For many, David Mitchell seems to be an untouchable. However, this was my first book written by this author. I read it based on the rave reviews I saw, but found it as close to unreadable as any I've come across.The first chapter is by far the best of the book, after this, the author goes off on tangents using language, terms, and words that were completely foreign to me.The story is all over the place and I was completely lost regarding character progression, relationships, and the overall stor...

This is a detailed summary of key features of the book. I’ve hidden big spoilers, but there may be minor ones, depending on your definition of “spoiler”.I have a briefer, spoiler-free, and very different, review here (different * rating, too): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., which is more about my feelings for the book. It also includes a selection of favourite quotes and links to interviews. The difference in star rating is deliberate: I couldn't decide.LINKS AND THEMESThis book, per...

I couldn't finish this book, I struggled to even get to 300 pages, it's horribly boring.The opening chapter is fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed Holly's perspective but things really go downhill after that.The book follows Holly Sykes' life through other people who meet her as she ages.Holly Sykes has a strange connection with an outside influence which is a mystery to her and the reader.After Holly's opening chapter, the narrative switches to Hugo who was an absolute pain to read,it's depressi...

“My hero is a Cambridge student called Richard Cheeseman, working on a novel about a Cambridge student called Richard Cheeseman, working on a novel about a Cambridge student called Richard Cheeseman. No one’s ever tried anything like it.”“Cool,” says Johnny Penhaligon. “That’s sounds like—““A frothy pint of piss,” I announce, and Cheeseman looks at me with death in his eyes until I add, “is what’s in my bladder right now. The book sounds incredible, Richard."How can a novel so replete with cynic...

I adore David Mitchell. To pieces. No novel has simultaneously so moved and impressed and entertained me as has Cloud Atlas, and I will always be an enthusiastic Mitchell devotee / groupie / fan-girl.But did I adore The Bone Clocks? With great disappointment, I must confess that I did not (notwithstanding the fact that I devoured the novel over the course of just three of four days).The Bone Clocks is fantastical dreck camouflaged as literature. Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against fantasy...

Some of these books of David Mitchell are odd and some of them feel almost epic, while still others are just shocking by how much strong voice coming through the page, and some have it all. This is one of those books, the closest novel to Cloud Atlas out of all the books of his that I've read.It shares the same basic concept of loosely-tied novellas with strange immortal creatures either living their lives among the humans or actively engaging in a far-ranging and explosive war with others a bit...

Anticipation started pooling around David Mitchell’s magical new novel as soon as the title was revealed last year. Like Thomas Pynchon and Haruki Murakami — to whom he’s often compared — Mitchell excites his culty fan base into fits of rapture. One bookseller told me that a customer offered money to be allowed to sit in the store and read an advance copy of “The Bone Clocks.” Named a finalist for the Booker Prize more than a month before publication, the novel has finally descended incarnate fr...

Dear James Wood,We read and love writers for very different reasons. I read Albert Camus and I read Jorge Luis Borges. I read Milan Kundera and I read Malcolm Lowry. I read Richard Ford and I read Doris Lessing. I read Lawrence Durrell and I read Saul Bellow. I read Samuel Beckett and I read Jim Harrison. I read Emily Bronte and I read Michel Tournier. David Mitchell's dazzling gifts are not those of Karl Ove Knausgaard, yet I need them equally in the fabric of my life. They bring different qual...

[UPDATE 10.16] Here is the review that this book deserves: please read this and not mine. My review is not worth reading. -----------------------------------I'm such a drama queen. This is all planned out: I imagined a ceremonious return to goodreads, where I shock the masses with a derisive and scathing critique of one of my favorite authors, and the goodreads community would all be astir. "What happened to him?" "Didn't he just love David Mitchell?" "He wouldn't shut up about him!" And then t...

The Confused and the Bewitched[Apologies to Dean Wareham]The bone clocksSit clutchingChampagne andBarbecue,DividedBetwixt theConfused andThe bewitched."Being For The Benefit Of Holly Sykes!"[Apologies to the Beatles]For the benefitOf Holly Sykes,There will be A show tonightWith clownsOn bikesAnd acrobatsOn trampolines.If you don’t likeThe daring scenes,Call forThe author To be sacked.You’ll get yourMoney back.It’s just a circus act!"Jacob's Ladder" by William BlakeDwelling on a ReservationDavid

"True metamorphosis doesn't come with flowcharts."Another genre-bending novel by David Mitchell also channels Stephen King and Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Did you just hear that? Yes, but Mitchell does nothing by mistake. It was evidently deliberate, and he mixes various castes of writing styles, although much less so than in CLOUD ATLAS and even THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET. Mitchell lures in mainstream readers, as well as his steadfast fans. I think he does one better, though, than the latter

--Slightly improved version 10/31/2014--With his newest effort, 2014's Bone Clocks, David Mitchell returns to form found in his earlier novels such as Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas with a wide-ranging epic spanning across multiple narrators and continents with aims at a universal message about power and the battle of good versus evil. Like Cloud Atlas, his newest effort harnesses various genres of fiction into a larger mosaic work that highlights the interconnectivity of humanity and the versatil...

By the middle of the first sentence, I knew I was in for it. By the end of the first sentence I loved Holly Sykes, and would follow her anywhere. I got to follow her everywhere. With The Bone Clocks we'll remember why we already love David Mitchell, and be amazed that he could top himself again. I'm increasingly convinced that, like some of his characters, he too has lived many different lives. I don't know how one person could equally portray the variety of people, places, and times he does, bu...

“Love's pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices.” ― David Mitchell, The Bone ClocksIt is hard to not like David Mitchell. He is literary, just not too literary. He is funky, just not too funky. He is hip, just not too hip. He is political, just not too political. He is spiritual, but also seems to leave room for a bit of humanist doubt. I can't think of another writer who captures the energy or direction of the slick, urban, cosmopolitan,...