somehow or other they all feel so cliched. I felt like I could just tick of the cliches as I went, the hippy witch, the Gen Y girls obsessed with their phones and clothes, the handsome do gooder and so on and so forth.

What I appreciated even less than the cliched characters... were the cats. Corinna Chapman is a cat person. And I am not. I heard far too much about her 3(?) cats and what they got up to.

What I did appreciate was that Greenwood was certainly trying to make a point about drug use and homelessness in Australian society, and how people who live with these issues are viewed by the broader population. As someone who works with people like this, I could identify to a certain extent with the way in which those people were portrayed. Greenwood was able to make her point that sometimes people fall into situations that they can't get themselves out of, and sometimes (only sometimes mind you) some help and compassion can help those people make some positive change in their lives.

Earthly Delights is a harmless and enjoyable read. Fun read... but nothing special. I suppose it didn't help that I read it straight after having read The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. They were, despite their different settings, similar in terms of having a strong female protagonist with a variety of mysteries to solve, and her own personal history to come to terms with. And yet The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency delivered this in a unique manner without any cliches. And, at heart, I am still a Phryne Fisher girl when it comes to Kerry Greenwood.



5.5 / 8
Enjoyable. I would recommend it if you are looking for an easy read to fill some time. 


Do you ever feel that your feelings about a certain book is affected by the book you read before it?
  I would be interested to hear when it has happened to you and how you felt the book effected your reading of the following one. 


Originally posted 20 November 2012