Mercury Prize, The Horrors, Dubstep and Trip-hop: New Music Friday

I wandered past our music buyer’s desk and saw the new Horrors cd Skying and some yummy compilations: Dubstep Onslaught, Trip-hop classics and a clutch of new Ministry of Sound compilations.

Mercury Prize

A source of good music out of the U.K. is the Mercury Prize. We have CDs from some of the nominees:

• Disc-overy – Tinie Tempah “first UK rap artist to have a million-selling single in the USA”
• Anna Calvi – a corker voice + intense songs
• Let England Shake – P. J. Harvey is a ardent & glorious mindblower & heartbender
• James Blake “written and recorded by the 22-year-old music graduate at his home”
• 21 by Adele “10 times platinum in the UK”
• Build a rocket boys! by Elbow – They’ve been here before and won the prize in 2008.

The others on the shortlist are:

• The English Riviera – Metronomy
• Man Alive – Everything Everything
• Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam – Ghostpoet
• Good Days at Schloss Elmau – Gwilym Simcock
• On a mission – Katy B
• Diamond Mine – King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

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Find new music at Christchurch City Libraries

• New CDs at our libraries
• The Source, which is available to library members, includes several sources of streaming music and music downloads such as Music Online and Naxos Music Library as well as reference resources.

Two authors = one breathtaking story

It’s no secret that I think Patrick Ness is a brilliant author (I’ve written many blog posts about it).  His Chaos Walking Trilogy is one of those stories that really struck a chord with me and the characters and their world will stay with me for a long time.  The books in the trilogy have won various awards in the world of children’s literature, including the BookTrust Teenage Prize, the Guardian Award, the Costa Book Award, most recently the final book, Monsters of Men won the prestigious Carnegie Medal.  When the Chaos Walking Trilogy came to an end last year, I was looking forward to reading whatever Patrick Ness wrote next and thankfully I didn’t have to wait very long.

Patrick’s next project was to write a story based on the ideas of another brilliant author, Siobhan Dowd, who had passed away from breast cancer in 2007.  Siobhan had the characters, premise and beginning and it was up to Patrick to turn it into a story. Being both a fan of Patrick’s and Siobhan’s writing, I eagerly anticipated their story A Monster Calls.

And boy, what a story it is!  Night after night, Connor is woken by the same nightmare, “the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming.  The one with the hands slipping from his grasp, no matter who hard he tried to hold on.”  It is one night, after waking from this nightmare, that the monster arrives, twisting to life from the yew tree in the graveyard.  The monster comes to offer Connor a deal; it will tell Connor three stories, but then he must tell the monster a fourth story, and it must be the truth.  However, Connor’s mum is very sick and the truth is the thing that he fears the worst.

I really can’t explain how amazing A Monster Calls is.  Before you even start reading the book, you just need a few minutes to marvel at how beautiful it is.  Walker Books have put so much love into the design, from the dust-jacket and the cover,  to the stunning illustrations spread throughout the book by the very talented Jim Kay.  The story itself is breathtaking and you’ll go on a roller-coaster of emotion as the monster guides Connor towards the truth.  I especially liked the three stories that the monster tells and I hope that Patrick Ness writes more short stories like these.

Grab a copy of A Monster Calls from the library now.  Trust me, you won’t regret it.