Tsunami Kids

4

Most of the books I read are fiction but every now and then I like to read a factual book and in particular I enjoy memoirs. Celebrity memoirs are (to my slight shame) a favourite but every now and again I come across the story of an “ordinary” person…

Furiously Happy

Depression isn’t normally regarded as something funny. It’s nasty, it’s serious, it destroys people – not what we would regard as a source of great hilarity. But that’s where we go wrong. Some of the greatest humour can be found in the darkest places and that’s what Jenny Lawson…

Paperback Summer Round-Up

At the end of May I decided to take part in the #PaperbackSummer challenge being run by Suze and Sophie. I had great plans to read about a dozen paperbacks while also reading digital review books and doing my best to keep my spiralling To-Be-Read pile under control…

Top Ten: 2015 Reads (So far…)

We’re now half-way through the year and time to have a look back at some of the great books I’ve read this year. I’ve been very lucky – so far the lowest rating I’ve given a book is 3/5 so it’s definitely been a success. About half of the books I’ve read have been 2015 releases…

The Temporary Bride

I learned a new word today – sonder. It’s the realisation that each random passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. It’s a lovely word and feeling. We walk past people on the street and we know nothing about their lives, they don’t exist in full form to us the way that our friends and families do…

Hitler’s Forgotten Children

The Nazi obsession with racial purity is well known; their goal of an Aryan master race and their racial policies led to the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust and the targeting of other racial and religious groups including Black Germans, gypsies, and physically and mentally disabled people…

Top Ten: Paperback Summer Choices

In a rare moment of enthusiasm I signed up to the #SummerPaperback challenge being hosted by Sophie at Reviewed the Book. The idea is simple and based on the fact that we all have massive To Be Read piles and never seem to get round to reading the books that are growing out of their space on the bookshelves…

The Boy In The Book

I am a child of the 80s. We made our own fun back then – none of this X-box, Snapchat or Facebook malarkey. We had our own imaginations to keep us going. If that makes me sound like an old gimmer then fair enough, I probably am. Unsurprisingly = most of my fun came from reading and for a time in the mid-80s I was fascinated by the “Choose your own adventure” stories…

Struck by Genius

Before I start this review I have to declare an interest – I hate Maths. Hated it at school and still break out in a cold sweat if anyone expects me to do anything maths related. This isn’t some sort of false vanity – I got 8% in my Higher Prelim. I am bad at Maths, I don’t understand it…

Parallel Lines

It’s a sad but inevitable fact that the number of Holocaust survivors with us is dwindling each year. Just a week ago Alice Herz-Sommer, the subject of this year’s Oscar winning short documentary “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life” passed away at the age of 110. It is now more important than ever that as many people as possible read the testimony of survivors…