Hanky panky with a bit of spanky

Erotic thriller was the description on the back cover of "Be Mine" by Laura Kasischke and yes that was quite correct.  A book that you have to choose the time and place for reading it  and believe me sitting at the cricket surrounded by people was not the time or place. I had to keep closing the book when I became aware that someone was reading over my shoulder and then adjust how I held the book so  I could keep reading. Did I blush...no it takes a bit more than what was on offer to make me do that but I did glance furtively around a couple of times to make sure that no-one else was reading a couple of bits over my shoulder. 

One of the reviews I read said that the book promised everything but failed to deliver - I thought she held the thriller part together quite well and I wasn't able to guess the ending.  But if you don't like hanky panky with a bit of spanky then this book isn't for you.

Next book please...

Romantic interlude

I've finished "the Tiger's Wife" and passed it along to Mandy from bookclub.  I can't say too much about it as that's one of our bookclub rules, no discussing the book until bookclub.  But I will say if you come across a copy, have a read. 

So as I'm still on holiday and I'm putting off starting any admin. work for this coming term, I've grabbed a book off the bookcase.

"The Beachcomber" by Josephine Cox has been sitting on my bookcase for some time now waiting to be read.  The publisher Harper-Collins desribes it as a "page-turning drama about struggle and triumph over adversity..."  The back blurb sounds like a bit more of a "romance after bad luck".  It's got 600 pages so fingers crossed for a good read otherwise back to the bookcase it will go.

The blurb:

In the summer of 1952 two people arrive in the pretty seaside hamlet of West Bay, Dorset to start a new life.

Kathy Wilson dreams of turning the derelict Barden House into a home free of the pain she suffered back in London.  As the summer stretches before her, she watches her cherished dream take glorious shape - though she grows curious about the lonely wanderer who strolls the beach below her window day and night.

His name is Tom Arnold.  He also seeks refuge in West Bay, needing a place to hide when the life he knew was brutally destroyed by tragedy.  Drawn to this aloof loner, Kathy feels a bond forming that will radically change them both.

But the shadows and secrets that haunt Tom and Kathy will not easily be dismissed.  And as two wounded people try to find the courage to open their hearts to love, the past threatens their fragile new beginning....

Sounds like a fairy tale happy ending coming up - nothing too taxing for the holidays...

"the Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht

A new year and a new book for bookclub this month. 

"the Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht

It's a debut novel as was "The Language of Flowers" that we read last month.  Tea Obreht won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 - not bad for a debut book.  Although I've read a couple of other Orange prize winning books and have wondered how they won, so we'll see what this one is like.

The blurb:

"A tiger escapes from the local zoo, padding through ruined streets and onwards, to a ridge above the Balkan village of Galina.  His nocturnal visits hold the villagers in terrified thrall.  But for one boy, the tiger is a thing of magic - Shere Khan awoken from the pages of The Jungle Book.

Natalia is the granddaugher of that boy.  Now a doctor, she is visiting orphanages after another war has devastated the Balkans.  On this journey, she receives word of her beloved grandfather's death, far from their home, in circumstances shrouded in mystery.

From fragments of stories her grandfather told her as a child, Natalia realises he may have died searching for the 'deathless man', a vagabond who was said to be immortal.  Struggling to understand why a man of science would undertake such a quest, she stumbles upon a clue that will lead her to a tattered copy of 'The Jungle Book', and then to the extraordinary story of the tiger's wife."

I'm halfway through the book (much to the detriment of my messy house) and I'm finding the tale intriguing so far. I think I've worked out who the tiger's wife is and I'm definitely wanting to know more about the deathless man, one meeting so far isn't enough.  I do have to put it down tho, because I don't think take away tea two nights in a row is a good thing.

The Language of flowers

Thursday night was our Bookclub's monthly get together to discuss The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.

5 out of the 6 of us loved it - yay!!! always a relief when you're the person who has chosen the book. The 6th thought the story was a bit contrived - also a comment on some of the reviews online - and yes there were a couple of convenient turns but then I didn't think they were too bad.

What we did enjoy most about the book was the meaning of the flowers and how they were incorporated into the storyline.  

After finishing the book one of us saw a wedding and checked out the bride's bouquet only to see that she was carrying yellow roses which mean infidelity. Not a good choice for your bridal flowers.  J resisted the urge to take the flowers away - haha. 

I must check with my sister if she thought of meanings when she made my bridal bouquet - a traditional tussie mussie.

For dessert I tried something new - a triple chocolate mousse cone - mmm tasted good but maybe next time a little bit more Baileys in the middle layer.

What makes a good book?

Cricket season has started and I must say I'm looking forward to reading a few books  watching the boys play again this season.

What makes a good book in your opinion? 

I know one of my friends likes to see growth in the characters. Others have said it needs to be well written, original, have an exceptional storyline, make them laugh, or entertain them and I'm sure there are many more reasons.  Others can only read "real stories" which I find a bit sad, all those wonderful books that they miss out on.

When I attended our friend's book launch it was interesting to listen to people talk about the book's themes and characters.  They picked up on things that I just glossed over as I read and I must admit I ended feeling like I was a bit of a "shallow reader".

I've finished reading "Book of lost threads" by Tess Evans and for me it fulfilled my criteria of what makes a good book.  I really really enjoyed it.  I started Saturday morning and finished it Saturday night. 

I was there, I could see the characters and hear their voices.  I felt their sadness and shared their joy.  I knew exactly what their surroundings looked like and could smell the rain coming. I wondered how I would feel if I was Lily or even Finn.  (Some of you would like the fact that Lily was a keen knitter of tea cosies....)  I also was able to imagine the rest of the characters' lives after I had finished the book. Of course I married a few of them off...


And best of all....I felt like I had been somewhere else while I was reading it.  What more can you ask? 

"A spot of bother" - Mark Haddon

It is Mandy's choice this month for bookclub so we're all reading "A spot of bother" by Mark Haddon.  He also wrote "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time" - a book I started but never finished. 

One of the good things about bookclub is that you do feel obliged to finish reading each month's book.  There's only been one book I didn't complete - well I read the start and I did read the end but just skipped over the middle - and that was "The boy in the striped pyjamas" by John Boyne.  I couldn't read it once I realised that it was about children and concentration camps.  Apparently I read the worse bits and the middle wasn't too bad, but back the new book.

The blurb says:

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything.  "The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely".  Some thing in life, however, can't be ignored.

At 57, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz.  Then Katie, his tempetuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray.  Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has "strangler hands".  Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or love the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues.  And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials.

Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip and quietly begins to lose his mind.

I've read 82 pages so far and everything the blurb says has happened, so I wonder what the other 305 pages are going to be about???

An inappropriate book

Richard gave me a little scare on Friday.  Came out

ready for work and then flopped in the chair with "I don't feel right".  Not at all like him - so googled heart attack (amazing how your mind goes blank) and called an ambulance.

Fortunately my mind stopped being blank and I managed to make all the right phone calls, in between banging on bathroom doors telling the boys to hurry up, running outside to look for the ambulance, putting dogs away, moving furniture, gathering up stuff I might need, oh and checking on Richard.

I even remembered to grab one of the books I'm reading as I figured I might have a bit of spare time at the hospital.

We spent the day in Emergency, inbetween going off for tests, and late in the afternoon Richard was taken off to his room for an overnight stay.  Fortunately all his test results are good and hopefully this was a once off warning about work vs happy life.

I did have some time to read but when I pulled my book out I realised that maybe it wasn't the time and place to read it.

Oops...when your husband's hooked up to a heart monitor a book about what happens to your soul when you die could be considered a little inappropriate.

On the upside he's been given a week off to recuperate and I'm on holidays so I can keep a close (actually very close) eye on him.

"Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout

Picked up the next book for bookclub today.  I love it when I can borrow it from the library, although sometimes I wish I had bought it so I could keep it.

This month's book is - "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout.

Back cover says:

"Olive Kitteridge:  indomitable, compassionate and often unpredictable.  A retired schoolteacher in a small coastal town in Maine, struggling to make sense of the changes in her life as she grows older.  She is a woman who sees into the hearts of other, discerning their triumphs and tragedies.

We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and a young man who aches for the mother he lost - and whom Olive comforts by her mere presence, while her own son feels tyrannized by her overbearing sensitivities.

A penetrating, vibrant exploration of the human soul in need, Olive Kitteridge will make you laugh, nod in recognition, wince in pain and shed a tear or two."

Apparently the book is a collection of 13 connected stories about Olive and her immediate family and friends so it will be interesting to see how it flows as I read it.

It has been published under another name as well "On the Coast of Maine". It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2009, and was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award.

As usual I'm looking forward to reading it but...the print size is really small and while I don't have glasses yet sometimes I think the time is getting near when I will need them.

"The little stranger"

I'm having a real reading frenzy at the moment.  I can't wait to find 5 minutes spare to read another few pages.  I love it when I'm in one of these moods.

I finished "The little stranger" on Sunday morning.  It was enjoyable, but I wouldn't necessarily say that you had to rush out and find a copy to read. 

Onto the next book while the mood still grabs me...fortunately my wonderful neighbour had given me a book last week that I've had on my must read list.

Not a good picture of the front cover but I'm hoping for a really good interesting read from this one.

The back cover says:

Many of us have questions about the passage of life and often wonder what happens when we die.  In this amazingly insightful book by medium/clairvoyant, Lisa Williams, evidence of the Afterlife is explored.  Through various channels such as meditation, psychic readings, communication with her spirit guides, and a personal near-death experience, Lisa delves into the journey of the soul.  In the process, she discusses the different stages of the Afterlife, and reveals what life is really like on the other side.

This book addresses the myriad questions many of us have surrounding this subject, especially if we've gone through the painful experience of having lost loved ones.  Lisa provides a reassuring glimpse into this fascinating topic by exploring the pathway to the Afterlife and then to reincarnation, with the realisation that death is not final, but rather a transition into the world beyond - a place that should be honoured, not feared.

I can't wait to get started...

The little stranger - Sarah Waters

This book was recommended by one of the mum's at work and I borrowed it from the library on Sunday - love libraries, especially when they have the book I want on the shelf ready to borrow.

I know the front cover isn't very interesting but the book is...

The back cover write up is:

In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall.  Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline.  It's masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine.  It's owners - mother, son and daughter - are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own.

But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?

I'm really enjoying it.  A ghost story - or is it?  Who is the little stranger?  I've just met him for the first time or did I?  Maybe the brother is going mad...hmmm...I'll have to keep reading to find out.

I haven't read a ghostie story for a long time - as a child there was a series of book around that I loved to read - shame I can't remember what they were called.  Mum always said the same thing every night - "don't read that before you go to sleep, you'll have bad dreams".  Of course I read them while laying in bed and of course half way through the night I'd be awake and scared. 

Tom liked the scary books too around the same age, although "Goosebumps" was the series he read. He must be braver than me tho, because I don't ever recall him waking me up in the middle of the night scared.

Maybe I'll hand this book to him when I'm finished with "I think you'll like this".