I’ve liked GK Chesterton’s writing for many years now, ever since I first discovered his ‘Father Brown’ detective stories when I was a teenager. He wrote with an ironic humour that was unusual at the end of the 19th century and early 20th. He also had a keen eye for observation, which often makes me see things in a new philosophical light.
Since his work is now out of copyright, I’ve been able to download several volumes onto my Kindle at no cost, either from Amazon or from Project Gutenberg. I am gradually reading my way through them. I began ‘Tremendous Trifles’ about six months ago, and quickly realised that it was a work to dip into at random rather than something to read straight through.
This volume consists of a collection of some of Chesterton’s journalistic essays, which were originally published as part of an ongoing newspaper column. As such, each chapter is complete in itself. Most are somewhat thought-provoking, some are whimsical, a few are decidedly bizarre.
The titles and contents of the essays are quite a mixture, with a theme of ordinariness tying them together. Chesterton claims, in the introduction, that he is trying to encourage his readers to look at everyday objects - such as ceilings, or pens, or fences - and ponder their significance for a while rather than taking them for granted. This is what he attempts to do in the essays which result. Some of them, I assume, are true anecdotes, while others are entirely imaginative.
I didn’t know quite what to make of this, at first. If I picked it up when I was tired, or if I happened to be reading an essay that required specific knowledge of places or politicians who were unknown to me, then I read the words and took in very little of what was there. However, others of the stories appealed strongly. From time to time I came across a sentence or two that struck quite a chord; not that I can recall any of them now.
I’m glad I read this book, but I can’t see myself picking it up again; nor would I really recommend it to anyone other than fans of Chesterton’s writing who are interested in seeing something rather different from his better-known works. As social history - this is the nearest the author got to journalling, he says - they certainly have some value, and there are nicely ironic touches that I appreciated when reading. But inevitably it’s very dated, and unlikely to appeal to those of a less reflective, faster-paced generation.
Note that the given link is to a paperback edition of this book, which seems to have remained constantly in print over the decades. There are several different electronic versions too, some of them free and others not.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
I had never heard of Fern Britton. Apparently I may be in the minority here, as it turns out that she used to be quite a well-known TV presenter. I downloaded this book as it was on special offer a few months ago, free for the Kindle; the blurb and cover looked intriguing. I read it in odd moments on a flight, and then while staying with relatives.
‘Hidden Treasures’ starts with an intriguing prologue featuring an elderly woman who is about to move into care. It seemed like there was potential for a great story here - and, indeed, the opening chapter is also good. Then the main part of the book is about a middle-aged woman called Helen who has just moved to a small village after leaving her philandering husband.
Helen meets the local Vicar, Simon, under slightly embarrassing circumstances. He’s clearly rather inexperienced with women, and a little clumsy. She also meets Tony, a young man who isn’t very bright but is good at gardening and other odd jobs, and is always willing to be helpful.
Then Helen meets Piran, a local man who is good looking and also unbearably rude. Evidently, given the normal rules of this kind of fiction, they were probably going to end up together… but I hoped I was wrong. Simon the Vicar is a much nicer person.
Helen’s best friend Penny comes for a visit. Penny is a TV producer hoping to make a film; and the village where Helen now lives turns out to be exactly the right setting. Penny is outgoing and just a little pushy, and soon gets the permissions needed as well as many willing participants.
Oh, and there’s a mystery box which Tony discovers in Helen’s back garden….
All of which sounds like an excellent mixture of people with plenty of potential for a good story, particularly given the author’s experience in the media world.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.
After the first chapter, which I enjoyed, the writing starts to meander. The middle of the book is filled with dull day-to-day descriptions of Helen’s life, most of which are irrelevant to the plot. There’s a chapter about a talent night that could have been left out entirely, and then - worst of all - there’s a lengthy section about the TV production in the village, going into unnecessary and tedious detail about who said what, and how the days went. After a few pages I skimmed this and did not seem to miss anything.
By the time I was half-way through the book I was ready to give up - except that I wanted to know who Helen was going to end up with, and - if it was as I expected - what would happen to the nice Vicar. I didn’t like the outcome or the ending, but I did, at least, keep reading.
My overall feeling was that it was a pity that this was not thoroughly edited. I assumed at first that it was self-published, but apparently the paperback was taken by Harper and became a best-seller - presumably due to the author being a television personality. It could have been a great story. There are some interesting and memorable characters, and the hint in the prologue could have been so much more significant than in fact it was.
But, sadly, the writing deteriorates after the first chapter and I'm mystified as to why it was not edited. Clichés abound, and viewpoints switch almost at random, making it hard to get inside anybody’s head. So much of the book is irrelevant and unnecessary. Cut to about half its length and with some significant re-writing of the remainder, it could have been a lot better.
I would not personally recommend this book. However, as many will want to judge for themselves, the Amazon link is to a paperback edition of this. The Kindle version is no longer free.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
The author Sally Quilford is a prolific writer of both short stories and novellas. Many of the latter are first published as supplements to women’s magazines, but sooner or later she releases them, inexpensively, for the Kindle. From time to time her books are offered on Amazon as free downloads; I took advantage of this last year to acquire a few more.
Novellas - rather shorter than standard novels - make ideal reading for a flight. So having finished one short ebook on a recent trip to the UK, I flicked through my Kindle unread books, and opted for ‘A place of peace’ which is described as a ‘romantic summer mystery'.
The story is about Nell Palmer, a young British woman who is taking part in a house-swap scheme over the summer. We meet her as she is being shown over a large and attractive house on an island off the coast of New England. Colm, brother of the house’s owner, is doing the showing. It’s pretty clear from the start that there’s going to be some kind of romantic attachment between the two.
I found the first pages of this book a little slow-moving, but other characters are quickly introduced: in particular a jealous neighbour, Julia, who appears to consider Colm her property despite the fact that she is married to someone else. Julia’s husband Mike is not in great health and she comes across as impatient and unfeeling, as well as a potential threat to Nell.
We also learn that there’s something of a mystery to Nell’s past: she hasn’t just come to New England for a holiday. Instead, she is apparently running away from a highly stressful situation back home, where it seems that she made a bad judgement and stirred up a great deal of unpleasantness....
As ever, Sally Quilford has created three-dimensional and distinctive characters whose personalities shine through what is, in places, a rather melodramatic plot. I had to suspend reality a little here and there, but it didn’t matter - by the time I was half-way through I was hooked. The pace is excellent and kept me reading this so that I finished it without a break, despite the discomfort of airline seats. There are surprises, high drama, and some unexpected twists and turns in the plot as well as the comfortably predictable ending.
I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting quite such a strong crime fiction plot with the romance taking second place; but once I'd realised that this was the genre, it wasn’t a problem. The writing is good, free from the bad language and explicit scenes that spoil so many books these days, and while some of the events are unpleasant, there’s no gore or gratuitous violence.
All in all, I would recommend this as a good, light read. Only available in Kindle form, inexpensively, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
I’ve enjoyed several books by Sophie Kinsella over the years, slightly to my surprise as I’m not, in general, a fan of light ‘chick-lit’. But her writing style is excellent and she has a wonderfully ironic sense of humour which has occasionally made me laugh out loud. I even enjoy the ‘Shopaholic’ series about Becky Bloomfield who is addicted to shopping and unable to resist a bargain… yet somehow extremely likeable.
‘Shopaholic on Honeymoon’ is not much more than a short story, really, and I would not normally review short stories on this blog. However, as it's part of a series of books - a kind of addendum - I thought it relevant. It's available in Kindle form only, as a free download. It nicely fills in part of the gap between ‘Shopaholic ties the knot’, which is perhaps my favourite of the series, and ‘Shopaholic and Sister’, which opens with letters received by Becky during and after a year’s round-the-world honeymoon.
In this episode, we find Becky and her husband Luke in Venice. They are about a month into their honeymoon and Becky’s having a wonderful time. She has evidently bought - and shipped - a large number of souvenirs, and decides on new interests and hobbies, albeit short-lived. She’s a wonderful caricature of an ultra spontaneous person who revels in the moment and rarely thinks about the future. Undoubtedly she would be annoying in real life, but for a bit of escapism I love reading about her life, which is so different from mine!
Luke is more shadowy in this story; he’s starting to get a bit antsy about his business, and wants to get back to work. Inevitably there’s some conflict and a bit of compromise, and I was surprised at how moving it was.
I know this was written after the other books and only intended to be a short filler story, but I was disappointed when it ended. I’d have liked a bit more.
I downloaded it to my Kindle and it made ideal reading on a flight. It wasn’t at all demanding and was brief enough to read in one sitting without needing to stretch my legs. It’s some time since I read the other books in the series but that didn’t matter at all. The two main characters were memorable enough.
Recommended if you like the Shopaholic series, although it would probably work as a standalone story too. However, I suspect it’s only really of interest to anyone who’s read at least one or two of the others in the series. Only available in electronic form, as far as I know.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
I loved the Paddington books, as a child. My imagination was captured by Michael Bond’s stories of the orphaned bear found in a London railways station, who makes his home with the Brown family and their housekeeper Mrs Bird. I collected quite a few of the series, over the years and they’ve been read by a variety of people. I was delighted to learn that a new film about Paddington was released last year; he's now considered a classic cultural icon, at least in the UK.
For some reason, I had not read any of the books about him for many years. But I recently picked up ‘Paddington goes to Town’ after it was returned by a nine-year-old friend who had borrowed it. It is apparently the eighth book in the series, but it really doesn’t matter which order they’re read in. Each book is complete in itself, and, indeed, each chapter within the book stands alone, although sometimes reference is made to events in earlier chapters.
This book begins with Paddington being an usher at a friend’s wedding, rather to his family’s surprise. Inevitably the small bear has no idea what an usher is, and assumes it’s a person who asks people to be quiet; no sooner has that misunderstanding been ironed over than Paddington finds himself in big trouble when the ring goes missing.
Further chapters see Paddington trying to play golf, visiting someone in hospital and being mistaken for a foreign doctor, helping his best friend Mr Gruber to put a finishing touch on his patio, and going carol singing - with yet another case of mistaken identity. The stories are light but amusing; written for children of perhaps eight to ten years old, they’re not condescending and never use ‘simple’ language. Instead they offer insights into the everyday life of a typical family who just happen to have an unusual bear staying with them.
Paddington’s mistakes and misunderstandings often make me smile, and the resolution of the plots - which, naturally, always turn out well - are reassuring and hopeful. It took me about an hour to finish it, and I found it quite uplifting and enjoyable.
I don’t remember details about the others books well enough to compare them, but it certainly ranks as a good read which would make an ideal bedtime read-aloud for any child from the age of about five and upwards. It appeals to boys and girls, and if the conversation and events seem dated, they provide a good starting point for discussions about life in the 1960s for an upper-middle class English family.
Definitely recommended. I'm delighted to discover that this book - and others in the series - are still in print, both in paperback and very inexpensively for the Kindle.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
There are a lot of books in our ‘Christian’ shelves which we apparently picked up at church bookstalls, or perhaps bargain bins at bookshops. This is one of them; marked 20p on the inside, and in good condition, it’s the kind of book that looks interesting but which, as far as I recall, I had not read until just recently.
The author is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey. Perhaps the name is what drew me to the book. It was written back in 1984 when he had just left a post as Vicar of St Nicholas’ Church in Durham.
‘The Church in the market place’ is an account of a major project of renewal and growth for this church, St Nic’s as it was affectionately known. At the start of the book, the author explains how he and his wife decided to go there, outlining some of his own spiritual journey.
When he arrived he found a staunchly evangelical Anglican congregation of the traditional kind, which was not attracting young people or new believers. He struggled with the old-fashioned style, the uncomfortable seating, the general inward focus - and the way the ancient building needed ongoing and expensive repairs to keep the roof in shape.
Gradually a vision emerged of a project that would make the church far more appealing to the local community. Set in the middle of the town, there were probably thousands of people who passed it each day - and it was felt that it should be open all week, with a welcome to anyone who wanted to come inside. Naturally such a project was expensive, and the proposal was rejected at first… leading to a year of renewal and rebuilding of the people, who are, after all, the real church.
The book is written in a clear and interesting style, recounting the author’s worries and his own growth in faith. He doesn’t over-spiritualise anything, nor does he preach - instead he lets the story stand for itself as a testimony to God’s leading and the astounding things that can be done if people are willing to pray and to listen.
It's not a long book, but it won’t appeal to everyone; there’s no high drama or any serious conflict, and I imagine that it’s unlikely to be of interest to anyone who is not a Christian believer, other than those who live in the locality or who have visited Durham and are interested in the story of St Nic’s transformation.
But if you like this kind of book, then I’d definitely recommend it. It's not in print but second-hand editions are widely available at a low price.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
I love the way that so many previously out-of-print books by well-known writers are being republished these days. One of my favourite children’s authors is Noel Streatfeild (best known for the classic ‘Ballet Shoes’), and I’m delighted to discover more and more of her books becoming available again. I’ve bought one or two and added others to my wishlist, gradually adding to my collection.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from ‘Tea by the Nursery Fire’, which was previously published under the title ‘Gran-Nannie’. I realised that it was a biographical rather than fictional account, but looked forward to reading it nonetheless. The byline on the front describes it as being about a children’s nanny at the turn of the century - meaning the turn of the 20th century, when Noel Streatfeild was a child.
The book features Emily, born into an impoverished home with a large number of siblings. She knew that her destiny was to work as a maid of some kind in an upper-class home; her mother, when younger had worked at a castle. So at the age of eleven, barely literate, Emily leaves home and begins in service as assistant to the nursery. Her one skill is in sewing; when she mends something for a visitor, she is offered a different post where she gradually progresses to become ‘Nannie’ - the chief of the nursery - in her teens.
The narrative charts Emily’s experiences as she learns to deal with very different children, and the sadness she feels that they spend so little time with their parents. She grieves as the boys are sent to boarding school at the age of seven or eight, and instils what seem now like old-fashioned ideals into her charges, peppered with cliches and odd sayings that she learned from the nanny she first worked for.
It’s written for children, although some of the content - albeit skated over - might need explanation by parents. The character of Emily is nicely done, with the majority of the book from her viewpoint, although there are a few departures from that which feel a bit odd. I was also a little disappointed that the writing doesn’t flow as Noel Streatfeild’s other books do; the sentence structure feels stilted in places, with some of the punctuation lacking entirely.
I also realised that the chronology can’t be correct; according to the book Emily was born in the 1870s, but one of the children she looked after - John, her secret favourite - was supposed to have been Noel Streatfeild’s father. Comparing with her childhood biography ('A Vicarage Child') and other biographical information, it appears that Emily must have been born at least a decade earlier.
The latter sections of the book are a bit depressing, as Emily loses the opportunity of marriage, and then young men around her go off to war and don’t return. The ending is then very abrupt. However, I’m sure it’s realistic and assume that the majority of the narrative is at least based on factual reminiscences so perhaps the chronological gaps are where little or nothing was recalled.
Notwithstanding these issues, the book paints a pleasant picture of life in the late 19th century and is good from the social history point of view. Neither Emily nor her mother saw anything wrong with the class system; going into service wasn’t easy at first, but life was a great deal better for working class teenagers in a home where there was warmth and plenty of good food. With society so very different in the 21st century, it’s good to have books of this kind.
Recommended in a low key way. Available in Kindle form as well as paperback.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
The writer Jostein Gaarder is Norwegian. His background is in teaching, languages and theology but he has evidently studied the history of philosophy too. I would probably never have started to read his best-known book (translated into sixty different languages with worldwide sales in the millions) had it not been for a very strong recommendation from one of my sons.
As it was, ‘Sophie’s World’ sat on my bookshelves untouched for some years. I decided to read it in April last year, so it’s taken me nine months to complete it. It’s not that I’m a slow reader; but I found it quite heavy-going, despite being originally published as a teenage book.
For this book is a thinly disguised manual on the history of philosophy. I knew that much before I started. It’s written in a style that reminded me, somewhat, of the far more recently written ‘A new kind of Christian’ (and sequels) by Brian McLaren, which outlined the history of modernism and introduced post-modernism within a Christian context, from the point of view of fictional characters and an ongoing story.
Sophie’s World doesn’t even have such an interesting story surrounding the factual conversations. At least, it doesn’t seem so interesting at first. The story involves Sophie, who is an ordinary schoolgirl, and almost fifteen. She’s an only child whose father is in the army. She starts getting mysterious notes asking her difficult questions: ‘Who are you?’; ‘Where does the world come from?’ - and more. She also receives long letters which start to examine questions of this kind from the perspective of the best known philosophers through the ages starting with the Ancient Greeks.
It’s heavy-going even in the first few chapters, with names and styles of thinking being introduced in rapid succession. I knew about many of them, and it was interesting to see how they fit together, and the progression of thought as the centuries passed. But it didn’t make an easy or relaxing read. To add to the confusion, there are extra mysterious notes and postcards addressed to someone called Hilde, who has the same birthday as Sophie - but Sophie has no idea who she is.
Sophie eventually meets Alberto, the philosopher who has been writing the letters, and they embark on a series of conversations, progressing further through the philosophers of history. However, the dialogue does not ring true, most of the time. I knew it was a device to pass on information, but it became tedious, at times, reading a paragraph of information (spoken by Alberto) followed by a brief ‘I see’ or ‘That makes sense’ (or similar) from Sophie.
At over 400 pages this is not a short book. By the time I’d reached about quarter of the way through I found myself skimming the information - which was the majority - and reading properly only when there was actual discussion between Sophie and Alberto, or when there was yet another mysterious reference to Hilde and her father.
It took me over eight months, off and on, to get to half way through the book. By that stage it was becoming both intriguing and bewildering - and, at times, somewhat surreal.
Then, suddenly, Hilde is introduced and the entire thing so far makes sense - more-or-less, anyway. A clever idea, done extremely well, the ramifications of which are even more thought-provoking than some of the initial questions.
So I finished the second half of the book in just a couple of weeks, now understanding the principle better, and also quite interested in some of the philosophical developments that were discussed. I liked the way that much of the conversation focused on God and different attitudes towards Christianity, without ever telling anybody what to believe.
Towards the end there’s more story - although it becomes more and more surreal, even silly at times - and less philosophy. I thought it ended in a satisfactory way, certainly in keeping with the rest of the book.
I don’t suppose I’ll want to re-read this, but I might dip into it in future to refer to some of the history of philosophical thought. I’m glad I read it, and would recommend it to anyone wanting an overview of philosophy through the ages, so long as the pseudo conversations and sometimes bizarre storyline doesn’t put you off.
Review copyright 2015 Sue's Book Reviews
