Culture Club (fat, drug-addicted and keeping prostitues chained the radiators not required - but it helps!)

I can feel the post-Christmas financial nightmare slowly fading and being replaced with an impetus to save money by working my way through every book, dvd and game I have bought and never read, watched or played, so far I finished The Holocaust (possibly the most damaging book I have read so far in my short life, thank fuck I wasn't involved in World War 2 in any capacity), read The Shadow of the Wind and Legion (sequel to The Exorcist) so far this month, and am now elbow-deep in Grotesque. In summary -

The Holocaust (Martin Gilbert) -

Epic chronicling of the fate of the Jews during WW2 at the hands of my number one all time enemy, the Nazis. It mixes hard cold data with personal testimony for maximum impact, dropping hellish bombs on every page that would be unbelievable if it wasn't so heavily documented and referenced. Witness reports range from survivors speaking after the war and at War Crimes tribunals, to diaries and statements buried in concentration camps and ghettos around Europe and stumbled across decades later, the authors having died during the war but managing to get their points across from beyond the grave, also using the well-kept records of the Nazi's themselves. There are so many terrible and amazing facts in it, everyone should read it to try and get a better grasp on the unimaginable NIGHTMARE that it must have been, here's one of the worst I can remember - Belzec extermination camp had 434,500 Jews deported to it, only 2 (thats TWO) are known to have survived. One of these Jews, who later gave evidence at a war crimes tribunal in Poland, was murdered as he walked home from the trial by racist Polish citizens.

WHAT THE FUCK?!?

The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon) -

Yes, this was part of the book club at work, so it was read under duress and not of my own free will, however I could have thrown the stinking text into the Salford docklands at a whim so I still count this as part of my reading frenzy. Simply written and enjoyable, it follows a young boy called Daniel who finds a corker of a book by mysterious novelist Julian Carrax in the Cemetary of Lost Books, and before long becomes embroiled in the mystery of his life and death, trying to outpace the faceless man who seems to be burning every copy of every novel Carrax ever wrote. Also having to deal with fascism, hobos, troubled friendships, ghosts from the past and teenage hoRMOneS (that random capitalisation symbolised hilarious puberty-induced momentary voice breaking), there are some good chuckles and a fair amount of surprising reveals to be had from Daniel's adventures, and thought the dialogue may have suffered slightly in its translation from its native Spanish it kept my interest to the end and is definately worth a peek.

Legion (William Peter Blatty) -

I read this sucker whilst undertaking my British Red Cross First Aid training last week (fully qualified now thank you very much), only small at 250(ish) pages, but a creepy one and no mistake. Following Detective Kinderman from The Exorcist, and written in a rambling, humerous inner-monologue for the most part, the brutal ritualistic death of a young boy carries with it the air of something more sinister then just murder, helped in no way by the speechless and frail old lady at the scene who's hair is found the boy's clasped hand... This is the sequel to The Exorcist novel, and the basis for the third film in the series, so if you have seen that it may not hold many surprises, but it manages to get the eerie chills out of the pages and down your spine without any excessive gore, violence and boob-based titillation (tittylation?), just simple discription and suggestion - always the best way. Horror in an elderly mental ward is a guaranteed chiller.

Grotesque (Natsuo Kirino) -

I am only around a quarter of the way through this one, but it is already in keeping with the first of her novels to be translated to English from Japanese (Out) in tone, language and topic - brutal, casual and extreme, in that order. Written in first person and from an unnamed narrator, we learn her sister and close friend fell into prostitution and have been murdered, possibly by the same man. So far however, 'fell' may be too kind a word, as we soon realise the narrator is a harsh, hate-filled bitch, and half the pleasure of the novel will be trying to pick the truth out of her nasty all-consuming teeth of derision. Or something. One thing I am not pleased about is publisher Knopf's decision to remove a section involving underage male prostitution - I am already up to my elbows in uncle and underage-niece incest, but oh, no, some male boy 'ho-ing is the absolute limit! Joking aside, slightly annoyed I can't read the novel as the novelist intended, but such is life, maybe once I am finished I can look online or something... I will update you when I am finished, great so far though.

Next - watching the films I rented from love film and have had for approx. 4 months now...