War and Peace | L. Tolstoy

My indie book reading has been blown a bit off course recently. First by the 20p special offers that I wrote about a few weeks ago and now by War and Peace. Have you seen The Last Station directed by Michael Hoffmann? It's a fantastic film and we watched it twice on DVD. It tells the story of the last years of Tolstoy's life. He had a tumultuous relationship with his wife Sofya which lasted for many years and resulted in thirteen children. In his eighties Tolstoy makes a dramatic escape from Sofya and his comfortable home life and ends up at the tiny railway station at Astapovo where he becomes very ill and dies.

Seeing the film reminded me of the several attempts I'd made over the years to read War and Peace. On every occasion I'd managed a couple of chapters and given up. It's a huge novel: well over 1000 pages in the print version but some commentators say it's the greatest novel ever written.

I think there are two reasons I've never got into it. Firstly I've always found the Russian names so confusing and have got fed up with having to keep re-reading to sort them out; but the main reason is that the huge size of the book necessitates a very small print size which is uncomfortable to read. Now with the advantage of my light-weight e-reader I can adjust the font size and have already found that this has made some obscure classics more accessible. So, I've downloaded War and Peace onto my Kindle for the bargain price of £0.49p and this time am determined to read it right through.

As I said, War and Peace is massive: Book One set in 1805 has 28 chapters. There are fifteen books and two epilogues. Book Ten set in 1812 has 39 chapters. There are in fact 365 chapters in total so if I read one chapter each day it would take a whole year to finish it.

I decided to read one chapter and write a short précis to summarise the names of the main characters and key points in the plot. I did the same for the next fifteen chapters by which time I'd got the hang of who was who, how the various versions of their names fitted together and what was going on. Now I'm really into it and it is magnificent so reading time for indies is somewhat curtailed; but if anyone reading this has read War and Peace I'd be very interested to hear how you got on with it.

The Crew | Dougie Brimson

I'm not sure if The Crew is an indie published book but it always seems to be free on Kindle so I thought I would give it a go. I wasn't sure if a book about football hooligans was really my thing but an average of four stars from 295 reviewers is impressive. 

Anyway I loved it. 

This is straight-forward good cops v. bad guys and the leader of the good cops, Paul Jarvis, is totally credible, engaging and real. The bad guys are The Crew: violence-loving, foul-mouthed football supporters lead by Billy Evans. Top man Billy is an authentic and believable thug, villain and cop-killer. 

This book moves at a ferocious pace and is a real page turner. 

Amazingly, as the story unfolds you find some sympathy for some of the football supporting hooligans and even more for the out-witted cops. 

Sharp, spare writing moves the action along fast and at the end of the book there's only one thing you want to do and that's to download the sequel Top Dog which isn't free but hopefully will be as good as The Crew.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Crew-ebook/dp/B005GHM820

http://www.amazon.com/The-Crew-ebook/dp/B005GHM820

Everything is Free | Adele Ward

If you were looking for a free book to download for your Kindle and you saw a title like this you'd be bound to stop and take a second look wouldn't you?

I read the whole of the sample of Everything is Free on the Amazon site; downloaded it straight away and continued reading for the next hour.

What a marvellous novel. It's superbly well crafted; challenging and thought provoking; and with a story so engaging you really have to force yourself to stop reading and go and do other things.

Nineteen year old Mel is homeless and looking for somewhere to stay. She goes to the Greenvale Shopping Centre and what happens next is a truly amazing story.

You get to know Mel and the characters that congregate at the Greenvale for work, leisure and shopping; each is beautifully drawn and you feel that you know them personally. The entire world is here in microcosm; I think there must be one of nearly every type of person who exists. Well maybe not quite but this character list is full, varied, vivid and real.

I don't know if the Greenvale actually exists; probably not but you'll have been to somewhere very similar. The scenes that take place away from the shopping centre are equally convincing and described with photographic clarity. You get such a good sense of where you are in every aspect of this novel.

I thought Everything is Free was exceptionally good: interesting, unusual and very well written. The book tackles some difficult issues as well as the homelessness that you're told about in the blurb but it isn't preachy or heavy handed. I shall give it five stars on the Amazon site, would give it more if I could and highly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everything-Is-Free-ebook/dp/B006IHFZ22

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Is-Free-ebook/dp/B006IHFZ22

Nihilist 5.0 by G.P.Grewal

According to the dictionary a nihilist is a person who believes human existence has no objective meaning, purpose or intrinsic value and this certainly applies to the protagonist of Nihilist 5.0 - Frank. He is a miserable 34-year-old slave to his tedious day-job in Los Angeles and I presume that the 5.0 in the title refers to working five days a week. Frank's evenings and weekends are usually spent alone in his apartment except when he enters a make-believe world of heroic fantasy to which he escapes with his geeky friends while playing "Dungeons and Dragons". What he yearns for is romance and a chance encounter in the real world encourages Frank to think that he might have met someone. Is there hope for Frank? Well you will have to read the novel for yourself to find that out.

I have really mixed feelings about this book and at times had to push myself to read it. Yet, 48 hours after reaching the last page I was still thinking about it. The writing is bleak, depressed, at times depressing yet giving a powerful insight into Frank's lonely and unhappy existence. It is definitely not a "feel-good" book and at times you get too close to some of Frank's more unappealing habits. I am still not sure about the ending. It was rather left to the reader to decide and I don't think it was a very happy one.

My problem with getting into the book was the "Dungeons and Dragons" stuff but I guess that any reader who enjoys that sort of thing will be ok with this aspect. As far as the "Dungeons and Dragons" writing is concerned it gets really interesting stylistically. The accounts of the fantasies are dull and pedestrian in the early part of the book but by the end they are interesting and almost poetic. As Frank's life gets worse and worse, the fantasy gets better and better. I don't know anything about "Dungeons and Dragons" and can't get my head round a group of adults meeting together to play like this but in Nihilist 5.0 it provides a vivid counterpoint to the awfulness of Frank's daily life.

Overall Nihilist 5.0 is a well written and well presented e-book which I downloaded for free and despite my early difficulties getting into it, I am pleased that I persevered and read it through to the end.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nihilist-5-0-ebook/dp/B007ODPRF4

http://www.amazon.com/Nihilist-5-0-ebook/dp/B007ODPRF4