The Second Quarterly Book Battle

This is the second of my battles to determine the finalists of the best book I've read in 2012. Last time around, the terrific flaying abilities of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle won it a place in the final, so let's see what I've been reading over the past three months and the weird and wonderful ways in which they'll destroy each other...

In the second quarter of 2012, I've read the following books: Our Man in Havana, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Hunger Games, Child of God, Lights Out in Wonderland, Catching Fire, The Winter of Our Discontent, Mockingjay, The Long Walk, Disgrace, and Birdsong. Let battle commence!

The Hunger Games books immediately group together for strength in numbers and catch Lights Out in Wonderland napping, day-dreaming of being as good as its big brother, Vernon God Little. Lights Out is alright, but next to God Little it's just sad to see DBC Pierre unable to replicate the magic of his first novel, and Lights Out is quickly snuffed with an arrow to the face from the Hungry ones. Then, in a surprise move, the first two, far superior, Hunger Games books stab the disappointing finale Mockingjay in the back, then throw it off a cliff. Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana is a great read, but ultimately a bit too fluffy to be that important, although I really enjoyed it. Havana, trapped in a scenario it's desperate to get out of, attempts to flee the country but is locked in a bathroom by Disgrace and set on fire. I learnt a lot from Disgrace in how to make an unlikeable character relatable, and the only real criticism I can think of for it is that I love travelling in my mind to the settings of the novels I'm reading, but I couldn't wait to get out of Coetzee's South Africa. I know this actually makes it a better book, but I love to daydream-travel! The Winter of Our Discontent sneakily dispatches Disgrace, and then, appalled at what it's done, walks into the sea to commit suicide. Discontent is another amazing novel from John Steinbeck, and I loved it. I'm really struggling to get rid of some of these books from the competition, they're all great!

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire get bored hunting in a pair, and go toe to toe to determine which is my favourite book of the series. It's difficult: they're both so exciting and entertaining, and impossible to read at a pace below devouring, but I think Catching Fire just edges it for me. It's probably only because I read Hunger Games after I saw the film so I knew what was going to happen, and Catching Fire I had no idea what was going on, but I just thought the arena of the second one was amazing. After an arduous battle, Catching Fire manages to trip Hunger Games and sink a knife into its heart. Its triumph, however, is short-lived, as Birdsong charges over the top and pumps it full of lead. Birdsong is an enigmatic book: it contains some of the most moving and brilliant passages of any novel I've ever read, but it also includes the most boring pulp ever, the horrible 1970s characters that bring it down from true greatness. Birdsong's World War One chapters hurl grenades at its pre- and post-war sections, and sulk into the trenches and out of the competition.

This leaves us with three: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Long Walk, and Child of God; and they are all fantastic books that transfixed me while I was reading them, and continue to do so months after I have put them down. Lightness is a real eye-opener to the horrors of Communism, and is written in a beautiful European style. It brought back memories of when I visited Prague and saw the memorial to the victims of Communism, and the book did an excellent job of depicting a country ripped apart by fear and suspicion, and tying this up with philosophy. There's really nothing wrong with this book, but I don't like it as much as the other two, so it's denounced as a Communist and sentenced to die. Child of God, that evil and twisted character study of Lester Ballard, a man it would be a nightmare to cross paths with, is another phenomenal novel from Cormac McCarthy, an author who is fast becoming one of my favourites. Child of God is desperate to unleash some horror upon The Long Walk, but the latter just strolls away, always keeping its pace at a level just out of God's reach. Two days later, the chase is still on, both books fraying at the edges, their covers bent and buckled and spines cracked. The Long Walk is a book by an author, Stephen King, who I had never thought too much of before, but this book infested my mind unlike any other. Even now, every time I walk anywhere it pops into my head and dominates my thoughts, and I'm still planning on trying my own twenty-four hour walk in its honour. Child of God, its pages dripping with sweat, buckles and makes one final grab for The Long Walk, but its fingers close on cloying air and it drops to its knees, before falling on its face, expired. The Long Walk sinks to its knees in victory.

The best book I read between April and June is: The Long Walk. Superb!