THE HUNGER GAMES FILLS ON THRILLS, BUT LEAVES YOU YEARNING FOR MORE SUBSTANCE

If you were asked in a quiz or by a friend who Katniss Everdeen was, would you know the answer? I'm in my early forties and up to three weeks ago I wouldn't have known. So don't feel bad for not knowing, but if you were between the ages of fifteen and twenty one, you'd probably know who I was talking about. Well no matter what age group you are in, if you haven't heard of Katniss by now, this time next year you will certainly know who she is.

Katnis Everdeen is the teen age heroine of The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. Originally a teen read it's now taken on a Harry Potter intergenerational following, so much so that when I started reading it I was surprised by the number of adults who were or already had read it. I was presented with The Hunger Games, the first book in the trilogy four weeks ago at my book group, nothing much was said about it by the person recommending it, so off we went to get it. That’s where our first obstacle arose, we couldn’t find it, well not where we thought it might be, only after other members of the book group enquired with staff in various book shops around Dublin, were they shown to the childrens section!!!!.

The Hunger Games Trilogy is Suzanne Collins first novels and comprise of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. The second obstacle for some of the group was that all the covers look alike and have Hunger Games writ large on the front cover with the title written in smaller print elsewhere on the cover. This led to two members reading the second instalment before the first and then stating there needed tobe a prequel to the story, until they later realised they were out of sync.

The books tell the story of Katniss Everdeen a sixteen year old living a hundred years in the future in Panem, America after a civil war, which has been divided into 13 districts ruled by the capitol a large affluent city in the Rockies. Every year to celebrate the defeat of the rebels in the civil war and to keep the districts from rising up again the Capitol holds The Hunger Games, a gladitorial cross between bigbrother, Survivor and Running man. Where two children from each district, between the ages of eight and eighteen are selected by a lottery, called the reaping to partake inThe Hunger Games, where there is only one winner. All this for pleasure of the viewing public.

In book one The Hunger Games, Katniss's eight year old sister Prim is selected in her first Reaping, Katniss volunteers to take her place alongside Peeta the Son of a baker from the same area District twelve. Life in the Capitol is a far cry from the hand to mouth existence herself and her family lead in district twelve. But nothing will ever prepare her for the fight for survival she faces in the arena. Where Katniss and her fellow competitors are at the mercy of the gamemakers, the warped and twisted body which devises and administers the games.

The first book flings you head on into a tensely plotted story, where you really start to feel for Katniss and her story, that kept me so enrapt that I finished it in forty eight hours, the second book, keeps up the pace, while the third and final book really starts to go off the boil and lose steam, albeit for an incident out of left field near the end. Apart from that the first two books are excellent reads, the only thing to give it away as a teenager targeted book is the big writing, although the major flaw with this whole trilogy is the lack of back story. No where does it explain where the different districts are or how America came to be Panem , maybe because it's aimed a younger audience they are not as inquisitive as this forty something.

As for how you'll know Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Haymitch and President Snow next year, is that it's been made into a movie with the first instalment out in March, Jennifer Lawrence will play Katniss while Woody Harrelson her drunken mentor Haymitch and the evil President Snow by Donald Sutherland.

So if you're looking for a Christmas present for a teenager or an adult trying to hark back to their youth, this is definitely on the top Christmas reads this year, it’s an ideal time to get into the books just as the movie promotional marchine starts to krank up for the March release date.

REES GOES HUNTING OUTSIDE HIS ROM-COMFORT ZONE

When I see Sam Bourne's name on the front cover of a thriller, there's usually two reasons it's there. one he's written it and two his names been placed on to boost it's appeal to the majority of male readers who at a glance think it's a Jason Bourne book and envisage Matt Damon jumping through windows and high kicking and shooting is way across the globe.

The book I discovered it on was the new thriller Hunted - Time to Run, by Emlyn Rees. This isn't Rees first book he's written seven comedies with his partner Josie Lloyd before this, most well known is Come Together, Prior to that he'd published his first novel The Book of Dead Authors in 1997 and Undertow two years later.

Hunted introduces us to Danny Shanklin an ex soldier who now earns a living as a mercenary. He wakes up in a hotel room in London with a high-powered rifle in his hands and the body of a faceless dead man at his feet. Outside the open window he hears sirens and on looking out he discovers a street littered with bodies and a burning car.

Realising it's a set up and the police will be here in minutes and with the evidence being a tad weighted against him, he realises he has to get out and clear his name. But that's not very easy in a city with 500,000 CCTV cameras and 33,000 policemen. His only ally is his techie friend "the Kid"; with his help can he clear his name while out-running the arm of the law and its ever widening human and electronic net.

Shanklin is a character straight out of central casting and the only thing that separates him from Jason Bourne is a slight age gap. This story is more like an extended episode of 24 and Kiefer Sutherland would probably look quite good in the lead.

I came across Hunted while passing through Dublin airport recently, It's wasn't Sam Bourne's resounding commendation that drew my attention to it. But the tagline on the books back, which proclaimed that "The biggest manhunt in history is just beginning".

Rees delivers a pacy thriller, which comes as a surprise for a chap whose been writing romcom - chick lit for the past ten years. The locations and back story sound rather over romanticized, at times the book does feel as if it’s following a well worn path in the thriller genre and that Rees is thriller writing by numbers.

Let this not detract from a good read which has an excellent twist near the end, and speaking of endings this isn't a one off, the sequel Wanted will be out in 2012. If Rees keeps up with the snappy single verb titled books, he'll enter Jeff Abbott territory and may even have him looking over his shoulder very soon.

A MARRIAGE MADE IN THE BREAKERS YARD, WHICH SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT IT

Anne Tyler is a rather reserved almost reclusive type of author, she never gives interviews. But according to the Irish author Roddy Doyle she's one of the greatest authors writing in English. So the blurb on the inside of her 2004 book The Amateur Marriage claims.

Having just read it I can only describe the book as like watching a train crash into a car on a level crossing, while bound and gagged. You want to scream and shout at the occupants of the car or get free and help them or warn the train. Then on top of that you’re forced to watch re runs of the event over sand over again.

The story revolves around a Baltimore couple Michael and Pauline who meet up at the outbreak the Second World War and then decide on a whim to get married. the book follows their mismatched almost cringe worthy marriage through the trial and tribulations of the early days right through the raising of their brood and the way they handle the tragedy that befalls it and the fallout from it, right up the to their realisation that it's a sham.

The book is well researched and the story telling quite realistic, but it is let down by the sudden leaps forward in time, which leave you regularly trying to catch up and wonder who, why and what has happened. Ok so it moves the story on but gets rather annoying when you are getting into a storyline in a certain part of their life only to ripped out and dumped unceremoniously without the aid of a Delorean or a Tardis into the future.

Generally Michael is given the lions-share of the action, but he is a shallow cuckolded mummy’s boy. Who comes across as a cretin and set in his ways. While Pauline is presented as a down trodden stuck in a rut wife who should have ran screaming from this relationship after two years and not acted the martyr for thirty; she is then air brushed out of the book halfway through, her passing consigned to a two line explanation as if Tyler couldn't be bothered to wrap up her character properly, but rather just remembered to end her life and registered it in a two line foot note.

The book starts of slowly and the then picks up with the disappearance of the eldest daughter Lindy, but then sort of just winds down to a lazy dead end at the conclusion, leading me to suspect Tyler is a lazy writer.

At a recent book group meeting we were asked would we recommend this book to anyone? I replied only as a marriage guidance aid.

MAKING A BIG AFFAIR OUT OF A LITERARY LUNCH

I met a friend the other day for lunch in the centre of Dublin, we've known each other for about ten years as a result of  meeting through a mutual friend. Over that time the three of us have got together once a year for a week or so, where we have a laugh and a bit of an adventure .

As I was waiting to meet him I started to wonder what's best way to greet a friend like this, one that you see occasionally, that you know more about then he knows about you . Also as well as that I was wondering what I'd ask him to write on the inside of his latest book.

Do I run up to him and say "Lee!!!!!!! I'm your biggest fan..." No, that would make me look like a whimsically starry eyed school girl.

Should I shake his hand and say, "Mr Child I love your work, I think Jack's great.." No, I'm a forty year old man, who doesn't run down the street with a tatty autograph book attempting to score pseudo points among his fellow groupies, by trying bag the biggest celebrity autograph they can get within touching distance of.

I've often watched the black and white footage of the days of beatle mania and wondered why all those girls got themselves into such a state of  hysteria. Do we live in a different era? No, people still swoon and go mad over pop stars of today, such as Jacko, Rihanna, the X Factor contestants.... But not to the extent as back then.

Why? Deep down they're human beings just like us, most of these people don't see anything out of the ordinary about what they do, they know they have a talent and just love doing what they do. Whether it's singing, writing or acting.

For my lunch meeting with Lee Child, the creator of the Jack Reacher novels, things were rather more sedate, the biggest worry on the two girls behind me in the queue wasn't a fear of wetting themselves or losing conciousness on meeting him, but would they make it back in time to work after lunch.

Other fears in the queue were the dreadful news that Tom Cruise has stupidly lined himself up to play the  6' 5 ex military policeman in the film adaptation of One Shot, the ninth book in the series. Which is supposedly in production. Word is Cruise's production company bought the rights and thus he gets to play the lead.... It's akin to Jason Statham playing Tom Thumb. One contributor on the Reacher Facebook page suggested that if the casting of Cruise went ahead the rest of the cast would have to be played by midgets. 

Meeting an author in the flesh is a bit like meeting a radio presenter you've never seen before, you've read his words or have heard them through your voice. so you can be a little let down by the person who meets you. They say radio presenters have a face for radio,  in the case of Lee Child he has the good looks  of a tv presenter - ironic as in a former life he worked in television and bares a striking resemblence to a younger  Roger Moore.

When it came time for me to approach Lee, I walked up to him and politely said "love the books and keep up the good work", I then asked him to write a birthday dedication to my partner Georgina in a copy of his first book Killing Floor. She's about to become another one of many women who lust after the  fictional military giant, while I was queing out in the street a chap in front of me pointed out  that the demographics of the people ahead and behind us was typically young to middle age men, but as we progressed into the shop I saw that ratio change to become a healthy fifty fifty if not sixty forty in favour of the women.

The reason Lee Child was in Dublin this week was to sign copies of his latest Reacher book, The Affair. This is the fifteenth book in the series and is set six months before the first book killing Floor. Reacher is still in the Military and is dispatched  undercover to a small two horse town in Mississippi called Carter Crossing where a woman has been murdered, the reason they've sent Reacher is there's a large army base just up road and the fear is the murderer maybe a soldier.

On arriving in Carter Crossing, Reacher discovers this isn't the only murder to befall the town and sets out with the help of the stunning local sheriff and ex marine Elizabeth Deveraux to  unravel the connection with this and the other murders, while trying to overcome resistance from inside the base and the pentagon, that will set him on a collision course with his masters and explains the reasons behind Jack's future as a drifter.

This is a another fantastic read from one of the worlds best thriller writers, an inspiring way to give his previous books a complete and  thrilling back story. The coffee drinking hard man, who shares his taste for black coffee with Child is on top no nonsense form mixed as ever a bond like ability to get down and dirty with the leading lady as in every book to date.

As for making it back in time to the office after lunch. I did and the birthday dedication went down a treat, I look forward to hooking up with my two literary friends again next year. As for going to see Tom Cruise as Reacher, I may join the other die hard fans and stay away, unless as I stated on the Reacher facebook page Statham  or someone else of equal stature is cast as the replacement to Cruise.

A GREAT APPLE MAY HAVE FALLEN BUT NONE OF US WILL BE FAR FROM HIS LEGAGY.

At one o'clock yesterday morning I was just drifting off to sleep when the news  came on the radio at my bedside, the top story was the death of Steve Jobs the founder of Apple, this followed his valiant battle with pancreatic cancer.

56 years old, as we are all oft to say these days "is no age", but in  those short years he had a profound effect on this planets history and the lives of it's population, now and in the future. I can safely say his genius and foresight touched all our lives in some way.

In my case it was only in the past month that I  joined the apple revolution when I purchased a ipod nano while on a trip to the states and then even that experience left me in awe of this man.

I've bought electrical goods before but shopping in an Apple store is a whole new experience, it can only be described as akin to living out a star trek episode. I went into the store in San Francisco and fought my way through the melee that was being caused by people desperately trying to buy an ipad 2. Seeking out the display with the ipods on them, I found beside the display models was an ipad, which I used to determine price, colours and other features of the product. At the bottom of the screen was a tab marked Customer Support, I touched it and it popped up and and asked if i wanted someone to come to my location?... um er yeah, i pressed yes and it told me "Jazz" was on her way.... Jazz!! A minute later this young Hispanic girl with "Jazz" on her name badge appeared beside me and said "Hi. I told I wanted to purchase a nano, she asked what colour and then memory size? she disppeared off and came back with the engagement rig sized box and a bag, which was one hundred times it's size. Sorry she said we're out of small bags!!!! 

I then asked where I could  pay for it and she took a small device off her belt and swiped my card through it, asking me did I want a receipt printed or emailed? Er email great, she then turned the machine towards me and asked if that was my email address.... Er how? (I later realised they'd linked my visa to my itunes account and my email that way). as I turned to leave I saw a small Que of people standing at a cash desk behind us, I said to Jazz, if I did all this here in the one spot with you, why are those people queing up at a cash till?  She smiled and said some people don't know we can do it all on the floor and others who are in a hurry and just want head sets or other accessories go there and pay.

Since buying the nano it has changed my life, my walks are now longer and more enjoyable due to shuffle mode and the radio, as well as the pedometer helping me keep fit. Although there is a clock which can be displayed on the screen and a wristband accessory that turns the nano into a wrist watch... No way, I think it's a great device, but as with most advances in technology you can go to far, I wouldn't be be seen dead with that on my wrist, it'll never be a Rolex... it looks like a Swatch watch and  I grew out of them years ago...

As we all mourn the passing of an icon of this generation, I'd like to say thanks Steve for your legacy... may it live long and prosper.

CHASING MY PAST TV DINNERS

Can you remember the first time you got a VCR? I can just about, in our house it was like all our Christmases had come at once. This thing was going to deliver unilateral peace to the childhood fracas that erupted over the clash of your favourite programmes. Although it wasn't just between the children that disputes arose, mum's soaps clashed with dad's sport or nature programmes and the heartache that washed over you at the thought of missing a couple of weeks episodes due to holidays to two channel land down the country or abroad where where everything was in a foreign language or there was god forbid there was no TV....

But with the arrival of the video recorder we were relieved of one set of problems and handed a completely new set. With the freedom to record all in sundry and watch it later your viewing habits increased and the amount of tape available to record diminished and was replaced b y a fresh one from the toilet roll style packs you purchased them in. People invested in a second a recorder or ones with two tape holders in one machine, which led to the building of  immense libraries that almost made the Smithsonian look small. 

These vast collections sometimes got partially wiped over inadvertently, usually when you blindly shoved the first tape to hand into the machine five minutes before the programme started. We lost two family birthdays and a wedding this way. God the weeping and gnashing of teeth that went on as a result of that made you sometimes wish for the old days without a "video".  

Then came the arrival of  digital recorders, gone was VHS, Beta, all those libraries of unviewed or numerously seen movies broadcast at Christmas. I only discovered the delights of owning a digibox when I moved in with my partner. The first time she paused a live tv programme to answer an inconvienent call of nature or the phone I had a caniption fit... But as with the arrival of the original VCR's I'm now faced with a rather large problem. Where hell do I find the time to catch up on the nearly two weeks worth of tv, from a complete series of Blue Bloods, numerous CSI episodes, Doctor Who, Torchwood, X Faxtor, the list goes on. recently my other half had to put her foot down when we discovered on top of the other unwatched programs there was an additional months worth of Emmerdale!!!!!

I have to admit that it had got to a problem, I was even thinking of going to seek out some sort of addiction group. It all arose as a result of me studying part time and working, where as before I'd religiously watched the Yorkshire dales soap every evening, I was putting it off for a couple days and like most addictions I let it slide slightly. A few times I did get it down to two and a half weeks!!!!... by going on speed watching binges... This was nothing new to me I once watched a series of 24 in one whole weekend, for the following week I kept dreaming I was Jack Bauer.

Finally a couple of weeks ago I skimmed through the saved section on  the digibox and just opened the Emmerdale file to see how much I had to catch up on now.....It was Empty!!!!!... How? Why? Simple my partner said, we'd reached 99% recording capacity, something had to go.

Another disadvantage to not still having a VCR is being unable to a hand a quite legal but pirated copy of a programme to a family member or a friend who'd forgotten to record something.This became a way of life, a safety net or get out of jail card when you, despite being asked by the other half to record something let it slip your mind.

So when we look back and ask ourselves has this technology really changed our lives? The answer's no, we've just replaced old problems with new ones and in some cases just repeated the mistakes of the past. As for trying to catch up with my unwatched programmes. The recession allows me to save money by not going out as often and catch up on the backlog.

MOVING ON

Yes I'm back blogging after a short break, ok just a little over a year. But whats a few months between friends, I've packed a lot into that year.  Including completing a diploma course in UCD for which I gained a Merit, bought my first home and moved in with someone.

As I sit writing this I feel like I've just attended a funeral, the reason for the sense of loss is my taking a break from a club I've been involved in for a quarter of my life. Every Tuesday and Friday for the past ten years  (with a few exceptions, especially on the Fridays) I've played badminton with Nomads in Bray. After some soul searching I decided to walk away from the familiar routine that was my life.

It's only now as I spend my first Tuesday night at home and not down at the club and then in a local pub chatting with friends afterwards, that I start to miss the banter and the club gossip. Not to mention the general raking over the news of the day.

I suppose it's similar to leaving a job you've worked in for all your life, you lose your security, familiar surroundings and faces. You're  now taking bold steps in a bright new world, where the routine you're used to has to change or at least be compromised.

Ok so I'm not moving to another country, I'll still see these friends as we all live in and around Bray, also lets not forget about facebook.  It will feel strange joining them for social occasions, I'll find it hard not to feel like an interloper.When actually, I should feel and they will undoubtedly make me feel like one of the gang, a sort of prodigal son, although I'll leave that moniker until I return to the fold, if ever.

Psychologists and the like probably have another way of saying it but in lay-mans terms a change is as good as a rest, familiarity breeds contempt. Like all relationships if you spend twenty four seven in the company of another person you will start to aggravate each other. That's one of reasons I've moved on, because certain things about my relationship with the club had begun to aggravate me.

I'm not giving up the healthy side of my existence for good, no I've joined another club in the same county. To see if as Petuala Clark once sang "the other mans grass is always greener" and if the sun really does shine brighter on the other side, of Bray Head.

Finally to my friends in Nomads who will be reading this, thanks for the memories and don't be strangers.