I must have read Malory Towers a dozen times when I was a kid. I read other Enid Blyton like St Clares and Famous Five, but it was Malory Towers again and again. I remember my dad literally begging me to read something else. Not sure I really want to re-read them, I have a feeling they may not have aged well.
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The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
I love Bill Bryson. I am steadily getting through all his books.
This one is his autobiography of his childhood growing up in 1950s Des Moines, Iowa. he is the youngest of three children, with much older siblings, so the real bably of the family. 1950s America was a time of unbelievable growth and prosperity, families were beginning to see cars, household appliances etc as every day rather than aspirations, kids still had the freedom to play outside for hours and get up to things their parents had no idea about.
There was however the constant threat of nuclear war and communists, and failing to collect the money due on his paper round.
There are some really laugh out loud moments- such as the descriptions of his mother's cooking (Bryson claims his father only had two taste palettes- burnt and ice-cream!) and his realisation that is is not normal to wee in a jam jar in the kitchen, as well as his attempts along with his friends to get hold of illicit beer during their teenage years.
Typical Bryson fare though- comfort reading.
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The Celts-Search for a Civilisation by Alice Roberts
Fairly interesting journey into the mysterious Celtic culture, interesting for me as a Welsh speaker. It went into all the theories about the origins of the elusive Celts.
It goes into the significant finds in Central Europe, tombs of high ranking individuals, early Celtic "cities" and other archeological finds. However, no one really seems sure if these people were really Celts. No one was ever really sure if the Celts were united by a common language (the conclusion was probably not) or even a common ethnicity. As the Celts have no written culture at all, most of what we do know about them was written by the Romans, who portrayed them as barbaric, lawless and primitive hoards, whose religious rites included human sacrifices and the white robed druid priests. One of the conclusions drawn is that this is probably a propagandist point of view and that the Celts were also farmers, who lived in extended family groups. Warriors were held in high status, but they were not the only type of Celt.
There is no final conclusion about where the Celts came from, just various theories, but an interesting read.
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Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
I picked this up because it was featured in a BBC documentary about the history of the novel, which I really enjoyed. It was given as an example of the modern novel.
It is not my usual fare, but I did enjoy it.
It is the story of Queenie, a young professional black woman, who splits up with her white boyfriend and embarks on a downward spiral of casual and increasingly destructive one night stands. As her life begins to unravel, she loses her job and ends up having to move back with her grandparents and her mental health declines.
It is quite graphic and shocking in places, really quite funny in others. It is told from Queenie's point of view, she writes as she would speak, there is a lot of street talk, slang and swearing, and a good deal of the dialogue is in the format of texts.
A good read, Queenie is far from perfect and she doesn't always do the right thing, but I felt I was rooting for her.
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Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine
I took a long time to read this book - about 6 weeks, which is a ridiculously long time. I read the second half much quicker, but mainly because I wanted to finish it and get onto something else, rather than it being a real page turner.
It is the story of journalist Jo Clifford, who while doing research for an article on regression and reincarnation, discovers she is the reincarnation of Mathilda de Braose, a noblewoman married to a brutal Marcher Lord on the borders of Wales. During the course of the story, Jo relives various key moments of her life. Back in the present, Jo starts to research Mathilda and finds out she was real, how her life became intertwined with three men, including the future King John, and she discovers the brutal way in which Mathilda died. The narrative jumps back and forth between Mathilda and Jo’s stories and the lines between them become increasingly blurred and confused.
I really enjoyed the story of Mathilda. The modern timeline irritated me a lot and has not dated well. As a character, Jo does not come across well. She is portrayed as a “strong, intelligent” woman, but she tolerates appalling behaviour from the men in her life, she is sexually attacked by her ex-boyfriend and in the very next chapter is happily having dinner with him, with some of the dialogue barely worthy of Chick-lit. Her responses simply don’t make sense, and it made this part of the story somewhat annoying. When the reader starts being asked to believe that the men in the modern timeline are also reincarnations of characters in the historical timeline, it begins to get a bit ridiculous and unbelievable, This is a bit of a shame really as the basic plot is sound and the historical timeline held my interest well.
A decent enough read, but wouldn’t put it on a top reads list.