Inverted World/Tulip Fever/Fast Food Nation (Reviews) in Back entries: 2013 - 2015

Finally managed to catch up on reviews of what I’ve read over the past few weeks.
:)

In Inverted World by Christopher Priest (303 pages), Earth City citizen Helward Mann is apprenticed to the guild his father belongs to - the Future Surveyors. While the City is falling behind the “optimum” and faces serious problems, Helward’s apprenticeship is changing his life in ways he does not expect.

This is an unusual book for me - even though the ending was a let down, it is still something I will be looking at re-reading at some stage. I did have an idea on the twist ending, but chose to continue reading to find out how the twist happened, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem I had was that the ending felt hurried and unsatisfactory which was a huge shame compared to the rest of the book. Having said that though, the book did affect me - after I finished the last page, I put the book down and couldn’t bring myself to start reading anything until the following day. I wanted to just think about what I’d just read.

Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach (281 pages) was a book I’d picked up at my favourite book shop. This was one they’d put in their “blind date with a book” shelf - each book is wrapped in brown paper, and a price tag is attached via string tied around the paper. On the wrapping is a series of words or phrases designed to give an indication of what the book is about. The good thing about books on this shelf is that if you have a copy at home, you can return your “blind date” book with your receipt and get a new one.

Anyway, I picked this one up - the words/phrases on the brown paper were: “fiction, Amsterdam, art, exoticism, read if you loved Girl With A Pearl Earring”. I loved Girl...., however Tulip Fever was a bit of a disappointment compared to it. It’s set in Amsterdam in the 1630s. Everyone’s going crazy over tulips. Cornelis Sandvoort has a young, beautiful wife (Sophia) and wealth. But he really wants an heir, which hasn’t happened. Cornelis hires Jan van Loos to paint a portrait of him and Sophia, little knowing how his life and marriage will be affected.

A very average read - I did feel something for Cornelis over the course of the book. His was the only character that seemed at all fleshed out. This is going to the book exchange when I have time.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (386 pages, including photo credits, notes, bibliography, acknowledgements and index) discusses what goes on behind the scenes in the fast food industry - what McDonalds fries are cooked in, how safe the abattoirs are, how safe is the food? This was an interesting read - rather enlightening, albeit the writing is a little dry. I don’t know if it was just because I was trying to read it through a cold, but I had slight problems maintaining my interest.

Last updated January 02, 2015