Book Review: The Carpet Makers

Just before I start I wanted to say thank you for all your lovely comments on my last few posts. University and finishing my teaching placement has been insane over the last few weeks so I haven’t been able to reply individually but I wanted to say thank you, I’ve read them all!

So on with the review. The Carpet Makers was a book which I picked up on a whim during my most recent trip to the library. I was drawn to it on the shelf because it stood out from the other offerings. Amongst the usual dark spines of the fantasy and sci-fi novels the white cover of this book stood out like a sore thumb. It helped that the title wasn’t your average sci-fi one as well. I admit it, I was intrigued.

The first chapter reads like a bit of a fairy tale really, the opening sentence setting the scene for a story which you think you know where its going.

‘Knot after knot, day in, day out, for an entire lifetime, always the same hand movements, always looping the same knots in the fine hair, so fine ad so tiny that with time, the fingers trembled and the eyes became weak with the strain- and still the progress was hardly noticeable. On a day he made good headway, there was a new piece of his carpet perhaps as big as his fingernail.’

But you would have been fooled. I was fooled. I expect every one who has ever read this book has been fooled. This story doesn’t end up where you expect. The chapters link in un-expected ways, characters cross paths when you least expect it and the stage is so much bigger than you first imagine.

It has been translated impeccably from German and the translation flows so well that you wouldn’t immediately know that you were reading a novel in translation. Most upsettingly this is the only novel by Eschbach that has currently been translated in to English, and my reading will be so much poorer for it. Read this book to be amazed at the cleverness of the story construction and then to be heart broken because unless you speak German this is your only opportunity to  bask in Eschbach’s prose.

Lindy xxxx

Booky Things….

I did it. I finally did it. I donated some of my books to a charity shop. There are just some books which I have to admit to myself that I’m not going to read again and that I really don’t need. So to a charity shop they went!

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let books go without replacing them! But instead of hitting up Waterstones and emptying my bank account I visited my local library. And we all know how much I love the library, and today I came away with a pretty good haul.

I actually saw this book when I was browsing in Waterstones before Christmas. I was so happy just to see it sitting on the shelf calling to me, so home it came! I get the feeling its a blend between magic and crime fiction, a combination I just can’t resist!

This is a totally random pick! Andreas Eschbach is a German author who I had not heard of before, so I am very excited to try something new. I also trying to expand my reading horizons and read more authors in translation so this should be a very good book for me!

Next I got another PD James novel, I do love a bit of crime fiction and I have not been disappointed with PD James novels before so I’m very excited about this.

Although I’m not usually one  for paranormal romance (I think my teenage years binge on that type of fiction gave me my full) I picked this up on a bit of a whim. Sometimes all I want is easy reading before bed and hopefully this should fall into this category nicely.

This was another impulse pick up in the YA section because I was drawn to the cover art. I’m already part way through it and enjoying it thus far!

So here we have it. You can tell I finished my teaching placement yesterday, because I suddenly have time to read again!

What have you been enjoying reading recently?

Lindy xxx

(Sorry about the dark photos its now evening whilst I’m writing this!)