Latest reads

I have been a bit slack with my reading and my blog lately, the main reason being that I am studying and working full-time and just ran out of time. I also have two other blogs, both work-related and I guess those have to take priority. Anyway, I have been reading. On my Kindle, I am reading Lord of the Rings. I promised my husband that if he read Twilight, I would read LOR. He honoured the agreement, and I am just getting round to honouring my part of the deal. I have to admit, I am enjoying it. However, my Kindle had a terminal crash, which was disappointing, but the fabulous support at Amazon Kindle, in particular Melanie, replaced it immediately. I am so impressed with the service provided by Amazon Kindle. No hassles, no issues, just a good, fair, and friendly, personal service. Anyway, my Kindle issue is all resolved now and I am back into reading LOR.

In the meantime, however, I have also been reading paperback books. The first was The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. I have read her other books (The Forgotten Garden and The House at Riverton) and really enjoyed them. I did enjoy this one too, but I have to admit that I did prefer the others. I am not sure why, but I felt the characters were stronger in the other two books and I cared about what happened to them. This one, I didn't become as attached. The story is very good and the twists and turns keep you guessing to the end, but it just feels a bit frustrating. Perhaps I was in the wrong mood.

The Sunday Times is currently offering Waterstones vouchers enabling you to choose from a different title every week and buy it for 99p. I bought Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. I absolutely love the film, and I am delighted to say that it was pretty true to the book. The story focuses around a published author who has been writing his next best-seller for the past seven years, while spending most of that time stoned, teaching, and getting married or having affairs. It got a little bit lost in the middle, but it was actually really good to read. I have to admit the film version of Grady Tripp was far more tolerable than the book version, but Crabtree remains the same in both. At one point, I really didn't like Grady in the book, and I did wonder why I was reading the book, but I was determined to persevere, and as it came to the end when everything came together, I found that I had discovered a new and interesting author. I also enjoyed the way the author focused so much on the skill of writing. Anyway, I shall be checking out some of his other books in the future.

And, if you fancy something fresh and new, check out Padraig De Brún (my husband), who has launched his novel and his short stories via three blogs:

• A Good Man - his novel
• Songs, Poems, Stories - short stories based on folk songs
• Tumbledown Fairies - gorgeous, children's stories.

Enjoy :-)

Hope springing from ashes

I thought I had read all of Alice Hoffman's books, but I haven't. I found The Green Angel, a sad, but also beautiful tale, and quite poignant at this time where a number of natural disasters have recently occurred. This story tells the story of a girl who has lost her entire family to a disaster. It is so tragic, but tells of kindness and hope. It is a lovely, inspiring story, and very magical. There are lovely descriptions of asparagus soup and chestnut bread, and I love Ghost the greyhound. There was quite a lot of sadness in the first half of the book, but understandably so, and just like the perfect fairytale, as the girl is kindly in her activities, she is rewarded and her life begins to turn around. Life will never be the same, but her despair disappears.

Storytelling at its best!

Once again, I took advantage of the 3 for 2 at Waterstones. I bought Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri. I loved The Namesake, and this one is good, although quite sad. It is a compilation of short stories describing the differences in experiences of immigrant parents and their children. They just all seemed to be a bit lost. It was engrossing though and very vivid. I felt that all the characters were so real, and perhaps that is what made me feel quite emotional about it.

The next book I read was, The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. I loved this one and became completely lost in the creativity. The story was so clever, jumping through three generations, across two continents, while unravelling a mystery, and changing complete writing style, by including fairy tales, created by a fictional author. It was just fantastic, and the fairy tales, so beautiful. I just couldn't put it down.

Latest readings...

My mother-in-law left a Maeve Binchy for me to read, Quentins. It was a lovely story, set around a restaurant in Dublin and focused on several people. It was quite dramatic in places, with extra-marital affairs, fraud, but also love, friendship, everything required to make al lovely read.

I have also read another of Elinor Lipman's books, Isabel's Bed, which, although it wasn't as good as my favourite, was sufficiently entertaining. It also had my dream job, ghost-writing, by the sea...actually, anything by the sea would be good.

I caught up with The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the fairytale book in Harry Potter, written by JK Rowling. It was very interesting because each story was followed by commentary by Professor Dumbledore. Very inventive.