Here is my reading summary for the week ending 27th May 2012
Each week I am giving a short summary for each book I have finished and a bit of a blurb for each. I will also give you a sneak peek of all the books I am currently reading (as I never read just one book at a time) and I will also share any quotes or internet links that catch my eye.
A= Excellent Stuff – a real page turner and read in one sitting
B= Really Good Read
C= Average – very readable and enjoyable
D= it was OK, a bit of a struggle to finish.
1. This week I have finished:
- Goodbye Sarajevo by Atka Reid and Hana Schofield (Non-Fiction) – C
This is a moving and compelling true story about a family fighting for survival in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. The story is told from the point of view of two of the sisters. The first sister is Atka, 21, who remains in besieged city looking after her five younger siblings, grandmother and father. The second sister is 12-year-old Hana who is sent away in a refugee bus with her 14-year-old sister Nadia to fend for themselves in various refugee centers. The book follows the lives of all the family members for the next few years as they cope with separation from loved ones, the loss of friends and relatives and struggle for survival amidst daily bombings. Years ago I read The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway which was a brilliant work of fiction based on a true story. While GOODBYE SARAJEVO is a compelling read, a completely truthful real life experience that brought me to tears over the cruel and inhumane actions that people are capable of doing to each other it just didn’t compare to the Galloway book for impact.
- The Spider Goddess by Tara Moss (Paranormal Mystery) – A
THE SPIDER GODDESS picks up two months after the end of ‘The Blood Countess’ ends. Pandora has settled in with her great-aunt in a creepy mansion in the fog shrouded New York suburb of Spektor. Spektor doesn’t appear on any map and no-one has heard of it. Pandora and her aunt do not live alone in the mansion, there are some creepy guests, some of whom would love to feed off Pandora and have no reason to like her and every reason to fear Pandora’s growing powers. Pandora has found out that she is the inheritor of a great family ability; she is the seventh, which means she has a power that only comes along in the family once in 150 years. And with the title comes a frightening responsibility which Pandora finally starts to understand as THE SPIDER GODDESS progresses. The plot is fun and easy to read, with some deliciously creepy, spider ridden, scenes. If you suffer at all from arachnophobia, take note, but don’t worry a fiction spider can’t hurt you! Tara Moss manages to slip in some of the history of New York that many people aren’t aware of including a hanging tree and the victims of a shirt factory fire. Yes both are true I googled them. Now I have to wait until the third booking the series is released later this year.
- Anne Boleyn and Me by Alison Prince (YA Historical) – C
This book is from the ‘My Story’ series which is aimed at the 8 to 12 year-old market. Each book is written as if it is the diary of a young fictional girl living at a particular point in history and who is an eye witness to an historical event. As the title states this is the diary of 11-year-old Elinor who was a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn. Elinor is firmly on the side of Queen Katherine so Anne is recorded in a very bad light, which you wonder if Elinor could be a reliable witness and slightly biased against the usurper to the royal bed. Through Elinor’s eyes we learn about the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn and how King Henry puts his reputation on the line to possess Anne as his wife. The historical detail was very good, and the facts presented were known truths. Before the end of the story Elinor had grown up, married and given birth to two children – but her narration did not mature and she was still writing in a very juvenile way at the end. Having said that it was easy to read, light-hearted look at a turbulent and blood ridden period of history.
2. My Current reads:
Blurbs from the books I am currently reading are:
Thin Rich bitches by Janet Eve Josselyn (Chick Lit) – An uproarious romp through the minefield of female one-upmanship! Leaving her cheating husband in Boston with the paralegal he impregnated, Pippin and her son move to a ramshackle farmhouse in the exclusive community of Dover, Massachusetts. Pippin finds employment with a local architect, designing kitchen renovations for wealthy Dover women who treat her as they treat the rest of the hired help. Concluding that social climbing is just another sport that she is no good at, Pippin finds a way to become the flavour of the month.
The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street by Marlish Glorie (Chick Lit) – Helen burns her bed and her bridges when she leaves home to run a second hand bookshop. But can you ever really discard the past? For starters there are thousands of musty books to sort through. Then her sons return home with more baggage than a Qantas 747 and on top of all that the drunk who sold her the bookshop is determined to muscle his way back into the business. Helen desperately wants life to be a literary novel but it’s looking more and more like a pile of pulp fiction. As quirky characters browse the shelves of her bookshop, Helen fights for the right to choose a future that is not yet written
3. Quote/s and links for the week
First some links:
For those of you who wait for this each year, the Richard & Judy Summer Book Club 2012 list has been announced:
http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/RichardAndJudyBookClub.aspx How many have you read?
Most Fridays the Aussie blogger at Oaken Bookcase gives us her Five for Friday – she picks a random topic and shares five bits of information about it – this week it is all about her experiences as a blogger and she shares five things she has learned in the three months she has been a blogger – all of which I found myself nodding in agreement to:
http://www.oakenbookcase.com/2012/05/25/five-friday-book-blog-newbie-2/
Now some quotes:
The first is the opening line of THE SPIDER GODDESS by Tara Moss:
“…I looked at the fashion model and reassured myself she wasn’t dead…”
The second is also an opening line it is from THE BOOKSHOP ON JACARANDA STREET by Marlish Glorie:
“…Shortly after five in the morning Helen Budd-Doyle chopped her bed to smithereens, manufacturing a million toothpicks, sufficient kindling for a week, pulp enough to make sixty rolls of toilet paper, and a thick layer of mulch for the garden bed – how ironic was that, she thought. Her bed could be all these things, yet could not provide her with one decent night of sleep…”
Slipping in a third this week is at the 49% point of THIN RICH BITCHES by Janet Eve Josselyn:
“…The gals in the kitchen looked less than thrilled to see the food arrive, despite the fact they’d been hired to heat and serve it. I didn’t think the "BITE ME" tee- shirt that one of them wore was exactly "appropriate holiday serving attire." Call me old fashioned…”
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