A Beginner’s Guide to Acting English – by Shappi Khorsandi

19 10 2023

These days the author is known by her full first name of Shaparak, but I’ve just put Shappi in the title of the post as that’s still what’s printed on this book as it was published in 2009.

Shaparak was born in Iran in the 70s, and her dad was a satirist, which didn’t go down brilliantly with those in charge, hence them ending up in the UK. This autobiography covers that move and the adjustment to life in a foreign country as a child, as well as the problems back home where her extended family still are, and the fact that they might still not be fully safe even in London.

A lot of it is about adjusting to culture, at times the kids adjusting better than the parents and being embarrassed by them, and obviously the difficulty of being seen as different at school.

It’s heart-breaking in places, but told in a way that’s mostly light, just like she’s talking to you to tell her story.


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Hickory Dickory Dock – by Agatha Christie

17 09 2023

It was time for another Agatha Christie, and this was one I’d picked up in a charity shop last year, probably just because of the familiar title to be honest, though it had very little to do with the plot other than the name of the road the house is on from what I could tell!

The action takes place in a student hostel, I guess these days you’d refer to it as more of a house share but with a warden (it was published in 1955). Strange things have gone missing, some of value, some not at all. Poirot hears about this from his secretary, who is the warden’s sister, and is curious. The next thing you know, someone is dead, and there’s a lot more to investigate!


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A Man Called Ove – by Fredrik Backman

29 08 2023

Ove is the sort of grumpy old person I dream of being! He lives in a fairly quiet neighbourhood where no cars are allowed in the residential area, one of many rules he is very keen to enforce – without rules there would be chaos everywhere.

He is a man of routine: every morning he does an inspection of the neighbourhood to check that nothing is amiss. He checks all areas including the bike shed, the bin store, and the parking area:

“He detoured through the guest parking area, where cars could only be left for up to twenty-four hours. Carefully he noted down all the registration numbers in the little pad he kept in his jacket pocket, and then compared these to the registrations he had noted down the day before. On occasions when the same registration numbers turned up in Ove’s notepad, Ove would go home and call the Vehicle Licensing Authority to retrieve the vehicle owner’s details, after which he’d call up the latter and inform him that he was a useless imbecile who couldn’t even read signs. Ove didn’t really care who was parked in the guest parking area, of course. But it was a question of principle. If it said twenty-four hours on the sign, that’s how long you were allowed to stay. What would it be like if everyone just parked wherever they liked? It would be chaos. There’d be cars everywhere.”

As we start the book, some new neighbours are moving in next door, and a stray cat is spending too much time around the area, neither scenario is something Ove is keen on.

Much more and I’ll be starting to spoil the premise, but hopefully this gives you a feel for him as a character, which for me was what made me keep picking up the book!

The only downside was a very stupid front cover which had the book name, and then above it the film poster where the titular character’s name has been changed for an American setting.


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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, The Original Screenplay – by J.K. Rowling

14 08 2023

More books like this and I might actually have a hope of reaching my reading goal this year – I’m currently vastly behind! It was a three day read, mostly because it’s just the script for a 2 hour film so doesn’t take long at all.

Like last time, it was hard to keep track of the characters because you’ve had no description of them, and no face to remember. I didn’t feel like I cared about the plot too much, I guess partly because of this, mostly just read it because it was easy to read and is part of the Harry Potter universe. It was fine, I’ll put it on the shelf with the rest.

We start in New York from last time, and travel via London to Paris, including a visit to Hogwarts, so there’s a bit more of the magical world to see, and a familiar face from the original series is back, just a lot lot younger – Professor Dumbledore!

I’m currently watching the film on a streaming service – they’ve just got to Hogwarts and that familiar refrain started playing, which was lovely.

Overall it’s fine, but maybe these prequels have just struggled by not having the depth of full novels behind them like the original books? They definitely don’t feel like they’ve been the same roaring success…. of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t read the next one eventually.


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Daisy Jones & the Six

11 08 2023

Anyone who read this book seemed to rave about it, so I wanted to give it a try, and they weren’t wrong!

It’s written in a really unusual style – the book is about the [fictional] rise and fall of the band The Six, and the singer Daisy Jones, but is written as interviews with everyone looking back on that time. It reads like one of those documentaries with a load of talking heads that tell the story with a very occasional narrator, really clever.

Because the interviews with the author are done separately, you sometimes get little bits of the story that contradict from person to person, which makes it more realistic really when they’re remembering that far back.

The story they tell itself is gripping, the life of rock stars in the 1970s, with all you would expect to come with that – I flew through the book.

The only slight downside for me (and slight spoiler warning here) was a little twist at the end that was somewhat reminiscent of How I Met Your Mother, which I had never really liked. But I’d only knock off maybe a quarter of a star off for that, as the rest was so good.


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The Bullet That Missed – by Richard Osman

31 07 2023

The Thursday Murder Club are back for book three!

This time they’re looking into a cold case of a young local news presenter who’d been killed a decade previously – and while they’re looking into this, Elizabeth starts receiving anonymous threatening messages…

It’s so weird how a murder mystery can be such a cosy read, but the characters are so warm and real (special mention for Joyce and her dog, Alan), and you can just feel Osman’s sense of humour and enjoyment of British idiosyncrasies throughout.

As with previous books, there’s not a lot I can say without giving spoilers, but I was up rather late last night as I read the last 50 pages or so, absolutely hooked!

My copy from Waterstones had a little bonus bit of content at the back, a little insight into Joyce’s side project in this book, which was a good bit of fun.

Some spoiler-free quotes from the book:

  • “The Thursday Murder Club? Sounds made up.” “Everything is made up, when you really think about it.”
  • “I just think that you can be very talented and have lovely hair. Perhaps I’m shallow, but both of those things are important to me. Claudia Winkleman is a good example.”
  • “Everyone wants to feel special but nobody wants to feel different.”
  • “If life ever seems too complicated, if you think no one can help, sometimes the right person to turn to is an eight-year-old.”

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Three Sisters, Three Queens – by Philippa Gregory

16 07 2023

When I started this series I came in partway through the suggested reading order, so while this is the third I’ve read, it’s actually the eighth…. I’ll go back to the beginning once I get to the end!

It seems to overlap a fair amount timeline-wise with The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse, but takes you to mostly a completely different set of events. It’s narrated by Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII, and the three sisters/queens referred to in the title are herself, as she marries the king of Scotland, her younger sister Mary who marries the king of France, and Katharine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII, so sister-in-law, and queen of England. The focus is on Margaret’s story, but with written correspondence with her two sisters in London to include theirs.

Margaret is sent to Scotland as a teenager to marry their King James, over the many many years covered, she ended up having three marriages (died, divorced (and very off and on until the divorce was final), survived), and five children, only two of whom survived infancy.

Obviously there is a fictional element to the book, but the author puts a note in the end to discuss the historical elements, which was interesting (and I’ve had a go through some Wikipedia pages too to find out a bit more!). I found this paragraph from the author’s note particularly interesting to show why she told the story in the way she did:

“[…] I was struck by how their histories intertwined and reflected each other. They all three experienced arranged marriages, were widowed, and remarried the men of their choice. They all three lost children in infancy. They all three depended on the goodwill of Henry VIII, they all three fell from his favour, all three were threatened by the rise of Anne Boleyn. They were all born princesses, but experienced debt and even poverty.”

At some points it felt a bit repetitive, in and out of relationships, and so many lost pregnancies and children between the three women. Much as these are obviously really sad things, in a novel I guess it can just get a bit “oh that again” when it happens so often, but sadly a reality of that time.


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The Sacred Diary Of Adrian Plass, Christian Speaker Aged 45 3/4 – by Adrian Plass

30 05 2023

A sequel to the original Sacred Diary, Adrian is now being more recognised as a Christian speaker, and a few members of his church form a support group for him, to pray, to discuss plans, to review speaking engagements. The book even involves an international booking for him!

I’ve never quite worked out where the line is drawn between fiction and non-fiction in these books – I’ve read him say that his son Gerald is fictional, but some of the events must surely be based on his experiences. Ultimately I decided not to worry about it too much, and just enjoy it.

In this book, Gerald has tried writing his own version of some Bible stories, with alternative endings – quite funny, but not sure if one or two took it too far!

I love Adrian Plass’ writing, even in this at least partly fictitious version of himself he is still warm, relatable, self-deprecating, funny and wise – all the things we love about him!


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The Switch – by Beth O’Leary

18 05 2023

I’ve really enjoyed Beth O’Leary’s books so far, and this was no exception!

Leena is forced to take a two month break from work after a bad presentation, after which it’s noted that she hasn’t taken annual leave in forever.

Her grandmother, Eileen, recently split from her unfaithful husband, and doesn’t want that to be it.

They decide to swap places for the two months, Leena heading up to Eileen’s little village in Yorkshire and keeping up with Eileen’s social responsibilities there – and Eileen heading down to Leena’s flat share in London, hitting the dating apps, and revamping the communal area of the building to create a space for those who are lonely. And because it’s chick-lit, of course there are romantic storylines for both of them. There were some very sad parts too – throughout is the background that Leena’s sister died a year or two ago, and how Leena’s relationship with her mum has suffered since then.

You could see where some threads were going from pretty early on, but I don’t think that’s always a bad thing, and some still kept you guessing.

Overall it was a fun read, uplifting, and very sweet, I particularly enjoyed the neighbourhood watch gang up in Yorkshire.

A couple of silly quotes that made me fold page corners down from those people:

“And she’s vegan. Which is really annoying.”
“Oh yes, my friend Kathleen has that.”
“Has what, sorry?”
“Veganism.”

“She loves detective stories.”
“Most nosy people do, it’s good validation.”


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The Four Loves – by C.S. Lewis

6 05 2023

At only 170 pages, I thought I might get through this fairly quickly, even if it is non-fiction. I was wrong, it took me nearly two months! I think really it was just a bit too clever for me.

Lewis discusses the difference between need-pleasures and appreciative pleasures, between need-love and gift-love, before getting to the main content of the book – the four types of love: Affection (storge), Friendship (philia), Eros (romantic) and Charity (agape).

From the chapter on friendship: “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather, it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

Eros he says is about the Beloved, not necessarily the sexual connotation we tend to give the word – he separates this part out and names it “Venus”. (They can come together, but there can also be “Venus, uncontaminated by Eros”). All this makes the following quote less weird: “Affection is taken as the image when God is represented as our Father; Eros, when Christ is represented as the Bridegroom of the Church.”

The book doesn’t have the best attitude towards women, at one point considering them unable to join men’s conversations as they would need the discussion explained to them. But I think we just have to put this down to the time the book was written, and move on.

There was an interesting section at the end about whether we’ll recognised loved ones in heaven, but I genuinely couldn’t tell you what his stance was on it. Probably a book for people more studious than myself – I’m very much ready to dive back into some chick-lit now.


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