James Flint (1) (1968–)

Picked this up in a charity shop just days before the Iceland volcano grounded European airspace (April 2010) with ash.... so reading it under clear skies (no vapour trails for the first time I could remember)and read it with a special resonance. January 2011 the artist James Acord whose stories inspired the book dies by his own hand and a year after reading it the whole nuclear situation is thrown into focus after the Tsunami damages the Fukishima power plant in Japan. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and nearly bought another one in the best bookshop in the world (Scarthin Books, Cromford) but do I dare? Perhaps if I made a wooden cover, or only read it sitting in a wooden chair.....

Read the book again with massive enjoyment even though I knew the plot. And ordered Habitus from the 'Abebooks' second hand site. Looking forward to reading it.… (más)

On the whole I like plot - and although this book had a good one it was more suited to a long short story than a book this size (544 pages). And I have to admit after the first two thirds I was counting them. The flights of fantasy were fairly good, I like a bit of weirdness, but again there was too much. Science and history of science I love and seemed to me to be the heart of the book but here I feel I have read the book too late. Written in 1998 both the science and history feel outdated in 2011. The benefit of reading the New Scientist is that you get the same sort of interesting information in the same sort of small chunks, but you can treat them as chunks, skip bits if you feel like it, and the chunks are pretty up to date. So I am not keeping this book or recommending it but it was his first novel and I still like the author on the strength of 'The Book of Ash'. However I think I'll skip '52 Ways to Magic America' which was his second and maybe get the later short stories from the library although if they are only in french I'll have some work to do.… (más)

Picked this up in a charity shop just days before the Iceland volcano grounded European airspace (April 2010) with ash.... so reading it under clear skies (no vapour trails for the first time I could remember)and read it with a special resonance. January 2011 the artist James Acord whose stories inspired the book dies by his own hand and a year after reading it the whole nuclear situation is thrown into focus after the Tsunami damages the Fukishima power plant in Japan. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and nearly bought another one in the best bookshop in the world (Scarthin Books, Cromford) but do I dare? Perhaps if I made a wooden cover, or only read it sitting in a wooden chair.....

Read the book again with massive enjoyment even though I knew the plot. And ordered Habitus from the 'Abebooks' second hand site. Looking forward to reading it.… (más)

On the whole I like plot - and although this book had a good one it was more suited to a long short story than a book this size (544 pages). And I have to admit after the first two thirds I was counting them. The flights of fantasy were fairly good, I like a bit of weirdness, but again there was too much. Science and history of science I love and seemed to me to be the heart of the book but here I feel I have read the book too late. Written in 1998 both the science and history feel outdated in 2011. The benefit of reading the New Scientist is that you get the same sort of interesting information in the same sort of small chunks, but you can treat them as chunks, skip bits if you feel like it, and the chunks are pretty up to date. So I am not keeping this book or recommending it but it was his first novel and I still like the author on the strength of 'The Book of Ash'. However I think I'll skip '52 Ways to Magic America' which was his second and maybe get the later short stories from the library although if they are only in french I'll have some work to do.… (más)