BLACKOUT & ALL CLEAR
Connie Willis
The latest addition to Connie Willis' Oxford Time Travel series, which includes "Doomsday Book" and "To Say Nothing of the Dog", "Blackout" and "All Clear" document the stories of historians Polly Churchill, Merope Ward, and Michael Davies. Polly, Merope, and Michael each travel back in time from Oxford in the year 2060 to different periods of World War II Britain to do research, but their lives intertwine when their means of returning to the future does not work, and they are stuck in the past trying to find a way back.
At a total of almost 1,200 pages, not a few readers have found the two novels too lengthy. Indeed, the story was intended to be one novel that was eventually split into two volumes. This means that before starting on "Blackout", one must be prepared to read "All Clear" afterwards, to be able to appreciate the story fully. The fact that the novels jump from one character to another and from one time period to the next also adds to the challenge.
Instead of bogging down the story, I think the novels are richer for the wealth of information they impart about the daily lives of ordinary people in wartime England. This is especially true for people like me whose education, by virtue of place of residence, focused on the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. Part of the appeal of the novels for me too, is trying to figure out the connections between the people who enter the lives of Polly and Merope and Michael, and the events that surround them. The story would be different, I think, were such details left out.
A good story for me is one which has characters who stay with me even after I've closed the book, and one that makes me think; in this case, about the complexities and paradoxes of time travel, which I will leave to readers brave enough and patient enough to tackle the novels, to figure out (to avoid spoilers). More than the above, "Blackout" and "All Clear" are Connie Willis' love letters to the men and women who lived and survived World War II; the soldiers who fought the war, and the loved ones they left behind.
Rating:
Best Read of 2012
The Rest of the Best
(in no particular order)
19 more than my annual target of 50 books, so I'm pleased. :)
2011 Reads
January
01. "Pardonable Lies" by Jacqueline Winspear
02. "Dust and Shadow" by Lyndsay Faye
03. "The Fourth Bear" by Jasper Fforde
04. "Makamisa: The Search for Rizal's Third Novel" by Ambeth R. Ocampo
05. "Earthly Joys" by Philippa Gregory
February
March
06. "Where's My Cow?" by Terry Pratchett
07. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 1: The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
08. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 2: The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan
09. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 3: The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan
10. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 4: The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
11. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book 5: The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan
12. "The Swan Thieves" by Elizabeth Kostova
13. "Blindness" by Jose Saramago
April
14. "Death by Garotte: Looking Back 3" by Ambeth R. Ocampo
15. "Johnny and the Dead" by Terry Pratchett
16. "Blankets" by Craig Thompson
17. "The Queen's Fool" by Philippa Gregory
May
18. "Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code" by Eoin Colfer
19. "The Artemis Fowl Files" by Eoin Colfer
20. "Lord John and the Hand of Devils" by Diana Gabaldon
21. "The Museum Vaults" by Marc-Antoine Mathieu
22. "Shakespeare: The World As Stage" by Bill Bryson
23. "The Lost Hero" by Rick Riordan
24. "Fool" by Christopher Moore
25. "Slaves and Obsession" by Anne Perry
26. "Where Poppies Grow" by Linda Granfield
June
27. "Tokio Hotel Fever" by Beatrice Nouveau
28. "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett
July
29. "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
30. "Boy Meets Boy" by David Levithan
August
31. "Angels in the Gloom" by Anne Perry
32. "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
33. "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis
34. "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer
35. "The Dead and the Gone" by Susan Beth Pfeffer
36. "This World We Live In" by Susan Beth Pfeffer
September
37. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson
38. "Mort: A Discworld Big Comic" by Terry Pratchett, illustrated by Graham Higgins
39. "The Woman in Black" by Susan Hill
40. "Which Witch?" by Eva Ibbotson
October
41. "Nation" by Terry Pratchett
42. "Shoulder the Sky" by Anne Perry
43. "We Shall Not Sleep" by Anne Perry
44. "Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance" by Gyles Brandreth
45. "Talking About Detective Fiction" by P.D. James
46. "Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile" by Gyles Brandreth
November
47. "Kimi Shiruya - Dost Thou Know?" by Satoru Ishihara
48. "La Esperanca 1" by Chigusa Kawai
49. "La Esperanca 2" by Chigusa Kawai
50. "La Esperanca 3" by Chigusa Kawai
51. "La Esperanca 4" by Chigusa Kawai
52. "La Esperanca 6" by Chigusa Kawai
53. "Dear Myself" by Eiki Eiki
54. "Johnny and the Bomb" by Terry Pratchett
55. "Dead Until Dark" by Charlaine Harris
56. "Living Dead in Dallas" by Charlaine Harris
57. "Night Pleasures" by Sherrilyn Kenyon
58. "Antique Bakery 3" by Fumi Yoshinaga
59. "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" by Herge
December
60. "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follett
61. "Antique Bakery 2" by Fumi Yoshinaga
62. "Seventy-Seven Clocks" by Christopher Fowler
63. "The Twisted Root" by Anne Perry
64. "A River in the Sky" by Elizabeth Peters
65. "Death of a Stranger" by Anne Perry
66. "The Shifting Tide" by Anne Perry
67. "Dark Assassin" by Anne Perry
68. "Execution Dock" by Anne Perry
69. "Silence in Hanover Close" by Anne Perry
Best Reads of 2011
2 books short of my 50-book goal, but I'm still happy with my
approximate average of 4 books per month. Topping the list are
historical mysteries [more than half of which are by Anne Perry],
followed by the children's & young adult novels.
2010 Reads
01. "Defend and Betray" by Anne Perry
02. "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory
03. "A Breach of Promise" by Anne Perry
04. "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
05. "Crocodile on the Sandbank" by Elizabeth Peters
06. "A Sudden, Fearful Death" by Anne Perry
07. "Postsecret" by Frank Warren
08. "The Fire" by Katherine Neville
09. "Thief of Time" by Terry Pratchett
10. "Charmed Life" by Diana Wynne Jones
11. "The City of Falling Angels" by John Berendt
12. "Funeral in Blue" by Anne Perry
13. "Callander Square" by Anne Perry
14. "The Angel's Game" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
15. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
16. "At Some Disputed Barricade" by Anne Perry
17. "Band of Brothers" by Stephen E. Ambrose
18. "The Silent Cry" by Anne Perry
19. "Mr. Impossible" by Loretta Chase
20. "No Graves As Yet" by Anne Perry
21. "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" by John Boyne
22. "The Meaning of Tingo" by Adam Jacot de Boinod
23. "The Last Cato" by Matilde Asensi
24. "The Boleyn Inheritance" by Philippa Gregory
25. "The Sins of the Wolf" by Anne Perry
26. "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett
27. "Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth Volume 1" by Jake T. Forbes
28. "Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder" by Gyles Brandreth
29. "Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth Volume 2" by Jake T. Forbes
30. "Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth Volume 3" by Jake T. Forbes
31. "The Mythology Class" by Arnold Arre
32. "The Patient's Eyes" by David Pirie
33. "Book Lust" by Nancy Pearl
34. "Gaudy Night" by Dorothy L. Sayers
35. "Maisie Dobbs" by Jacqueline Winspear
36. "Pyramids" by Terry Pratchett
37. "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! by A. Wolf" by Jon Sciezska
38. "Conrad's Fate" by Diana Wynne Jones
39. "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene
40. "Looking Back" by Ambeth Ocampo
41. "The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff 1: You Wish" by Jason Lethcoe
42. "Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony" by Eoin Colfer
43. "The Prince of Mist" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
44. "Selyo: Philippine History in Postage Stamps" by Reynaldo Gamboa Alejandro, et al
45. "Stone Soup" by Jon J. Muth
46. "The Wizard Comes to Town" by Mercer Mayer
47. "Adele & Simon" by Barbara McClintock
48. "The Principles of Uncertainty" by Maira Kalman
And my Best Reads of 2010
[in the order they were read during the year]:
