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Book Reviews
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Kelly Marsh06 October 2010
This isn't the kind of book that I would normally read but my mum said it was great and I think it has won some awards so I decided to give it a try. I am glad that I read it but wouldn't want to read it again as I found it to sad really even though there were happy moments. Room is told by a fve year old boy called Jack who lives in a small room with only his ma and a television for company. Eventually ma admits to Jack that the world of the television can be real and that there is a world outside the room. I can't really say any more about the story without giving away the tragic surprise but people can probably guess what has happened. Like I said this book is very sad. I liked the writing but probably wouldn't read more books by this author if they are the same kind of thing.
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Colin Brittain06 October 2010
I started diving with the British Sub aqua Club in 1985 and went on to become an open water instructor. My favourite pastime is exploring some of the many shipwrecks that litter our coastlines. When conditions allow I can be found off the North East Coast with my underwater video unit. As an instructor I have been lucky enough to witness the faces of trainees as they embark on their first open water dive.
From the Foreword: Diving is a specialist sport requiring specialist equipment and techniques. We dive in an environment that is essentially 'alien' and unfortunately accidents do occur. Divers owe it to their families to undertake proper training, obtain the correct equipment and to dive within their capabilities. It is only by undertaking a recognised certification course that we are made aware of the inherent risks of sub aqua diving. Armed with this knowledge we can visit the undersea world and experience the many wonders of the oceans. I decided to write this book in an effort to share some of my experience with you the reader. The book will guide you through sub aqua diver training and teach you a little of what learning to dive involves. It is not intended replace any of the manuals you receive when you embark on a recognised diver training course. When I started to write the book one of the most important features was that the book be totally neutral in a sense that it does not promote one training agency over another. -
Let's Dive: Begin the Adventure
Colin Brittain06 October 2010
This was the first manual for the SAA, and the dedicated team given the task of coming forward with the manual worked under pressure with a restrictive budget. I believe the second edition of the manual corrected some of the quality issues with the line drawings. In so far as listing a suitable web address for the UK resuscitation Council Site it was felt that with regular changes some website make to their web address that there was a danger of the manual being out of date before it hit the shelves.
The team responsible for the manual worked professionally and it was hoped that the manual would meet the desires of the member in their inaugural training. The manual was in essence a starting point from which we hoped things could only get better.
Colin Brittain
The Author -
Chris M30 September 2010
Across Old Blighty summer's radiance is fading, the skies are turning grey, a cruel wind rustles the tree tops and for the first time in many a month I have experienced uncontrollable shivers and teeth chatters. Wearing my woollen hat and with a cup of tea in hand I sit in my bedroom dreaming of sunnier climes and rueing my Dad's defiance not to turn on the central heating, "until at least November!". My body is in the West Midlands - that beautiful patch of grey where summer is but a distant rumour - but must my mind remain here in this industrial wasteland? The answer is nay, nay, thrice times nay! Why you may very well ask is the answer thus? A good book is the reason dear friends! Yes, fear not, good literature is at hand! Now spin that temperature dial, bask in the warm glow of your radiator and pick up a copy of Alex Garland's The Beach!
Now I have got all that creative writing and several exclamation marks out of my system let us move on to the review...My first experience of The Beach came on a plane journey. I watched the Leonardo Dicaprio movie based on the book on one of those tiny in flight screens not much bigger than a postage stamp and covered in a thousand passenger's greasy smudges. Despite my restricted view and a crackly headphone I really loved the film and later on my travels when I came across the novel of the same name at a book exchange in a hostel I was staying at, I gladly swapped it for one of my own books. This turned out to be one of the best decisions I made on the entire trip...
The Beach tells the story of a young English backpacker called Richard, who whilst staying at a hell hole of a hostel in Bangkok gains possession of a treasure map of sorts from a crazy Scotsman who subsequently commits suicide. The treasure map does not indicate the location of buried chests of gold but instead provides the holder with directions to an ideological treasure - paradise on Earth. This 'paradise' is - you guessed it - a beach! But naturally it is not any old stretch of sand. Instead it is a hidden, secret beach, on a small island unspoilt by tourists. With two French backpackers in tow, Richard travels across Thailand to 'the beach'. What they discover is indeed a natural, tropical paradise, but they are shocked to find a small community of backpackers already living there. The self-sufficient community is a surreal and eclectic group of multinationals, many having lived there for years with no contact from the outside world. The group are sun bleached and seemingly blissfully contented, but something dangerous is bubbling under the surface of paradise. Richard integrates into the community well and for a while life is heavenly. His time is split between fishing in the beautiful crystal clear waters of the lagoon, playing Gameboy and fooling around in the sunshine. But soon enough the pressure cooker environment of the closed community shows signs of tension and paradise quickly deteriorates into hell...This of course is a very loose overview of the plot (I don't want to spoil all the twists!). But rest assured the tale is exhilarating from start to finish - there's sex, murder, mental breakdown, hallucinations, sun, sea, sand and sharks!!!
Garland utilised his own experiences as a backpacker in the penning of his debut novel. Now, I've been backpacking myself but I can't claim to have experienced anything as wild as the story that unfolded in these pages. For that I am quite grateful! The story is as brutal as it is beautiful, the heavenly paradise of the tale's location contrasting sharply with the degradation and decay of the characters' humanity and the implosion of the society they created. In this regard many critics have compared the Beach to Golding's Lord of the Flies - a comparison that I wholeheartedly agree with. In Lord of the Flies we witnessed the worst of human nature played out through the actions of children. Marooned on a tropical island and without adult supervision, the children's initial attempts to create a semblance of stable society with the foundations of basic law and order soon crumbled and anarchy prevailed. After reading Lord of the Flies I considered whether such a scenario could happen in reality. Remembering my own childhood and the harsh realities of the playground I conceded that yes, without adult supervision it probably could. However, The Beach makes you question whether adult supervision would have made a difference, showing us even mature minds, born and raised in a fair society can be corrupted and spiral into oblivion.
Alex Garland is an excellent storyteller, responsible for the creation of several famous novels and Hollywood screenplays alike. To date two of his novels - The Beach and The Tesseract - have been adapted for the big screen. In addition to this Garland has created original screenplays, notably 28 Days Later and Sunshine which were directed by Danny Boyle (of Slum Dog Millionaire fame) who also took to the director's chair for the big screen treatment of Garland's The Beach. The Beach is Garland's finest work to date - a classic novel, combining action and adventure, love and romance, travel, psychology and sociology...oh, and a brutal shark attack...plus the white sands, palm trees and crystal clear waters promise to warm even the coldest of central heating deprived houses!? What more could you ask for as winter draws near?! -
Kelly Marsh30 September 2010
Lily and Laurence Lamont-Jones thought they had the perfect life, expensive house, nice cars, lots of holidays. But then Laurence lost his job and they lost everything. They are forced to move to a grotty council estate and Lily dreams of getting her old life back. But as she begins to fit in more with the local community, her dreams begin to change. This book was ok but I didn't like it that much. I didn't find it that believe that they could loose all their belongings so easily and have to move to the council estate. They would probably have had some money or at least friends and family to stay with. I think their experience was a bit too dramatic even though it is fiction. I did like some of the story though, like how they got on with their new neighbours and the interesting people living on the estate. This was an ok book but not a favourite for me.
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kelthenurse10@hotmail.com30 September 2010
Emma is a very nervous flyer and so, fearing that she will die on the journey, she begins to reveal all of her secrets to the man sitting next to her on the place. He is a handsome american but Emma doesn't pay attention to this as she is too keen to confess all her secrets. None of her secrets are really bad, thing like feeling like a fraud at work, not actually reading the books she carries around, and throwing a difficult client file in the bin. Of course Emma doesn't die on the flight and when she gets back to work she is in for a shock, the man she told her secrets to is actually the founder of her compnay and he is over visiting the english office! Not part of the Shopaholic series but another funny book from Sophie Kinsella. Sophie Kinsella is one of my favourite authors, her writing is totally hilarious.
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Heartstone (The Shardlake Series)
Joanne Leddington30 September 2010
Heartstone is the fifth novel in CJ Sansom's excellent Matthew Shardlake series.
Set two years after the events of Revelation, Heartstone begins in the summer of 1545 as England is preparing for war. Henry VIII's insatiable desire for power and glory led him to invade France but his army was defeated and now a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel and take advantage of England's weakened position. The English fleet is being mustered at Portsmouth and desperate steps are being taken throughout the country to raise the largest militia army ever called upon. Times are especially tough as Henry VIII had debased the currency in order to pay for his invasion folly and the people of England are struggling as inflation spirals out of control.
Lawyer Matthew Shardlake knows that his disability as well as his age means that he will not be called up for service with the militia but he is worried about the future for his assistant Barack. Fortunately a summons reaches them from Queen Catherine Parr, a lady who owes Shardlake a favour, asking Shardlake to investigate claims of 'monsterous wrongs' that are alleged to have been committed against a ward of the court. Shardlake and Barack travel to Portsmouth to investigate the matter and, as the city prepares for war, Shardlake uses the trip as an opportunity to investigate the mysterious past of Ellen Fettipace, a woman incarcerated in Bedlam who Shardlake became acquainted with during the events of Revelation. As the incidents involving the young ward and the mysterious circumstances of Ellen Fettipace's family begin to draw together and the King's great warships prepare for battle, Matthew Shardlake is forced to confront both an old friend and an old enemy.
Although Heartstone begins slowly with a great deal of exposition, the pace soon hots up and tension builds throughout this terrific novel as Shardlake winds his way towards the thrilling denouncement aboard the Mary Rose. I'm still just as fond of Mathew Shardlake as I was when I read the first book in this series, in him CJ Sansom has created an excellent and believable hero. His character continues to grow and Heartstone offers an opportunity to witness the worst aspects of Tudor life and to see just how difficult it is for kind and just people such as Matthew Shardlake to survive and uphold their principles during the turbulent reign of Henry VIII. Samson has once again managed to bring the Tudor times to life with vivid detail and a huge amount of interesting incidental information. The mystery this time round was just as twisting and complex as I had hoped and I only managed to unravel it myself just before Shardlake laid out all of the facts for us.
I don't believe that there is a date for the book yet although I certainly hope that there will be one. Even though Matthew Shardlake is getting older and increasingly world-weary, I still believe he has a lot more mystery solving in him. Princess Elizabeth features slightly in Heartstone and it would be interesting to see if she will play a larger role in future Shardlake books. -
Editor30 September 2010
In essence this is a story of Serge Carrefax's journey through life from its very beginning in the late nineteenth century, his adolescence, his flying experience doing radio navigation during the 1st world war, his tumultuous after war period and the final part of his life serving in Egypt intelligence gathering. The unifying link of each stage of his life is the connection with radio waves and this is probably why I struggled to fully enjoy the book. The novel is written as a biographical account of Serge from his perspective at the time. For example, in describing his near drowning at the age of two, you really have a bird's eye view into his perception of the experience, and the same occurs again when his older and exceptionally gifted older sister dies. Similarly you are left guessing at the cause of his mystery illness and although I suspect it wasn't really an illness but a condition induced by teenage hormones, this type of cryptic writing is perhaps too frustrating for me. It is true that through life we don't always understand the precise cause and effect of our experiences but the result of reading this style of writing is it leaves you dissatisfied. People who love searching for clues may enjoy this, but a book that leaves me needing to ask the author a list of about 100 questions at the end has perhaps failed to translate itself well enough to me.
To people who are very familiar with the technology it is very readable and the scenes from the First World War and the psychic convention in London after the war are fascinating, well researched and extremely well transcribed. This book does not lack depth, storytelling, research or intrigue but the connection with radio waves alone is just a bit too tenuous for me and I felt, and perhaps this was deliberate on the part of the author, that it lacked any connections with emotional intelligence. It almost needed a feminine touch - an editor who would challenge some of the unfinished business. I was left feeling unintelligent because there were so many loose endings and I couldn't really see how they were tied together other than through radio waves - perhaps that's enough? Other reviews have suggested it is a book to read twice to really get the hidden meanings. I really would have to care more about the characters to expend the effort. -
Editor30 September 2010
The three central characters; Treslove; Libor and Finkler are all interesting, as is their friendship. However the story is very introspective throughout and has a limited narrative. That is Ok, as long as you understand, or want to understand, the idiosyncrasies of the Jewish culture. Much of the story focuses around anti Semitism especially that experienced within the Jewish community about itself; as it is something beyond my experience I found this a very interesting perspective. I loved the focus of each of the characters trying in some way to measure their own and each other's success, especially in the area of love; the author captured the emotions experienced by Treslove following his confessions to Libor as they were so perceptive and typical of a character who essentially was trapped in an ego centric mindset enhanced by his own self loathing. Treslove holds a guilty secret and needs to tell someone. His choice of Libor was so typical of the human mindset and so absolutely regrettable.
Other reviewers have talked about this book being humorous. Humours is not how I would describe The Finkler Question. I found it poignant at times and sad - in an unsympathetic understanding of the word; Treslove is such a neurotic that I really wanted to counsel him or kick him, and I think ultimately we were being led to indifference towards him as he appeared to lack any redeeming features, and I suppose it is a tricky writing stunt to pull off and keep people reading until the end. If he was meant to be funny - I just didn't get it. That said, perhaps the book is meant for a certain type of reader; male, middle class,mysoginists, Jewish, perhaps the unfortunate partners of similar types of characters as Treslove, and someone who spends a lots of time doing too much self analysis. -
Jamie Smith29 September 2010
There are two storys in this book. First Yuck goes into space and meets an alien but his sister Polly Princess thinks he is lying. Second Yuck looks after a lost dog called Scruff. This is a very funny book almost as good as Captain Underpants but that is still my best. I would read other Yuck books. I would recommend this book for boys age 7 to 10.
