Apr
30
2009
5

April books

31zyfveu0cl_sl500_aa180_Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult is about Shay Bourne, a prisoner on death row for the brutal murder of Kurt Nealon and his step-daughter Elizabeth. Kurt’s and his wife June had a daughter, she was pregnant when he was murdered, and this little girl has a heart problem which means she needs a heart transplant. Her father’s murderer is insisting that when he dies his heart goes to her. Remarkably, his heart is a perfect match in all ways.

This book is highly improbable but quite a good read. The ethics surrounding transplantation and the death penalty are dealt with from an interesting perspective. Not one of her best, but not too bad.

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51vutadqqil_sl500_aa240_Wedding Season by Katie Fforde is a perfect summer read, light and fluffy and just not too taxing.

Sarah Stratford is a wedding planner, and she is able to organise everyone else’s lives but her own. Along with her dress-designer and hairdresser friend they plan perfect wedding for complete drama queens. Of course everything ends up nicely with them all finding their own men and living happily ever after, as a chick-lit-beach-read should be!

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51pb2dmnu2l_sl500_aa240_ The Heart of the Dales by Gervase Phinn is SUCH a good read, although there was something rather strange about sailing down The Nile and being able to hear Yorkshire voices in my mind.

Gervase Phinn, Schools Inspector is at it again. Trawling around the Dales, visiting his schools and catching up with some old and new faces. He has a new boss who is rather a task-master and a ‘little job’ to undertake which happens to be organising a major conference. These books are well worth a read. Definitely the James Herriot of education!

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21dr2lu8wal_sl500_aa180_ Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah was a book I found a bit hard-going.

Sally is a woman who is bored with life and finds motherhood a difficult task. The year before this story is set she is meant to go on a work-trip, which was cancelled. However, she decides to go anyway and tells her husband that she is away on business. Whilst staying at a hotel she meets a man called Mark Bretherick and has an affair with him. One day she sees on TV that this man’s daughter and wife have been murdered, the only problem is that the man who is called Mark Bretherick was not the man she spent the week with. This book is a murder-mystery with a twist and is quite a good read, eventually!

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415akqc6xel_sl500_aa240_ Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes is a slightly irritating book. Lucy Sullivan (no surpises there) is a young woman who is told by a psychic that she will be getting married. Other than her traumatic relationships, dealing with depression and her father’s alcoholism I can’t really tell you what the story was about. A bit of a shame really as I usually like Marian Keyes books.

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51kctajmbvl_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-arrow-clicktopright35-76_aa240_sh20_ou02_Second Glance by Jodi Picoult is a bit of a departure from her usual courtroom dramas with themes focussing around legal/moral/ethical dilemmas. This story is essentially a ghost tale about a young man called Ross whose fiancee died and as a result he became a ghost hunter. He goes to visit his sister and his nephew after strange goings on at a Native-American burial site and he got more than he bargained for as his past comes back to haunt him.

The problem I had with this book is that I just didn’t “get it”. The story was convoluted and as it shifts back and forth in time, and sometimes transcends the dimension of time due to the ghost element, I just was confused. I was about 250 pages in before I realised that one of the major characters appears several different times over different periods of times, but he has different names. I just found it confused and didn’t really enjoy it. From my perspective it certainly was not as good as some of her other books.

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41q7wnazz5l_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-arrow-clicktopright35-76_aa240_sh20_ou02_1For some reason I had two copies of The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve sitting on my shelf but I only decided to read it after reading Mrs C’s review.

The book is about Kathryn, the wife of a pilot whose husband dies after his passenger plane drops out of the sky. Investigations are made after concerns that his behaviour may have contributed to the accident and even suicide as considered as a possibility. Throughout the investigation Kathryn makes discoveries about her husband and his life that horrify her and start her on a journey.

I really enjoyed this book and found the theme of grief well written and sensitively dealt with. The writing style was lovely, and I agree with Mrs C, there is definitely a good twist at the end!

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510jwyjwcal_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-arrow-clicktopright35-76_aa240_sh20_ou02_The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller is a curious and intriguing little book.

Pippa is a 50-something woman who is married to Herb, a man in his 80’s. They move to a retirement community where Pippa is very much the youngest woman there. The story takes a swift jump back to her past and over each chapter you find out snippets of her ‘past lives’, the situations that made her the woman she is now. She has a disturbed childhood with a mother who was a speed junkie and for whom she had tremendous contempt and her travels enabled her to meet a strange bohemian bunch of people who taught her many things she probably didn’t need to know so young.

Rather surprisingly I really liked this book. I was fascinated by this back-to-front view of a person’s life and it has a rather good twist at the end. Oh, it also was one of Richard and Judy’s bookclub reads.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Apr
28
2009
1

Yum

I am absolutely loving this song. I think Adele’s voice is amazing and the lyrics are awesome. What would you expect from Bob Dylan though?

Enjoy 🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNZAs2BNlZY&feature=related[/youtube]

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Apr
24
2009
3

Slow Loris – I want one.

This youtube video has made The Mister laugh for a very long time tonight. Cute innit?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLdQ3UhLoD4[/youtube]

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags:
Apr
24
2009
2

Wightmeet

Well, after our little trip to Egypt The Mister and I then trailed off the the Isle of Wight to meet up with some strange people from the internet. We decided to go down a couple of days early as we had the whole week off and it was nice to have a couple of days to relax.

We did all sorts of things, went to Osborne House, the zoo and saw the tigers, went to the beach, went on the steam train (yay!) and ate an awful lot. Anyone who says that real and lasting relationships cannot be developed through the t’internet are wrong. I have met lots of people on the Ship of Fools who have become really good friends, admittedly this is mainly because I have also met them in real life and our online friendships have become more significant and real.

The Wightmeet is a bit of an institution and I love it. The chance to spend time with interesting and insane people and the opportunity to do different things it always fun. So, my internet friends… here are a few pictures… if you want to see more then click on one and go to the flickr pics!

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Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: , ,
Apr
22
2009
4

Egypt

Mosque in CairoKarnak templeSleeper trainTemple at Edfu

Well, The Mister and I had a truly amazing trip to Egypt, and finally I have uploaded some pictures.

Egypt is one of the most incredible countries I have ever been to, not least because when you arrive you are greeted by the insanity of Cairo traffic. I never thought that driving could be so bad and so fast and… well… just… so everything!

For me, there were a couple of highlights, driving through the desert in the early morning, watching the sunrise and then arriving at the extraordinary temple of Abu Simbel. It was amazing, not only because of the original art work and statues, but because the whole temple was moved in the 1960’s as it would have been flooded when they built the High Dam. It was an amazing place.

The other highlight was going to the Pyramids at Giza. I thought that they would be a bit of a disappointment as we went there very last. However, although they were not highly decorated like the temples and they didn’t have amazing huge statues etc. they were still incredible. The sheer size of the place and the physical presence of them was incredible. As we were so early we managed to get tickets to go into the Great Pyramid. They only let about 120 people in each day and to get to the burial chamber at the top we had to climb a rickety path right the way through the centre of the pyramid. It was the most eerie experience, and we finally reached the burial chamber which had only a stone sarcophagus in it, it was barely lit and extremely spooky!

It was a fantastic trip but totally exhausting. Most of our days started at about 6am in order to get the majority of our sightseeing done whilst it was cool, and also it meant we avoided the crowds of tourists. It was such an amazing trip, and it was lovely to spent proper time with The Mister.

Here are some photos… if you click on any of them it will take you to Flickr where you can see hundreds more!!

Abu SimbelLuxorAbu SimbelSunset in the desertPyramidsSphinx

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Apr
10
2009
3

Just a quickie…

The Mister and I are having a fabulous time in Egypt. It is baking hot and as a result we are having some ridiculously early starts… usually at about 6.30am. The worst one though was 2.30am but it was so worthwhile. Lots of pictures to show on our return… presuming neither of us lose our cameras!!

See you soon.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Apr
03
2009
4

Yay!!!!

The yay! is because The Mister and I are off on holiday tomorrow. It is the first ‘proper’ holiday we will have had together and I am very, very excited. We are off the see the pyramids…. and as Egypt is well known for everyone having tummy bugs, my suitcase looks like a pharmacy!

So, be good in my absence and see you soon 🙂

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags:

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