General Chat

Please review Keeping Mum and The Sonnet Lover, or whichever you have read.

Review Keeping Mum by Brian Thompson Dec 09

When I started reading this my first thoughts were that I had read it all before!! I didn’t find the first few chapters that interesting. However, as I read further in to the book it picked up pace and became a good social history of the class structure of the time which brought back many memories. Although not of family, my parents were very ‘normal’ unlike Brian’s who both in their own way were horrendous! What a strange family and how controlling was his father! Well done to him for not only surviving but making something of himself and using his family experiences to do so.
So, yes, a good choice and I enjoyed it. I am not sure whether I want to read the sequel, Clever Girl, or not.

Review The Sonnet Lover by Carol Goodman

Well, I thought this was a book that had everything, murder, mystery, culture and romance, plus some lovely sonnets cleverly written by the author’s husband Lee Slonimsky I don’t know much about Shakespeare’s personal life and know very little about the Dark Lady but I intend finding out more as I found it intriguing.
I did guess who was responsible for the murder but not for a long while.
This is a very well written, very well thought out book. I read it in two days over the Christmas break and found it hard to put down. Good choice. Now I fancy reading the Night Villa.

Keeping Mum - A Wartime Childhood by Brian Thompson

I felt Thompson captured the selective memory of childhood very well, the way some minor events loom large in a child’s mind whilst other major events just get lost. I loved the way the memories gradually grew more coherent as he grew up. Whilst I felt sorry for him (and amazed at the success he has made of his life in spite of an awful childhood) I never completely lost sympathy for his parents, each the victim of facets of their characters we learned about as the book progressed.
As Ann says- a good choice.

Am still finishing The Sonnet Lover but will try to post when I do.

Has nobody else got any reviews?

I'm still reading The Sonnet Lover so cant review that yet.

Keeping Mum - Well the only positive thing I can say about this is that I finished it. I really struggled with it, I usually like true life stuff, but this I just found this one completely blah.

Sorry but I struggled with Keeping Mum, I kept comparing it with all the interesting stories that my own Mum tells of war time London, perhaps she should write a book :)
Still the whole point of this is to try different books than our usual type :)
I ended up leaving it with my Mum to read and to see if she found it a better read.
Not started The Sonnet Lover as the last 10 days have been up in the air as one of our dogs had a stroke,didnt much feel like reading.
x Jill

I'll be back later!

Jill I am so sorry to hear about your dog, how sad for you, of course you wouldn't be able to settle to read.

I was only able to obtain The Sonnet Lover here. Other book unavailable.
The Sonnet Lover
I had trouble distinguishing between fact and fiction with this book. Also, sonnets are not my favourite poetry.
However, the story was well put together and the intrigue was good.

Keeping Mum,

I had to keep rereading passages as I got a bit lost as to who said what at times. Whilst I felt sorry for his childhood - I think there were quite a few families that have similar stories, and occasionally someone will publish one. Today I suppose you would label this family as "dysfunctional" which is supposedly meant to cover everything that does not fit into the square box labelled normal.
I will give the sequel a go, because if nothing else curiosity will get the better of me.

Norma (thanks for the PM Ann)
And I apologise for not getting around to The Sonnet Lover - whilst I have been getting through a whole lot of other books but not as many as I would like, because hey it is going out and about weather over here.

I am still reading The House of Spirits" by Isabell Allende and will review it when I have finished.

"Keeping Mum A Wartime Childhood" by Brian Thompson.

Unlike fiction, in an autobigraphy the writer is not responsible for the plot, but is responsible for thw way the story is told.
Brian Thompson's style was rather different from most autobiographies I have read. He did not always tell the story chronologically, (or only vaguely so), but seemed to tell you about certain events as and when he recalled them. Making at times a rather disjointed tale.

However, he also seemed to write almost as a child, reliving childhood memories, often without looking back in hindsight. At was all as it seemed to him at the time (right or wrong).

Some of his story was of a typical one of the time. i.e. father away, mother finding ways of coping on her own, the change in family lifestyle when father came back into the home.
It was also a time of the eleven plus and Grammar schools. Or if you failed a Secondry School.
Both Thompson's parents seemed unprepared for parenthood and possibly, if they were asked to give an account of themselves and their behaviour, would say that they did the best they could, with the cards they were dealt.

Although, at first, I was not happy with Thompson's style of writing, wanting things more clear cut (and dated). I eventually embraced the feeling of the book, a story about a childhood, told from the view of a child. Lots of bits missing (after all children tend to be ego centric), but an honest, refreshing and interesting view of his early life.

Theresa thank you for a really good review, you echo what I thought about Keeping Mum but express it so much better than I could.

Ann

I think that is why they put it ther Lol!!!

Frances are you making any suggestions this time??

Keeping Mum.

Found this book quite difficult to get into. I'm not sure if it was because I was reading something I wouldn't usually choose, or if there was a lot going on over the festive season, or because I've just started a new job.

Anyway regardless of this, I started reading it three times, eventually got to the half way mark but then gave up.
It just didn't capture my imagination, but to be fair to the book I will revsist it at some point and have another go.

I think it was not the sort of book to capture your imagination Alfie. To be honest, having written my life story, I did think I could do as well as he did. It was not terribly inspirational.

I know it is VERY late but I have at last got round on doing a report/review on my second book -

" The House of the Spirits" by Isabel Allende.

I find this a difficult book to discuss. Originally, while waiting for this book to become available at the library I read another book by Allende, targaeted at the younger reader. (and a lot shorter). This book (part of a trilogy) had a large element of fantasy, which I found quite gripping in the teenager's book.

However I found the fantasy slightly less gripping in House of the Spirits. I also have to confess that it was a stop - start read, i.e. I stopped reading this book a couple of times, part way through it, and read some other books instead.

For me, some of the charecters seemed to disappear quickley or change too radically to be able to kkep up with them, or maintain interest in them.
Recently I read somewhere that fantasy was ofetn used in stories from South America, but at times I wondered if the fantasy was used as an allegory, one that I didn't understand.
I did however (sort of) enjooy the story. The final chapter explained why the earlier parts of the book felt rather disjointed.
This si probably a book that would be good for a DISCUSSION group. An exchange of ideas and opinions followed by an eventual reading the story, might throw new life on it. If it was a book I owned, I probably would read it again with new insight.

To sum up, a very different type of book, for me, which of course is part of the idea of this group. I would recommend that others read it, all the way to the end (368 pages in hardback) I would love to hear others views.