Coming off a literary high - please help

Yes, it's a children's book - a pretty good children's book and I think worth reading. I like the idea of encouraging children to question received doctrines etc and think it raises interesting questions for anybody who may not have questioned thus far, but ultimately, for me, it works best on two levels - characterisation (Have you met Lee Scorseby or Iorek yet? Swoon) and the fact that it is a successful (and intelligent) love story.

If you want Nietzsche etc, then read them and nothing else, but if you want thought provoking and enjoyable fiction then keep reading Pullman (but don't moan at me when you get to the blasted wheeled horse thingies, which are ridiculous - and boring).

I think criticising a book just because it is a children's book, whilst knowing it is a children's book, is a bit unfair. And besides - I'm an English teacher, so I like children's books! Often they are far better written than much of the crap that is published (and acclaimed) for adults. :)

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The origins of it are sketchy as you'd imagine but from what is pieced together it started in China. This isn't giving too much away as a lot of it starts in the first chapter.

It is a straight pass on by a bite same as pretty much any zombie story but there are some interesting bits on the side. How the governments handle it, the med company responses, the utter lack of concious of the various politicians and so on. The psychological effects of it all on humans is explored too with suicides, people just dying and the Quizzlings folks who shut down and become zombies whilst still being human. The zombies don't recognise them as them and still attack.

The limitations of the military against an enemy like them is very much explored.

Like I said it isn't challenging but it is intelligent.

Lots special about this.

It is set 10 years after the war and is a collection of interviews with various people around the world. Recollections from important military or political figures and ordinary civilians and soldiers.

It is written as an extended piece based upon a UN report. Basically the diplomat who gathered all the intel to piece together everything produced the book as a way of humanising the data he gathered.

It is brutal, intelligent and amusing at times (I've just read about soldiers attracting Zombies to them by playing Iron Maiden's The Trooper at full volume. In context it was brilliant). You don't (so far) get any triumph of the human spirit crap. It is soul destroying devastation revisited with the survivors (including a former chief of staff to the President who now spends his days literally shovelling shit).

What is good is that the supposed author very rarely makes a judgement or gives you any more background than the person they are interviewing does. You have to piece things together (later interviews reveal more about things mentioned in passing beforehand).

I'm really enjoying it. It isn't especially challenging or horrific in the conventional sense but it is dark and intelligent.

'Alone In Berlin' okay but not magnificent, I thought.

World War Z. 21% into it on Kindle and can't put it down. Clever narrative structure too.

I've added it to my RSS feed too.

Maus was put head to head with Schindler's Ark and other holocaust books and won. Not bad for a comic and a talking animal comic at that.

Have you ever read Michael Chabon? My all time favourite book is his The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

Re Holocaust related novels, a few that spring to mind:Alone in Berlin and History: A Novel. Also re graphic novels and holocaust, Maus is without a doubt the best.

Brilliant website MNHubbie

Have bookmarked for daily amusment.

Ive not read that one Remus, ill add it to my list.

Some v intelligent people on that link, MNHubbie.

Oh, I don't know why but, Simone, your post has just reminded me of this which I think is a fantastic book.

A relevant but disturbing link:

leasthelpful.com/post/19952361954/fahrenheit-four-fifty-dumb

Also, if you liked Cloud Atlas try Mitchell's Ghostwritten. For me it was a superior novel to Cloud Atlas.

Have to second the recommendation for Perec's Life:A Users Manual, it really is a brilliant & very unique novel.
Also would recommend Master and Margerita, Any Murakami but esp Kafka on the Shore and IQ84. Ive just spent the last 3 days attached to IQ84, could not put it down. Marquez, esp Love in the time of cholera and One hundred years of Solitude - words cannot express how good those books are.
Also love Milan Kundera. Immortality and The Unbearable Lightness of Being are both beautifully written
Oh and also agree with other posters who recommend Peter Carey

No Slaughter House 5!!!!!!!!

That is wrong. Burn it to the ground!

OK don't but do go read this:

io9.com/5828986/school-bans-vonneguts-slaughterhouse+5-so-vonnegut-library-gives-copies-to-students-for-free

Phew. :)

The silly library didn't have Dune or Slaughterhouse Five or The Master And M. I have been reduced to reading Georgette Heyer - now there's a writer you'd REALLY hate. :)

Please to read the comments above re The Book Thief. I have failed to get past the first chapter three times now, and won't bother trying again.

I think the fact that lots of people don't appreciate Ian M IS at least in part his fault actually - he is a very self-conscious writer imho and it gets in the way of him telling a good story in a well-written way, with strong characterisation. He allows himself as author to intrude into his novels and get in the way of his characters and thus fails to successfully establish the 'connection' that is needed (for me anyway) between readers and characters.

Now stop being sniffy because some of us don't like him! This thread has been so good BECAUSE people have different views. I adore Jane Austen - you don't. It doesn't mean that I am inferior or superior to you and I won't get sulky because other people don't like her.

Fiction works or doesn't work because it is a result of a partnership between a writer and a reader and, just like love, some partnerships will 'connect' and some won't. It doesn't mean it's personal.