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.A Perfect Revenge
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Annabel Dilke

September 03, 2007
This book was recommended to me by Amazon based on my previous purchases of Clare Chamber's books (In A Good Light, Learning To Swim, The Editor's Wife, incidentally all rollicking good reads) and having read the other reviews I thought I'd give it a try. I'm so glad that I did and am now eagerly awaiting delivery of her other books.

I found this to be a gripping read and the plot moves seamlessly from the past to the present. The hatred between the two families is totally gripping and I was reading well into the small hours desperate to find out WHAT caused the rift in friendship. As a previous reviewer mentions their are some great twists in this story, likewise one I guessed and one I didn't.

The characters are ... Read More:
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.Remember Me?
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Sophie Kinsella

February 11, 2008
A friend let me borrow her copy of this book and I must say, its not the sort of book I would normally choose. However, I was inbetween Amazon deliveries and books just read so I decided to give it a go.

This book made me giggle, it kept me entertained, it was light hearted escapism. It was like watching Heartbeat on a Sunday evening. It was a warm and cosy read. I liked it!

I was crying at the end, not because I was sad or that it was a sad ending. It was a lovely, happy ending and THAT is why I cried, because it was so happy!! Does that make sense?

A good read and I will probably try some of Sophie Kinsellas other novels now.
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.Night Monkey, Day Monkey
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Julia Donaldson

April 01, 2002
A wonderful read aloud for 1 and 2 year olds. Lovely illustrations and nice story but just doesn't quite have the pazzazz of the gruffalo and her other books (we own the lot). Too basic for my four year old but my one year old really enjoys it.
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.The Careful Use of Compliments: Careful Use of Compliments v. 4 (Sunday Philosophy Club)
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Alexander McCall Smith

August 07, 2008
A wonderful read aloud for 1 and 2 year olds. Lovely illustrations and nice story but just doesn't quite have the pazzazz of the gruffalo and her other books (we own the lot). Too basic for my four year old but my one year old really enjoys it.
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.Norwegian Wood
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Haruki Murakami

May 17, 2001
I read one Murakami book a few years back, couldn't make head nor tail of it, and forgot about him. Then I picked this up in a charity shop and was intrigued and then totally immersed as I read it in a couple of days. The variety of the responses here is interesting too.

At heart, the plot is very simple: teenager falls in love with his best friend's girl, but the relationship is stuck. Enter a second girl, who he also loves. Add lots and lots of one night stands with anonymous other girls, and there you have it. It's set in the late 60s but the period doesn't really come through; adding a few Beatles songs does not make it a novel about the 60s.

Sure, the lead character's detachment is unsettling, and the two girl friends ... Read More:
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.First Among Sequels
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Jasper Fforde

July 24, 2008
There is a whole lot going on in this book, maybe too much. There are several episodes that are totally self contained and seem to be included as padding to make the book longer. I found it quite hard to figure out what this book was all about. There were so many plots, sub plots and sub sub plots that I lost the main thrust of the book. Fforde has so many clever ideas, its a pity he tried to cram too many into one book. It felt like the middle book in a trilogy - the one that sets the secen for the big climax in the last book.
On the plus side, I really enjoyed the scenes with Thursday and her family. The eccentric Nexts have always been a higlight of the series for me and it looks like te next generation of Nexts are going to be a kooky as the ... Read More:
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.We Need to Talk About Kevin (Five Star Paperback)
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Lionel Shriver

May 09, 2006
Lionel Shriver's epistolary novel "We Need To Talk About Kevin" recounts the childhood of Kevin Katchadourian through the eyes of his mother, Eva. Kevin commits mass murder at the age of 16, and through letters to her husband, Franklin, Eva attempts to find clues in his upbringing.

This is a complex, intelligent novel that asks more questions than it answers. The author never shies from controversial artistic choices. Kevin appears to be born a sociopath rather than made so through emotional neglect or abuse. Eva admits not bonding with her son. And, while some readers may end up frustrated by the conflicting perceptions in the book, I found it raised thought-provoking questions; the author cites enough examples of US high-school mass murders where the ... Read More:
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.The Vows of Silence
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Susan Hill

June 05, 2008
I'm really sorry but I cannot agree with these sparkling reviews of Susan Hill's "Vows of Silence" I found the continual trials and tribulations of Simon's family extremely irritating, - they really did go on and on - ex-girlfiend and all! It was pretty easy to guess the guilty party quite early on, and the so-called "Red Herrings" were so obvious they were more like "Great White Whales" I have not read any of these Simon Serrailler
stories before, but none of the support characters struck me as being very interesting, - or necessary - and there were far too many of them.
And a bit of humour here and there would not have been out of place amidst all that gloom and doom. Doesn't anyone in Lafferton ever have a laugh? I read this book fresh from reading R.D. Wingfields ... Read More:
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.The Handmaid's Tale (Contemporary Classics)
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Margaret Atwood

January 03, 1998
A truly great book, particular for those who have cold feet about Speculative Fiction (aka Sci Fi). A post-apocalyptic take on loss, resistance, feminism and social order of the patriarchal kind, The Handmaid's Tale avoids both cliche and the pretensions that can often plague even the best of novels with political undertows. I can think of few books which so well capture the sense of radical transformation and dislocation that must come with what someone once called the 'orgasms of history', those decisive events that change utterly social structures and somehow drag individuals along with them, even though people remain dominated by much the same loves and hopes they always were. The evocations of ritual, ceremony and punishment are particularly disturbing and resonant, even viscerally ... Read More:
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.Wuthering Heights (Penguin Popular Classics)
City Travel Guides > Books > By Period
by: Emily Bronte

January 13, 1994
I've lost count of the number of times I've read this; but every time something else jumps out at me. There is something so different and hard to pin down - indefinable - about what exactly it is that makes this book so unique.

Heathcliffe and the first Catherine are almost demented in their wild passions - almost as if Emily Bronte were taking the idea of romance and passion to in insane extreme - and one of the strongest themes in the book is whether the lovers meet again after death. It seems incredible that at the two houses no one seems to shop, either for clothes or food - there is little interest in normal human bodily life or functions. A Bronte scholar, Thomas Moser, believed that Emile Bronte wrote the final famous sentence to the book without irony. "...wondered ... Read More:
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