Holiday reading

Every so often I write a post about the books I have been reading and thought it was about time I wrote one again (well I thought it was about time I wrote any post actually...). I don't write in-depth reviews, they take too long and I am lazy. These are just brief synopses of some of the books I have enjoyed, with no plot spoilers and with the intention that you are not influenced by my views (I save them for book club). They are all, in my opinion, good books.



Elizabeth is missing by Emma Healey

This was a quick read that really struck a nerve. Alzheimer's affects many people and this book made me think often of my dear granddad. It is written from the viewpoint of Maud and weaves together her childhood and the disappearance of her sister, with the disappearance of her friend Elizabeth. The characters were believable, easy to relate to and I actually felt humbled by the patience of Maud's daughter (so much like my mum) and the determination of Maud. It made me laugh, it made me cry and was enjoyable even though it worried me (lots of books with realistic themes worry me).

Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

I am a big fan of  Cloud Atlas and have about four of Mitchell's books on kindle waiting to be read. At the moment my eyes are preferring real books though. Bone Clocks starts in the eighties and, like Cloud Atlas, has reality mixed with 'believable' fantasy, in both characters and events. I enjoyed it because I could relate to the teenage angst of Holly in the eighties and I like fantasy fiction. It was gripping from start to finish, with only a few 'what?!' moments (I liked the end chapters, but got lost/annoyed somewhere before that). The reader is reminded of global issues such as terrorism, war and what might happen in a dystopian future society (food, electricity rations, no communication systems etc, which always freaks me out). The characters are great and believably written, from the obnoxious Crispin Hershey to the charming Hugo Lamb. I am in awe of Mitchell's imagination and storytelling and would love to have a book club chat with anyone who has read it! (Though I finished it a few weeks ago now and find that stories often float out of memory.)

Dirty Teaching by Juliet Robertson

I bought this one for school. A great book to dip into for any fan of learning outdoors, it has great ideas that support our school curriculum.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

The name of this book was taken from a famous work of Japanese literature (one of the many things I learned from reading this) and is essentially about the building of the Thailand-Burma railway during World War II. It is harrowing and at times difficult to read. I am glad I read it. I wept many times because of the shocking conditions that these soldiers were in and the reality of how 300 soldiers can be treated so appallingly (and acceptingly) by the few in command. It brought back my psychology studies and a trip to a memorial in Borneo. It is a harrowing read. I sobbed uncontrollably twice. Once because of the compassion shown by a Greek man and his chip shop (I don't want to give anything away) and also the unbelievable, but true, part about the vivisections. There is a love story woven throughout, but this does not lighten it. I needed to talk to people about this whilst reading it, because I found it so incredibly disturbing.  A must read, even though I'm not sure when the best time to read it is - don't expect to sleep easily afterwards.


The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

A quick and easy holiday read. I enjoyed it for that very reason - it was light relief after the previous book. It has a slight fantasy feel to it, though I thought more could have been made of that. On amazon they liken it to The Goldfinch and Girl With a Pearl Earring, but it is not really in the same league as either of those. It does have believable characters and a good storyline, but lacks the depth of the former and the atmosphere of the latter. That is not intended to be criticism - I repeat that I really enjoyed reading it!

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

This book has a similar theme to the some of the others I have read of McEwan's, in that a significant event has a massive impact on one of the key characters. The central character is Fiona, a high court judge who deals with family law and is having a bit of a crisis in her personal life. There are many cases that she deals with that make up this story, but the main one is about a 17 3/4 year old Jehovah Witness (Adam) who has leukaemia and is refusing treatment. It is not a lengthy book, but I didn't read it quickly as I found myself really thinking about the issues in the cases and in her personal life, which I think McEwan captured well. I wasn't entirely convinced about Adam, but that's more about my experiences with teenage boys than anything else. Well worth reading (and again I would really like a book club chat about it!)

Looking back at my past book club post, I realised that there are many other good books I have read in between that one and this one: We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (very different from anything else I have read and took me back to my psychology studies too); The Rosie Project by Don Tillman (loved it - much more so than other book clubbers - and laughed aloud a lot); Knight's Shadow by Sebastien de Castell (the second of his fantasy romps with a bit of a musketeer feel); Assassin's Apprentice and Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb (not as in-depth as other fantasy novels, but that makes it an easy and enjoyable read when your mind is on other things at work); The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield were both good book club reads that I wouldn't have chosen myself.  I have read more, but some were not so good ...

I am now returning to my favourite genre of fantasy fiction, with Queen of Fire by Anthony Ryan, which I am loving. Ryan has cleverly written this in a way where I am reminded of previous events, without him repeating anything or making the links between past books and present forced.  I also have The Skull Throne by Peter Brett to finish. I started reading it as soon as it was published, but decided that I needed to read the three previous books again before finishing it (my shocking memory was not helping me understand parts of it!)

As always, I value your recommendations, though I do have a pile of new books to get through (thanks to my boot sale addiction and the generous vouchers from parents and work colleagues).

Here are some of the books my friends are reading. I'm sure they will inspire you! I love how Amanda has separated her piles. I tend to borrow 'work' books from the library, then forget to read them until they are due back...

Amanda Cockburn's

 

Jo Neale's 

Becki Jennings'

Brilliant books for the kindle

I'm a big fan of Oliver Jeffers and love using his books in the classroom. I have 8 of his titles and when I see them at the boot sale (rarely) I duplicate so that I can put them in my book box at school or give them to friends. I have used the Incredible Book Eating Boy as part of a mini mantle, which my children loved. They can relate to the art work and recreate in a similar style with a huge sense of achievement. 

I had seen his book, The Day the Crayons Quit, but am ashamed to say that I was too tight to buy it in hardback ... I was reminded of it yesterday when my headteacher had picked it up in the classroom next door to me - a child had brought it in for world book day. I decided I was being a right Scrooge (I am spoilt by 20p boot sale books) so got right on to Amazon, where I found it on Kindle for 69p! Yes, 69p! It's lush!

Now I would normally want this in the flesh, but actually in the classroom it's really easy to project them from the IWB. Everyone gets to see - and with Apple TV I can still hold my iPad like a book, to keep that storyteller feel. Whilst I was there on Amazon, I bought 3 more of Jeffers' 69p books (more are available, but I have them in paperback/hardback and like I said, I'm tight!)

The Hueys books are great for assemblies as they have great underlying values themes. 

The fourth book I bought was, None the Number, which I will definitely be using in maths (probably at the start of the year. 

I have Lost and Found (which we loved on DVD too) and The Way back Home on The iPad already (and paid more than 69p for them!) and who knows, maybe I'll buy the other 69p books by the end of the night. One in the hand, one on the IWB! I would highly recommend them, because the art work is lovely and you can do a huge amount of inference and deduction beyond the story. 

The Heart and the Bottle made me cry. 

If you haven't used his books yet in the classroom, at 69p there's no reason not to! Find them here!

Reading for pleasure

I've just had another one of those enjoyable book chats with my son when we reminisce over the books we have shared and enjoyed - before he berates me for not having read all of the mighty Feist's books (our conversation usually ends thus - I'm saving them for retirement!) As with music, we share the same tastes, although I veer off from fantasy fiction every so often to read books that have been recommended, or have come across accidentally. I've blogged about some of them here. I'm always in awe of Ben's phenomenal memory for detail, especially where Game of Thrones is concerned. Unlike me, he doesn't watch the TV series and gets quite ranty about the discrepancies.

I thought it would be nice to share some of the books we have enjoyed reading over the past few years. I recommend them all to families with teenagers/young adults. They are in a kind of chronological order - though some books we obviously had to wait for the next one to come out. I'm not sure Ben ever read the Northern Lights trilogy, but it ought to be included in a list like this. We also read some teenage fiction (Kate Cann books mostly) in his teenage years.

I've included Amazon links as I'm far too lazy to write synopses, but should point out that Game of Thrones and the second and third books of the Painted Man trilogy have very adult content. Ben is now 26, so quite old enough to read what he likes.

• The Wind Singer Trilogy - William Nicholson
• Noughts and Crosses set - Malorie Blackman
• Bartimaeus trilogy - Jonathon Stroud (Loved the humour of these!)
• Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen - Garth Nix
• The Painted Man trilogy - Peter V Brett (fantastic - we have both read these twice. More books to come too)
• Game of Thrones - George RR Martin (I confess that Ben was nagging me for ages before I finally got round to reading this, about a month before the televised series was broadcast. Ben has read them twice already.)
• Magician - Raymond Feist (I've read 2 books from the Riftwar saga ... Ben has read these all twice too.)
• The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins. I didn't think Ben would be impressed with this, but he enjoyed them as a quick read
• Divergent - Veronica Roth
• Traitor's Blade - Sebastien De Castell
• Blood Song, Tower Lord - Anthony Ryan (I found these, though Ben read them much more quickly. Tower Lord is hot off the press and is my next read having just finished Blood Song).

I have tried to get Ben to read more widely than fantasy fiction, forcing books such as Pigeon English and Vernon God Little into his room. He starts them, but doesn't finish. I would like him to read 'We need to talk about Kevin' at the same time as me too as I have had a recommendation from a colleague to read it. I would love any more recommendations for our mother and son reading for pleasure!

More 'post Game of Thrones' reading

Before you read on, don't expect a critically written post about books I have read; this is merely a list of books that I have managed to read (and enjoyed) during a busy term at school. As always 'scuse the grammar/typos. I'm not great at proof reading my own work (as proved this week when I was mortified at missing out an apostrophe. Eeek! I no longer have the right to criticise those who add them willy-nilly!)

In my last post about books I ended with the book I was reading at that time - The Goldfinch. It is based around Theo, a character who I fell in love with because his heart-breaking situation was written so believably. I'm not going to go into detail as I don't want to plant seeds or accidentally write a plot spoiler. Needless to say I really enjoyed it, despite getting annoyed during some of the Las Vegas part of the story (and a little bit of the Amsterdam part too). I would even have been happy with less grit and more detail about the relationship between Theo and Hobie.  I imagine the book would make a good film in the future and I would certainly go and watch it, but then I usually* enjoy watching books come to life, even if they don't follow the text accurately.

After this I read The Room by Emma Donoghue, which I find quite disturbing. It was a half term holiday read - possibly not the best choice! Someone on Amazon claims to have 'adored' this book. I question that. I found it believable, but the nature of story would hardly put it in the adorable book section, in the same way that The Lovely Bones would never end up on that shelf.

In our book club we have read Coram Boy, The Hen who Dreamed She Could Fly and our current one, which is I am Malala. These are not books I would usually buy and are all relatively easy reads. Coram Boy is a children's book that deals with the fate of children born out of wedlock in the 1700s. This book was chosen by a friend, who read it as part of her course on children's literature. I think I would have loved reading this as a child, but I found it a tad frustrating (I can't remember why - it's a while since I read it) and the ending wasn't brilliant.  Our book club discussion was great after this book though - and I did learn about some historical situations because of it.

The hen who dreamed she could fly

This story has been translated into English from Korean. Apparently it is a good translation, but nevertheless I felt confused whist reading it. My book club friends seemed to love it a lot more than I, which made me question how much of an animal lover I am (I thought I was a big on that!) I couldn't read it as a story about a hen - I kept reading more into it, analysing it and making judgements about the author's life experiences. When I copied the link from Amazon just now I had a quick look at the reviews (I tend not to read these beforehand). This review by Ia890 captures my thoughts nicely.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars basic 20 April 2014

By la890

Format:Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

I thought it was like a primary school book on diversity. Blindingly obvious parables. First I thought it was some sort of political statement. The hen wants to live in freedom not oppression. Then finds out its hard to fend for yourself.
Then a lesson in racial diversity , then a lesson on death. All a bit simply written and I can't understand why it's such an applauded book
Am I missing something?

I have been left wondering if this is book is a metaphor of the complexities of cultural difference, or merely a story about a hen.

In between book club books I have read Perfect, The Shock of the Fall, The Fault in their Stars, Traitor's Blade, The Boy who Killed Pigs and Life after Life. They are all relatively easy reads that can be read during term time and have all served the purpose of sending me off to sleep thinking of something other than work. For more information about each one, follow the links!

The shock of the fall A quick read about a young person with mental health problems. A quick read for term time.

The fault in their stars Another quick read that I wanted to finish before the film came out. It's easy to guess what is going to happen in this one and I don't fancy sobbing through the film. I quite enjoyed reading it though-I liked the characters in a Dawson's Creek kind of way.

The boy who kicked pigs I found this book on the stairs. Someone had loaned it to my son and I was intrigued. It is written by Tom Baker and I read it in a Tom Baker voice. It's a very odd (quirky?) black comedy with illustrations in the style of Lemony Snickett. That's all I'm going to say about it!

Perfect Loaned to me by my friend Becca, it is a story that flits from two children growing up, an insecure mum and blackmail, to an adult with mental health problems. It is set in the 70s and is a little slow moving (the mum's naivety annoyed me immensely) and I did guess the attempted twist in the tale, but it enjoyed it for what it was. It's not a book I would highly recommend, but if someone gives you a copy and you have nothing else, it's worth reading.

Life after Life There were some sections (only a couple) in this Groundhog Day style story that I wished were shorter, but I really enjoyed this read. It is cleverly written and quite believable. I would recommend this to friends and would appreciate a book club chat about it.

Traitor's Blade was recommended by a fellow Game of Thrones fan. I read somewhere that it was a Three Musketeers style story and that is how I subsequently read it. It's not as gory or unpredictable as GoT, but is an enjoyable read (measured by how quickly I read it). I started at the same time as my son and he read it in about three days. He has taken a break from re-reading Feist's huge collection of books and is road testing Blood Song for me. I enjoy it when we read the same books as there's always a debate to be had.

For the summer, so far I have Snow Child (a recommendation from colleagues), The tent, the bucket and me (perfect for the holidays!) and Blood Song. I have also borrowed Creating Learning without Limits from the library again, though at this point it is the only school book I intend to look at during the summer.

I would love to hear any more recommendations.


*The Time Traveller's Wife is a notable exception. For some reason he came across as more of a weirdo in the film who shows up naked in front of small children.