Rusty Book Love

Why? See my post " Review or not to review? ", I volunteered to review this!    What? Otherwise known as amazon spiel: Not all pets are sweet and fluffy, some are silly, chaotic and scruffy. The Macroodelzig Amazon link Rusty words  ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕  " Just because she's quirky, doesn't mean she's no good! We're on the same wavelength, we're misunderstood! " I love this book.  As stated in my Amazon review, i t is Julia Donaldsonesque but funnier and with a nice moral undertone.  The illustrations by Tommings are brilliant; simple, funny and bright.  They fit perfectly with the story. We read this the first time with both my four and eight year old.  It stimulated some good conversations.  When the eight year old asked why there was a Mama and a Mum, eyes were rolled by the four year old as he reminded his sister that two ladies can fall in love and have babies.  "Of course!" was the response and ...

When I started the blog, I did a bit of research about the art of the review.  The words of Jessica Parker rang in my ears "When it comes to love and life, why do we always believe our worst reviews?".  The google searches and Netgalley advice all pointed to the always see the positive approach.  My mum's favourite saying seemed to be at the forefront: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all?".  Looking back, this did explain the long drawn out silences in our house.  Particularly when I got a new haircut...... I cannot always see the positive though.  I'm a real person.  And books that I do not enjoy make me angry.  I feel like I have wasted my time.  In the wise words of a psychoanalyst though, I cannot control the book but I can control my reaction to it.  This public reviewing lark should be a good exercise for life methinks. So.  I got asked to do a review.  I was so excited....

Why? It is written by Joanne Harris.  I didn't need any other reason.  It is a very long time since I read Chocolat and so I needed to try more. What? Otherwise known as amazon spiel: Beyond the main street of Les Laveuses runs the Loire, smooth and brown as a sunning snake - but hiding a deadly undertow beneath its moving surface. This is where Framboise, a secretive widow, plies her culinary trade at the crêperie - and lets her memory play strange games. As her nephew attempts to exploit the growing success of the country recipes Framboise has inherited from her mother, a woman remembered with contempt by the villagers, memories of a disturbed childhood during the German Occupation flood back, and expose a past full of betrayal, blackmail and lies. Amazon Five Quarters of the Orange Rusty words   ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ " Oh, she understood wine, my mother. She understood the sweetening process, the fermentation, the seething and mellowing of life in t...

I got a bit excited.  I realised that you can review books before they are published!!!  This seemed like the holy grail.  The super bloggers get access to ARC's (Advanced Reading Copies).  I had dreams of books being posted to me.  Unfortunately I am not a super blogger but a complete newbie and I am not sure if that actually happens (as in real books that you can touch dropping through the letterbox) but I did find www.netgalley.com " NetGalley delivers digital galleys, often called advance reading copies, or ARCs, to professional readers and helps promote new and upcoming titles. Professional readers--reviewers, media, journalists, bloggers, librarians, booksellers and educators--can join and use NetGalley at no cost." So I joined.  I linked to my blog.  And then I blindly started looking through the available books.  But apparently you have to build a profile in terms of reviews before they will just let you read anything....

Why? This was a little bit exciting for me as it is my first foray into netgalley.  Like many people, the title was enough.  Who wouldn't want to read about a bookshop? What? Otherwise known as amazon spiel: Tom Hope doesn't chase rainbows. He does his best on the farm - he milks the cows, harvests the apples, looks after the sheep - but Tom's been lonely since Trudy left, taking little Peter with her to go join the holy rollers. Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jew - and the most vivid person - Tom has ever met. When she asks him to help her build Australia's most beautiful bookshop, Tom dares to believe they could make each other happy. But it is 1968: twenty-four years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a battle with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine. Amazon Bookshop of the Broken Hearted Rusty words  ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ " A mountain rose above the picnic ...

Why? I was browsing in the Yellow Van (otherwise known as the mobile library in Leeds) and this caught my eye.  I may have been influenced by Stephen Fry calling it "An extraordinary novel" on the front cover. What? Otherwise known as amazon spiel: June, 1968. America is in a state of turbulence, engulfed in civil unrest and uncertainty. Yet for Whitney Dane - spending the summer of her twenty-second year on Martha's Vineyard - life could not be safer, nor the future more certain.  Educated at Wheaton, soon to be married, and the youngest daughter of the patrician Dane family, Whitney has everything she has ever wanted, and is everything her all-powerful and doting father, Charles Dane, wants her to be. But the Vineyard's still waters are disturbed by the appearance of Benjamin Blaine. An underprivileged, yet fiercely ambitious and charismatic young man, Blaine is a force of nature neither Whitney nor her family could have prepared for. As Ben'...