Francesca's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:41:36 -0700 60 Francesca's bookshelf: all 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Melancholy 118449 284 Jon Fosse 1564784517 Francesca 0 to-read 3.85 1995 Melancholy
author: Jon Fosse
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Shining 78311985 Listening Length: 1 hour and 33 minutes

A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and finally he gets stuck at the end of a forest road. Soon it gets dark and starts to snow, but instead of going back to find help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity.]]> 48 Jon Fosse 1804270636 Francesca 0 to-read 3.45 2023 A Shining
author: Jon Fosse
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Vaim 223032467
Jatgeir travels from the fishing village of Vaim to the city in search of a needle and thread. Cheated twice, he returns to his boat, where he falls asleep as waves rock the hull. Soon he is awakened by a a woman is calling his name from the quay. There stands Eline, the secret love of his youth—and the namesake of his boat—with a packed suitcase. Eline pleads to come aboard. In what follows, this single encounter reverberates across three three narrators, three deaths.

The first new work from Jon Fosse since he was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, Vaim is a spectral novel that wanders and watches, imbued with things half-seen, perhaps not of this world yet still caught in its rhythms. The first in a trilogy of novels, it continues his investigation into the human the subtle encounters that come to define our lives and our deaths, and what lies in the threshold between what is and what is longed for.]]> 120 Jon Fosse Francesca 0 to-read 3.96 2025 Vaim
author: Jon Fosse
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/08/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Winter's Bone 112525
Ree's father has disappeared before. The Dolly clan has worked the shadowy side of the law for generations, and arrests (and attempts to avoid them) are part of life in Rathlin Valley. But the house is all they have, and Ree's father would never forfeit it to the bond company unless something awful happened. With two young brothers depending on her and a mother who's entered a kind of second childhood, Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive, or else see her family turned out into the unforgiving cold.

Sixteen-year-old Ree, who has grown up in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks, learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. She perseveres past obstacles of every kind and finally confronts the top figures in the family's hierarchy.

Along the way to a shocking revelation, Ree discovers unexpected depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.]]> 225 Daniel Woodrell Francesca 5 Woodrell's not a writer for the faint-hearted. Winter's Bone, as you'd guess from the title, is visceral; the setting, the brutal Ozarks is where 16 year old Ree dreams of joining the army - a life of superior violence to the one she already knows having grown up with the Dolly clan; crank cooks and criminals who share the same terrifying insularity as the mountain men in ‘Deliverance’.
The plot is as tight and wound up as the Bruegel-esque Dollys: killers and latter-day moonshiners who live in the hills surrounding Ree's home, keeping an eye out for her and - ominously - on her too. Only Ree, tough as a nut, offers a ray of warmth with a stoic love of her mother who suffers with mental ill heath, and her fierce protectiveness towards her two younger brothers. Her relationship with mate Gail, (who's opted for a teenage pregnancy by way of escape), teeters gently between sapphic and platonic and offers tenderness in a world so tough that Ree's arrangements for her departure include teaching her brothers to shoot squirrels so they won't starve. However Ree's hope of escape is jeopardised when her dad puts the family home up as bond but skips town, and the very family Ree turns to for help turns out to be a far bigger problem than a missing dad.

For all the cruel bleakness, the story is chock full of beauty and energy. I don't know anything about the Ozarks but everything about Woodrell's language rings true, and even the anthropomorphic descriptions of the countryside are in synch with the foreboding atmosphere, when willows are 'hunched over over a pond' in which Ree is about to uncover a gruesome secret.
For a sense of Woodrell's pace, language and character here's a sample;
"One night when Ree was still a bantling Dad had gotten crossways with Buster Leroy Dolly and been shot in the chest. ... He was electric on crank, thrilled to have been shot, and instead of driving to a doctor he drove 30 miles to the Tiny Spot Tavern to show his assembled buddies the glamorous bullet hole and the blood bubbling."

I loved it.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 3.88 2006 Winter's Bone
author: Daniel Woodrell
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2016/04/01
date added: 2026/08/20
shelves:
review:
I saw the film first and thought it was Ok, good plot and acting, but the book is so much better.
Woodrell's not a writer for the faint-hearted. Winter's Bone, as you'd guess from the title, is visceral; the setting, the brutal Ozarks is where 16 year old Ree dreams of joining the army - a life of superior violence to the one she already knows having grown up with the Dolly clan; crank cooks and criminals who share the same terrifying insularity as the mountain men in ‘Deliverance’.
The plot is as tight and wound up as the Bruegel-esque Dollys: killers and latter-day moonshiners who live in the hills surrounding Ree's home, keeping an eye out for her and - ominously - on her too. Only Ree, tough as a nut, offers a ray of warmth with a stoic love of her mother who suffers with mental ill heath, and her fierce protectiveness towards her two younger brothers. Her relationship with mate Gail, (who's opted for a teenage pregnancy by way of escape), teeters gently between sapphic and platonic and offers tenderness in a world so tough that Ree's arrangements for her departure include teaching her brothers to shoot squirrels so they won't starve. However Ree's hope of escape is jeopardised when her dad puts the family home up as bond but skips town, and the very family Ree turns to for help turns out to be a far bigger problem than a missing dad.

For all the cruel bleakness, the story is chock full of beauty and energy. I don't know anything about the Ozarks but everything about Woodrell's language rings true, and even the anthropomorphic descriptions of the countryside are in synch with the foreboding atmosphere, when willows are 'hunched over over a pond' in which Ree is about to uncover a gruesome secret.
For a sense of Woodrell's pace, language and character here's a sample;
"One night when Ree was still a bantling Dad had gotten crossways with Buster Leroy Dolly and been shot in the chest. ... He was electric on crank, thrilled to have been shot, and instead of driving to a doctor he drove 30 miles to the Tiny Spot Tavern to show his assembled buddies the glamorous bullet hole and the blood bubbling."

I loved it.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle]]> 35967101 A brilliantly original high concept murder mystery from a fantastic new talent: Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror.

'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.'

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

Also titled as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.]]> 505 Stuart Turton Francesca 0 to-read 3.87 2018 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
author: Stuart Turton
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Here in the Real World 45485735
On his first day Ware meets Jolene, a tough, secretive girl planting a garden in the rubble of an abandoned church next to the camp. Soon he starts skipping Rec, creating a castle-like space of his own in the church lot.

Jolene scoffs, calling him a dreamer—he doesn’t live in the “real world” like she does. As different as Ware and Jolene are, though, they have one thing in common: for them, the lot is a refuge.

But when their sanctuary is threatened, Ware looks to the knights’ Code of Chivalry: Thou shalt do battle against unfairness wherever faced with it. Thou shalt be always the champion of the Right and Good—and vows to save the lot.

But what does a hero look like in real life? And what can two misfit kids do?]]> 308 Sara Pennypacker 0062698958 Francesca 0 to-read 4.06 2020 Here in the Real World
author: Sara Pennypacker
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Blankets 25179 A young man comes of age and finds the confidence to express his creative voice.

Craig Thompson's poignant sequential-art memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence.

Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again.]]> 582 Craig Thompson 1891830430 Francesca 4 4.05 2003 Blankets
author: Craig Thompson
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/07/05
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]]> Cunning Women 54633170 Lee is a magnetic new voice in historical fiction and CUNNING WOMEN is sure to be loved by fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mercies.

Spring of 1620 in a Lancashire fishing community and the memory of the slaughter at Pendle is tight around the neck of Sarah Haworth. A birthmark reveals that Sarah, like her mother, is a witch. Torn between yearning for an ordinary life and desire to discover what dark power she might possess, Sarah’s one hope is that her young sister Annie will be spared this fate.

The Haworth family eke out a meagre existence in the old plague village adjoining a God-fearing community presided over by a seedy magistrate. A society built upon looking the other way, the villagers’ godliness is merely a veneer. But the Haworth women, with their salves and poultices, are judged the real threat to morality.

When Sarah meets lonely farmer’s son Daniel, she begins to dream of a better future. Daniel is in thrall to the wild girl with storms in her eyes, but their bond is tested when a zealous new magistrate vows to root out sins and sinners. In a frenzy of fear and fury, the community begins to turn on one another, and it’s not long before they direct their gaze towards the old plague village … and does Daniel trust that the power Sarah wields over him is truly love, or could it be mere sorcery?]]> 384 Elizabeth Lee 178609116X Francesca 0 to-read 3.64 2021 Cunning Women
author: Elizabeth Lee
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lud-in-the-Mist 40534006
Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past; a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he realises that something is changing in Lud — and something must be done.

Lud-in-the-Mist is a true classic, an adult fairy tale exploring the need to embrace what we fear and to come to terms with 'the shadows' — those sweet and dark impulses that our public selves ignore or repress.]]> 264 Hope Mirrlees 1473225566 Francesca 0 to-read 3.84 1926 Lud-in-the-Mist
author: Hope Mirrlees
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1926
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.]]> 15790837
From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved.

Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called "hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving" (Washington Post).

Machine generated contents note: Dentists Without Borders
Attaboy
Think Differenter
Memory Laps
A Friend in the Ghetto
Loggerheads
If I Ruled the World
Easy, Tiger
Laugh, Kookaburra
Standing Still
Just a Quick E-mail
A Guy Walks into a Bar Car
Author, Author
Obama!!!!!
Standing By
I Break for Traditional Marriage
Understanding Understanding Owls
#2 to Go
Health-Care Freedoms and Why I Want My Country Back
Now Hiring Friendly People
Rubbish
Day In, Day Out
Mind the Gap
A Cold Case
The Happy Place]]> 275 David Sedaris 0316154695 Francesca 4 3.85 2013 Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.
author: David Sedaris
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/05
date added: 2021/07/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Disgrace 6192 220 J.M. Coetzee 0143036378 Francesca 0 to-read 3.86 1999 Disgrace
author: J.M. Coetzee
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Where the Wild Things Are 19543 38 Maurice Sendak 0099408392 Francesca 5 4.26 1963 Where the Wild Things Are
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Heart of Darkness 4900 Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.

A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is often considered one of the most influential works ever written.]]> 188 Joseph Conrad 1892295490 Francesca 5 3.44 1899 Heart of Darkness
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.44
book published: 1899
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> The Bell Jar 6514 294 Sylvia Plath Francesca 4 4.05 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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review:

]]> Othello 286804
The new Pelican Shakespeare will be an excellent resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals well into the twenty-first century.]]> 145 William Shakespeare 0140714634 Francesca 5 3.98 1603 Othello
author: William Shakespeare
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1603
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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review:

]]> To Kill a Mockingbird 2657 "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.]]> 323 Harper Lee 0060935464 Francesca 3 4.26 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird
author: Harper Lee
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1960
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 1886 Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.]]> 448 Jane Austen Francesca 4 4.29 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1813
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> Atonement 6867 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385721790

Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.

On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives.

As it follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.]]> 351 Ian McEwan Francesca 3 3.95 2001 Atonement
author: Ian McEwan
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> Animal Farm 7613 Librarian's note: This an alternate cover for: 9780452284241

George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire of a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.

When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 129 George Orwell Francesca 5 3.90 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> Macbeth 8852
This shocking tragedy - a violent caution to those seeking power for its own sake - is, to this day, one of Shakespeare’s most popular and influential masterpieces.]]> 249 William Shakespeare 0743477103 Francesca 5 3.90 1623 Macbeth
author: William Shakespeare
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1623
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> Lolita 7604 Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141182537.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Dolores Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.]]> 368 Vladimir Nabokov Francesca 4 3.87 1955 Lolita
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1955
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/06/24
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]]> Orion Lost 46150658
Hugely gripping, with incredible twists and a fast-paced, action-packed story, this is an unputdownable science fiction adventure – perfect for fans of Mortal Engines and Star Wars.]]> 361 Alastair Chisholm 1788005929 Francesca 0 to-read 4.33 2020 Orion Lost
author: Alastair Chisholm
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Children of Men 41913 The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future. The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apathetic toward a future without a future, spends most of his time reminiscing. Then he is approached by Julian, a bright, attractive woman who wants him to help get her an audience with his cousin, the powerful Warden of England. She and her band of unlikely revolutionaries may just awaken his desire to live . . . and they may also hold the key to survival for the human race.]]> 241 P.D. James 0307279901 Francesca 0 to-read 3.68 1992 The Children of Men
author: P.D. James
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)]]> 3722183 Life After Life Ursula Todd lived through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. In A God in Ruins, Atkinson turns her focus on Ursula’s beloved younger brother Teddy – would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband and father – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have.]]> 480 Kate Atkinson 0316176532 Francesca 0 to-read 3.92 2015 A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 736 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Francesca 0 to-read 4.24 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/06/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Melmoth 41739265
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE

Oh friend, take my hand - I've been so lonely!

One winter night in Prague, Helen Franklin encounters her friend Karel, half-mad with fear.

He has come into possession of a mysterious old manuscript, filled with testimonies that speak to Helen from 17th-century England, wartime Czechoslovakia, the sweat-soaked streets of Manila and 1920's Turkey. All of them tell of being followed by a tall, silent woman in black, bearing a terrible message.

Helen reads its contents with intrigue, but everything in her life is about to change.]]> 271 Sarah Perry 1788160673 Francesca 0 to-read 3.42 2018 Melmoth
author: Sarah Perry
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death]]> 35137915
I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter--for whom this book was written--from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.

Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.]]> 304 Maggie O'Farrell 0525520228 Francesca 3 3.97 2017 I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Fen 26210520 Fen is a liminal land. Real people live their lives here. They wrestle with familiar instincts, with sex and desire, with everyday routine. But the wild is always close at hand, ready to erupt. This is a place where animals and people commingle and fuse, where curious metamorphoses take place, where myth and dark magic still linger. So here a teenager may starve herself into the shape of an eel. A house might fall in love with a girl. A woman might give birth to a – well what?]]> 208 Daisy Johnson 1910702331 Francesca 0 to-read 3.63 2016 Fen
author: Daisy Johnson
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Orphans of the Tide (Orphans of the Tide #1)]]> 44778172 An ancient myth looms over a new friendship.

The City is the only home that Ellie has ever known. She's always been told that there is nothing to see beyond the shores of her small, salty island.

That is, until a mysterious boy washes in with the tide, trapped inside the belly of a whale.

The citizens of the City believe he's ruled by the Enemy--the legendary god who drowned the whole world--come again to cause untold chaos. Only Ellie believes that the boy is innocent.

To save him, Ellie must prove that he's not who they think he is--even if that means revealing her own dangerous secret.]]> 346 Struan Murray 0241384435 Francesca 0 to-read 4.33 2020 Orphans of the Tide (Orphans of the Tide #1)
author: Struan Murray
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Days Without End (Days Without End, #1)]]> 30212107
Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry’s latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.]]> 259 Sebastian Barry 0525427368 Francesca 0 currently-reading 3.93 2016 Days Without End (Days Without End, #1)
author: Sebastian Barry
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins 0439023483 Francesca 5 4.35 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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date added: 2021/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body]]> 45155184 “Nothing less than a gem.” —Judith Lasater
“A vital tool.” — Book Riot

This daring, visionary book revolutionizes yoga practice, making it truly accessible to everyone—in every body, at any age, and in any state of health

Yoga practice has so much to offer us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. But many of us feel discouraged to practice because we see young, slim, flexible, well, and able-bodied people dominating yoga spaces. Yet, yoga is truly a practice for all—conferring enormous benefits to our overall well-being as our bodies change, age, and navigate various health challenges.
 
Jivana Heyman, founder of Accessible Yoga, views yoga as a basic human right—saying we all deserve to practice it in whatever state we find our body or mind. Accessible Yoga offers a simple, clear, and wonderfully adaptable practice for all people regardless of ability, health, and body type. Heyman has spent over twenty years sharing yoga with people of all abilities and backgrounds, and in this book, he shares his knowledge by breaking down complex yoga poses, breathing practices, meditation techniques, and yoga teachings into clearly understandable and practical tools we can use every day, regardless of our limitations or challenges.]]> 224 Jivana Heyman 1611807123 Francesca 0 to-read 4.52 Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body
author: Jivana Heyman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/03
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]]> A Man Called Ove 18774964 the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Francesca 0 to-read 4.35 2012 A Man Called Ove
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> Beartown (Beartown, #1) 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Francesca 0 to-read 4.26 2016 Beartown (Beartown, #1)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> Anxious People 49095611
Two hours later, chaos has descended.

A bungled attempted robbery has developed into a hostage situation - and the offender is refusing to communicate their demands to the police.

Inside the building, fear quickly turns to irritation for the seven strangers trapped inside. If this is to be their last day on earth, shouldn't it be a bit more dramatic?]]> 352 Fredrik Backman 0718186613 Francesca 0 to-read 4.28 2019 Anxious People
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor]]> 35510008 Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn't – about life on and off the hospital ward.

As seen on ITV's Zoe Ball Book Club

This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.

]]> 285 Adam Kay Francesca 4 4.40 2017 This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
author: Adam Kay
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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date added: 2020/11/22
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]]> In the Distance 34381330
At first, it was a contest, but in time the beasts understood that, with an embrace and the slightest push, they had to lie down on their side and stay until Håkan got up. He did this each time he thought he spied someone on the circular horizon. Had Håkan and his animals ever been spotted, the distant travelers would have taken the vanishing silhouettes for a mirage. But there were no such travelers—the moving shadows he saw almost every day in the distance were illusions. With the double intention of getting away from the trail and the cold, he had traveled south for days.

Hernán Díaz is the author of Borges, Between History and Eternity (Bloomsbury 2012), managing editor of RHM, and associate director of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University. He lives in New York.]]> 256 Hernan Diaz 1566894883 Francesca 5 books-to-review 4.10 2017 In the Distance
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/01
date added: 2020/11/10
shelves: books-to-review
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]]> <![CDATA[Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field]]> 18104707
Meadowland gives an unique and intimate account of an English meadow’s life from January to December, together with its biography. In exquisite prose, John Lewis-Stempel records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath: the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren, the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.

In Meadowland Lewis-Stempel does for meadows what Roger Deakin did for woodland and rivers in his bestselling books Wildwood and Waterlog.]]> 293 John Lewis-Stempel 0857521454 Francesca 0 to-read 4.23 2014 Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field
author: John Lewis-Stempel
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/10/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge]]> 51342996 The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia.

Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point.

Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the United Kingdom’s Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process.

More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.]]> 308 Richard Ovenden 0674241207 Francesca 0 to-read 3.70 2020 Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge
author: Richard Ovenden
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/10/14
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]]> J R 28434 The Recognitions, that tremendous book which, in the twenty years since its publication, has come to be acknowledged as an American masterpiece. And J R is a book of comparable magnitude, substance, and humor--a rushing, raucous look at money and its influence, at love and its absence, at success and its failures, in the magnificently orchestrated circus of all its larger- and smaller-than-life characters; a frantic, forlorn comedy about who uses -- and misuses -- whom.

At the center: J R, ambitious sixth-grader in torn sneakers, bred on the challenge of "free enterprise" and fired by heady mail-order promises of "success." His teachers would rather be elsewhere, his principal doubles as a bank president, his Long Island classroom mirrors the world he sees around him -- a world of public relations and private betrayals where everything (and everyone) wears a price tag, a world of "deals" where honesty is no substitute for experience, and the letter of the law flouts its spirit at every turn. Operating from the remote anonymity of phone booths and the local post office, with beachheads in a seedy New York cafeteria and a catastrophic, carton-crammed tenement on East 96th Street, J R parlays a deal for thousands of surplus Navy picnic forks through penny stock flyers and a distant textile-mill bankruptcy into a nationwide, hydra-headed "family of companies."

The J R Corp and its Boss engulf brokers, lawyers, Congressmen, disaffected school teachers and disenfranchised Indians, drunks, divorcées, second-hand generals, and a fledgling composer hopelessly entangled in a nightmare marriage of business and the arts. Their bullish ventures -- shaky mineral claims and gas leases, cost-plus defense contracts, a string of nursing homes cum funeral parlors, a formula for frozen music -- burgeon into a paper empire ranging from timber to textiles, from matchbooks to (legalized) marijuana, from prostheses to publishing, inadvertently crushing hopes, careers, an entire town, on a collision course with the bigger world . . . the pragmatic Real World where the business of America is business, where the stock market exists as a convenience, and the tax laws make some people more equal than others . . . the world that makes the rules because it plays to win, and plays for keeps.

Absurdly logical, mercilessly real, gathering its own tumultuous momentum for the ultimate brush with commodity trading when the drop in pork belly futures masks the crumbling of our own, J R captures the reader in the cacophony of voices that revolves around this young captive of his own myths -- voices that dominate the book, talking to each other, at each other, into phones, on intercoms, from TV screens and radios -- a vast mosaic of sound that sweeps the reader into the relentless "real time" of spoken words in a way unprecedented in modern fiction. The disturbing clarity with which this finished writer captures the ways in which we deal, dissemble, stumble through our words -- through our lives -- while the real plans are being made elsewhere makes J R the extraordinary novel that it is.

--From the first-edition dustjacket]]> 752 William Gaddis 0140187073 Francesca 0 to-read 4.29 1975 J R
author: William Gaddis
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1975
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/25
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]]> The Good Friday Agreement 39785374
This remarkable book examines power-sharing and the peace process in Northern Ireland on the twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and asks what it has achieved beyond an end to violence. She concludes that, although it brought an end to violent blood shed on Northern Ireland's streets, it also failed to create healthy and functional politics.

The Good Friday Agreement served an important purpose in 1998, but has since been out-paced by local and global politics. It is no longer fit to facilitate the peaceful politics it made possible, as the current collapse of power-sharing sadly shows.]]> 320 Siobhan Fenton 1785903829 Francesca 0 to-read 4.04 2018 The Good Friday Agreement
author: Siobhan Fenton
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/09/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle (Kelpies)]]> 37573270 Caylin runs to find what she's lost. Under the gray Glasgow skies, twelve-year-old refugee Reema is struggling to find her place in a new country, with a new language and without her brother. But she isn't the only one feeling lost. Her Glasgwegian neighbor Caylin is lonely and lashing out. When they discover an injured fox and her cubs hiding on their estate, the girls form a wary friendship. And they are more alike than they could have they both love to run. As Reema and Caylin learn to believe again, in themselves and in others, they find friendship, freedom and the discovery that home isn't a place, it's the people you love. Heartfelt and full of hope, The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle is an uplifting story about the power of friendship and belonging. Inspired by her work with young asylum seekers, debut novelist Victoria Williamson's stunning story of displacement and discovery will speak to anyone who has ever asked 'where do I belong?']]> 272 Victoria Williamson 1782504907 Francesca 5 books-to-review 4.42 The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle (Kelpies)
author: Victoria Williamson
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/09/04
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]]> Slaughterhouse-Five 4981 Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. Just as Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”

Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing — the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit — that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it.

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.]]> 275 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Francesca 0 to-read 4.11 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories]]> 251688 Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's.

In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's... And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveler, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

Also included are three of Capote's best-known stories:
• House of Flowers - Ottilie is entranced by a beautiful young man, and leaves her life and friends to live with him and his old grandmother, who seems to hate her.
• A Diamond Guitar - Hear the story of the prized possession of a younger prison inmate, a rhinestone-studded guitar.
• A Christmas Memory - A poignant tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.]]> 142 Truman Capote Francesca 5 3.87 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories
author: Truman Capote
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1958
rating: 5
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date added: 2020/08/16
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]]> Z for Zachariah 69477 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 0435122118

Is anyone out there?

Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors.

But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.]]> 249 Robert C. O'Brien Francesca 4 to-read 3.69 1974 Z for Zachariah
author: Robert C. O'Brien
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1974
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/08/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> Agnes Gray 8550002 172 Anne Brontë 1595471030 Francesca 4 3.59 1847 Agnes Gray
author: Anne Brontë
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1847
rating: 4
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date added: 2020/08/15
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]]> WildSpark 44151372 448 Vashti Hardy 1407191551 Francesca 0 to-read 4.18 2019 WildSpark
author: Vashti Hardy
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense]]> 38504 Charles Bukowski examines cats and his childhood in You Get So Alone at Times, a book of poetry that reveals his tender side. The iconic tortured artist/everyman delves into his youth to analyze its repercussions.

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.” —Joyce Carol Oates

“[Bukowski] brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.” —Leonard Cohen, songwriter]]> 320 Charles Bukowski 0876856830 Francesca 0 to-read 4.18 1986 You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/10
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]]> Love Is a Dog from Hell 23534 A classic in the Bukowski poetry canon, Love Is a Dog from Hell is a raw, lyrical exploration of the exigencies, heartbreaks, and limits of love.

Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate madman.” Alternating between tough and gentle, sensitive and gritty, Bukowski lays bare the myriad facets of love—its selfishness and its narcissism, its randomness, its mystery and its misery, and, ultimately, its true joyfulness, endurance, and redemptive power.]]> 312 Charles Bukowski 0876853629 Francesca 0 to-read 3.99 1977 Love Is a Dog from Hell
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/10
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]]> Women 38500 291 Charles Bukowski 0061177598 Francesca 0 to-read 3.84 1978 Women
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1978
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Post Office 40409718 162 Charles Bukowski Francesca 0 to-read 3.88 1971 Post Office
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Tiny Love: The Complete Stories]]> 43212934
A career-spanning collection,  Tiny Love  brings together for the first time the stories of Larry Brown’s previous collections along with those never before gathered. The self-taught Brown has long had a cult following, and this collection comes with an intimate and heartfelt appreciation by novelist Jonathan Miles. We see Brown's early forays into genre fiction and the horror story, then develop his fictional gaze closer to home, on the people and landscapes of Lafayette County, Mississippi. And what’s astonishing here is the odyssey these stories Brown’s self-education as a writer and the incredible artistic journey he navigated from “Plant Growin’ Problems” to “A Roadside Resurrection.” This is the whole of Larry Brown, the arc laid bare, both an amazing story collection and the fullest portrait we’ll see of one of the South’s most singular artists.]]> 480 Larry Brown 1616209755 Francesca 0 to-read 4.19 2019 Tiny Love: The Complete Stories
author: Larry Brown
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 31434883 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

the only way to survive is to open your heart.]]> 336 Gail Honeyman 0735220689 Francesca 3 4.21 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2020/08/04
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]]> The Alchemist 18144590 The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.]]> 182 Paulo Coelho 0062315005 Francesca 0 to-read 4.01 1988 The Alchemist
author: Paulo Coelho
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1988
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/08/03
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]]> Parzival 14742992 Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach (fl. 1195-1225) is a recreation - and completion - of the story of the Holy Grail which was left unfinished by Chrétian de Troyes.

Set against an alternating backdrop of forbidding landscape and dazzling courtly ritual, Parzival's noble quest for the supreme goal of chivalry is effectively contrasted with the less spiritual preoccupations and careers of his father and of Gawan, his amorous comrade-in-arms.

The cover shows 149v of manuscript Cgm 19, depitcting scenes from Parzival, in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich]]> 447 Wolfram von Eschenbach Francesca 0 to-read 4.00 1215 Parzival
author: Wolfram von Eschenbach
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1215
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/07/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> Habibi 10138607 From the internationally acclaimed author of Blankets , a highly anticipated new graphic novel.
 
Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth—and frailty—of their connection.
 
At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.]]> 672 Craig Thompson 0375424148 Francesca 4 4.02 2011 Habibi
author: Craig Thompson
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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date added: 2020/07/24
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Intriguing, beautiful and terrifying.
]]> The Ghouls of Howlfair 44444793 The scariest legends are about to come true!

Molly Thompson has lots of questions. Questions like, is her Aunt Carol an undead fiend who drinks the blood of the living? Is she secretly lurking in the attic? And is Molly's friend Lowry a descendant of a long line of Kroglin werewolves?

Serious young historian Molly suspects that the creepy legends about her tourist town of Howlfair are starting to come true. But when her mother bans her from doing any further research, bookworm Molly and her friends - Lowry and guardian-cat Gabriel - become covert monster-hunters to keep Howlfair safe. It seems that someone is secretly trying to summon Howlfair's mythical monsters, and with the election of a new town mayor looming, everything – and everyone – is becoming increasingly suspicious...]]> 336 Nick Tomlinson 1406386685 Francesca 5 children-s-books
Ghouls start appearing - hunting their prey with dark subterfuge; camouflaging themselves as the victim’s dearly departed, before morphing into wax-faced spooks, with a single blue eye blazing. Killing to order with the most powerful weapon of all-the victim’s own sheer terror-the floating assassins drip with gems and jewels because, it turns out, ghouls do so love a bit of bling. This wonderful book is scattered with many tidbits on demonology for the budding ghost-catcher in your family.

Children love to be scared, but not too much, and Tomlinson pulls off a clever trick; at the creepiest points he pricks the tension with gags and slapstick because laughter diffuses any situation (the message Molly’s Dad leaves her). Along with jokes, this has everything else kids love; lost legends, mystery, wonderful chases and nail-biting close shaves.

But it’s the writing that’s so stand out, from the opening chapter as Howlfair readies itself for night, with a lovely Dylan-esque passage reminiscent of the start of ‘Under Milkwood’ or descriptions of fallen leaves as golden as ‘a panner’s pan crammed with nuggets’. The whole book is a joy to read, with a playfulness of language from someone who understands how to make kids giggle, and words sing.

A fantastic start to the series. Book two; Molly Thompson and the Crypt of the Blue Moon, due out in October.

Please ask permission before using this review, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you!]]> 3.94 2019 The Ghouls of Howlfair
author: Nick Tomlinson
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/16
date added: 2020/07/17
shelves: children-s-books
review:
Molly Thompson, historian and bookworm (and too nosy for her own good), lives in the Excelsior guest house, an old place creaking like a haunted galleon, while her Mum battles demanding guests and worse; coming to terms with her husband’s death. Added to her woes she must stop Molly’s well meaning prying into the folk, and folk tales, of Howlfair- a washed up town with seemingly nothing more exciting than a mayoral campaign and faded memories of the (literally) hell-raising ghouls that once haunted it. That is, until Molly unearths a secret; someone wants the ghouls to have top billing again and Molly needs to know why...

Ghouls start appearing - hunting their prey with dark subterfuge; camouflaging themselves as the victim’s dearly departed, before morphing into wax-faced spooks, with a single blue eye blazing. Killing to order with the most powerful weapon of all-the victim’s own sheer terror-the floating assassins drip with gems and jewels because, it turns out, ghouls do so love a bit of bling. This wonderful book is scattered with many tidbits on demonology for the budding ghost-catcher in your family.

Children love to be scared, but not too much, and Tomlinson pulls off a clever trick; at the creepiest points he pricks the tension with gags and slapstick because laughter diffuses any situation (the message Molly’s Dad leaves her). Along with jokes, this has everything else kids love; lost legends, mystery, wonderful chases and nail-biting close shaves.

But it’s the writing that’s so stand out, from the opening chapter as Howlfair readies itself for night, with a lovely Dylan-esque passage reminiscent of the start of ‘Under Milkwood’ or descriptions of fallen leaves as golden as ‘a panner’s pan crammed with nuggets’. The whole book is a joy to read, with a playfulness of language from someone who understands how to make kids giggle, and words sing.

A fantastic start to the series. Book two; Molly Thompson and the Crypt of the Blue Moon, due out in October.

Please ask permission before using this review, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you!
]]> <![CDATA[Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1)]]> 1736739
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life – sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty.]]> 270 Elizabeth Strout Francesca 0 to-read 3.85 2008 Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Precious Bane 779509 Precious Bane is a novel that haunts us with its beauty and its timeless truths about our deepest hopes. Set in Shropshire in the 1800s, it is alive with the many moods of Nature, benevolent and violent and the many moods -- equally benevolent and violent -- of the people making lives there.
 
Prue Sarn is an unlikely heroine, born with a facial disfiguration which the Fates have dictated will deny her love. But Prue has strength far beyond her handicap, and this woman, suspected of witchcraft by her fellow townspeople, rises above them all through an all-encompassing sweetness of spirit.
 
Precious Bane is also the story of Gideon, Prue's doomed brother, equally strong-willed, but with other motives. Determined to defeat the poverty of their farm, he devotes all his energies to making money. His only diversion from this ambition, he abandons her for the stronger drive of his money lust.
 
And finally, it is the story of Kester Woodseaves, whose steady love for all created things leads him to resist people's cruelty toward nature and each other, and whose love for Prue Sarn enables him to discern her natural loveliness beneath her blighted appearance. 

Rebecca West, a contemporary of Mary Webb, called her, simply, "a genius," and G. K. Chesterton, another contemporary, asserted: "the light in the stories . . . is a light not shining on the things but through them."
 
Critic Hilda Addison summed up Precious Bane: "The book opens with one of those simple sentences which haunt the mind until the curiosity has been satisfied . . . It strikes a note which never fails throughout; it opens with a beauty which is justified to the last sentence."
 
When the book was first published in 1926 in America, the New York Times Book Review predicted: " on some bookshelves, we feel sure, Precious Bane will find almost a hallowed place." ]]> 328 Mary Webb 0268015384 Francesca 0 to-read 4.24 1924 Precious Bane
author: Mary Webb
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1924
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Pinch of Magic (A Pinch of Magic, #1)]]> 38749835
All Betty Widdershins wants is an adventure--one that takes her far away from Crowstone, the gloomy island where she's always lived. But instead of an adventure, Betty and her sisters, Fliss and Charlie, are given of a set of magical objects, each with its own powers: a scruffy carpet bag, a set of wooden nesting dolls, and a gilt-framed mirror. And these magical objects come with their own terrible secret: the sisters' family is haunted by a generations-long curse that prevents them from ever leaving their island--at the cost of death.

The sisters set out to break the curse and free their family forever. But after stumbling upon a mysterious prisoner who claims to be able to help them, they find themselves in great danger. And in order to break the curse--and stay alive--they must unravel a mystery that goes back centuries, one that involves shipwrecks, smugglers, and sorcery of the most perilous kind.]]> 368 Michelle Harrison Francesca 0 to-read 4.06 2019 A Pinch of Magic (A Pinch of Magic, #1)
author: Michelle Harrison
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Boy with the Butterfly Mind]]> 44781421 224 Victoria Williamson 1782506004 Francesca 0 books-to-review, to-read 4.16 2019 The Boy with the Butterfly Mind
author: Victoria Williamson
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/02
shelves: books-to-review, to-read
review:

]]> Jane Eyre 10210 Alternate editions can be found here and here.

A gothic masterpiece of tempestuous passions and dark secrets, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis in Penguin Classics.

Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzled readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom.]]> 532 Charlotte Brontë 0142437204 Francesca 5 4.15 1847 Jane Eyre
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1847
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> The Secret Garden 2998
Mary Lennox, a spoiled, ill-tempered, and unhealthy child, comes to live with her reclusive uncle in Misselthwaite Manor on England’s Yorkshire moors after the death of her parents. There she meets a hearty housekeeper and her spirited brother, a dour gardener, a cheerful robin, and her wilful, hysterical, and sickly cousin, Master Colin, whose wails she hears echoing through the house at night.

With the help of the robin, Mary finds the door to a secret garden, neglected and hidden for years. When she decides to restore the garden in secret, the story becomes a charming journey into the places of the heart, where faith restores health, flowers refresh the spirit, and the magic of the garden, coming to life anew, brings health to Colin and happiness to Mary.]]> 331 Frances Hodgson Burnett 0517189607 Francesca 5 4.17 1911 The Secret Garden
author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1911
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> A Northern Light 64481
Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original.

Includes a reader's guide and an interview with the author.]]> 396 Jennifer Donnelly 0152053107 Francesca 0 to-read 3.83 2003 A Northern Light
author: Jennifer Donnelly
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> SeaRISE (SeaBEAN Trilogy #3) 23528346
How will they survive their terrifying ordeal? Who can help them figure out a way to get back to their own time? Will they escape before their captor Commander Hadron catches up with them? Who is he anyway and what's his connection to the mysterious Dr Foster?

Unsettled by the devastation they find everywhere in the future and armed with new knowledge about the C-Bean's ultimate purpose, Alice and Co scour the planet, confronting many challenges in pursuit of answers to their questions. But can they figure out a way to restore the Earth's delicate ecological balance for good?]]> 176 Sarah Holding 1909339148 Francesca 0 to-read 4.60 2014 SeaRISE (SeaBEAN Trilogy #3)
author: Sarah Holding
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> SeaWAR (SeaBEAN Trilogy #2) 21500460
But now it's broken and stranded on the rocks on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda. When Karla, the C-Bean's designer, turns up from Germany to try to fix it, they perform a factory reset, which accidentally sends it back in time, and Alice's world is thrown into disarray.

Chased by Victorian police, attacked by an enemy submarine, imprisoned with a madwoman, summoned to rescue a dying pilot and pursued by secret agents, Alice, together with her parrot, her dog and her new wartime companions, embarks on a journey through time, uncovering hidden secrets from St Kilda's past and safeguarding the future before it's too late.

SeaWAR, Book 2 of the SeaBEAN Trilogy also has a heat-sensitive or thermochromic cover]]> 176 Sarah Holding 190933913X Francesca 0 to-read 4.40 2014 SeaWAR (SeaBEAN Trilogy #2)
author: Sarah Holding
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> SeaBEAN (SeaBEAN Trilogy #1) 18618627 176 Sarah Holding 1909339121 Francesca 0 to-read 3.91 2013 SeaBEAN (SeaBEAN Trilogy #1)
author: Sarah Holding
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Travelling Cat Chronicles 40961230
An instant international bestseller and indie bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe...

With his crooked tail—a sign of good fortune—and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love.]]> 281 Hiro Arikawa 0735235244 Francesca 0 to-read 4.34 2012 The Travelling Cat Chronicles
author: Hiro Arikawa
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Seeing the Blossom: Two Interviews and a Lecture]]> 1502069 76 Dennis Potter 0571174361 Francesca 5 4.41 1994 Seeing the Blossom: Two Interviews and a Lecture
author: Dennis Potter
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/06/06
shelves:
review:

]]> I Know This Much Is True 227711
One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.]]> 897 Wally Lamb 0060987561 Francesca 0 to-read 4.21 1998 I Know This Much Is True
author: Wally Lamb
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Kitchen 200637 160 Banana Yoshimoto 0571212050 Francesca 3 3.71 1988 Kitchen
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2020/05/27
shelves:
review:

]]> The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter 37380 359 Carson McCullers 0618084746 Francesca 5 to-read 4.00 1940 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
author: Carson McCullers
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1940
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Donbas: A True Story of an Escape Across Russia (Volume 0)]]> 6162593

]]> 264 Jacques Sandulescu 0595150438 Francesca 0 to-read 4.46 1968 Donbas: A True Story of an Escape Across Russia (Volume 0)
author: Jacques Sandulescu
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.46
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Butterfly Circus 51024895
Sisters Tansy and Belle are the stars of the grand finale of a circus show; a dazzling and perfectly timed trapeze act where they soar through the air like shimmering butterflies. One night, desperate to impress her older sister, Tansy attempts a spectacular jump and falls. Now terrified of heights, all Tansy can do is watch from below while Belle shines above. But when Belle mysteriously vanishes and Tansy’s shadow miraculously comes to life, Tansy discovers that the courage she needs to rescue her sister may have been inside her all along.]]> 288 Francesca Armour-Chelu 1406384364 Francesca 0 3.60 2019 The Butterfly Circus
author: Francesca Armour-Chelu
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2019/08/01
date added: 2020/02/06
shelves:
review:

]]> Check Mates 39989928 Some people think that I’m a problem child, that I’m lazy and never pay attention in lessons. But the thing is, I’m not a problem child at all. I’m just a child with a problem.

Felix is struggling at school. His ADHD makes it hard for him to concentrate and his grades are slipping. Everyone keeps telling him to try harder, but no one seems to understand just how hard he finds it. When Mum suggests Felix spends time with his grandfather, Felix can’t think of anything worse. Granddad hasn’t been the same since Grandma died. Plus he’s always trying to teach Felix boring chess. But sometimes the best lessons come in the most unexpected of places, and Granddad soon shows Felix that there’s everything to play for.]]> 279 Stewart Foster 1471172244 Francesca 4
Felix Schopp gets in trouble at school, but as the cover explains; he isn’t a ‘problem child’, but a child with a ‘problem’. At first sight this is clearly his ADHD, but the reader soon realises that Felix has more pressing issues, namely his grouchy, German grandad still reeling from the death of Felix’s beloved grandma, and now skulking in a darkened, clock-filled house with curtains drawn, less against sunshine than the living world, watching endless German television. Grandad Schopp babysits more often than Felix likes because his cash-strapped parents work all the hours they can and during one such period of enforced companionship, he decides to teach Felix chess as part of his home-spun therapy for ‘The Problem’.
Doesn’t sound like there will be many laughs, but there are loads. With Foster's nod to 'Just William', Felix is feisty and funny in his sly attempts to avoid learning, never seeing, until too late, that Schopp senior is an opponent of far superior cunning who outwits him at every turn, teaching him the game with an array of tasks; cleaning patio slabs or mowing the lawn to explain the geography of a chess board, but also ( wonderfully cynically) just to get some tedious chores done!
Slowly but surely Felix becomes a player and an underdog becomes top-dog with us, and his mates, Jake and Rebecca, rooting for him all the way. In less capable hands this could have been a recipe for schmatlz but Foster handles real, hard-hitting issues here-the ADHD itself, how family life takes a battering when there isn’t enough dosh, plus themes rarely examined in kids’ books; widowhood and loneliness amongst the elderly, (Grandad is living a kind of emotional stalemate when we first meet him) and what it’s like to flee one’s home-country; in this instance, East Germany.
Chapters are short, making it a perfect read for the very sort of child Felix starts out as; one with a short attention span, and the story is dotted with genuine chess tactics and famous moves that make it perfect for anyone who plays chess- or is keen to learn. But more than anything it is a tale bubbling with wit, wisdom and warmth. Perfect for 9 plus.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster, and the author, for my review copy.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.26 2019 Check Mates
author: Stewart Foster
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/09/13
date added: 2019/12/05
shelves:
review:
A hero reminiscent of 'Just William'

Felix Schopp gets in trouble at school, but as the cover explains; he isn’t a ‘problem child’, but a child with a ‘problem’. At first sight this is clearly his ADHD, but the reader soon realises that Felix has more pressing issues, namely his grouchy, German grandad still reeling from the death of Felix’s beloved grandma, and now skulking in a darkened, clock-filled house with curtains drawn, less against sunshine than the living world, watching endless German television. Grandad Schopp babysits more often than Felix likes because his cash-strapped parents work all the hours they can and during one such period of enforced companionship, he decides to teach Felix chess as part of his home-spun therapy for ‘The Problem’.
Doesn’t sound like there will be many laughs, but there are loads. With Foster's nod to 'Just William', Felix is feisty and funny in his sly attempts to avoid learning, never seeing, until too late, that Schopp senior is an opponent of far superior cunning who outwits him at every turn, teaching him the game with an array of tasks; cleaning patio slabs or mowing the lawn to explain the geography of a chess board, but also ( wonderfully cynically) just to get some tedious chores done!
Slowly but surely Felix becomes a player and an underdog becomes top-dog with us, and his mates, Jake and Rebecca, rooting for him all the way. In less capable hands this could have been a recipe for schmatlz but Foster handles real, hard-hitting issues here-the ADHD itself, how family life takes a battering when there isn’t enough dosh, plus themes rarely examined in kids’ books; widowhood and loneliness amongst the elderly, (Grandad is living a kind of emotional stalemate when we first meet him) and what it’s like to flee one’s home-country; in this instance, East Germany.
Chapters are short, making it a perfect read for the very sort of child Felix starts out as; one with a short attention span, and the story is dotted with genuine chess tactics and famous moves that make it perfect for anyone who plays chess- or is keen to learn. But more than anything it is a tale bubbling with wit, wisdom and warmth. Perfect for 9 plus.

Thanks to Simon and Schuster, and the author, for my review copy.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> When the Wind Blows 489946 48 Raymond Briggs 0140094199 Francesca 5 4.29 1982 When the Wind Blows
author: Raymond Briggs
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/11/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Ethel and Ernest 402252
The book's strip-cartoon format is deceptively simple; it possesses a wealth of detail and an emotional depth that are remarkable in such a short volume. Briggs's marvelous illustrations and succinct, true-to-life dialogue create a real sense of time and place, of what it was like to experience such enormous changes. Almost as much a social history as it is a personal account, Ethel & Ernest is a moving tribute to ordinary people living in an extraordinary time.]]> 104 Raymond Briggs 0375407588 Francesca 4 4.20 1998 Ethel and Ernest
author: Raymond Briggs
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/11/24
shelves:
review:

]]> The Complete Maus 15195
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.]]> 296 Art Spiegelman 0141014083 Francesca 5 4.58 1992 The Complete Maus
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.58
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/11/24
shelves:
review:

]]> The Confession 44439342
Three decades later, Rose Simmons is seeking answers about her mother, who disappeared when she was a baby. Having learned that the last person to see her was Constance Holden, a reclusive novelist who withdrew from public life at the peak of her fame, Rose is drawn to the door of Connie's imposing house in search of a confession . . .]]> 455 Jessie Burton Francesca 0 to-read 3.88 2019 The Confession
author: Jessie Burton
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Brokeback Mountain 1627

Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands, come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender one summer on a range above the tree line. At first, sharing an isolated tent, the attraction is casual, inevitable, but something deeper catches them that summer.



Both men work hard, marry, and have kids because that's what cowboys do. But over the course of many years and frequent separations this relationship becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they do anything they can to preserve it.



The New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for Fiction for its publication of "Brokeback Mountain," and the story was included in Prize Stories 1998: The O. Henry Awards. In gorgeous and haunting prose, Proulx limns the difficult, dangerous affair between two cowboys that survives everything but the world's violent intolerance.

]]> 55 Annie Proulx 0743271327 Francesca 5 4.04 1997 Brokeback Mountain
author: Annie Proulx
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/10/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Neverwhere: BBC Dramatisation 20362706

An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.

So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl’s Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.

Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.

A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman’s novel adapted by Dirk Maggs for Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbens, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.]]> 4 Neil Gaiman Francesca 0 to-read 4.31 2013 Neverwhere: BBC Dramatisation
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How to Be a Woman 10600242 312 Caitlin Moran 0091940737 Francesca 4 Review to follow.... 3.71 2011 How to Be a Woman
author: Caitlin Moran
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2019/08/05
date added: 2019/09/17
shelves:
review:
Review to follow....
]]> Coraline 17061
In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.

The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.

Only it's different.

At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself.

Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.]]> 208 Neil Gaiman 0061139378 Francesca 5
To give a sense of how blended the everyday/terrifying is, there's one moment where Coraline is invited to stitch buttons into her own eyes:
"If you want to stay,' said her other father, 'there's only one little thing we'll have to do, so you can stay here for ever and always.' On a china plate on the kitchen table was a spool of black cotton, and a long silver needle, and, beside them, two large black buttons. "It won't hurt,' said her other father." ......Shiny buttons, a needle and thread waiting innocuously on a table? What child hasn't seen those very things on their own kitchen table? If they've read Coraline they'll never see them innocently again.

I read this to my 12 year old daughter who's as tough as a nut but it was too much for her and she told me to stop and had to sleep with the light on that night. There are more obviously frightening books out there, but this one has the power to scuttle deep into the consciousness and settle in forever. For this reason I simultaneously give 'Coraline' an 'Urrgh!'.... and a 'Bravo!'

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.14 2002 Coraline
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/09/17
shelves:
review:
Why does this book work so creepily well..?! I wish I could unpick it to understand its craft, but that might be the point-its elements are too tightly woven to disassemble. By turns it's hilarious, terrifying, dreamlike yet quite ordinary, even celebratory of the everyday drear of being a kid; I mean...school-clothes shopping even features.

To give a sense of how blended the everyday/terrifying is, there's one moment where Coraline is invited to stitch buttons into her own eyes:
"If you want to stay,' said her other father, 'there's only one little thing we'll have to do, so you can stay here for ever and always.' On a china plate on the kitchen table was a spool of black cotton, and a long silver needle, and, beside them, two large black buttons. "It won't hurt,' said her other father." ......Shiny buttons, a needle and thread waiting innocuously on a table? What child hasn't seen those very things on their own kitchen table? If they've read Coraline they'll never see them innocently again.

I read this to my 12 year old daughter who's as tough as a nut but it was too much for her and she told me to stop and had to sleep with the light on that night. There are more obviously frightening books out there, but this one has the power to scuttle deep into the consciousness and settle in forever. For this reason I simultaneously give 'Coraline' an 'Urrgh!'.... and a 'Bravo!'

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> Forest of Enchantment Tarot 44445273 240 Lunaea Weatherstone 0738751391 Francesca 0 to-read 4.70 Forest of Enchantment Tarot
author: Lunaea Weatherstone
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Quichotte 43811212
Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television, who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where “Anything-Can-Happen”. Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.

Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirise the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of his work, the fully realised lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.]]> 393 Salman Rushdie 178733192X Francesca 0 to-read 3.77 2019 Quichotte
author: Salman Rushdie
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest]]> 332613 9780451163967

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.]]> 325 Ken Kesey Francesca 5 4.20 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
author: Ken Kesey
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/09/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Outlaw Album 10986337
Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal behavior in this wrenching collection of stories. Desperation - both material and psychological - motivates his characters. A husband cruelly avenges the killing of his wife's pet; an injured rapist is cared for by a young girl, until she reaches her breaking point; a disturbed veteran of Iraq is murdered for his erratic behavior; an outsider's house is set on fire by an angry neighbor.

There is also the tenderness and loyalty of the vulnerable in these stories - between spouses, parents and children, siblings, and comrades in arms - which brings the troubled, sorely tested cast of characters to vivid, relatable life.]]> 167 Daniel Woodrell 0316057568 Francesca 4 3.79 2011 The Outlaw Album
author: Daniel Woodrell
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2019/09/03
date added: 2019/09/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August]]> 35066358 417 Claire North Francesca 0 currently-reading 4.03 2014 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
author: Claire North
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Skellig (Skellig, #1) 24271 208 David Almond 0440229081 Francesca 4 to-read 3.78 1998 Skellig (Skellig, #1)
author: David Almond
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Apprentice Witch (The Apprentice Witch, #1)]]> 33605563 323 James Nicol 1338118587 Francesca 0 to-read 3.87 2016 The Apprentice Witch (The Apprentice Witch, #1)
author: James Nicol
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn 35604898 288 Francesca Armour-Chelu 1406366188 Francesca 0 4.09 Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn
author: Francesca Armour-Chelu
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2019/08/01
date added: 2019/08/27
shelves:
review:

]]> The Time Traveler's Wife 18619684 537 Audrey Niffenegger 1939126010 Francesca 0 to-read 4.07 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Room 7937843
Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.]]> 321 Emma Donoghue Francesca 4 I still have misgivings about the choice of subject matter but what redeemed Room for me was that it was completely gripping, and utterly convincing, and didn't wander into sensationalism as it so easily could have done. I also loved that the treatment of the mother and child relationship didn't dissolve into the schmaltzy (it has its ups and downs like an ordinary Mum and child )
The way Ma protects Jack by telling him the Room is the whole real world is heartbreaking and brought the terror of the situation alive for me. Donoghue does this with the subtle and beautifully simple omission of the definite article; there is only one bed, so Bed needs no 'the'.. this almost feels like Bed, Wardrobe, Chair etc become additional characters in a world really only populated by three, Jack, Ma, and the rapist-kidnapper, aptly named Old Nick.
A small criticism; I felt the book fell away in the second half, and became less convincing. I can't say more without revealing plot, but that said it is still an incredibly easy, gripping read.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.04 2010 Room
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/08/04
shelves:
review:
Room had to fight for it's place to be read by me solely because I never read books about true-life crimes and I was told this was loosely based on the case in Austria where the father imprisoned his daughter.
I still have misgivings about the choice of subject matter but what redeemed Room for me was that it was completely gripping, and utterly convincing, and didn't wander into sensationalism as it so easily could have done. I also loved that the treatment of the mother and child relationship didn't dissolve into the schmaltzy (it has its ups and downs like an ordinary Mum and child )
The way Ma protects Jack by telling him the Room is the whole real world is heartbreaking and brought the terror of the situation alive for me. Donoghue does this with the subtle and beautifully simple omission of the definite article; there is only one bed, so Bed needs no 'the'.. this almost feels like Bed, Wardrobe, Chair etc become additional characters in a world really only populated by three, Jack, Ma, and the rapist-kidnapper, aptly named Old Nick.
A small criticism; I felt the book fell away in the second half, and became less convincing. I can't say more without revealing plot, but that said it is still an incredibly easy, gripping read.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> <![CDATA[Down and Out in Paris and London]]> 393199 213 George Orwell 015626224X Francesca 3 4.10 1933 Down and Out in Paris and London
author: George Orwell
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1933
rating: 3
read at: 2019/08/02
date added: 2019/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House with Chicken Legs (The House with Chicken Legs #1)]]> 33832945
But that's tough when your grandmother is a Yaga, a guardian who guides the dead into the afterlife. It's even harder when you live in a house that wanders all over the world . . . carrying you with it. Even worse, Marinka is being trained to be a Yaga. That means no school, no parties--and no playmates that stick around for more than a day.

So when Marinka stumbles across the chance to make a real friend, she breaks all the rules . . . with devastating consequences. Her beloved grandmother mysteriously disappears, and it's up to Marinka to find her--even if it means making a dangerous journey to the afterlife.


With a mix of whimsy, humor, and adventure, this debut novel will wrap itself around your heart and never let go.]]> 337 Sophie Anderson 1474940668 Francesca 4 Written from the POV of Marinka, a lonely, (realistically) self-centred 12 yr old girl, we learn that she’s the would-be heiress to her grandmother’s job as a Baba Yaga, assisting the dead to their life amongst the stars with good food and nostalgic talk, like a kindly barmaid ushering the last customers out into the night after a lock in.
But Marinka has other plans, and so the plot romps along as she rebels against her destiny, whilst the house itself is heart-wrenching as a sentient being that eventually succumbs to Marinka's recklessness by splitting timbers to show its emotional wounds. The house, with Marinka’s pet jackdaw, bring a playfulness to the tale and there’s added warmth in the many references to the comfort of food and company; whether dead or alive.
It is a beautifully written story with glittering, sensuous descriptions, but some might feel that however well a tale is told, the book's bold reference to dying will be unsuitable for children; the opening chapter sees Marinka grumpily rebuild a bone fence by unceremoniously shoving a human femur in place. But in my (other) role as librarian, I welcome books that deal with taboos sensitively and in any case, I felt the book’s message; that life is a cycle of which dying is just one of its turns, was reassuringly comforting rather than morbid and I would particularly recommend this title to help children deal positively with death.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.08 2018 The House with Chicken Legs (The House with Chicken Legs #1)
author: Sophie Anderson
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/04/24
date added: 2019/08/01
shelves:
review:
Sophie Anderson blows the dust of an old European folk tale and updates it to a story which is trans-global, modern and yet never abandons its magical Slavic roots.
Written from the POV of Marinka, a lonely, (realistically) self-centred 12 yr old girl, we learn that she’s the would-be heiress to her grandmother’s job as a Baba Yaga, assisting the dead to their life amongst the stars with good food and nostalgic talk, like a kindly barmaid ushering the last customers out into the night after a lock in.
But Marinka has other plans, and so the plot romps along as she rebels against her destiny, whilst the house itself is heart-wrenching as a sentient being that eventually succumbs to Marinka's recklessness by splitting timbers to show its emotional wounds. The house, with Marinka’s pet jackdaw, bring a playfulness to the tale and there’s added warmth in the many references to the comfort of food and company; whether dead or alive.
It is a beautifully written story with glittering, sensuous descriptions, but some might feel that however well a tale is told, the book's bold reference to dying will be unsuitable for children; the opening chapter sees Marinka grumpily rebuild a bone fence by unceremoniously shoving a human femur in place. But in my (other) role as librarian, I welcome books that deal with taboos sensitively and in any case, I felt the book’s message; that life is a cycle of which dying is just one of its turns, was reassuringly comforting rather than morbid and I would particularly recommend this title to help children deal positively with death.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> <![CDATA[Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump, #1)]]> 19302 160 Astrid Lindgren 0142402494 Francesca 5
*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.15 1945 Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump, #1)
author: Astrid Lindgren
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1945
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/08/01
shelves:
review:
I want to go off the star rating into 10. I didn't read much as a kid until I had two weeks in hospital where my dad gave me Pippi. Where to start? Joyous, strong, loyal, a champion for the underdog, a cock-a-snooker of authority, story-teller of fabulous lies..... rich as a troll, generous, greedy, an enthusiastic cook, immensely kind. I fell in love with her, and through her fell in love with books. I still read her and she has never faded, I read her to my daughter who cries with laughter at her antics. There should be a church of Pippi.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> The Redemption of Galen Pike 23598956
Spare, precise, charged with a prickly wit, the stories in Carys Davies's sparkling second collection remind us how little we know of the lives of others.]]> 134 Carys Davies 1907773711 Francesca 4 A beautiful collection.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.07 2014 The Redemption of Galen Pike
author: Carys Davies
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/08/01
shelves:
review:
This collection of short stories deservedly won the Frank O’Connor international short story award. Carys Davies conjures up characters and worlds in her short stories that others fail to do in entire novels. There's a strangely dreamlike quality to her tales, but always believable.
A beautiful collection.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> <![CDATA[Time Will Darken It (Vintage International)]]> 1107457 368 William Maxwell 0679772588 Francesca 5
*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 4.07 1948 Time Will Darken It (Vintage International)
author: William Maxwell
name: Francesca
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1948
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/07/30
shelves:
review:
The first book I ever read of Maxwell's, not necessarily the one I'd recommend starting with though. A beautiful, truthful and delicately written book, although possibly less immediate than some of his others such as 'So Long, see you tomorrow'. I went on from this to read everything else he's ever written and he never disappoints.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> <![CDATA[Potkin and Stubbs (Potkin and Stubbs #1)]]> 42101851
Atmospheric, spooky, warm at heart, POTKIN AND STUBBS is the first in a hardboiled detective trilogy for readers aged 9+.]]> 384 Sophie Green 1848127618 Francesca 4 The two team up, and enlisting help of P.I Abe Mandrel, now as washed up as the city he once served, the investigation gets underway, drawing the trio ever closer to the dark heart of Nedly’s mystery. Amongst other frights and freaks, we meet karate kicking henchmen and psychopathic villains, with great names like Ramon LeTeef, and Cornelius Gallows. My favourite scenes were in the spooky, burnt out shell of Rorschach Asylum, with more flashes of lightning and ghostly laughter than a Hammer Horror could shake a stick at; a treat for lovers of the Gothic! The blossoming friendship between Abe and Lil adds light relief to the dark with a vocabulary straight from classic 1940’s film noir littering their dialogue. But this intricately plotted tale isn’t just a nostalgic wink to a bygone era, but also a message more pertinent than ever in a world where fake news gets held as truth, and truth is more precarious-and precious- than ever.
An exciting, fast paced first book of a new series, with two more due out very soon. I can’t wait : )

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.]]> 3.94 2019 Potkin and Stubbs (Potkin and Stubbs #1)
author: Sophie Green
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/04/10
date added: 2019/07/30
shelves:
review:
In rain sodden, graffiti strewn Peligan city, where mayors are crooked and free speech oppressed, twelve year old Lil, a wannabe reporter, discovers her super power; that she can see ghosts…. Well, one at least; a little boy called Nedly who doesn’t even know he’s dead and needs Lil to find out the how, and why, of his untimely demise.
The two team up, and enlisting help of P.I Abe Mandrel, now as washed up as the city he once served, the investigation gets underway, drawing the trio ever closer to the dark heart of Nedly’s mystery. Amongst other frights and freaks, we meet karate kicking henchmen and psychopathic villains, with great names like Ramon LeTeef, and Cornelius Gallows. My favourite scenes were in the spooky, burnt out shell of Rorschach Asylum, with more flashes of lightning and ghostly laughter than a Hammer Horror could shake a stick at; a treat for lovers of the Gothic! The blossoming friendship between Abe and Lil adds light relief to the dark with a vocabulary straight from classic 1940’s film noir littering their dialogue. But this intricately plotted tale isn’t just a nostalgic wink to a bygone era, but also a message more pertinent than ever in a world where fake news gets held as truth, and truth is more precarious-and precious- than ever.
An exciting, fast paced first book of a new series, with two more due out very soon. I can’t wait : )

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> Life & Times of Michael K 6193 In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience—the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.]]> 192 J.M. Coetzee Francesca 5 His helpless, hapless, but somehow heroic, stumble from Cape Town to his ancestral soil is frightening and heart breaking, and Coetzee's extraordinary attention to the detail from Michael's viewpoint is glitteringly incisive; a passing farmer offers Michael a ride and Michael shies away from the farmer's open hand inviting him up into the truck, because its knuckles sprout hairs like 'fronds'. As a writer, observations like this fill me with pangs of writer's jealousy!
Coetzee is never one of those fuzzy writers who leaves you feeling a warm, chocolatey glow, (I saw him once at an author signing and despite really wanting my book signed, thought better of approaching anyone who looked so wolfishly hostile to his adoring audience)....so expect to feel slightly raw and scraped out after you read this. But although Michael might be strange to us, his struggle to understand who he is and his place in this world - and the universe - is universal.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.
]]> 3.88 1983 Life & Times of Michael K
author: J.M. Coetzee
name: Francesca
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/07/30
shelves:
review:
A bewildering book at times and strangely upsetting; not a quick easy read but I don't especially want that from every book; the hero, Michael, a simple man with a cleft lip, remains almost impenetrable until some light is shed in the form of a 'revelation/confessional', a kind of 'open' letter from his doctor to him....and us? But it is Michael's impenetrability that makes him so compelling to me; he is vulnerable yet strong, a stubborn stalwart and so true to his sense of self, but malleable.
His helpless, hapless, but somehow heroic, stumble from Cape Town to his ancestral soil is frightening and heart breaking, and Coetzee's extraordinary attention to the detail from Michael's viewpoint is glitteringly incisive; a passing farmer offers Michael a ride and Michael shies away from the farmer's open hand inviting him up into the truck, because its knuckles sprout hairs like 'fronds'. As a writer, observations like this fill me with pangs of writer's jealousy!
Coetzee is never one of those fuzzy writers who leaves you feeling a warm, chocolatey glow, (I saw him once at an author signing and despite really wanting my book signed, thought better of approaching anyone who looked so wolfishly hostile to his adoring audience)....so expect to feel slightly raw and scraped out after you read this. But although Michael might be strange to us, his struggle to understand who he is and his place in this world - and the universe - is universal.

*Please note: this review is my personal opinion only. Please ask permission from me first before using it, or any part of it, for marketing or reviewing purposes, whether online or in print. Thank you.

]]>