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  Published: 2020, Picador Genre: Fiction Themes: Glasgow, poverty, alcoholism My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ Shuggie Bain is a novel about love and loyalty and hope. The kind of love that allows young Shuggie to help his alcoholic mother into her good black tights.  The kind of loyalty that makes him leap back to her side rather than stay with his traitorous father in a house where he would at least get fed.  The kind of hope that keeps him going because maybe one day his beautiful mother will get better and they can both start a new life as normal people. Young as he is, Shuggie quickly learns to do what he has to, rather than what he should do.  He doesn't comment on the 'uncles' that come calling on school-day afternoons, dangling the temptation of a few cans of Special Brew that they consider to be fair exchange for a little more than her charming company.  He knows when to make himself scarce and not to be a bother, and most importantly, he learns to manage h...

  Published: 2018, Penguin Genre: Fiction Themes: Trees and forests, logging, destruction of ecology My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ I felt I ought to go outside to get my photograph for this book because the whole purpose of it is to remind us that we are not the only living things that matter on our planet. Richard Powers gives us the stories of nine people whose lives have been altered by trees, but those stories are really only secondary to the message in the book. THERE IS ONLY ONE EARTH AND WE ARE MESSING IT UP I don't remember a time when I read something that made such an impact on me.  By the time I was a third through the book I was starting to see the damage here in my town - let alone the rest of the world!  Trees hacked back because the fallen leaves are a nuisance, grass dug up and replaced with plastic grass that doesn't breath, concrete covering more and more space... I could go on.  What most people don't realise is that nature knows what it is doing if ...

Published: 2022, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: South America, family relationships, business My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ If I ever tell my life story, I will take a leaf out of Violeta's book and make sure you understand that everybody loved me, and despite all sorts of questionable behaviour on my part, I leave the world as a winner. This is the story of a hundred year life.  Violeta is approaching the end, but before she goes she is determined to write out her life story for someone she loves dearly.  You don't get to know who that special someone is for most of the book, but that just serves to give the narrative a little twist. I didn't much like the character of Violeta but I understand that people who don't go round upsetting the apple cart don't make for very interesting stories.  With such a great time span to play with, Isabel Allende had plenty of scope for changing Violeta's circumstances and adding in references to world events to keep the reader...