dittybox

  Published: 2000, Headline Publishing Group Genre: Fiction Themes:  Family, mental health, loyalty, bereavement My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤ Imagine you wrote a gripping multi-generational family story, and just as you were about to set off to the publisher with the hard-copy, the wind took your pages and scattered them all across the street.  You hastily pick everything up and head to your appointment intending to put the pages in order during the cab journey, but on the way you realise:  This works. Well, I'm sure that's not what happened at all, but that's what reading this book feels like.  You start almost at the end, then you bounce back about twenty years, then just over the page you are back to present time in a whole new setting.  The narrator can change several times within one chapter, and there are no headings to give you a steer, so there will be no skim-reading here.  Maggie O'Farrell wants your full attention, and she gets it, becau...

  Published: 2020, Myriad Editions Genre: Fiction Themes: Love story, Irish famine, slavery, nineteenth century America My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ Based on the true story of the author's great-great-grandparents, this is a fictionalised account of a forbidden love that defied all the societal rules in nineteenth century America. Sarah is a house slave working for the owner of a cotton plantation and Henry is an Irish immigrant who came to America on a coffin ship having fled the famine in his own country.  They meet on a dirt road as Sarah is returning to her owners after a few days of being rented out to a neighbour, and Henry is a jobbing blacksmith travelling along looking for work.  They both have to shelter under a tree when a violent thunderstorm brings torrential rain and Henry has his first encounter with a slave. Henry has always known hunger and poverty but until he came to America he has never known of people being owned as property and treated as th...

  Published: 2020, Penguin Random House Genre:  Fiction Themes: parenting, death of a friend, road trip, stand up comedy My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤ If you ever feel in need of a book that will give you a hug and tell you that everything will be alright, then this is the book for you.  You will quickly come to love little Norman Foreman, who is only twelve years old and suffers from terrible psoriasis, but you won't care because this is a boy who deserves to be loved. Norman and his Mum are a family of two and he has never met his father as Mum isn't entirely sure who he is: ' There's a good chance Norman's father is one of four people.  Now I know how that makes me sound, but it's a fairly reasonable alternative to the other scenario, which is that he would quite possibly have been one of several more if circumstances had allowed.' Mum (Sadie) is warm and kind with a wicked sense of humour and there is nothing in the world that she wouldn't do for Norma...

  Published: 2021, Harper Collins Genre: Fiction Themes: Old age, potential infirmity, options My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ Is it possible for a writer to be too technically good?  Too clever to be engaging? As with all of Lionel Shriver's work, the writing in this book is immaculate, and the concept a good one, but her exploration of potential outcomes of old age was rather exhausting and, dare I say it, I'm afraid I got a little bored after the first few scenarios.   In middle age, Kay and Cyril Wilkinson witness the long and undignified decline of Kay's father as he slowly loses his physical and mental capacity to Alzheimer's Disease.  By the time he dies after ten years of suffering, Kay can't even cry as this 'dying by degrees cheats everyone.  I feel as though he has been dead for years'.  At the start of the book the couple are both healthy medical professionals in their fifties, but Cyril's experience as a GP with many elderly patients has caused ...

  Published: 1994, Headline Publishing Group Genre: Fiction Themes: Family, childhood, 1960s, Windrush generation My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ The story jumps straight in to the daily life of the Jacobs family, as told by their youngest daughter Angela (or Anne to her father), who captures the noise and vibrancy of her childhood in London during the 1960s. Her parents arrived on the Empire Windrush from Jamaica, and they carry a feeling of difference throughout their lives. They are desperate to fit in, but never want to be seen as any trouble. Despite the Jamaican connection, much of the book is a universal story of family life in that post war era when everyone wanted to make something of themselves and do well in life.  Many of Angela's recollections reflected my own experience as a child of that time, and I could clearly remember the clothes and hairstyles that she describes so vividly.  (Yes, yes, I know, I don't look a day over thirty [pause for laughter] but Harold Ma...

Published: 2014, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: Youth in Dublin, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, violence, crime My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤ Please note that the pills used as props in the picture are indigestion tablets. Reading this book is very much like picking a scab.  The sensible part of your brain tells you to leave it alone for God's sake, but there is this other part of your brain that makes you just keep on going even though you know it is not going to end well.   I have given this book a score of 4/5 because there is no doubt about the high quality of writing, but the subject matter is so horrible I wouldn't find myself recommending it to anyone.  The saddest part about it is that the story-line reflects reality for a great many young people who spend far too many hours a week getting 'off their heads' on drugs and alcohol. The book follows Cocker, Matthew, Kearney, Rez and Jen through the summer holidays that follow their last day at school.  They are...

  Published: 2020, Faber and Faber Genre: Fiction Themes: Social media, single parenthood, data algorithms My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤ The story in this book is a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of social media, and how it can change from friend to foe in the time it takes to install an intrusive algorithm.  Someone once told me that if anything online is free to the user, then you are the product, and that is exactly the message this book is presenting to us. DBC Pierre is the author of the book Vernon God Little that won the Man Booker Prize in 2003, and that is one of the few book that have caused me to laugh out loud as I read it.  However, I have been passing this new book over on the library 'bestseller' shelves for some weeks now, as the title didn't particularly appeal to me, and I had the impression it would be heavy going.  (It's amazing what conclusions you can come to without even reading the blurb inside the cover of a book!)  Anywa...