Review One - book group at a distance

Matilda by Roald Dahl

The postman brought me a wonderful envelope this morning - a note from my nephew, his chosen nickname for these posts and also his first three book reviews.

By lucky coincidence some of the reviews were for Roald Dahl books and today, 13th September, is #RoaldDahlDay so what better time to post?

The Kentishbookboy has a guideline from school on how they'd like him to write book reviews and so I will keep that format for his contributions on, and also try to tailor my reviews of our shared books to the same format. (His thoughts are in purple and mine in brown.)

First up Matilda:

Synopsis:
Matilda's parents are rather mean to her. But, she is a genius and has some extraordinary plans up her sleeve to prove them wrong.

Matilda is the second (and unwanted) child in the Wormwood family and she really doesn't fit in with them. Books are her saviour and at home she quickly learns how to use her knowledge to get the better of her family. School also comes with its own problems but a good teacher and Matilda's brain come together to a great solution.

Dilemma:
Matilda had to deal with a terrifying Trunchbull, mean parents and an ignorant brother.

Matilda has to learn how to cope with her terrible family and bullying (from a teacher) at school.

Morals/Themes:
Family is an important theme in Matilda. Both Matilda and Miss Honey had been living tough lives in their homes.
Education is another important feature in this book. Matilda and Miss Honey both realise that reading is key to their knowledge.

I think the big theme here is the importance of books, reading and education and how the things you learn from them are more than just school lessons. I also think that the idea of family can be more than blood relatives is important.

Recommendation:
First of all, I really enjoyed the book. I think Roald Dahl has a unique way of storytelling. Out of 5 stars, I would rate it 5 stars. I totally recommend Matilda to other people.

I agree with Kentishbookboy - this is a 5 star book and one that I think should be on all recommended reading lists - child or adult!

I am really pleased that Kentishbookboy loved this book as much as I do.  I came across Roald Dahl during a holiday to the Channel Islands as a child *but* only by stealing borrowing my sister's books. Before this summer she hadn't been an enthusiastic reader but fell in love with Dahl's books on holiday and we both raced through them!

I think that Matilda is either my favourite or 2nd favourite Dahl book and while I wasn't so keen on the RSC musical back in 2011 it was wonderful to revisit it earlier this year with my sister and the Kentishbookboy. I've come to terms with the plot changes and this time was totally swept away by the whole thing - something that I think is true for the others!

As for The Umbrella Mouse - we all finished it last night (with only 5 chapters left it was a longer read but we *couldn't* stop! We're all thinking about the book and the review will be coming soon!

August Reading Round Up

August saw me reading fewer books that in recent months but this was a for a great reason - Mr Norfolkbookworm and I have been on an American road trip.

We've visited Seattle, taken an overnight Amtrak train and then spent nearly 2 weeks in National Parks (Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Tetons) with the culmination of the trip being the 2017 Solar Eclipse.

The whole trip was amazing - we did visit bookstores and I did find a theatre! The highlights however have to be the scenery, the wildlife and of course the eclipse. I can't pick a 'top' thing from our experiences and you can find my photos (edited - we took 5000+ between us!) on my Flickr pages.

Thanks to the long flights and also to the unhurried itinerary I did still read 19 books in August. It wasn't a stellar month for books but there were a few standouts...

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar - this was sent to me for review and I loved it so much I'm part of the blog tour later in September.

Logical Family by Armistead Maupin - I've loved Maupin's books for years and the chance to read his autobiography in proof form was a great way to get over the holiday blues.  It is very frank and won't be for all but I enjoyed it a lot and was moved and amused by it.

Whitstable Hightide Swimming Club by Katie May - this was another book provided by the publisher for review and again it just hit the spot. My review will be out as part of a blog tour in September.

There were no duds in the month, and a couple of re-reads but most of the books have faded into the background because of our trip!

February Reading Round Up

February was another book filled month for me and for the first time in a while when I've looked back through my journal I can see that it was a month in which I read a lot of young adult fiction.

This was unintentional, one book did just lead to another but I don't think I've read so many in one go since I worked in book retail.  I'd forgotten how good they can be and reading for pleasure is what it is all about after all!

Highlights this month included those that I have blogged about here and here and I blame the latter for the number of sequels and reworkings I have gone on to read this month - these including A Little in Love by Susan Fletcher (Les Miserables retold for a teen audience from Eponine's point of view) and Lydia by Natasha Farrant (Pride and Prejudice from Lydia's point of view).

Another sort of sequel that I enjoyed was recommended by a friend at a book group meeting. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R King introduces a young woman to a mostly retired Sherlock Holmes and as she can almost match his intellectual powers they join forces to solve mysteries.  I think I will go on and read some more in the series but I did have an element of unease as I read this - the historically accuracy was a little out (WW1 dates in particular) and the close relationship of such a young woman with an older man was just a little creepy at times, although the action did mostly occur when Mary Russell was over 18.

Thanks to Netgalley I also got to read Katherine Woodfine's The Painted Dragon which again is a simple younger teen mystery.  I didn't know that this was the third part of an on going series when I started it and I'm pleased to say that it didn't matter as the book stood perfectly on its own but yet made me want to read the prequels. Happily for me a friend has reviewed this book on her blog so you can read more about it there.

In adult fiction the stand out this month was the next installment of Jack Sheffield's series of being a head teacher during the 1980s, these books cover my primary school years wonderfully and it is a slice of true nostalgia reading them.  Winters really were colder and snowier then even in my home county of Kent rather than the Yorkshire of the books.  Star Teacher is the tenth in the series and it is like catching up with old friends when a new book comes along.

There's one more book that blew me away in February but it was so special it deserves a whole post to itself - which will be coming very soon!

Geek counting

Number crunching the books.

A near disaster with a glass of water and 11 years of  reading diaries saw me decide to type up all the books I've listed in various diaries and journals over the past decade.

It has (unsurprisingly) taken me quite a while to get through the various notebooks and diaries, and while I don't have the stereotypical doctor handwriting sometimes deciphering my notes was interesting.  I'm also pretty sure that I've lost a couple of months from 2009 - I can't believe that I only read 8 books in three months even with a trip to Canada and a new job.

The stats from January 2005 to December 2015 are now crunched and even I was quite surprised to discover that in ten years I'd noted 2973 books.

It is very clear that when I still worked in book retail I read a lot more, however I was a children's specialist and for several years part of the team responsible for selecting the 5-8 book of the month meaning that every month I read an awful lot of shorter reads. At some point in my record keeping I decided not to note down what are commonly known as 'picture books' - everything has 48 pages or more.

Since starting work in the library I can see that I read a lot more non fiction and that I take a lot more gambles on my reading, there is no pattern at all to what I read - I really will try anything.

One thing that also came through from my notes is just how often I re-read a few authors, a couple of these are typical mid-twentieth century school/family story authors and the third is a contemporary, feminist, fantasy author.  On average I read many of the books by these authors once a year.
I was a little surprised that books I consider favourites, such as Little Women, don't feature highly on my rereads list but other books by Alcott, such as Eight Cousins, reoccur much more often.

Some books that I felt sure would appear on this list aren't there and I wonder if it is because I read them before 2005 or if I just didn't note them which is possible, until I found the right journal:

This lets me list the author, title, date read and gives me a line for notes about the book and the layout lets me note my reading for two years in each volume.*

What I found interesting reading back through all of the lists was just how many of these books I could actually remember in some detail. A few I hadn't listed the author but as soon as I popped the books in to a search engine it all came flooding back, looking at the dates I read some books also stirred memories, some good and some less good. Looking at some titles I am instantly transported back to where I read them - Greek beaches, slow trains, plane journeys the lot.

Right all of this typing has eaten into my reading time and as today has been designated #readabookday I'd better get on with it.

*On looking for a picture of my preferred reading diary I've discovered it is now out of print so I am off to bulk order the ones left in stock.

Top Ten Theatre of 2014

That Time of the Year Again

In a year where I have seen 36 pieces of theatre live and 4 broadcast as live plays narrowing down to just five was impossible and even now I think that my frequent companion, Rebecca, will disagree with my rankings at the very least.

I have had several outings to the theatre with my nephew and while all of the productions we saw together were magical this year they haven't made the top 10 but rest assured theatre aimed at the under 10s is excellent and I had a lot of fun watching them and sharing my love of live theatre with him.

So with no further ado my top 10 are:

1. Lord of the Flies
2. Red Velvet
3. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. My Night With Reg
6. The Scottsboro Boys
7. Oh! What a Lovely War
8. Another Country
9. A Bunch of Amateurs
10. Pitcairn

A real mixture of genres here and it was very hard to narrow it down to just 10, so many plays nearly made the grade.  I shan't list my least favourite plays - I think the reviews speak for themselves!

As I already have my first trip of 2015 planned for January 3rd I think it is fair to say that 2015 will also be theatre filled!

That was 2011...

The obligatory review of the year post.

Hmmm... 2011 turned out to be the year of theatre rather than the year of books, which wasn't something I predicted last January.

In fact in 2011 I actually only read 141 books. This is probably the lowest number since I learned to read. More shockingly for those who know me is that I only read 18 books meant for children or young adults.

In contrast I saw 19 plays/musicals live at the theatre and 3 plays as part of the National Theatre Live. I saw four stand up comedians and saw 3 episodes of a radio comedy taped. I also did one behind the scenes theatre tour, saw one major art exhibition and went to a classical music/carol concert at the Royal Albert Hall. No wonder I didn't have that much time for reading.

More surprising than the lack of books this year is how little any of them stand out. I do think that the top few books from my self imposed World Book Night challenge are probably the best books I read all year. In fact apart from them I think that some of the plays I read this year are my personal 'bests' for 2011.

I've been thinking about this for a while because I am an occasional poster on the Norfolk Library Book review Blog and we were asked for our top reads of the year. I was looking through my reading diary and what quickly became clear was that it was the books I loathed that stuck out more clearly and this became the post Turkeys of 2011.

So I wonder what 2012 has in store?
More theatre that is for certain, more films too as already there are several being trailed that look exciting. I am hoping that I read more, and enjoy more books in 2012 but I will settle for quality over quantity...

As for resolutions - well I think that will have to be to actually get over my mental block about books I have to read for book groups. And on that note I suppose I should stop blogging and get back to Doctor Zhivago!

Happy New Year!

Bedtime Stories

The Reading Promise , 3218 nights of reading with my father by Alice Ozma

I've had this book on reserve in the library for a couple of months, in fact as soon as I read the pre-publication blurb I knew that I wanted to read this book.

The jacket reads

"When Alice was nine years old, she and her father - a beloved school librarian - made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights. upon reaching that goal, they decided to to continue what became known as The Streak for as long as they possibly could."

I've mentioned before the memories I have of being read to (Dad, why did we never read The Horse and his Boy when reading the Narnia books?) and so this book was always going to appeal. And when it finally arrived I read it in one day.

I think I thought it would be more about the books the pair shared, why they chose them and what they thought of them. It wasn't really like that.

This was the story of Alice's childhood and teenage years with her single parent dad with some mention of the time they spent reading together, there was very little about the books themselves.

It was an enjoyable read, but it wasn't what I was expecting and to be honest without the 'hook' of the 3218 nights I'm not sure that the book would have ever crossed the Atlantic to the UK. On the plus side it was lovely to read a book that was so positive about reading and about the father-daughter relationship, but it was a bit too 'touchy-feely' for me as a rule.

I think that as an avid reader the one thing that disappointed me the most was this closing paragraph:

"My father and I had no idea what The Streak would become and therefore never made a list of the books we read. Many have been forgotten"

they do go on to list some that they remember but as someone who has kept a reading diary for the last decade I wanted to know what they read and what they thought of the books.

Spoilers

I realise that currently I don't so much review on this blog but more talk generally about my impressions of what I have read or seen. This is because I live in fear of the dreaded spoiler.

There is nothing worse than reading a review and all of a sudden a major plot twist is revealed. There has been a lot written about this recently as the current chief writer for Doctor Who was very disappointed and angry when details of the new series were released on the web by a fan after a special screening.

If you chose to read the last page of the book to find out what happens then that is a personal choice, to have this read to you is a problem. However where do you draw the line? Take for instance my recent trip to see Much Ado About Nothing. The play itself was written over 400 years ago so isn't new but I for one had never read or seen it before the weekend just gone...is writing about the plot for this a spoiler?

Also there is the danger that in writing a review to remain spoiler free you just end up writing a plot summary.

I've got a book on review writing on order at the library to see if I can pick up any tips but I think that a personal impression is a valid form of review, it might not be erudite or intellectual but it is honest and spoiler free!