General Chat

Anybody Can Do Anything by Betty Bard Macdonald
Blackthorn Winter by Sarah Challis

And any others on the list that you read.

Blackthorn Winter by Sarah Challis

This was a book that when I was a quarter way through I was sure I had read before. However I read it again because I couldn't remember it properly and I still enjoyed it. Quite an uncomplicated easy read but with good characters and lovely countryside descriptions. I am not a particular horse lover but loved the passages about Jena on her horse. And was suitably sad when he was hurt. A good choice for me thanks to whoever chose it.

Other People’s Secrets by Louise Candlish

Evocative Italian scenery, Good believable characters and family secrets. For me this book had them all. I could picture the lake and the peace surrounding it.
Ginny was very believable as somebody suffering a trauma in her life. I could feel her pain and that part was very well written.
When I started the book I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it, it seemed a bit slow to start but after the first chapter I was intrigued by the stories behind the characters.
I guessed what Dom’s problem was but did wonder whether he would have left Chloe to go to Italy when she could have solved their problem much easier without him there. It did highlight the fact that fathers matter too. I found I felt a bit impatient towards him because he was there.
I couldn’t get to grips with Martin’s character, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to like or dislike him. He just seemed a bit superfluous to the story to me. Although he was a useful foil at the end I suppose with the misconceptions Bea had about the letter.
I loved Pippa’s character, she brightened/lightened the story and was easy to imagine as a younger sibling used to being on her own but a driving force in the family.
Zach, strange character, very brooding and obvious from when we ‘met’ him that he had a hidden agenda. I actually didn’t guess exactly what it was but I knew it had to be to do with Ginny and Adam.
Adam, not sure if I found him believable or not. I wavered between feeling sorry for him, for the same reason I felt sorry for Dom, and exasperated as he didn’t always seem to empathise with Ginny.
All in all a very good read and one I would recommend to everyone. Not, in my mind, a light read but it would make a good holiday read as it benefitted from me being able to read a large chunk at once when down my daughter’s.

Better keep this near the top or it will get lost.

marked for later still reading Blackthorn Winter

Blackthorn Winter By Sarah Challis

Excellent read, flowed well and you could identify with the characters and their interactions not as New Zealanders but as Brits as we think of them.

It was well written and Sarah Challis sets such good visual scenes .... when in the car park was set up in the field, I had visions of Jim from the Vicar of Dibley announcing that there was no no no parking in the top field yes. It would make for a great Sunday Theatre two hour drama for Television. What a lovely place the Dorset countryside is ... definitely a great setting.

I could not get hold of Betty MacDonald's book but thought I recognised the author's name - then I remember when I was eight or nine staying with my older married cousin and seeing The Egg and I and other books by MacDonald.... Even then I was always checking out people's bookshelves.

I can only give a review of one book because the two distributors where I have accounts have had an administrator appointed. I didn't know until now that they were associated. Things seem to be in chaos with them and I finished up with two copies of one book and none of the other one.

Anybody Can Do Anything
This book was re-hashed in 1991. Originally written in 1950 by Betty McDonald who gave us her life on the farm with The Egg and I, and introduced us to Ma and Pa Kettle – it’s once again based on the author’s experience after leaving the farm and looking for work. Her sister’s confidence that Betty was capable of doing anything, led to her finding some very unusual jobs for her and is written in a way to give a laugh on almost every page.

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

You can see why this book was on the best seller in the US for 62 weeks and why it won the Pulitzer Prize. I did think if so many people in the US read this book in 1960 or thereabouts why was there still such bigotry in the southern states when I was there in 1964/65... drew the conclusion that it was more than likely the Yankees that read it. When I was there we travelled on the Greyhound buses on their deal of 99 days for $99.00. The buses had a sign inside that said there was no discrimmination against race, colour and creed. Well we were waiting behind a black family (one little boy child) to board a bus in Florida. The driver told them to go to the back of the queue where they belonged. My father stepped up to the mark and challenged the driver and the black family were allowed on. This bus has an area of seating at the front and then steps up to the rear. The black family sat at the front so we did too, the driver told them to get to the back of the bus so once again my father took issue with him, to which the driver said okay but the child (about three) cannot sit on a seat he has to sit on their knees. He was already on his father's knee. I said but the bus is not full so the little guy can sit next to me there is no harm in that. Not a word was said and not one American citizen came to this families' defence. I also saw this as an opportunity and read to the boy and told him stories.

If you have not read this book I can recommend it. I have also read the book Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin set in 1961 - about a chap who changes the pigment of his skin (true story)and rides around on Greyhound buses to see for himself how blacks are treated. There was a stupid movie made of it that does not do the book justice at all. It is a quick and easy read and was recommended reading by a lecturer in a Sociology Class at uni.

I read to kill a mocking bird a couple of years back also with Greaders and enjoyed it.

Book Review: “Blackthorn Winter” by Sarah Challis

Oh how the other half lives! Posh houses, posh schools, posh clothes. This is a jolly romp through middle-class England and I just love the snobby Julia – every time she opens her mouth she is so pompous, although she proves to be a trooper at the end.

Claudia, the main character, is a likeable lady dealing with rather trying circumstances but who knuckles down and just gets on with her quiet life, despite the best efforts of her nosy neighbours and the gossipy villagers.

I thought all the characters are really well drawn – the traveller child and her pony, the obnoxious village boy and his lively mother, Claudia’s needy children, Valerie, Julia’s long suffering husband - and I couldn’t put the book down because I was so keen to find out what happens at the end. A real pleasure to read. In fact I may have to read it again before it goes back to the library.

"Anybody Can Do Anything" by Betty Bard MacDonald.

I re-read my mother's 1951 edition of this funny book, based on real experiences. The Bard family are very interesting, obviously educated but struggling through their lives with little money but lots of family support and laughs along the way. Mary is great, getting jobs and dates for everyone and as a result her suspicious brother and sisters, especially Betty, often find themselves at a disadvantage.

I loved the small scenes of office and family life, particularly the amateur concerts the girls used to attend for free entertainment, and the dubious jobs and employers they encountered.

All in all the book has that "feel good" factor and I am going to seek out Betty's other books as I haven't read them.

Thanks for reviews so far. I must look out for anybody can do anything as it sounds good.

Sorry everyone, I wasn't able to read the books this time.
Will now read all your comments with interest.

Tess

Blackthorn Winter by Sarah Challis

What a lovely read, slightly predictable but I don't always mind that. Loved the descriptions of the countryside and rounded characterisations – the snobby Julia, the daughter Lila: selfish but vulnerable, and Claudia herself trying so hard to be strong. I really felt that I knew the characters by the end of the book.

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

I had read this book when I was young but I had forgotten how strongly it worked on the emotions. I think you notice different things in this book when you read it at a different age, although I still rage at the unfairness of it all. Atticus is a wonderful father figure (a role model for fathers today?) and the world seen through the eyes of the children was charming. Definitely deserves to be a classic.