dittybox

  Published: October 1999, Alfred A. Knopf Genre: Fiction Themes: American lifestyle, broken relationships, mental health, teenagers, kindness My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ While the library is closed, I'm re-reading some of the books from my shelves, and the advantage of this is that they are guaranteed to be good.  I used to buy all my books from charity shops and generally I re-cycled them back to the shop, but if I really enjoyed something, I kept it. Plainsong is set in Colorado, America, in the 1980s, and the writing is so vivid and powerful that the story dragged me away from reality for hours at a time.  Roddy Doyle's quote on the cover states that he read it in one sitting. 'I had no choice; it wouldn't let me go.'  That's exactly how it is. There are no heroes and heroines in this book as a whole spectrum of good and bad behaviours are laid out in a raw and honest way.  There is Guthrie the school teacher, who also works with livestock, and he is clearly...

  Published: 2008, Faber and Faber Genre: fiction Themes: Ireland, family, psychiatric care,  social injustice My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ With the library closed, and all my lockdown loans returned via the library letter box, I am back to reading books from our own bookshelves.  This turned out to be a good thing as I had completely forgotten the story in this book and therefore the ending came as a complete surprise to me. I have read loads of books over the years and I seem to have a talent for mentally discarding what I read, even if I really enjoyed the book.  Yesterday I was looking at a huge list of books that were collected together as a collection that everyone should read in their lifetime.  As I looked down the 1001 titles, I thought I had read about 60 of them, but it could be more, because there were plenty of titles that looked familiar, but I really couldn't say for sure that I had read them.  So, back to the book in hand.  The Secret Sc...

  Published: November 2016, Head of Zeus Genre: Fiction Themes: history, the orient, romance, travel, horses, revenge My rating: ❤❤❤❤ This is a lump of a book that turns out to be three books joined together once you start reading.  There are 699 pages to navigate, and the story takes you through the years 1298 to 1327, moving steadily across half the world as you join the main characters on their epic journey from Cambaluc in the far east, right round to Cornwall in England. It turns out to be quite a history lesson and I felt that Dana Stabenow had done all sorts of research before putting this together.  On the flip side of that, I also felt that she wanted to leave no piece of researched knowledge behind, and the story is a bit like Forrest Gump in the way the characters brush up against all the important elements of history as they continue their journey. The heroine is Johanna, who we meet as a child but she quickly grows into a beautiful woman who seems to exc...