Review - Cecelia AHERN - "The Book of Tomorrow"

Publ: 2009
Pensby Library
ISBN: 978 0 00 723370 0
Genre: General Fiction; Ghost story
Pages: 320p
Found by Serendipity
Rating: ***** **


What led you to pick up this book?
Found on the new book shelf in the libraray and I have liked each Cecelia Ahern one I have read so far.

Describe the plot without giving anything away.
Tamara Goodwin has always got everything she's ever wanted. Born into a family of wealth, she grew up in a mansion with its own private beach, a wardrobe full of designer clothes, a large four poster bed complete with a luxurious bathroom en-suite. She's always lived in the here and now, never giving a second thought to tomorrow. But then suddenly her dad is gone and life for Tamara and her mother changes forever. Left with a mountain of debt, they have no choice but to sell everything they own and move to the country to live with Tamara's Uncle and Aunt. Nestled next to Kilsaney Castle, their gatehouse is a world away from Tamara's childhood. With her mother shut away with grief, and her aunt busy tending to her, Tamara is lonely and bored and longs to return to Dublin. When a travelling library passes through Kilsaney Demesne, Tamara is intrigued. She needs a distraction. Her eyes rest on a mysterious large leather bound tome locked with a gold clasp and padlock. With some help, Tamara finally manages to open the book. What she discovers within the pages takes her breath away and shakes her world to its core. Told in Cecelia's imitable style this is a mesmerising and magical story for this autumn.

What did you think of the characters and style?
Ther characters were as believabler as ever and I love the way Ahern gets into the mind of the hero or heroine of her books. One commentator commented that the Ahern books were a bit samey. I think they are each unique and great fun.

Would I recommend it?
Yes.

CECELIA AHERN – see A Place Called Here

Quotation

It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as "slightly foxed", although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.
Terry Pratchett "The Light Fantastic"

Review:- Douglas PRESTON & Lincoln CHILD – “The Wheel of Darkness”

Publ: 2007
Pensby Library
ISBN: 978-0-7528-8281- 9
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 513p
Found by Serendipity
Rating: ***** **


What led you to pick up this book?
I fancied an easy to read thriller and the plot of this one sounmded good.

Describe the plot without giving anything away.
The eighth book in the Prendergast series. FBI agent Prendergast has taken his ward Constance on a whirlwind Grand Tour, hoping to give her closure and a sense of the world that she's missed. They head to Tibet, where Pendergast intensively trained in martial arts and spiritual studies. At a remote monastery, they learn that a rare and dangerous artifact the monks have been guarding for generations has been mysteriously stolen. Pendergast agrees to take up the search. The trail leads him and Constance to the maiden voyage of the Queen Victoria, the world's largest and most luxurious passenger liner--and to an Atlantic crossing fraught with terror.

What did you think of the characters and style?
The hero is a bit like a James Bond, almost tongue in cheek. Not a set of characters to be taken seriously but good fun as thrillers go.

Would I recommend it?
Not a lot but some James Bond fans might appreciate a different hero.

DOUGLAS PRESTON was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the deadly boring suburb of Wellesley. His first job was as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His stint at the museum resulted in his first nonfiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, as well as his first novel, Relic, co-authored with Lincoln Child, which was made into a movie by Paramount Pictures. Relic was followed by a string of other thrillers co-written with Child, many featuring eccentric FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. Preston spends his free time riding horses in New Mexico and gunkholing around the Maine coast in an old lobster boat. He counts in his ancestry the poet Emily Dickinson, the newspaperman Horace Greeley, and the infamous murderer and opium addict Amasa Greenough.

LINCOLN CHILD is the coauthor, with Douglas Preston, of Relic, Riptide, The Cabinet of Curiosities, and other bestsellers. He lives with his wife and daughter in Morristown, New Jersey.

Review – Publ. Edward Arnold – “Mount Helicon”

Publ: 1922
My Copy
ISBN: -
Genre: Poetry anthology
Pages: 304p
My Mum’s school anthology of verse
Rating: ***** *****


What led you to pick up this book?
This is one of two anthologies that Mum had at school in the early 1920s and from which I learned many of the poems which I learned in my youth.

What did you like most about the book?
It brought back memories of the pride I took in learning and reciting verses – often learning a poem a day during the school summer holidays. Unlike many of the things one ‘had to do’ as a child I loved learning poems.

Would I recommend it?
It probably cannot now be found except in a fairly tatty state on some second-hand bookseller’s shelves but I think it has many of the world’s best poems in its 300 pages.

Quotation

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

“Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included.”

                       - Alan Bennett “The Uncommon Reader”