Happy Birthday Charles Dickens!
200 years old today! Same as me!
Not much has changed ey? Social inequality still high and actually being legislated by this government to get worse! When you turn in your grave Charles me lad, WAKE UP these cockeyed clueless political classes.
On the plus side they stopped beating kids in school, ooh, 30 years ago. To my knowledge anyway (Nicolas Nickleby)
Thanks Charlie, for everything.
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Men and self help books
This doesn't need to go on the One Night label but it is, just for the flow.
Self help is traditionally a female domain isn't it? Helping yourself is seen as some kind of weakness and men, traditionally, don't want to be perceived as being weak. Hey, with Kindle's now, who's to know?!
Anyway, this post isn't about that.
This post is about how I walked into a charity shop the other week and came out with three books:
The Power Is Within You by Louise Hay
Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul by a bunch of writers
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.
Stiggers and me mention all these books because they all carried an inscription and they were all gifts for men!
To Ross
To Jaybes (John, a flight ticket from Sydney to Adelaide inside..small coincidence, He Who Said I Was Hot was from Adelaide! He wasn't called John though)
from their mums!!
To (another) John and I love this inscription so sorry Eric, sorry John, I'm going to copy it out:
"Dearest John,
This book was a revelation to me + so I'm passing it on to you. May the pages within provoke and inspire you to greater awareness.
I'm awed by your talent + Inspired by your Spirit. Your [sic] Very Special.
I'm Happy our path's were able to cross. All the Best!
And Good Luck wi "Dolly", I'm sure you'll be Great!
Until we meet again - My Cosmic Friend (each word underlined twice!)
Peace - Love - Light
Your Friend, Eric C.."
"When the student is ready, the teacher appears." (The Power is Within You. P.75)
Thanks guys!!!!!
If you are drawn to any of these on the back of this post reader, don't thank me!!
(Though you can thank Stigmum if you like;))
Self help is traditionally a female domain isn't it? Helping yourself is seen as some kind of weakness and men, traditionally, don't want to be perceived as being weak. Hey, with Kindle's now, who's to know?!
Anyway, this post isn't about that.
This post is about how I walked into a charity shop the other week and came out with three books:
The Power Is Within You by Louise Hay
Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul by a bunch of writers
The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield.
Stiggers and me mention all these books because they all carried an inscription and they were all gifts for men!
To Ross
To Jaybes (John, a flight ticket from Sydney to Adelaide inside..small coincidence, He Who Said I Was Hot was from Adelaide! He wasn't called John though)
from their mums!!
To (another) John and I love this inscription so sorry Eric, sorry John, I'm going to copy it out:
"Dearest John,
This book was a revelation to me + so I'm passing it on to you. May the pages within provoke and inspire you to greater awareness.
I'm awed by your talent + Inspired by your Spirit. Your [sic] Very Special.
I'm Happy our path's were able to cross. All the Best!
And Good Luck wi "Dolly", I'm sure you'll be Great!
Until we meet again - My Cosmic Friend (each word underlined twice!)
Peace - Love - Light
Your Friend, Eric C.."
"When the student is ready, the teacher appears." (The Power is Within You. P.75)
Thanks guys!!!!!
If you are drawn to any of these on the back of this post reader, don't thank me!!
(Though you can thank Stigmum if you like;))
The Power Within You
I'll be honest with you, back when, oh I don't know, I rejected louise Hay.
All those exercises in You Can Heal Your Life, well I couldn't do them, didn't want to do them, oh this isn't working, I'm a failure, go away Louise Hay.
Then a few weeks ago, in a charity shop just up the road, her book "The Power Is Within You" called out from the shelf. "Buy me, buy me!" Rrragh, I have You Can Heal Your Life, I don't need you.
I started reading it in the ad breaks during Celebrity Big Brother.
Oh this is quite good.
This is really good.
Oh Louise, I do love you!
Louise Hay, multimillionaire self healing guru, gives herself to us in this book. Talks about her life. It's all over it, everywhere in the way it isn't in You Can Heal Your Life.
I didn't know she had cancer of the vagina. Did you?
She tells us how she forgave the abusers of her childhood.
She's like, I know how you're feeling.
She made it very easy for me to pick up You Can Heal Your Life on Thursday night.
"I had to acknowledge some nonsense that I didn't want to admit about myself," she writes in the Power Is Within You. "For instance, I was a very resentful person, and I carried a lot of bitterness from the past. I said, "Louise, you have no time to indulge in that anymore. You really must change." Or as Peter Mc Williams says, "You can no longer afford the luxury of a negative thought." (P53 of my copy)
A clear clear, so clear message that came out of Thursday night was that I should give up this blog. Start a new one, build a new one.
I'm reeling from this because there's still so much we want to say. There's still so much that only Stigmum can say. Not because I don't have the courage to say it myself. But because as her conduit, I have to reach for what's negative, to open people's eyes, or allow others to know they are not alone in how they feel.
We ahall see...
All those exercises in You Can Heal Your Life, well I couldn't do them, didn't want to do them, oh this isn't working, I'm a failure, go away Louise Hay.
Then a few weeks ago, in a charity shop just up the road, her book "The Power Is Within You" called out from the shelf. "Buy me, buy me!" Rrragh, I have You Can Heal Your Life, I don't need you.
I started reading it in the ad breaks during Celebrity Big Brother.
Oh this is quite good.
This is really good.
Oh Louise, I do love you!
Louise Hay, multimillionaire self healing guru, gives herself to us in this book. Talks about her life. It's all over it, everywhere in the way it isn't in You Can Heal Your Life.
I didn't know she had cancer of the vagina. Did you?
She tells us how she forgave the abusers of her childhood.
She's like, I know how you're feeling.
She made it very easy for me to pick up You Can Heal Your Life on Thursday night.
"I had to acknowledge some nonsense that I didn't want to admit about myself," she writes in the Power Is Within You. "For instance, I was a very resentful person, and I carried a lot of bitterness from the past. I said, "Louise, you have no time to indulge in that anymore. You really must change." Or as Peter Mc Williams says, "You can no longer afford the luxury of a negative thought." (P53 of my copy)
A clear clear, so clear message that came out of Thursday night was that I should give up this blog. Start a new one, build a new one.
I'm reeling from this because there's still so much we want to say. There's still so much that only Stigmum can say. Not because I don't have the courage to say it myself. But because as her conduit, I have to reach for what's negative, to open people's eyes, or allow others to know they are not alone in how they feel.
We ahall see...
Monday, 31 October 2011
Today's young people and protest
The young people are destroying your way of life. The young poeple have always done that. Your job is to encourage it, not discourage it.
It is not your young people who are destroying the rain forests. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are depleting the ozone layer. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are exploiting the poor in sweat shops all over the world. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are taxing you to death, then using the money for war and machines of war. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are ignoring the problems of the weak and the downtrodden, letting hundreds of people die of starvation every day on a planet with more than enough to feed everybody. They are asking you to stop it.
It is not your young people who are engaging in the politics of deception and manipulation. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are sexually repressed, ashamed and embarrassed about their own bodies and passing this shame and embarrassment to their offspring. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who have set up a value system which says that "might is right" and a world which solves problems with violence. They are asking you to stop it.
Nay, they are not asking you... they are begging you.
When the cries and pleas of young people to change the world are not heard and never heeded; when they see that their cause is lost - that you will have it your way no matter what - young people, who are not stupid, will do the next best thing. It they can't beat you, they will join you.
Your young people have joined you in your behaviours. If they are violent, is is because you are violent. If they are materialistic, it is because you are materialistic. If they are acting crazy, it is because you are acting crazy. If they are using sex manipulatively, irresponsibly, shamefully, it is because they see you doing the same. The only difference between young people and old people is that young people do what they do out in the open.
Older people hide their behaviours. Older people think that young people cannot see. Yet young people see everything. Nothing is hidden from them. They see the hypocrisy of their elders, and they try desperately to change it. Yet having tried and failed, they see no choice but to imitate it. In this they are wrong, yet they have never been taught differently. They have not been allowed to critically analyze what their elders have been doing. They have only been allowed to memorize it.
What you memorize, you memorialize.
(God, to Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations with God book 2 p.119/120)
Charlie Gilmour lost his appeal against his 16 month jail sentence for swinging against a cenotaph during a student protest and will spend christmas behind bars.
Hefty prison sentences have been doled out to those involved in the August riots.
Expenses claims, tax loopholes, tax dodging, war war war on the tv day after day...
We can change our planet for our children
Don't think you can't.
It is not your young people who are destroying the rain forests. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are depleting the ozone layer. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are exploiting the poor in sweat shops all over the world. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are taxing you to death, then using the money for war and machines of war. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are ignoring the problems of the weak and the downtrodden, letting hundreds of people die of starvation every day on a planet with more than enough to feed everybody. They are asking you to stop it.
It is not your young people who are engaging in the politics of deception and manipulation. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who are sexually repressed, ashamed and embarrassed about their own bodies and passing this shame and embarrassment to their offspring. They are asking you to stop it. It is not your young people who have set up a value system which says that "might is right" and a world which solves problems with violence. They are asking you to stop it.
Nay, they are not asking you... they are begging you.
When the cries and pleas of young people to change the world are not heard and never heeded; when they see that their cause is lost - that you will have it your way no matter what - young people, who are not stupid, will do the next best thing. It they can't beat you, they will join you.
Your young people have joined you in your behaviours. If they are violent, is is because you are violent. If they are materialistic, it is because you are materialistic. If they are acting crazy, it is because you are acting crazy. If they are using sex manipulatively, irresponsibly, shamefully, it is because they see you doing the same. The only difference between young people and old people is that young people do what they do out in the open.
Older people hide their behaviours. Older people think that young people cannot see. Yet young people see everything. Nothing is hidden from them. They see the hypocrisy of their elders, and they try desperately to change it. Yet having tried and failed, they see no choice but to imitate it. In this they are wrong, yet they have never been taught differently. They have not been allowed to critically analyze what their elders have been doing. They have only been allowed to memorize it.
What you memorize, you memorialize.
(God, to Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations with God book 2 p.119/120)
Charlie Gilmour lost his appeal against his 16 month jail sentence for swinging against a cenotaph during a student protest and will spend christmas behind bars.
Hefty prison sentences have been doled out to those involved in the August riots.
Expenses claims, tax loopholes, tax dodging, war war war on the tv day after day...
We can change our planet for our children
Don't think you can't.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Seek an answer, you will find it
What is hell and who goes?
My burning question to Lorna Byrne which the Universe heard loud and clear because the book I am reading at the moment is called "Conversations With God Book One" and the guy, Neale Donald Walsch asks God "What is hell?" and God says: "It is the experience of the worst possible outcomes of your choices. It is the natural consequence of any thought which denies Me, or says no to Who You Are in relation to Me." He (God) then goes on to say: "Yet even this experience is never eternal . It cannot be, for it is not My plan that you should be separated from me forever and ever." (That's a relief then!)
So Neale asks: "But if there's no hell, does that mean I can do what I want, act as I wish, commit any act, without fear of retribution?" which I will have to read again as I'm reading "Must you be threatened in order to "be good"?... You are your own rule-maker..."
Adolf Hitler went to heaven. God tells Neale. I was like whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?????
I'm glad I've been led to this book because it's really good!! Barbel Mohr quotes from it at the end of her Cosmic Ordering book and the woman next to me at the Byrne seminar recommended it as well.
She was funny. She said "Because you've recommended some books to me, I'll recommend some to you" (which was funny because that's not why I told her about the books that I did). She mentioned Conversation with God then asked if I'd read Women Who Run With The Wolves. "It's my bible!" I said and she laughed: "Me too!"
If you have a question, especially about yourself, you will find the answer or the answer will find you and it's surprising how quickly!
My burning question to Lorna Byrne which the Universe heard loud and clear because the book I am reading at the moment is called "Conversations With God Book One" and the guy, Neale Donald Walsch asks God "What is hell?" and God says: "It is the experience of the worst possible outcomes of your choices. It is the natural consequence of any thought which denies Me, or says no to Who You Are in relation to Me." He (God) then goes on to say: "Yet even this experience is never eternal . It cannot be, for it is not My plan that you should be separated from me forever and ever." (That's a relief then!)
So Neale asks: "But if there's no hell, does that mean I can do what I want, act as I wish, commit any act, without fear of retribution?" which I will have to read again as I'm reading "Must you be threatened in order to "be good"?... You are your own rule-maker..."
Adolf Hitler went to heaven. God tells Neale. I was like whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?????
I'm glad I've been led to this book because it's really good!! Barbel Mohr quotes from it at the end of her Cosmic Ordering book and the woman next to me at the Byrne seminar recommended it as well.
She was funny. She said "Because you've recommended some books to me, I'll recommend some to you" (which was funny because that's not why I told her about the books that I did). She mentioned Conversation with God then asked if I'd read Women Who Run With The Wolves. "It's my bible!" I said and she laughed: "Me too!"
If you have a question, especially about yourself, you will find the answer or the answer will find you and it's surprising how quickly!
Friday, 26 August 2011
Sex and Stravinsky - Review
Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido (Birthday present from my friend Em!)
Two families - over in England live the supersonic Aussie wonder woman Caroline (except in the eyes of her awful mother), her husband Josh and their daughter Zoe who's really into Ballet but isn't given the chance until she goes on a French exchange.
Over in South Africa there's Hattie, her husband Herman, and their daughter Cat, a daddy's girl who can see no right whatsoever with her mother, who writes ballet books up in a fairytale turret.
Everything is as it seems then nothing is at is seems as Caroline's mother dies and every one's lives converge as a result.
This is a great story, witty and vibrant too. Trapido writes her chapters with the narrative voice of her characters so it's almost like a dance, as you change partners in a waltz. Perceptions changing, stories coming to light like a prism turned, determining fate and fortune within the story's global backdrops.
The music still plays once you finish the book but that's for you to find out why and how.
Thank you Em, I really loved this!
Two families - over in England live the supersonic Aussie wonder woman Caroline (except in the eyes of her awful mother), her husband Josh and their daughter Zoe who's really into Ballet but isn't given the chance until she goes on a French exchange.
Over in South Africa there's Hattie, her husband Herman, and their daughter Cat, a daddy's girl who can see no right whatsoever with her mother, who writes ballet books up in a fairytale turret.
Everything is as it seems then nothing is at is seems as Caroline's mother dies and every one's lives converge as a result.
This is a great story, witty and vibrant too. Trapido writes her chapters with the narrative voice of her characters so it's almost like a dance, as you change partners in a waltz. Perceptions changing, stories coming to light like a prism turned, determining fate and fortune within the story's global backdrops.
The music still plays once you finish the book but that's for you to find out why and how.
Thank you Em, I really loved this!
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Rivers of London - a review
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (Free gift from the author who used to be a neighbour)
Title in America is Midnight Riots
This book starts with a decapitated body and the only witness to the murder is a ghost.
Peter Grant, a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police is taken on as an apprentice to a wizard to try to solve the case.
I enjoyed this book, more and more so as I read through it as we meet Mother Thames and Father Thames and vampires and spirits and a very cynical Met Police.
The book ends with a riot. The middle class audience of the Royal Opera take to the streets fighting and starting fires.
It was very funny reading it for at the same time, riots were starting all over London. Were the Tottenham rioters taken over by a revenant spirit? Were all the others country wide?
Joking aside, I left while the rioting was going on. I didn't ever condone it but I do understand it.
I would not be surprised if there's more to come. Well, that's what I told Portuguese people who asked me about it anyway.
I recommend this book; it's not usually my type of thing but it may surprise you like it did me!
Title in America is Midnight Riots
This book starts with a decapitated body and the only witness to the murder is a ghost.
Peter Grant, a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police is taken on as an apprentice to a wizard to try to solve the case.
I enjoyed this book, more and more so as I read through it as we meet Mother Thames and Father Thames and vampires and spirits and a very cynical Met Police.
The book ends with a riot. The middle class audience of the Royal Opera take to the streets fighting and starting fires.
It was very funny reading it for at the same time, riots were starting all over London. Were the Tottenham rioters taken over by a revenant spirit? Were all the others country wide?
Joking aside, I left while the rioting was going on. I didn't ever condone it but I do understand it.
I would not be surprised if there's more to come. Well, that's what I told Portuguese people who asked me about it anyway.
I recommend this book; it's not usually my type of thing but it may surprise you like it did me!
Friday, 29 April 2011
Started Early, Took My Dog
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson, £2.99 with The Times.
I don't actually need an introduction to Kate Atkinson, for she's one of my favourite authors!
Twas a joy to read this one though as I haven't read one of hers for ages! I turn the pages and I smile thinking she's so clever!!
This detective tale wasn't the huge departure from the mum and children books I've read recently that I thought it would be but it served to remind me just how brilliant she is with sensitive matter.
She builds her characters with such wit! This story weaves three tales. Security Chief Tracy Woodhouse buys something one morning, an aging actress with dementia sees something, detective Jackson Brodie acquires something. How these are bought together in such a feast of narrative is something you should experience for yourself!
It's a great Easter read when the news is talking deaths in Syria, Libya, riots in Bristol and your own family is whistling from the various tensions of their own individual lives.
Like I said, Kate Atkinson's really clever!!
Her comic style also reminds me of Smoking Mum's (who I've promised to buy (full price!) the book she's writing when I see it in the bookshop!)
I don't actually need an introduction to Kate Atkinson, for she's one of my favourite authors!
Twas a joy to read this one though as I haven't read one of hers for ages! I turn the pages and I smile thinking she's so clever!!
This detective tale wasn't the huge departure from the mum and children books I've read recently that I thought it would be but it served to remind me just how brilliant she is with sensitive matter.
She builds her characters with such wit! This story weaves three tales. Security Chief Tracy Woodhouse buys something one morning, an aging actress with dementia sees something, detective Jackson Brodie acquires something. How these are bought together in such a feast of narrative is something you should experience for yourself!
It's a great Easter read when the news is talking deaths in Syria, Libya, riots in Bristol and your own family is whistling from the various tensions of their own individual lives.
Like I said, Kate Atkinson's really clever!!
Her comic style also reminds me of Smoking Mum's (who I've promised to buy (full price!) the book she's writing when I see it in the bookshop!)
Sunday, 17 April 2011
My son my sun, are you on the way home?
Why did the Foca have to say he'd bring our son back at 5 today?
Five not seven because he's going abroad for work.
The tension in my chest
It doesn't help
I loathe waiting.
I don't usually send a text until my son's an hour late
I must remain calm
Perhaps not read the book I'm currently reading:
Whatever you love
... can be taken away
by Louise Doughty (not free but £2.99 with The Times the other day)
Ooh my, I'm half way through. A divorced mother's daughter has been killed in a hit and run and the back bumph says she takes revenge into her own hands with devastating consequences, but I haven't got to that part yet.
Like Melody Browne, this book goes back and forth, but this time "Before" and "After"
It's disturbing, the death of a child is not something you want to imagine and reading it I still can't, don't want to but the book also works on another level - Laura's relationship with her daughter's father and the subsequent break up of their relationship (I'm back on a "before" chapter so will find out just how)
Her husband has set up home with another woman and they've had a baby. She sees this family play happy families with a boy, her son. This frankness, I feel a pain in that, I'm sure many a single mother would.
There is nothing particularly subtle about the prose but as a thriller it is: it's compelling. We do not get how another married mother in the book deals with her grief, only Laura's assumptions while wrapped in her own. Her perceptions of mother communities are on the nail. How many of us recognise ourselves or people we know?
The Sunday Telegraph describes the book as:
"Like Zoe Heller, Doughy is masterful at combining the texture of ordinary, smugly middle-class contemporary life with the hidden cliff edges of violence and hatred."
Annie, who was here earlier for a cup of tea laughed and said: "It sounds just like your afternoon in the park!"
I'm not sure I would recommend this book, or rather, I'm not sure who I would recommend it to. If you like prose that makes you recoil with its honesty, a story that is psychologically tense, then this one's for you.
Me, I'm going to send myself into a psychological headspin by reading it while waiting for my boy to come home. I'm hoping I'll be able to concentrate. I actually came to blogspot because I'd read the same paragraph about three times as I wondered if the doorbell would ring. Blogspot is better at taking my mind off things.
He will come home.
The Foca hasn't answered my text asking "Are you on your way?" but my son is on his way.
Note to you: Don't read this book if your child has gone away. Read it when your child is with you.
OK? Good! Have a happy evening!
Five not seven because he's going abroad for work.
The tension in my chest
It doesn't help
I loathe waiting.
I don't usually send a text until my son's an hour late
I must remain calm
Perhaps not read the book I'm currently reading:
Whatever you love
... can be taken away
by Louise Doughty (not free but £2.99 with The Times the other day)
Ooh my, I'm half way through. A divorced mother's daughter has been killed in a hit and run and the back bumph says she takes revenge into her own hands with devastating consequences, but I haven't got to that part yet.
Like Melody Browne, this book goes back and forth, but this time "Before" and "After"
It's disturbing, the death of a child is not something you want to imagine and reading it I still can't, don't want to but the book also works on another level - Laura's relationship with her daughter's father and the subsequent break up of their relationship (I'm back on a "before" chapter so will find out just how)
Her husband has set up home with another woman and they've had a baby. She sees this family play happy families with a boy, her son. This frankness, I feel a pain in that, I'm sure many a single mother would.
There is nothing particularly subtle about the prose but as a thriller it is: it's compelling. We do not get how another married mother in the book deals with her grief, only Laura's assumptions while wrapped in her own. Her perceptions of mother communities are on the nail. How many of us recognise ourselves or people we know?
The Sunday Telegraph describes the book as:
"Like Zoe Heller, Doughy is masterful at combining the texture of ordinary, smugly middle-class contemporary life with the hidden cliff edges of violence and hatred."
Annie, who was here earlier for a cup of tea laughed and said: "It sounds just like your afternoon in the park!"
I'm not sure I would recommend this book, or rather, I'm not sure who I would recommend it to. If you like prose that makes you recoil with its honesty, a story that is psychologically tense, then this one's for you.
Me, I'm going to send myself into a psychological headspin by reading it while waiting for my boy to come home. I'm hoping I'll be able to concentrate. I actually came to blogspot because I'd read the same paragraph about three times as I wondered if the doorbell would ring. Blogspot is better at taking my mind off things.
He will come home.
The Foca hasn't answered my text asking "Are you on your way?" but my son is on his way.
Note to you: Don't read this book if your child has gone away. Read it when your child is with you.
OK? Good! Have a happy evening!
Friday, 15 April 2011
The Truth about Melody Browne - Review
The Truth about Melody Browne - Lisa Jewell (Free with Cosmopolitan which I've erm, yet to read but will!)
I'll tell you what I love about a free book. It can take you completely by surprise! I spied that Cosmopolitan were giving away one of two books this month. This which I am erm, reviewing and another - Can You Keep A Secret? by Sophie Kinsella.
Why I chose Lisa Jewell's book? I couldn't say; I couldn't read the bumph on the back on either of them. Truth or Secret? Maybe the sleeve with it's pastel colours spoke of something light and silly, maybe the other, it's dark purple, dark like my dark blue blog template; don't want dark - it might be light though.... Who knows why we choose what we do sometimes.
What a joy to discover Melody Browne was a single mother! What rapture to discover this wasn't run of the mill chick-literature. Sure, she meets a guy at the beginning but that's not the story. Oh! I didn't have to feel hopeless about my own love life!
It's a story about identity and what makes up our identity. It's about our subconcious - things that are so deeply hidden we have no idea about them until one day, memory, memories start coming back, and in this tale it's the night she goes on a first date with new bloke and passes out at a hypnotist show he takes her to.
I believe that some memories come back to you when you are ready to deal with them (because that happened to me, has that happened to you?) so I easily identified with Melody Browne, Melody Browne...?
It's a great book, strong pace going back to the past, a return to the present, dealing with heavy, painful issues with a deft and light touch. Jewell made me laugh, Jewell made me cry (Chapter 46 mostly, and then on...)
It's perfect post dental work literature if you're feeling quite down.
It's a perfect holiday read if you want to, well, feel! Feel interested, happy, hopeful..!
I may go and get Sophie Kinsella's out from the library to read while my son's with his dad but then again I might start reading Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty. I may not review it because it wasn't free (mind you £2.99 with The Times today) but it's an emotionally raw one this one I think - "Laura's nine-year old daughter Betty is killed in a hit-and-run incident" says the bumph on the back.
The Truth about Stigmum is well, blimey, I don't know... Best I just go with her flow!
I'll tell you what I love about a free book. It can take you completely by surprise! I spied that Cosmopolitan were giving away one of two books this month. This which I am erm, reviewing and another - Can You Keep A Secret? by Sophie Kinsella.
Why I chose Lisa Jewell's book? I couldn't say; I couldn't read the bumph on the back on either of them. Truth or Secret? Maybe the sleeve with it's pastel colours spoke of something light and silly, maybe the other, it's dark purple, dark like my dark blue blog template; don't want dark - it might be light though.... Who knows why we choose what we do sometimes.
What a joy to discover Melody Browne was a single mother! What rapture to discover this wasn't run of the mill chick-literature. Sure, she meets a guy at the beginning but that's not the story. Oh! I didn't have to feel hopeless about my own love life!
It's a story about identity and what makes up our identity. It's about our subconcious - things that are so deeply hidden we have no idea about them until one day, memory, memories start coming back, and in this tale it's the night she goes on a first date with new bloke and passes out at a hypnotist show he takes her to.
I believe that some memories come back to you when you are ready to deal with them (because that happened to me, has that happened to you?) so I easily identified with Melody Browne, Melody Browne...?
It's a great book, strong pace going back to the past, a return to the present, dealing with heavy, painful issues with a deft and light touch. Jewell made me laugh, Jewell made me cry (Chapter 46 mostly, and then on...)
It's perfect post dental work literature if you're feeling quite down.
It's a perfect holiday read if you want to, well, feel! Feel interested, happy, hopeful..!
I may go and get Sophie Kinsella's out from the library to read while my son's with his dad but then again I might start reading Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty. I may not review it because it wasn't free (mind you £2.99 with The Times today) but it's an emotionally raw one this one I think - "Laura's nine-year old daughter Betty is killed in a hit-and-run incident" says the bumph on the back.
The Truth about Stigmum is well, blimey, I don't know... Best I just go with her flow!
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Room - the book - the mind
I rarely find the time for reading fiction. It's a real shame because I love what's out there.
I rarely find the time because I blog. I am forever thinking either what I'm going to write or how I'm going to write which interupts my mind space for reading/course hunting/job searching.. I wish blogging was my proper paid a squillion a post job because it feels like a job.
Anyway, I say this because I have found time to read Room by Emma Donoghue!
I haven't finished it yet. Got way into it last night (tears fell). This morning, I would have ordinarily come home to write but Mistress Ha Ha texted me at the crack of dawn asking me if I'd accompany her around all cafe's in the vicinity to place postcards about Zen Boot Camp.
What a beautiful day! We finished up at the Heath, where we had a coffee and chatted - she's a stigmum like me, frightened about what the new welfare rules are going to mean for her and her two daughters. When she left, the sky was still so blue, the breeze so warm, that I climbed up to an oak tree and sat and read my book.
Read it. My friend Jo recommended it to me, said she wasn't sure whether I'd like it. I won't tell you the plot but I will tell you that it's beautiful and hard but also compelling and rich.
This story of a mother and son is told through the eyes of the five year old child.
It has resonated quite powerfully with me. I have felt guilt and I have felt love as though this five year old, was my five year old.
Ma's Gone - I was gone alot - Mute Mother
Shhh, I'm thinking -
"Mummy, I am sorry for making a fight with you,
Lots of love
Son xxx"
This is from my child, yesterday, a drawing of a butterfly on the other side. A fight because he wanted to wear the new Red Converse his daddy gave him to school and I said 'no'. After the card I still said 'no' but hugged him and said I was sorry too. He's worn them today (not because of the book I have to say, but because there was no quick change Kung Fu and because it was so sunny, not raining).
Love.
Children.
I wish I'd written down all the things my son said, my son says. Children think so logically. They live much more in the present moment than we adults do.
Has it resonated with me to the degree it has because I am a single mother with a son too? Does it resonate with married mothers? With mothers with several children? Do fathers feel it? Lone ones with a son or daughter, married ones, ones with several?
I haven't finished the book. One last "chapter" to go.
It's a stigmum recommendation
(and gets labelled under Book Review even though Book Review is for free books I get not books I bought like this one (though it was reduced!))
I rarely find the time because I blog. I am forever thinking either what I'm going to write or how I'm going to write which interupts my mind space for reading/course hunting/job searching.. I wish blogging was my proper paid a squillion a post job because it feels like a job.
Anyway, I say this because I have found time to read Room by Emma Donoghue!
I haven't finished it yet. Got way into it last night (tears fell). This morning, I would have ordinarily come home to write but Mistress Ha Ha texted me at the crack of dawn asking me if I'd accompany her around all cafe's in the vicinity to place postcards about Zen Boot Camp.
What a beautiful day! We finished up at the Heath, where we had a coffee and chatted - she's a stigmum like me, frightened about what the new welfare rules are going to mean for her and her two daughters. When she left, the sky was still so blue, the breeze so warm, that I climbed up to an oak tree and sat and read my book.
Read it. My friend Jo recommended it to me, said she wasn't sure whether I'd like it. I won't tell you the plot but I will tell you that it's beautiful and hard but also compelling and rich.
This story of a mother and son is told through the eyes of the five year old child.
It has resonated quite powerfully with me. I have felt guilt and I have felt love as though this five year old, was my five year old.
Ma's Gone - I was gone alot - Mute Mother
Shhh, I'm thinking -
"Mummy, I am sorry for making a fight with you,
Lots of love
Son xxx"
This is from my child, yesterday, a drawing of a butterfly on the other side. A fight because he wanted to wear the new Red Converse his daddy gave him to school and I said 'no'. After the card I still said 'no' but hugged him and said I was sorry too. He's worn them today (not because of the book I have to say, but because there was no quick change Kung Fu and because it was so sunny, not raining).
Love.
Children.
I wish I'd written down all the things my son said, my son says. Children think so logically. They live much more in the present moment than we adults do.
Has it resonated with me to the degree it has because I am a single mother with a son too? Does it resonate with married mothers? With mothers with several children? Do fathers feel it? Lone ones with a son or daughter, married ones, ones with several?
I haven't finished the book. One last "chapter" to go.
It's a stigmum recommendation
(and gets labelled under Book Review even though Book Review is for free books I get not books I bought like this one (though it was reduced!))
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Reading through impending doom
I have started reading a book called The Diamond In Your Pocket by Gangaji.
My mother bought it for me for christmas, at my request.
It's a spiritual book.
I wanted to tell you about the other books I read but I can't for some reason but if you get the chance:
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver is just superb. Brilliant. Funny though the subject matter isn't!
The Glass Room by Simon Mawler is great too. They're different in style the two of them but they are both historical - the war, communism, persecution of different sorts and so relevant to today in many many ways.
I didn't tell you did I? I bid on two properties last week.
I was 177/482 for the maisonette on a road near here
I was 114/341 for another flat on another road near here
Well I did bid, and I'm not doing it again.
I did it because I saw the maisonette advertised in the local paper and thought that it looked ok.
I'm not going to bid again for a while because I don't like the 'surprises' every week because there aren't any.
Surprises.
We all have bad days don't we?
My friend Hannah who's in the same situation as me with her husband and four kids got their first repossession notice from the housing association last week.
They were told their landlord's been asked to drop the rent and if the landlord doesn't, then Hannah and her family are out on their ear.
It's the first stage of the eviction process, as you know if you know me.
The housing association's not dropping its admin charges is it?
Hannah's rent is £402 a week and the housing allowance cut off for a 3 bed is apparently £400. Evicted for £2? It can't happen.
She asked me if I'd got a repossession notice too.
"When I moved in to my new place," I told her.
I'm going to stop writing and read my book.
The truth is, I really want to cry.
My mother bought it for me for christmas, at my request.
It's a spiritual book.
I wanted to tell you about the other books I read but I can't for some reason but if you get the chance:
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver is just superb. Brilliant. Funny though the subject matter isn't!
The Glass Room by Simon Mawler is great too. They're different in style the two of them but they are both historical - the war, communism, persecution of different sorts and so relevant to today in many many ways.
I didn't tell you did I? I bid on two properties last week.
I was 177/482 for the maisonette on a road near here
I was 114/341 for another flat on another road near here
Well I did bid, and I'm not doing it again.
I did it because I saw the maisonette advertised in the local paper and thought that it looked ok.
I'm not going to bid again for a while because I don't like the 'surprises' every week because there aren't any.
Surprises.
We all have bad days don't we?
My friend Hannah who's in the same situation as me with her husband and four kids got their first repossession notice from the housing association last week.
They were told their landlord's been asked to drop the rent and if the landlord doesn't, then Hannah and her family are out on their ear.
It's the first stage of the eviction process, as you know if you know me.
The housing association's not dropping its admin charges is it?
Hannah's rent is £402 a week and the housing allowance cut off for a 3 bed is apparently £400. Evicted for £2? It can't happen.
She asked me if I'd got a repossession notice too.
"When I moved in to my new place," I told her.
I'm going to stop writing and read my book.
The truth is, I really want to cry.
Friday, 14 January 2011
Allen Carr's Easy Way
I bought Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking years ago. A paperback with a free cd included of the author reading his introduction.
I read the book a year or so later.
I listened to the cd for the first time today. Oh Allen! You've got such a lovely English voice! I don't know why I thought it might be American! Doh! What a joy listening to you! I'm sure I'm going to listen to you again and again and again, as much as I need to. Might lend it out to someone but I'll always want it back!
Allen Carr died a few years ago, from lung cancer. It made me so sad when I heard.
I was wrong yesterday by the way when I said it takes four days for Nico Teen to leave the system. According to Carr's book, it takes three weeks for 99% of it to leave your body. 1% is always lurking there together with car and bus fumes and other urban pollutions.
When he stopped smoking, he started workshops because he wanted everyone to quit and feel as free as him.
He tells you to carry on smoking while you read the book, unless you're a non-smoker or you've recently given up.
People could smoke in his workshops too so week in and week out he sat in other people's fog willing them to be free from their addiction. Maybe that's what killed him, God rest his soul.
His book, if you haven't read it, is a really good read. He gets it you know, he gets how we smokers feel, he doesn't patronise or lecture. He'd tried and failed to give up his 100 a day habit loads of times, so fortunately he doesn't think I'm crap for stopping, starting, stopping, starting. He even says I can carry on smoking after I've read the book, if I want to!
Yesterday I told my new nice doc that I'd stopped and started again. She didn't say anything, just kind of nodded. Then I told her I was going to try again using Allen Carr and her eyes shined as she smiled. No patches for me!
Allen Carr, I do so hope they start giving out your audio cd at doctor's surgeries and the like, because even though your method hasn't worked on me yet, I do think your way is the best way!
Thank you so very, very much!
I read the book a year or so later.
I listened to the cd for the first time today. Oh Allen! You've got such a lovely English voice! I don't know why I thought it might be American! Doh! What a joy listening to you! I'm sure I'm going to listen to you again and again and again, as much as I need to. Might lend it out to someone but I'll always want it back!
Allen Carr died a few years ago, from lung cancer. It made me so sad when I heard.
I was wrong yesterday by the way when I said it takes four days for Nico Teen to leave the system. According to Carr's book, it takes three weeks for 99% of it to leave your body. 1% is always lurking there together with car and bus fumes and other urban pollutions.
When he stopped smoking, he started workshops because he wanted everyone to quit and feel as free as him.
He tells you to carry on smoking while you read the book, unless you're a non-smoker or you've recently given up.
People could smoke in his workshops too so week in and week out he sat in other people's fog willing them to be free from their addiction. Maybe that's what killed him, God rest his soul.
His book, if you haven't read it, is a really good read. He gets it you know, he gets how we smokers feel, he doesn't patronise or lecture. He'd tried and failed to give up his 100 a day habit loads of times, so fortunately he doesn't think I'm crap for stopping, starting, stopping, starting. He even says I can carry on smoking after I've read the book, if I want to!
Yesterday I told my new nice doc that I'd stopped and started again. She didn't say anything, just kind of nodded. Then I told her I was going to try again using Allen Carr and her eyes shined as she smiled. No patches for me!
Allen Carr, I do so hope they start giving out your audio cd at doctor's surgeries and the like, because even though your method hasn't worked on me yet, I do think your way is the best way!
Thank you so very, very much!
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Starting Over
Starting Over by Tony Parsons (free with The Times)
Options when your child is sick:
a) Tidy up around him/her
b) Sit beside them as they rest and sleep and read a book.
Yesterday I tidied up around him and in the afternoon, his strength up, we both attacked our bedroom.
Tuesday, as he slipped in and out of sleep on the sofa, I gobbled up Starting Over.
It's the story of George Bailey, a married father of two who has a heart transplant, and the effects that this has on himself and his family.
This is a page turner in the nicest way. Given the heart of a 19 year old boy, has George picked up attributes of this teenager's personality or is he going through a mid-life crisis?
Medical professionals and people he meets say the former is impossible, but you read it wondering if it is.
I don't want to give too much away, but as a strict disciplinarian, he adopts a more liberal attitude towards his own teenage children. His new lease of life at first renews the bonds between him and his wife, but then you understand her frustration as he lets go of his responsibilities as a parent to become instead a friend to his children, and an extra teenager for her as he revels in his new freedom, of a second chance at Life.
The story details the fragility of life and the struggle we have with it as we deal with and navigate all the problems that weigh upon the enjoyment of it. It's funny, it's poignant, it's subtle and it's honest.
I've not read any of Tony Parson's books prior to this although I've watched Man and Boy with Hugh Grant. I may get that book out of the library at some point and perhaps some of his others.
Yes, I heartily recommend this one. Not sure when I'll get round to reviewing another Free Book. Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square is still unfinished. I was a quarter of the way through when I put it down, to do a spot of tidying up I suspect, and never picked it up again.
All my Free Books will move house with me. I want a new life and I want reading to become part of it again.
Options when your child is sick:
a) Tidy up around him/her
b) Sit beside them as they rest and sleep and read a book.
Yesterday I tidied up around him and in the afternoon, his strength up, we both attacked our bedroom.
Tuesday, as he slipped in and out of sleep on the sofa, I gobbled up Starting Over.
It's the story of George Bailey, a married father of two who has a heart transplant, and the effects that this has on himself and his family.
This is a page turner in the nicest way. Given the heart of a 19 year old boy, has George picked up attributes of this teenager's personality or is he going through a mid-life crisis?
Medical professionals and people he meets say the former is impossible, but you read it wondering if it is.
I don't want to give too much away, but as a strict disciplinarian, he adopts a more liberal attitude towards his own teenage children. His new lease of life at first renews the bonds between him and his wife, but then you understand her frustration as he lets go of his responsibilities as a parent to become instead a friend to his children, and an extra teenager for her as he revels in his new freedom, of a second chance at Life.
The story details the fragility of life and the struggle we have with it as we deal with and navigate all the problems that weigh upon the enjoyment of it. It's funny, it's poignant, it's subtle and it's honest.
I've not read any of Tony Parson's books prior to this although I've watched Man and Boy with Hugh Grant. I may get that book out of the library at some point and perhaps some of his others.
Yes, I heartily recommend this one. Not sure when I'll get round to reviewing another Free Book. Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square is still unfinished. I was a quarter of the way through when I put it down, to do a spot of tidying up I suspect, and never picked it up again.
All my Free Books will move house with me. I want a new life and I want reading to become part of it again.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Oh dear, deluded?
Doh, The Shack isn't a real story. I thought it was, well, suspended any disbelief. Still, worth a read (suspending your disbelief!!). The emotions are true enough but not the weekend with the Trinity, which is a shame as I'd quite like to have my own little pow wow with the celestial lot in lovely surroundings. Apparently, according to the author the "conversations" are "real". (I googled ladykiller trial.. oh well) I did wonder how Mack would have remembered so much but the author's religious friends inputted some of their knowledge, so yes... Fiction. Pity.
Tonight on telly there's The God Delusion on More4. I'll watch it, even though it'll be so intelligent its arguments, the whole lot will fly way over my head.
I don't care if I'm deluded. If believing in God makes me deluded, don't care. Far better to fly in la la land in a delusion of peace than sink in deep space shite of real life (I've been somewhere inbetween today)
Lorna Bryne's Angels in my Hair isn't fiction.
Doris Day did sing Que Sera Sera
I am not deluded!
http://www.lornabyrne.com/#start
http://theshackbook.com/
Tonight on telly there's The God Delusion on More4. I'll watch it, even though it'll be so intelligent its arguments, the whole lot will fly way over my head.
I don't care if I'm deluded. If believing in God makes me deluded, don't care. Far better to fly in la la land in a delusion of peace than sink in deep space shite of real life (I've been somewhere inbetween today)
Lorna Bryne's Angels in my Hair isn't fiction.
Doris Day did sing Que Sera Sera
I am not deluded!
http://www.lornabyrne.com/#start
http://theshackbook.com/
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Reading my redemption?
I've not been able to read a book in months. Months and months and months. I love them but I can't concentrate on them.
The last four days, I've gobbled up two.
Heading to my parents last Friday for my nephew's christening, I spotted Angels in my Hair by Lorna Bryne, sitting beneath a half a dozen books I haven't read yet. My hairdresser lent it to me over a year ago.
At the church where my nephew was christened, where my son also did his Holy Communion, there were three copies of The Shack, by WM Paul Young, sitting on a table. I asked the priest if I could borrow one, saying it might be a year before he sees it again.
I believe in angels, never having seen any. Lorna Bryne's been seeing them since she was two. So simply told her tale, it was a beautiful confirmation for me (and Lorna, it's why I don't see them... If they told me I had my husband on borrowed time, it would be all I would think about where as you accepted it and didn't think about it and you're amazing).
The Shack? I recommend that too. More a biography, unlike Lorna's auto biography, it tells the story of a man, Mack, with a shattered past, whose daughter is abducted, presumed murdered after her bloodied dress is found in a shack in the american Oregan wildnerness. Four years later Mack gets a letter inviting him back to the shack for the weekend, apparently from God.
My sister in law had read it and said because others had told her it was fantastic, she didn't find it all that great. I thought I'd keep an open mind.
Oh there is a kingdom I would love to be in, a place of such serene beauty, this desolate place transformed by God's touch. Mack meets The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. He accepts Jesus, he accepts Sarayu, the Holy Spirit. He is angry and blames God, despite warming to Him (who appears as a woman, which I liked!)
A learning experience for me, thinking all the while of Ben Needham and Madeleine McCann, of their parents. Mack gets the closure he is seeking and much more. How can they, their children still out there somewhere?
Hard, hard lessons to learn, today it turned me upside down, as I tussled not with God, but with Jesus. I read the book pretty rapidly laughing at moments, being relieved at times, then crying my eyes out.
Angels followed by the Holy Trinity. Good order to read them in I reckon. Led by those I feel comfortable with, to those, to those I....
When I'm rehoused, what's going to become of me? I'd surrender now to a more spiritual way of life but I'm still too frightened of what the council will do with me and my son.
I can put my trust in God, in Jesus, hope for the best but the state has no soul. I'm finding it really hard to be Doris about all that, especially with new support worker coming round tomorrow and chatting to a dad earlier whose ex partner has told the council she's staying with a friend and has been given 250 extra points, bringing her up to 700 and viewing properties. Me, I get fuck all for facing eviction.
Anyway, I've been chatting to my Palm crucifix, and also the 'light up' Jesus and 'temparature changing' Mary my friend Chus bought me for a joke years ago. In mine and my son's new house, I'll make a little alter for them.
If you read the books will they effect you as much as they did me? Perhaps not but definitely worth your time if you have some available.
Enjoy! They are enjoyable!
The last four days, I've gobbled up two.
Heading to my parents last Friday for my nephew's christening, I spotted Angels in my Hair by Lorna Bryne, sitting beneath a half a dozen books I haven't read yet. My hairdresser lent it to me over a year ago.
At the church where my nephew was christened, where my son also did his Holy Communion, there were three copies of The Shack, by WM Paul Young, sitting on a table. I asked the priest if I could borrow one, saying it might be a year before he sees it again.
I believe in angels, never having seen any. Lorna Bryne's been seeing them since she was two. So simply told her tale, it was a beautiful confirmation for me (and Lorna, it's why I don't see them... If they told me I had my husband on borrowed time, it would be all I would think about where as you accepted it and didn't think about it and you're amazing).
The Shack? I recommend that too. More a biography, unlike Lorna's auto biography, it tells the story of a man, Mack, with a shattered past, whose daughter is abducted, presumed murdered after her bloodied dress is found in a shack in the american Oregan wildnerness. Four years later Mack gets a letter inviting him back to the shack for the weekend, apparently from God.
My sister in law had read it and said because others had told her it was fantastic, she didn't find it all that great. I thought I'd keep an open mind.
Oh there is a kingdom I would love to be in, a place of such serene beauty, this desolate place transformed by God's touch. Mack meets The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. He accepts Jesus, he accepts Sarayu, the Holy Spirit. He is angry and blames God, despite warming to Him (who appears as a woman, which I liked!)
A learning experience for me, thinking all the while of Ben Needham and Madeleine McCann, of their parents. Mack gets the closure he is seeking and much more. How can they, their children still out there somewhere?
Hard, hard lessons to learn, today it turned me upside down, as I tussled not with God, but with Jesus. I read the book pretty rapidly laughing at moments, being relieved at times, then crying my eyes out.
Angels followed by the Holy Trinity. Good order to read them in I reckon. Led by those I feel comfortable with, to those, to those I....
When I'm rehoused, what's going to become of me? I'd surrender now to a more spiritual way of life but I'm still too frightened of what the council will do with me and my son.
I can put my trust in God, in Jesus, hope for the best but the state has no soul. I'm finding it really hard to be Doris about all that, especially with new support worker coming round tomorrow and chatting to a dad earlier whose ex partner has told the council she's staying with a friend and has been given 250 extra points, bringing her up to 700 and viewing properties. Me, I get fuck all for facing eviction.
Anyway, I've been chatting to my Palm crucifix, and also the 'light up' Jesus and 'temparature changing' Mary my friend Chus bought me for a joke years ago. In mine and my son's new house, I'll make a little alter for them.
If you read the books will they effect you as much as they did me? Perhaps not but definitely worth your time if you have some available.
Enjoy! They are enjoyable!
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
More free books!
The Times are giving out more free books! I discovered this yesterday when I trooped into Camden for some fridge fillers (and fruit bowl fillers and cupboard of dry goods fillers)
This week is Science. I'm not huge on science but yesterday's The Craftsman by Richard Sennet reminded me of my anthropology days. It's about the worker in all of us. Made me think of Nimble Little Fingers or whatever it was called about female factory workers in Asia.
So today, in the pouring rain, I jumped on Zat bike to get another. Now I've no need for the newspaper as you know as I get it in my inbox but then 5 books for the price of 1? I also like paper, any paper, the feel and texture of it in my fingers as I turn pages. You won't catch me reading an e-book anytime soon.
Today I was given Deep Simplicity by John Gribben about "the harmony underlying our existence".
Ooh, I look on the back and no female authors listed. Yesterday, The Craftsman promised The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson on the back sleeve but not Deep Simplicity. Oh. What's going on?
Perhaps I shouldn't bother with Science after all. I still have some of my old anthropology books to read, most notably Death Without Weaping - The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil by Nancy Scheper Hughes. It's brilliant, harrowing, engaging but I never finished it.
I also STILL have to do my book reviews on the free books I got two weeks ago. I started Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton the other day on the train but fell asleep. Doesn't really bode well does it but I promised you a book review and a book review you shall get! Just don't hold your breath ok?
This week is Science. I'm not huge on science but yesterday's The Craftsman by Richard Sennet reminded me of my anthropology days. It's about the worker in all of us. Made me think of Nimble Little Fingers or whatever it was called about female factory workers in Asia.
So today, in the pouring rain, I jumped on Zat bike to get another. Now I've no need for the newspaper as you know as I get it in my inbox but then 5 books for the price of 1? I also like paper, any paper, the feel and texture of it in my fingers as I turn pages. You won't catch me reading an e-book anytime soon.
Today I was given Deep Simplicity by John Gribben about "the harmony underlying our existence".
Ooh, I look on the back and no female authors listed. Yesterday, The Craftsman promised The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson on the back sleeve but not Deep Simplicity. Oh. What's going on?
Perhaps I shouldn't bother with Science after all. I still have some of my old anthropology books to read, most notably Death Without Weaping - The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil by Nancy Scheper Hughes. It's brilliant, harrowing, engaging but I never finished it.
I also STILL have to do my book reviews on the free books I got two weeks ago. I started Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton the other day on the train but fell asleep. Doesn't really bode well does it but I promised you a book review and a book review you shall get! Just don't hold your breath ok?
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Down and Out in Paris and London
(Free with the Times)
I am an Orwell virgin. I've heard of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four but haven't got round to reading them as I thought, so close to the state am I, that I might find them depressing.
Down and Out in Paris and London is my first foray into Orwellian literature. Were it not free, I would not read this for a while either but reader, if you are an Orwell virgin, I highly recommend it!
His expose of poverty isn't as grimly depressing as this blog; the man does humour! The man does humour well!!
He regales us with descriptions of the people he meets in Paris, even the bugs are personified; as soldiers emigrating to other rooms. The life of a washer upper is no fun (having been one myself) but we get a look into the workings of hotels, the shere cacaphony of having to cook four or five separate meals for two hundred or so people in the space of two hours.The dirt, the hierarchies, the treacherous hours for such little money where sleep becomes the luxury beyond anything else and the bistro at weekends. As a reader, you're swept along with him, smiling as you go.
The feel and mood of London is altogether different. He comes back to look after an 'imbecile' but the job doesn't start for a month. We follow his journeys with 'tramps' and the vicious cycles they are caught in and the lodging houses that will only keep them for a night, so they are forced to keep moving. In Paris the homeless can kip on park benches, in London no. I wondered whether with the council auctioning off hostels to private developers, life for the homeless will return as it was in the 1930's. Hope not....
Their diet of 'tea and two slices', the coffee houses that will rob them if they're paying by meal ticket not cash, Orwell gives it all. He says these people are 'ordinary'. I know this, but I also know that today society still carries huge assumptions about the underbelly of society. That society still thinks these people are 'work shy', druggies, alcholics oh I don't know, I haven't read the Daily Mail for ages.
I really enjoyed this and not just for the short chapters which kept me bouncing along. It is still as topical today as it was then, as illuminating a look at today as it was then. My only gripe, if I'll allow myself a gripe, is that he makes assumptions about women but then in London he didn't really have any contact with them and didn't talk to the one female tramp he met on his road.
Orwell paints a vivid and comic picture of his experience. I'm ready to read Animal Farm on the back of this!
(OK, this is my first 'review'. I hope I haven't put you off a corker of a book. Better I do it though than not do it because well, I said I would didn't I?)
I am an Orwell virgin. I've heard of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four but haven't got round to reading them as I thought, so close to the state am I, that I might find them depressing.
Down and Out in Paris and London is my first foray into Orwellian literature. Were it not free, I would not read this for a while either but reader, if you are an Orwell virgin, I highly recommend it!
His expose of poverty isn't as grimly depressing as this blog; the man does humour! The man does humour well!!
He regales us with descriptions of the people he meets in Paris, even the bugs are personified; as soldiers emigrating to other rooms. The life of a washer upper is no fun (having been one myself) but we get a look into the workings of hotels, the shere cacaphony of having to cook four or five separate meals for two hundred or so people in the space of two hours.The dirt, the hierarchies, the treacherous hours for such little money where sleep becomes the luxury beyond anything else and the bistro at weekends. As a reader, you're swept along with him, smiling as you go.
The feel and mood of London is altogether different. He comes back to look after an 'imbecile' but the job doesn't start for a month. We follow his journeys with 'tramps' and the vicious cycles they are caught in and the lodging houses that will only keep them for a night, so they are forced to keep moving. In Paris the homeless can kip on park benches, in London no. I wondered whether with the council auctioning off hostels to private developers, life for the homeless will return as it was in the 1930's. Hope not....
Their diet of 'tea and two slices', the coffee houses that will rob them if they're paying by meal ticket not cash, Orwell gives it all. He says these people are 'ordinary'. I know this, but I also know that today society still carries huge assumptions about the underbelly of society. That society still thinks these people are 'work shy', druggies, alcholics oh I don't know, I haven't read the Daily Mail for ages.
I really enjoyed this and not just for the short chapters which kept me bouncing along. It is still as topical today as it was then, as illuminating a look at today as it was then. My only gripe, if I'll allow myself a gripe, is that he makes assumptions about women but then in London he didn't really have any contact with them and didn't talk to the one female tramp he met on his road.
Orwell paints a vivid and comic picture of his experience. I'm ready to read Animal Farm on the back of this!
(OK, this is my first 'review'. I hope I haven't put you off a corker of a book. Better I do it though than not do it because well, I said I would didn't I?)
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Free books
Although I pledged myself not to buy any newspapers this week (as it makes me think society's going down the pan and I want to think society's getting better) I could not resist buying The Times on Tuesday when I saw that the paper came with a free book: George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London.
The Times is running a book week about London; a free copy of a classic every day.
Yesterday I scoured all the local newsagents but no copy of The Times included a free book. I jumped on Zat bike, headed to Camden and got Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square. In a minute I will cycle back to Camden for today's free offering and tomorrow again for another.
I have not read fiction for ages. I can't seem to concentrate on it. I have quite a few unread books on my shelf that I want to read but haven't yet. This is a sad state of affairs because I like reading.
So I have decided, that when I get a free book, I will write a 'review' of it. Now I am utterly shit at writing reviews, of books, films, anything really, so generally I don't do it. But just because I can't do something, does it mean that I shouldn't try?
To spur me on, I will post my reviews here on the blog. It may be that this doesn't happen very often. No matter, I want to read more fiction and have decided that this is a way to make me do so. Who knows, I might get better at writing them. If not, it doesn't matter, it just means that being a book reviewer is not my destiny. I don't know what is my destiny, but let's just say I'm entering a process of elimination in order to find out what is.
First up will be the non fictional Down and Out in Paris and London. I'm already finding excuses not to read it for review purposes...weekend away... half term...but I must! There's a whole world of fiction out there crying out for me!! I have to get started on it some how!!
The Times is running a book week about London; a free copy of a classic every day.
Yesterday I scoured all the local newsagents but no copy of The Times included a free book. I jumped on Zat bike, headed to Camden and got Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square. In a minute I will cycle back to Camden for today's free offering and tomorrow again for another.
I have not read fiction for ages. I can't seem to concentrate on it. I have quite a few unread books on my shelf that I want to read but haven't yet. This is a sad state of affairs because I like reading.
So I have decided, that when I get a free book, I will write a 'review' of it. Now I am utterly shit at writing reviews, of books, films, anything really, so generally I don't do it. But just because I can't do something, does it mean that I shouldn't try?
To spur me on, I will post my reviews here on the blog. It may be that this doesn't happen very often. No matter, I want to read more fiction and have decided that this is a way to make me do so. Who knows, I might get better at writing them. If not, it doesn't matter, it just means that being a book reviewer is not my destiny. I don't know what is my destiny, but let's just say I'm entering a process of elimination in order to find out what is.
First up will be the non fictional Down and Out in Paris and London. I'm already finding excuses not to read it for review purposes...weekend away... half term...but I must! There's a whole world of fiction out there crying out for me!! I have to get started on it some how!!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
