Moviewatch: In Bruges- It’s effing hilarious!

This film was absolutely fantastic from start to finish. Wildly original, quirky, very violent yet wickedly funny with some brilliant sick jokes. Oh, by the way, it happens to show off Bruges quite beautifully. Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes I knew, but couldn’t quite place Brendan Gleeson at first – then it dawned on me Read More

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews

This was a lovely showbiz memoir to read – Julie has the ability to see the good in everybody and make friends wherever she goes. This first volume of memoirs stops at the point Walt Disney was poised to make her an Oscar-winning megastar, but is no less interesting for that. I hope there will Read More

A sense of place

The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato Novels with a strong sense of place are always attractive to me, and the most attractive of all are those set in Italy. I can’t get enough of them – the romance, the passion, the art and architecture, the food. But absolutely top of the list are those set Read More

Lost Light by Michael Connelly

Published in 2003, Lost Light by Michael Connelly is the 9th Harry Bosch novel in an outstanding series set in Los Angeles that shows no signs of diminishing returns at all. In fact they’re getting better… What’s new about Lost Light is that Harry retired from the LAPD at the end of City of Bones, Read More

Bookended by great lines…

People and quizzes often tend to concentrate on opening lines of books all the time. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . . … from Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier being, of course, an absolute classic. But who knows the last line, which just so happens to be beautifully elegaic … Read More

Boy in the striped pyjamas by John Boyne.

A lot has been written about this book, especially since it was filmed, so I came to it having realised the ending, but I hadn’t worked out how it happens. Told from the point of view of nine year old Bruno, the son of a high ranking soldier who gets promoted to become the Commandant Read More

The Man Without by Ray Robinson

Ray Robinson’s debut novel Electricity was one of the best things I read this year … until I read his second novel The Man Without. Electricity has a superb heroine in Lily – a severe epileptic who was abused and in care as a child. The novel follows her quest to find her lost brother Read More

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

This is a brilliant novel, but one I found it difficult to enjoy. The title, appropriately for a parody of America’s deep south in the 1960s, comes from master satirist Jonathan Swift and is a perfect description of the book. The author has assembled a cast of grotesques, from aged crones to spoilt housewives, and Read More

One from the archives

Updated and republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline My eight year old daughter recently asked me what my favourite film is. She probably meant which is my favourite film of hers … but I quickly replied The Blues Brothers. Not the best film ever made, and a close run for my top Read More

Spotlight on ***** Books #2

It’s time to introduce you to another pair of the books I have particularly enjoyed this year getting five out of five stars each. A full list of my five star books can be found on my Librarything site – there’s a link to your right. First in the spotlight this time is Always Outnumbered, Read More

School Dinners by Becky Thorn

My sister-in-law has a book out and it’s a real retro nostalgia trip. I saw the manuscript earlier this year, and it got us all talking for hours about stories of our own school dinners when we were little – loved and loathed in equal measure I think. And as for the dinner ladies … Read More

Underneath its prickles is a charming story …

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery Translated from the French by Alison Anderson. Get past the prickles in this novel by Muriel Barbery, and there is a charming story underneath. It’s told from the alternating viewpoints of Renée, a widowed concierge who has a love of philosophy, cinema and Tolstoy, and Paloma, an incredibly Read More

Big Brother is watching you…

1984 by George Orwell I read this first, as I’m sure many of us did, as a teenager. I’m also sure that the savage satire on totalitarian states went straight over my head – I was into Science Fiction, and sadly didn’t pay any attention to modern history. Instead I was probably thinking how clever(!) Read More