Auntie Knows Best » Reading Challenge

RC Part 84 – Atlantic Shift by Emily Barr

Auntie Doris — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:31:19 +0000

Atlantic Shift by Emily Barr is a fab book for when you are travelling. It is improbable and slightly ridiculous in places but I did enjoy it.

Easy to read, intelligent chick-lit with a pretty good story and likeable characters. What more does one need?

RC Part 83 – Case Histories by Kate Atkinson & Shut Eye by Adam Baron

Auntie Doris — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 01:38:18 +0000

Both of these books are about private detectives investigating various different murders and unsavoury goings on. The problem is that I read the first one and listened to the second one in the car on CD. As a result, the stories and characters became rather interchangeable. Not very helpful when you are trying to work out what us going on!!!!

RC Part 82 – The Food of Love by Anthony Capella

Auntie Doris — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:43:14 +0000

This is a lovely book. Take one American girl, two Italian chefs and lots and lots of gorgeous writing about Italian food.

I really enjoyed this book and felt like I had put on several pounds by the end of the book. I only wish I could have eaten some of the foods that they mentioned.

This was also one Richard and Judy’s 2005 Summer Reads. I tend to really enjoy their book selections and I read books that I might not always choose. Well worth a read.

RC Part 81 – More to Life Than This by Carole Matthews

Auntie Doris — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:44:54 +0000

This is bad chick lit. It is a story of a husband and wife who are typically not terribly happy in their marriage.

She goes off on a residential course and shags someone there. He stays at home and shags the au pair. Of course their infidelities put their marriage back on track.

Rubbish story and poor writing. Don’t bother with it.

RC Part 80 – A Parrot in the Pepper Tree by Chris Stewart

Auntie Doris — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:36:50 +0000

My entertainment on my journey up to Leeds this weekend was the CD of A Parrot in the Pepper Tree by Chris Stewart This is the memoir of Chris, his wife Ana and their daughter Chloe who live in a remote farmhouse in Andalucia in Spain.

It was read by the author which definitely added something for me. I like to think that the voices that were used for the different characters may have been more realistic, and at least I felt sure that the pronunciations of all the Spanish and Swedish words were accurate.

There were some real laugh out loud moments and it made the rather arduous drive up the A1M more bearable.

RC Part 79 – Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann

Auntie Doris — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:30:57 +0000

Ramdom Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann is a very lovely debut novel. It’s effectively tells two stories; that of Moritz Daniecki in 1917. A survivor of the war he escapes from an internment camp in Siberia and sets about to walk back to Europe to find his first love, Lotte. The second story is about Leo and is set in 1992. He wakes up one day to find he has been injured in a bus accident in Ecuador to find that his girlfriend, Eleni, died in the incident.

The stories flit back and forth parallelling the journey for love that each of these individuals have to make and the ways in which they eventually find their way home. Well worth reading

RC Part 78 – The Other Woman’s Shoes by Adele Parks

Auntie Doris — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:16:40 +0000

This is a fun book about two sisters, Martha the sensible married woman and Eliza, the more wild and eccentric sister. The both want each other’s lives, but when they get what they want things don’t quite work out as expected.

Nice, fluffy chick lit. Perfect bath-time reading.

RC Part 77 – The Chocolate Lovers Club by Carole Matthews

Auntie Doris — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:09:43 +0000

I listened to this book on my last drive up to Leeds.

It is about four friends who are united in their love of chocolate and this book charts the ups and downs of their different lives and their different problems.

It was a fun book and I even enjoyed it when I was battling with rush-hour traffic in Leeds city centre and that has to be a miracle!

RC Part 76 – No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

Auntie Doris — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:36:57 +0000

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay is a brilliant book!

The story is about Cynthia who wakes up one morning to find her mother, father and brother have all disappeared. There is no note, no explanation and she has no idea where they all are. Twenty-five years later there are some strange developments and some sinister things start happening… eventually she starts to find out the truth, but it isn’t really what anyone expected.

I am not going to tell you anymore… you’ll have to read it to find out

RC Part 75 – 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

Auntie Doris — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:31:29 +0000

44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith is a fab little book. It is a beautiful observations of daily life, as seen by 5 or 6 characters. For me one of the most useful things though is was that it had really short chapters as it was originally written for a newspaper. This meant that I could pick it up and put it down easily when I was at work and needed a short break. Well worth a read if you can get a copy.