Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
-
Book Review – Pearl Moon
Written and sent in by Cathy:
This is the book that I received as my prize in the February giveaway… and wow it sure was a great read. Having only ever read one book by Katherine Stone, and I loved every word of it, I had high expectations of this one…. and it didn’t disappoint. I gobbled it up and was actually quite sad when I finished it. Katherine Stone writes in such an easy style that you don’t even notice how many pages you read at a time and then discover you’re halfway through already!
The story revolves around two sisters who don’t know they are sisters… their father… the one’s mother and then a few grandparents and significant others thrown in…. It’s four love stories that are intertwined and set in the booming city of Hong Kong in 1994, around the building of a hotel building.
The book might be “fluffy” and “chick lit” but it definitely makes you question your prejudices and the reasons why we sometimes think like we do. Well worth the read.
Thanks Cathy, I am so glad you enjoyed it!
-
When God was a Rabbit and other stories
I have just finished reading ‘When God was a Rabbit’ by Sarah Winman. I enjoyed it totally.It was a breath of fresh air to read, simple and eloquent, the words just poured off the page into my reading eyes and I did not want it to end.
It is a simple story, about a brother and a sister, about love, about triumphs and tragedy. And everything inbetween. If you are looking for an easy to read, but enjoyable book, I would recommend this.
Before this, I read
Mr Rosenblum’s list- Natasha Solomons – which again, I thoroughly enjoyed.
The Millenium Trilogy- Steig Larson – un put downable, if you haven’t read it yet, you really really should.
The Thirteenth Tale- Diane Setterfield- in a similar vein to Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger and if you enjoyed that, you should enjoy this one. I did!
The Passage – Justin Cronin – a very bizarre novel, which makes one wonder about the state of the American Government and what could happen, if people are allowed to mess with genetics and viruses. I enjoyed it but did find it a bit slow going at times. If you are looking for something sci-fi’ish then this is a good one to go for.
Dark Visions – LJ Smit – in a similar vein to Stephanie Meyer and the Twilight series, but focuses less on vampires. More on special gifts that a group of teenagers have and the perils they are exposed to. It is a young adult book and definitely readable.
And that is where I am at at the moment. How I still manage to find time to read is a mystery, but one cannot keep me away from books for long!
Now tell me, What have you been reading?
-
Jungle Drums book review for toddlers
Jungle Drums by Graeme Base is a brilliant book. I discovered his books when I found a book called ‘Uno’s Garden’, which is just as brilliant as Jungle Drums, in the library.
I and my daughter fell in love with the book, and it was a firm favourite for the entire two weeks we had the book.
I then discovered Jungle Drums and again, it is a firm favourite with my daughter and it is read every time we have a reading session.
The story is about Ngiri, the smallest warthog in Africa, who is teased by the other animals who are bigger and more beautiful. Nyumbu, the wildebeest, meets Ngiri in the jungle and gives him a pair of bongo drums. Drums that can grant wishes. Of course, Ngiri wishes to not be the smallest warthog in Africa so he won’t get teased.
Within all the pages, one can find Nyumbu hidden in the foliage and to be honest, I am still struggling to find her on one of the pages. There are hidden animals and differences of those animals as you go through the book.
It is entertaining and moralistic and can provide fun for both the reader and the readee! Especially when you consider that the reader has to read the book countless times at least it can keep both parties entertained!
-
Book review -GENE616 by Brian Walker
This review was sent in by Seth Brant.
Just read this book called GENE616 by Brian Walker.
It was the most amazing book I ever read.
In it the author takes the story of the creation as told in Genesis and Revelation as a real record and then tells the story of how the events “described” in the bible really occurred. For example; his explanation for how the garden of Eden got its name was that they were discussing where they would build the biodome or “garden” on the planet’s surface and they picked a spot at the head of four rivers just as described in the bible.
Then another character in the book says that his team conducted a site survey of that area and it is a marshy area and suggests that they contruct the biodome on a dryer spot a little to the east – again just as it reads in the bible. Then when the Captain asks for the map coordinates the officer traces the coordinates on the top and side of the map ED by EN and voila – there you have it – the garden of “Eden.”
The author does the same thing with how the animals got their names, where the name Zion came from, War in Heaven, the number of the beast – even the word GENE sis or in the book GENE 616. If you know your scriptures you will be amazed! It was also a pretty good love story two. Adam and Eve are the ultimate love story and he really does it justice.
I LOVED THIS BOOK. I have read it three times and every time I do I find something new. I highly recommend it to all my friends.
Thanks Seth, I have to say, you have definitely peaked my interest in reading it. I have just done a Kalahari search for it and can’t find it on their website, and then found it on Amazon for kindle. So, for you Kindle fundies out there who need something to read, why not give this ago.
Has anyone else read it?
-
Cloud Atlas
So, the month of love finally draws to a close and we will have a winner for the Love book competition in a few days.
But I wanted to write my review about Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.
As I have said before, The Man recommended this book to me. Pretty much on our first date and considering that when he was ‘courting’ me, he said that one of his favourite authors was Tom Robbins – my ultimate favourite favourite – and that I had seen David Mitchell’s books around and was fairly attracted to his covers I thought, cool a new author to discover.Well, four years later I still hadn’t read it and it being sat on my bookshelf for a year (it was my birthday present last year) and after NEEDING something to read, I thought, right I’ll do it. I will, if only to stop the jibes whenever I bemoan the fact I have nothing to read, ‘read Cloud Atlas’.
And I did. It was hard going in the beginning. It begun to redeem itself in the sort of middle and then went down hill from there. I struggled through it and honestly,even left it for about a week while I read some other stuff as it was really hard going. I eventually finished it (and I am not the usual reader who will finish a book even if I am not enjoying it but I persevered with this one just to prove a point) and I did not enjoy it.
It had a great thread and his writing is good, but the actual story just didn’t really make much sense in the end. There was no meat in the story, just the basic aroma of a good novel, which doesn’t taste as good as it might smell.
Futuristic, not enough substance but great story telling. I can see how someone would enjoy it, but I found the ending bland.
Have you read it? Did you enjoy it?
-
Sweet as candy
I vaguely remember seeing this book at Exclusive Books, and then I found it last week at the library and seeing as though I am a fan of chick lit books it headed home with me.
Saturday afternoon rolled around and with my daughter sleeping I had some spare time and decided to read, but, (and if you read my last post you will know) I am reading Cloud Atlas at the moment – a new to me author- and it was a at a rather hairy part of just being a little difficult to read and I really didn’t feel like concentrating on a different time dialect. So, I picked this up for some light relief.
And I loved it! The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen is magical. Light and fluffy but with a little bit of substance, pretty much like a freshly baked chocolate brownie;-)
This novel is about friendship, love, what we do to not love and the possibilities of a new day. There is a small twist at the end, which one does suspect closer to the end of the book but if you are a very perceptive reader, you could pick it up earlier and just adds to the magical dimension of this story. Not too much that it doesn’t feel real though.
I read it in about 3/4 a day (luckily the man was on hand to play football with the little one…) and if you are looking for something easy to read but that definitely has a feel good vibe, read this:-)
-
Book review – Helen of Troy
I had never read anything by Margaret George until this book and I have to say, I am seriously impressed.I found this book while I was out searching for something to read at a nearby booksale (three for R100 and this was one of them) and I loved it.
Margaret takes the myth of Helen and weaves it into a story of love, war, passion and forgiveness. It is a stunning novel and I am amazed at how anyone could write anything like it!
We experience young Helen’s discovery of her divine origin and terrifying beauty, all told in her own voice. She remains shielded from the eyes of strangers until she is of marriageable age and then at only 15 kings and princes compete for her hand in marriage. She weds Menelaus and settles into a life of apparent contentment and bears him a daughter. But when she sets eyes on Paris from Troy, she realises the passion and love that has been missing in her own marriage and they elope to Troy. The rest of the novel is how the Trojan War began and how it ended.
It is a beautiful novel and if you are interested in historical novels, I urge you to read this.
(and if any of you, have read it, let me know what you thought!)
-
The Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follet
I eventually read this book!
It has been on countless best seller lists and when I was in the UK a couple of years back, this was the Next Best Thing. It was huge, had been on the Richard and Judy show aswell as Oprah and when ever there is huge hype over a book, I get pulled in two directions. One – is it as good as they say it is should I read it? or, nah, def cant be as good as they say it is, wont read it.
I did start it two years ago, I booked it out of the library and read the first chapter. I couldn’t really get into it, so abandoned it for another time. That another time was recently, and I couldn’t put it down. I took it out from book club, thinking I really must read this and see what all the hype was about and I am very glad I did.
Hugely enjoyable book, hugely rich in its tapestry of stories of the characters lives, how the lives are intermingled, the violence that abounds still to this day but maybe not quite in the form of the 12th century, and the building of Kingsbridge cathedral, the first Gothic cathedral in England. I have always enjoyed historical novels and this one fit the bill for me.
So, if you haven’t yet read this book for the same reasons I hadn’t, put aside your doubts and just read it for what it is. A really great story.
(and now, time to get my hands on the second book… World without end.)
-
The Love Verb – Jane Green and a give away!
This book was on my Christmas Wish List but last week I was in my favourite second hand book store purchasing some books as gifts, when I found it. ( I always do a mandatory check for which ever book I am currently on the look out for) and was very pleasantly surprised to find this one. Of course, I bought it, it was literally half price, which is a bargain!
My verdict?
It is a beautiful heart wrenching book, it had me in tears in one section and I literally could not put it down. In fact, I read it in one day. I shirked all duties to finish it and loved it. It made me ponder on real life stuff, relationships, love, you know all the usual things one gets from a ‘chick lit’ author but it truly was an extremely sad, but uplifting book. Full of serious stuff but also the lighthearted, it really has a great balance.
The blurb-
Love is not an abstract idea. It is not saying ‘I’m here for you, let me know if you need me’. It’s making the decision, when someone close to you is in trouble, about what you will DO to fix as much as you can for them. It’s a ‘doing’ thing. A verb. For Callie, love is about looking after her family – her husband and two children – and their beautiful home. For Steff, Callie’s younger sister, love is about experiencing all that life has to offer without having to ever settle down. For Lila, Callie’s best friend, love is about finding a soulmate. And when she meets divorced father-of-two Eddie, she knows her search is over. For Walter and Honor, Callie and Steff’s divorced parents, love is about caring for the daughters they share. Then Callie gets some life-changing news. And suddenly the whole family is about to understand what ‘love’ really, really means….
This book was dedicated to one of Jane Greens friends who passed away recently and if I were her friend, I would of been seriously impressed with this book.
One of her best, for sure!
So, in keeping with the festivities of this time of year, I have one copy of this book to giveaway. Open to anywhere in South Africa and all you need to do is leave a comment. Random.org will choose the winner on Monday 20th of December. Just think , you may receive another Chrismas gift that you weren’t expecting!
-
The Last Dragonslayer – Jasper Fforde
As most of you know, I received this book through The Book Blogger Holiday Swop and was seriously looking forward to getting stuck in.
It only took me a couple of days to read, due to it being a smaller book than his usual fare. It probably would of taken less time to read if I had had uninterrupted reading time, but alas, that was not to be.
I really enjoyed this, it was short, sweet and had the characteristic Jasper Fforde characters. If you haven’t read him before, this is not a bad one to start off with.
The storyline:
‘Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for soothsayers and sorcerers, but work is drying up. Drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and even magic carpets are reduced to pizza delivery.
So, it’s a surprise when the visions start.Not only do the predict the death of the Last Dragon at the hands of a Dragonslayer, they also point to Jennifer, and say something is coming. Big Magic…’
This is an easy to read book, with a twist and a turn that isn’t expected. It has the greedy power mongers vs the caring dragonslayer, and it doesn’t fail to deliver.
I enjoyed this book immensely, and I think it would make a great gift for Christmas especially a young adult, or someone who enjoys a bit of fantasy (but not too much and more tongue in cheek, than the usual fantasy fare0.
Go on, give it a go and then let me know what you think…
Members
Book Blogs
- As Usual I need more book shelves
- Being Brazen Books
- Cats Bookclub
- Chick with Books
- Dolce Bolezza
- One more chapter
Recent Posts
- Bean in the Bookshop
- PACT BOOK DRIVE 2012
- Books Books Books
- Review- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
- Review:Love in the time of Cholera- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
TAGS
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009