MISC: Sarah Perry at Bath Festival

Bath Festival had a brilliant line up this year, but sadly I had other commitments for a large portion of May so I was only able to go last weekend to catch Sarah Perry’s Change Maker talk in the wonderfully Gothic Masonic Arms. It seemed fitting that her talk was in a darkened room with thick oak panelling and velvet drapes along the stage. I almost felt as if I was sitting in a room from one of her atmospheric books.

REVIEW: Wonder by R J Palacio

Auggie has been through more in his first few years on the planet than most people do in an entire lifetime. Born with a facial difference, he has had to endure endless surgeries and hospital stays. Up until now he has been home-schooled by his mother but things are about to change. Auggie is going to Beacher Prep and starting the 5th Grade. He’s wary of meeting his new classmates but Wonder shows that while children can be cruel they can also be encouragingly compassionate when adults aren’t.

BOOKISH FINDS: Workday Reading

I do a lot of my reading on the commute to work these days. Working in London, it’s easy to get pulled into the manic rush, to squeeze yourself onto trains, race to catch connections, run to catch a bus. More than once I’ve been swept up in the panic of missing a train but I try to remind myself it’s not wasted time. It’s more time I can spend reading and that can’t be a bad thing. On Monday I got caught out, reading the last ten pages of Sarah Perry’s After Me Comes The Flood at lunchtime and I didn’t want to head home without anything to read, so I headed down to Waterstones to pick up a few books. Ignoring the fact that currently I work in an office filled with books, because I am in serious denial about my book buying.

REVIEW: Sal by Mick Kitson

Sal is like a Wes Anderson film but with more grit. It has all of the quirkiness and off beat humour, but it also has a serious edge and emotional depth. Sal takes her younger sister Peppa out into the Scottish wilderness not for an adventure but to escape. There is a novelty to their life among the trees – no school, no teachers, no rules – but there’s a gravity to it as well. For Sal, survival is her top priority and she achieves it will a practicality and focus that most adults lack.

REVIEW: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Ancient history has always fascinated me, particularly relationships to the Gods. In Greek mythology the Gods were definitely the interfering type, not satisfied with watching the mortal world they often chose sides in wars and tried to swing things in their favour, or had brief romances with warriors or beautiful women that caught their eye. If you spurned them then things went south for you pretty quickly. It didn’t matter who you were.

THAT’S A WRAP: February, March & April 2018

I have been a blogging ghost the past few months, dropping in occasionally to publish a post and then vanishing again for weeks. It’s not how I wanted to start my third year of blogging. Shame on me. But sometimes you just don’t have the time or energy and I’d hate to feel like I was just going through the motions, creating content just for the sake of it. I’d know and you’d know that my heart wasn’t in it.

HOWEVER, I am now catching up on my reviews and I’ve got my mojo back. So prepare for slightly more posts that you’ve had in the last few months. Don’t worry, I won’t bombard you with them. I don’t want you to get sick of me. No one wants that. So here’s a wrap up of the last three months (it looks slightly more impressive if I compile them than if I do them separately so prepare to be amazed, or slightly less underwhelmed than you would have been?)