0 Comments
This book fascinated me and, as I was reading it on my Kindle, I was able to highlight text and "bookmark" these interesting and intriguing references as I went along. I started it on the remote beach in Poneloya (northern Nicaragua) which seemed like the ideal place to get stuck into the business of defining happiness and thinking about happiness. Rubin decided to undertake a happiness project - and amazingly she actually stuck to it. I applaud anybody who sticks to a resolution for a whole year. I guess the average Joe never really evaluates their life at some point along the way, but I'm a thinker - and this book got me thinking - a lot. The amount of research Rubin did is also to be applauded. She devoured everything and anything to do with happiness and being happy. Everybody's happiness project is unique, but Rubin's was well structured from the prep to the making of resolutions to the keeping and recording progress of the resolutions. She had a subject she wanted to tackle for each month of the year and within those subjects were more specific goals. She created Twelve Commandments, Secrets of Adulthood and Splendid Truths to keep herself focused on the project. She started a blog to share her journey and asked questions of her readers. Some people might think what an incredible waste of time, but I'm a strong believer if you're passionate about something, you wouldn't be doing yourself justice if you didn't throw yourself into it wholeheartedly. And Rubin's enthusiasm was magnetic. I'll be sharing my favourite parts of the book in a blog series entitled "Being happy" coming soon... I'm enjoying reading on my Kindle so, now that my Goodreads challenge for 2014 has finished, I decided to try some easy going Chick Lit on a subject matter close to my heart. I was also intrigued to see that there was in fact a Curvy Girls Club in real life. The story is about four women battling with their weight. After one particular meeting at Slimming World, they decide to start a new club - one where you can feel good in your own skin whatever your size and shape. And so The Curvy Girls Club is born, but in business rarely do things go smoothly and the lines become even more tangled and distorted when you start to disagree with your friends - who are also your business partners. In terms of the writing style, it's lighthearted, enjoyable and gives the story an ebb and flow that kept me turning the pages. I love the fact it's set in London and I understand all of the references to places and people. Despite being Chick Lit, the book covers important questions like: Is teasing a woman for being too thin as damaging as teasing a woman who is too fat? Where do you draw the line when trying to lose weight? Are certain employers for certain companies justified in requiring a person to look a certain way before they hire them? And then there's the whole can of worms regarding self esteem... The final book in my Goodreads 2014 challenge of 12 in 12 months! Coming in two months late, but never mind... I absolutely loved loved loved reading this story and couldn't put it down! I haven't yet seen the film, but as with Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love, I think Reese Witherspoon is the perfect actress to play this part. As I've also been planning and dreaming and scheming for the last couple of years to do something big travel-wise, it seemed appropriate to be reading how Cheryl prepared herself for the Pacific Crest Trail - or didn't - as in the case of the giant backpack and too-small boots. But who cares! That's all part of the fun and challenge of doing something amazing, and it makes for humourous reflection when you recount the tales from your travels. If you can laugh at yourself, good on you! I enjoyed this story so much because I connected with the author and understood why she was trekking the PCT, not just to escape, but that deeper spiritual meaning. If you love travelling and you do it for yourself to "get out of the box" as I do, often it's therapeutic at the time, yet I don't fully understand how it's helped me until much, much later. "It was all unknown to me then, as I sat on that white bench on the day I finished my hike. Everything except the fact that I didn't have to know. That it was enough to trust that what I'd done was true. To understand its meaning without yet being able to say precisely what it was..." (Page 311) There are some great quotes in the book and one of my favourites is this: " Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life? " Mary Oliver - "The Summer Day" With lots going on towards the end of 2014, my 12 books in 12 months Goodreads challenge has spilled over into 2015. This is the 11th... It was so wonderful to have another installment of Nella's diaries to devour. Here are some of my favourite passages: 12th June 1950 Nella is admiring the crew and workers aboard a sailing ship that's come into the ship yard for repairs. She's pondering on colour and race and makes the comment: "It makes my theory that some day there will be one race with no warring element of barriers that fear and greed make, and understanding of each other's ways and thought." 19th August 1950 The war in Korea rages on, along with the threat of atom bombs and total destruction. Nella has cultivated "a feeling we are all in some great and intricate "Place", that "it's not life that matters, but the courage we bring to it"." 23rd January 1951 Nella is talking about her one extravagance being the football pools and the 1 shilling she spends on the postal order. This tickled me because I've been working in a Post Office for the last couple of years and still do postal orders for people's football pools - but it's a darn sight more expensive now! 30th May 1951 Arthur, Nella's eldest son comes to visit and he now has children of his own. The two of them are talking about the joy of children and grand children. A wonderful mother and son moment captured here. 15th September 1951 Nella is enjoying her low level gambling with the football pools and dreaming about what she would do if she ever won, how she could help her husband and her boys. She recalls Cliff, her younger son having this to say on the matter: "No, I don't think so. I'm sure any artist is better without security. I sometimes think it would be better if I had not even my (Army) pension." I believe there's truth to this. When your back is against the wall financially and the one thing you have is your talent - whether that be writing, sculpting, painting - to get you out of a hole, it makes you work harder than ever. 11th March 1952 Nella has been listening to the Tommy Handley Story on the wireless with her husband. He was a great comedian of the time. She remembers her days in the canteen during the war, quipping with soldiers who "went gaily off, never to return". The laughter and the nonsense was a shining light in the dark days of World War 2. She says: "I hope Tommy has met them now." I'd somehow managed to escape all the hype about this book and the film, but did have the film on my "must watch list". However, I'm glad I didn't watch the film as apparently the ending is completely different to the book and now, having read the book, I would have been conflicted. Yes, a more satisfying end in the film version, but definitely not keeping true to the story or what the author intended. It's a powerful novel about a family dealing with a child and sibling sick with cancer. Without putting a spoiler in, the ending made me ball my eyes out and throughout the story, I felt myself catching my breath with the depth of emotion portrayed in such brilliant writing. It deals with the controversial subject of genetic engineering - having a child to save a child - and Picoult writes from the individual perspectives of each family member, plus other central characters to the storyline. Again, it's an excellently engineered novel with thorough medical research thrown in to give the book credibility. The characters jump off the page as real, living human beings with the same hopes, fears and dreams as any of us. And that's beautiful writing making it a joy to read. This book was lying around in my office and being a Postmistress, I was intrigued to read a story portraying my job back in a time when letters really mattered - and a lost letter mattered even more. A letter not delivered, slipped into the pocket of the Postmistress and, another letter, found by a Reporter, which she vows to deliver - both from the same man - are at the heart of the story. This is a beautifully crafted novel about three women whose fates entwine because of these letters. I absolutely loved Atonement, so when I read this book had a similar storyline, I knew I was in for something good. It's a war story with depth. The Americans are not yet a part of World War 2 and they don't see it ever reaching their shores. "How easily the face of the world turns away." (Pg 251). A reporter returning from the Blitz trying to make people aware. A wife wondering why her husband went to London to help when he could have stayed safe at home. A Postmistress neat and orderly in her small town post office, aware of the chaos that could come, but for now, all is calm on the shores of Cape Cod... Blake has included some additional notes once the story concludes, which are invaluable to a wannabe author if you want to see exactly what must go into writing and researching a novel to make it the very best you can. She spent hours and hours researching to build the story and she asked questions of herself and her characters every step of the way. She then endeavours to answer those questions as the story unfolds. In Blake's own words: "It is the story that lies around the edges of the photographs, or at the end of the newspaper account. It's about the lies we tell others to protect them, and about the lies we tell ourselves in order not to acknowledge what we can't bear: that we are alive, for instance, and eating lunch, while bombs are falling, and refugees are crammed into camps, and the news comes toward us every hour of the day. And what, in the end, do we do?" This was the first free eBook I'd downloaded and it was an eye opener into the stages eBooks need to go through before they're absolutely ready for publication. Todd and Buzz are old friends and life has taken them their separate ways. They each come to a crossroads in their careers and need a change of pace, so they hook up and ride Route 66 again because they have unfinished business. I liked the concept of the story and the first half of the book was excellent. It has potential! I think the author should take another look at the second half and give it a thoroughly good edit. There were times I got lost with the plot and it felt rushed. If anything, reading this book made me take a long, hard look at my first published effort and I could see where I need to make improvements to my own work before putting it "out there" for people to enjoy. As a reader, I was disappointed that the story wasn't polished. Last December, a woman came into the Post Office and handed me this book to read, or to pass on to somebody else. It was for World Book Night 2013. Seven months later and I've now read it after being informed it had an unexpected ending, which naturally whet my appetite. What I love about this book is it reminded me how to tell a story and how to build a story using little succinct bits of research to add credibility to the plot and believability to the characters. Lev is a lost, lonely soul on his way from Eastern Europe to Britain looking for work. It's the story of many people that come into the Post Office to send moneygrams to their families back home. I often think about the backstories of these people. I wonder why they're here and who their family is. Has it been easy for them to make a life and living in our country? Do they miss their home? Do they have crazy friends like Lev has Rudi? This is a "real" story and what I mean by that is, there are no happy endings, no easy solutions, no nicely rounding it all off. On the flip side, there are no dramatic, crazy, unbelievable parts either. It's REAL storytelling taking us on a soul searching mission with Lev. I am just about keeping up with my Goodreads challenge of reading and reviewing one book per month in 2014... six down and six to go...
I haven't read science fiction for many, many years, but this collection of stories was recommended to me because it was written in the 80s and predicted 3D televisions and eBooks. And now, here we are! The Starcrossed (3D TVs) and Cyberbooks (eBooks) sandwiches six shorter, futuristic stories which are equally amusing. These stories give great twists on things like the moon landing, the way the media reports the news, the mafia and underworld, and the fall of a former US President, all written with a sardonic and humourous touch. What I liked the most is the way Ben Bova takes the various characters - people he's come across in real life - and enhances either their positives or negatives, traits, flaws, characteristics.. with a futuristic edge so I was picturing them, not only as people, but as alien or robotic beings too. Reading Cyberbooks was particularly poignant given what's been happening to the Publishing Industry over the last few years. The tale of woe, the uproar and the almighty shock to the system was spot on - for a prediction! |
AuthorBlogging is an amazing concept so here I am giving it a whirl. You'll get words. You'll get pics. Sometimes a vid or two. You'll get tongue in cheek, the odd humble opinion and an honest insight into my travels and writing life. Maybe even a few gems along the way. I'll be musing on home turf as I see more and more of the UK and sharing my experiences further afield on holidays and adventurous trips across the globe. Archives
December 2022
Categories
All
|