Me Before You – by Jojo Moyes

5 03 2016

This is definitely one of those books you can’t put down. This week I’ve taken it pretty much everywhere with me, just incase I could find 2 minutes to read a bit more.

We meet Louisa who needs a new job, and ends up as a minder/carer sort of role for Will, who is a quadriplegic which basically means he only has use of his neck and head, and ever so slightly one thumb. Will is incredibly bitter about the life he now faces compared with the lifestyle of a rich city boy that he had become used to, and Louisa’s role is to convince him that life is worth living after all.

Most of the book is written in the first person from Louisa’s point of view, but a few of the other main characters get one chapter to speak throughout the book – her sister, the medical carer, and each of Will’s parents. I found it confusing at times because I’d pick up the book halfway through a chapter and forget someone else was speaking, but it was good to round out the picture a little.

I got so involved with the characters as I read this book, getting angry at some, feeling sorry for others, and wanting to give them a hug when things were tough. Jojo Moyes really is an excellent writer! I can’t wait to try the sequel…

me before you


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War and Peace (In one sitting) – by Leo Tolstoy/Joelle Herr

18 02 2016

When the BBC advertised their six-part drama I assumed it’d be way beyond me, but I decided to give it a go. There were a lot of characters and I had to go back to the earlier episodes again once I’d worked out who everyone was, but I really enjoyed it.

So when I saw this version of the book, measuring just 8.5 x 7 x 2.5cm, and covering information on Tolstoy, and introduction, who’s who, and then a summary of the story, I thought it’d be a good way to cement the story I’d seen on screen! I printed off the BBC’s very helpful family tree to use as a bookmark as I went.

The book is pretty chatty:

  • “Phew. That’s a lot of names already in just the first couple of paragraphs! You still with me? OK, let’s keep going.”
  • “awkward alert!”
  • “It’s beautifully written and reasoned, but the section is a little boring – you should be very thankful that I’ve read it for you.”

But it’s not all silly, most of it covers the story at a high enough level to be able to follow it. Of course it feels rushed, it’s 1500 pages and 500 characters down into something smaller than my hand, but it’s definitely a good way of getting the main points. I guess I can now claim to have read War and Peace!

War-and-Peace-Miniature-Edition1


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Anne of Green Gables – by L M Montgomery

10 02 2016

If you haven’t read this book, read this book!

I had the pop up versions of this when I was little, and the VHS, because Anne of Green Gables is where my middle name came from, but I never read the actual book, or, as it turns out – books! The second book in the series is ordered and due to arrive tomorrow 🙂

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are an older brother and sister who decide to adopt a boy to help on the farm, when he arrives, it turns out it’s actually a girl, it’s Anne. Anne lives in a world of her own imagination, doesn’t stop talking, and is very keen you know that it’s Anne with an E.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBGB6srEYnC/?taken-by=inekeclewer

Anne gets into all sorts of trouble, never intentionally, but living under strict Marilla’s eye, it takes a while to tame her. She also hates her red hair, and Gilbert Blythe.

I folded down a tonne of page corners in this book, some of my favourite lines are below, all bar one are from Anne herself:

  • “Am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can stop when I make up my mind to it, although it’s difficult.”
  • “Now you see why I can’t be perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair.”
  • “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
  • “Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them”
  • “I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband – I just hate him furiously.”
  • “It wouldn’t do, I suppose, for a minister to have a regally lovely wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs Lynde says the minister’s wife over at Newbridge sets a very bad example because she dresses so fashionably.”
  • “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
  • “I really think I’d like to be a minister’s wife when I grow up, Marilla. A minister mightn’t mind my red hair because he wouldn’t be thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to be naturally good, and Ill never be that, so I suppose there’s no use in thinking about it.”
  • “It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.”
  • “It’s always wrong to do anything you can’t tell the minister’s wife.”
  • “I don’t want to cheer up. It’s nicer to be miserable!”

    • And then just one from Mrs Lynde:

  • “It’s a great blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it.”

anne of green gables


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Esio Trot – by Roald Dahl

24 01 2016

The BBC did a lovely adaptation of this last Christmas, which I re-watched on iPlayer the other day, and remembered that a while back, I’d been working through Roald Dahl’s books, but somewhere that fizzled out, and this is one I never read. Having finished another book this afternoon, this one I read in probably five minutes or less, but it’s lovely.

To be honest, I much preferred the book to the TV version, lovely as it was. The TV version added in unnecessary complications in the plot, and extra characters which I guess allowed them to lengthen it to 90min, but the concept is beautifully simple, and the book works wonderfully.

Mr Hoppy is in love with Mrs Silver who lives in the flat below him, but is too shy to tell her. When he finds out that she would just love her pet tortoise to grow a bit, he comes up with a plan to gradually swap him up in size, bit by bit over several weeks, while she thinks it’s the work of some magic words he’s given her – too cute!

esio trot


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The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – by Alexander McCall Smith

24 01 2016

Everyone who’s seen this book in my handbag or has heard I’m reading it has been raving about it, it’s definitely a book I read because of recommendations, because other than that not a lot drew me to it. But the recommend-ers were right 🙂

I definitely had a few issues with it, it runs as a series of lots of separate events and stories, but dips in and out of some and comes back to them, but only once you’ve forgotten what on earth was happening, which left me a tad confused. The other thing that confused me was how similar all the names were, but I guess maybe that was a more cultural thing? It just meant that when those characters popped up again later it took me a while to work out who they were.

All that said, it was very enjoyable, fairly light and an easy read. And master of the multi-sell, the last page definitely left me wanting to read the next one at some point (and the next one has giraffe in the title, which will nearly always win me over!). There are a tonne of books in this series, so it definitely won’t happen in one go what with my current to-read list, but I would definitely continue, so I guess that’s another recommendation for you right there!

the no.1 ladies' detective agency


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Dream a little Christmas Dream – by Giovanna Fletcher

2 01 2016

Giovanna Fletcher seems to be another author whose books I’ve gotten into the habit of reading, so when she brought out a little Christmas Novella like last year, based on the novel she had published this summer, I thought, why not?!

I was so keen to finish my last book that yes, I have read this one in January, but it’s only 85 pages and I managed it in about 3 sittings.

It’s warm, fuzzy, and predictable – I had the ending pegged from only a few pages in, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t still give me goosebumps at the end, very feel good, pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a mini Christmas chick-lit read. Delightful.

dream a little christmas dream


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Look who’s back – by Timur Vermes

31 12 2015

We’re all taught not to judge a book by it’s cover, but I believe it’s ok to pick one up because of its cover to see if the blurb is any good. (In fact, I think I did a similar thing with Paradoxology!) I scrolled past this book on Amazon and took a double take at the distinctive cover, read the blurb and was totally won over by the concept – a complete impulse buy.

The best way for me to tell you what this book is about is to put the blurb below, because it tells you exactly what it’s about!

Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed – no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman.

People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition – to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights.

There really isn’t that much else to say about it, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and things enfold pretty much as you would expect 🙂 There are some great one liners, and some really good observations on modern day living, as if it were just anyone who had jumped forward 70 years or so!

If you’re offended by the concept, probably don’t read it, but if it intrigues you, then definitely do!

look who's back


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Emma – by Alexander McCall Smith

25 11 2015

I was excited to read this entry in the Austen Project, and see how McCall Smith had managed to modernise this story, particularly as it’s been done successfully before in the 90s film, Clueless.

Sadly, I don’t think this book did as good a job. Yes the English is modernised so it’s easy to read, and Emma now drives a mini, but she still lives in a 14 bedroom house and has a governess – even if they do comment how unusual it is for this day and age, why do it?!

I quite liked that Emma had been to Bath Uni, as that’s where I went, but it sounds more like she went to Bath Spa as she did a “decorative arts” course!

It was a fun book, the characters are generally exactly as they should be, but I just don’t think the modern day aspect came across which was a shame. If you were just reading it as a book with no blurb and no pre-conceptions then of course it was great!

I’m looking forward to seeing who they’re going to get to write the next one in this series now, I believe Pride and Prejudice is due next!

emma


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Paradoxology – by Krish Kandiah

3 11 2015

If you find someone who claims they didn’t initially pick up this book because of its cover, I bet they’re lying! The author even ended up talking to the public from a matching sofa! Yes, I did pick this book up because it was a brightly coloured, geometric pattern, but normally I’d have a quick look and put it down again. Instead, I read the back and thought, gosh this sounds interesting. And I wasn’t wrong.

I take forever to read non-fiction, so the fact this took three months isn’t a bad thing. If you saw the number of page corners I’ve folded down, that speaks for itself. For each chapter, the book takes a character (or occasionally a book) and the paradox tied in with it to look at, so the book could be dipped in and out of, chapter by chapter if you wanted to. The chapters are as follows:

  • Introduction
  • Abraham – The God who needs nothing but asks for everything
  • Moses – The God who is far away, so close
  • Joshua – The God who is terribly compassionate
  • Job – The God who is actively inactive
  • Hosea – The God who is faithful to the unfaithful
  • Habakkuk – The God who is consistently unpredictable
  • Jonah – The God who is indiscriminately selective
  • Esther – The God who speaks silently
  • Interlude at the border
  • Jesus – The God who is divinely human
  • Judas – The God who determines our free will
  • The Cross – The God who wins as He loses
  • Romans – The God who is effectively ineffective
  • Corinthians – The God who fails to disappoint
  • Epilogue – Living with Paradox

He highlights in his introduction how these aren’t questions every asks, but that a lot of people avoid asking, for fear of shaking our faith. At one point I was going to put in here the bit from each page that I folded down, but that would now be a tad excessive. But I’ll share two or three – Kandiah’s text is littered with citations, quotes and footnotes, so I’ve given credit to others where it’s due:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentence, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confessions.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“It was no accident, either, that God appeared to Moses as a flame. The movement of a flame and its bright colours attract us, and yet the heat of the flame pushes us away.”

“There is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” – D F Wallace

There’s a lovely story from a Royal Film Premiere when he didn’t quite get to meet the Queen, an excellent look at the hotel with infinite rooms problem, and wave particle duality and Schrodingers Equation. He also introduces us to some paintings and the significance in what they show – I felt quite well educated after reading this!

The only critique I’d give this book is that some chapters could have been helped by starting with either an overview of the story of the character we were looking at, the relevant bible passage, or at least a reference to the correct bible passage. I have to confess, when we jumped into Habakkuk, I didn’t have a whole load of background knowledge to go by!

paradoxology


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Dream a little Dream – by Giovanna Fletcher

23 08 2015

It’s just over a year since I read Giovanna Fletcher‘s first novel, and now here’s her third! As expected, it’s pretty much cosy, comfy chick-lit, with a bit of drama along the way. Which really, is all you want in a summer read! (I actually started a book called Paradoxology before this one, but as I was going on holiday, thought it might be worth switching to something lighter! I’ve now returned to the first book…!)

A girl starts to repeatedly dream about a guy she barely knew several years ago, and in her dream, slightly fall in love. So of course he then turns up out of the blue in real life, causing some very confused feelings!

To be honest, there’s not a lot to say about this book, I read it in two weeks which for me is pretty quick – partly because it’s an easy read, and partly because I wanted to know what happened! Predictable as it was, you may have guessed what was going to happen, but you always want to know how!

Definitely a good holiday read!

The author has also just announced that, like she did with Billy and Me, she’ll be releasing a Christmas Novella, based around the same characters. Sadly this time it sounds like it might be ebook only, whereas last time Waterstones sold Christmas with Billy and Me in paperback! To be honest, this means I may well not read it!

dream a little dream


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