a complete lack of complaints

I wanted to write about a book I loved, for a change, because it’s often easier to complain about things than try and convey how much you really enjoyed something. And then I found myself spoilt for choice, which is a nice position to be in – two re-reads and two new-to-me books that have really stood out. One of the re-reads (Pat Barker’s Regeneration) is for a course, and I will go on about it there, and one of the new-to-me will show up later as well as I hadn’t realised it was a sequel (Morris Gleitzman’s Then – Once, the first book, is still good, but not as good). Also, I am reading so many other things about war at the moment that I thought it would be nice to think about something else for a change. So I picked the other two, and went on (and on!) to discuss both of them in fairly thorough detail - I don't think it's possible to really spoil in Alice in Sunderland, but I'd suggest avoiding the first review if you haven't gotten around to reading Eight Days of Luke yet.

( Eight Days of Luke, Diana Wynne Jones. )

( Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot. )

I can’t pick up this book again without getting dragged into it, and that’s true for Eight Days of Luke as well. With Eight Days of Luke there’s familiarity with narrative, and with Alice in Sunderland it’s more familiarity with place, but in both of them there’s that feeling of being able to completely trust the author; I don’t know, necessarily, where I’m going or what it all means, but I know they’ll get me there.