The Secret Garden

Well when it comes to childhood favourites, The Secret Garden features in the top 10. It is a brilliant book that I must have read over and over again. I have a well worn copy sitting on my book shelf and it is one of the few that survived the book cull that took place when my mum insisted that it was time to pass on my books to younger cousins. 

For those of you who have never read The Secret Garden- firstly, where have you been! Secondly, here is a very short summary...

The book is about a girl called Mary who is sent from India to live in England with her uncle following the death of her parents. Mary slowly befriends the gardener and some of the other servants and she also discovers a secret garden. Along the way she loses some of her spoilt and bad natured tenancies. She then learns of a boy, her cousin Colin, who is hidden away in the house- ill and unable to walk. They form an unlikely friendship and Mary lets Colin in on the secret of the garden, with the hope that its magic will help him. 

The other day I popped into the Waterstones with the intention of not spending a penny- my bank balance can't handle it at the mo! But I made a beeline for the reduced section and my eyes fell upon this. It is a beautiful cloth covered hardback version of The Secret Garden to celebrate it's 100th anniversary. It also has lovely illustrations and I couldn't believe it when I saw it was reduced from £25 to £5. The book has no damage- I can only assume that it was a display copy! 

This was one of those purchases that left me on a high for the rest of the day and I know that it will remain in my book collection for a long time- I definitely won't be passing it on any time soon!

Have you found any bargains recently? Does The Secret Garden feature in your childhood favourites?

Eilidh

Paris

As of a month ago Paris did not feature on my list of top 5 cities to visit. Not that I didn't appreciate the beauty of the city, but rather that as a Classics student, Italy had always held a solid first place in my heart with Greece coming a close second- Rome, Florence and Athens were the cities I dreamt of visiting. But, when my friends decided to go to Paris I was happy to be going away with them, any city would have done. But I well and truly fell in love with Paris, I would go as far as to say that out of all the cities I have visited, it is my favourite.

(view down the Champs-Elysees from the top of the Arc de Triomphe)

(The Eiffel Tower at night)

(at the top of the Eiffel Tower, embracing the wind)

(view from the Eiffel Tower)

All is all I had a brilliant time, we did all the incredibly touristy things, we went up the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. Spent a couple of hours in the Louvre and then battled through the masses to catch a glimpse of the Mona Lisa. We went to the Sacre Coeur, went on a boat tour down the river Seine and did a night bus tour around Paris. Whilst I enjoyed every moment, I can understand why there is a reputation for Parisians leaving the city in the summer, the tourists really took over the city, all traveling in huge groups and I finally saw the infamous selfie stick being used. Ideally I would go back to the city at another time of the year and see it in a different light.

Have you ever been to Paris? What is your favourite city?

Eilidh

If I Stay- Gayle Forman

I picked this up at Naples airport on my way back from Italy. I was limited to the small selection of English books they had and this one called out to me- mainly because it has obviously been made into a film and I love to compare book to film adaptations! It is hard to write about this book without including spoilers so I have split the review into two parts. The first half is spoiler free but don't read the second half if you have yet to read the book! 

Mia is a 17 year old with everything to live for- a brilliant family, a boyfriend who shares her love for music and an amazing best friend. But then she is involved in an accident and suddenly she's not sure what she has left to live for. The book follows Mia as she attempts to decide whether or not she should stay.

The book has a good if not a bit predictable story line, to me it was nothing exceptional but neither was it awful. I loved the music references and I really felt asthough the characters had a genuine love for music. I thought all of the characters were good but none of them were developed as much as I would have liked, most likely because the book was quite short. 

It's not so much that I didn't like the book, I just didn't think it was amazing. I wouldn't actively recommend it to anyone but nor would I discourage someone from reading it. It was a quick and easy read and from reading other reviews I know it is a well loved book. 

CONTAINS SPOILERS

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

CONTAINS SPOILERS 

Can you control your death? This question seems to dominate the book. Mia is a teen with her life ahead of her, one quarter of a happy family, girl friend to punk rocker Adam and best friend to budding photographer Kim. Everything is just as it should be, with prospects of Julliard on the horizon, her future is bright. Cue car crash. Mum dead, dad dead, brother dead. Just like that. A bit predictable, but heartbreaking none the less. The accident was a bit too expected for my liking, what else is going to happen when a family decide to go for a drive just after snow has settled. I always look for the shock factor and sadly this book did not have it. The disappointing start aside, I actually quite enjoyed the book, the rest of the book followed Mia as she had an out of body experience, allowing her to view herself in intensive care, watch her friends and family suffer and give the reader an insight into her life. I liked the narrative voice and I warmed to Mia as well as the other characters that featured in the story. I did however feel that the characters fell short in a number of ways, I couldn't quite picture Mia in my head and I didn't feel asthough I had enough time to get to know Adam, Kim and Mia's family either. Maybe a 100 or so extra pages would have done the job. Despite all of this, it still managed to tug at my heart strings and there were many points where I couldn't contain the tears. It was good enough to prompt me to order the sequel but I wouldn't reread it and nor will I be shouting from the rooftops about it. 

Eilidh 

Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum

So the weekend has arrived and that means FREE TIME! For 48 hours I won't be inhaling bone dust and trying and failing to distinguish between toe and finger bones! It's fair to say I am exhausted, a mixture of earlier than usual starts and hot weather has really tired me out! 

So on Saturday we made our way to Naples, the founding place of the Pizza. I played the role of tourist and made my way through plenty of pizza. All in all it was a brilliant day! 

We had a look at a couple of churches and then went to the Archaeological museum which holds artefacts like the Alexander mosaic from the House of the Faun in Pompeii. 

On Sunday we travelled over to Herculaneum which was so well preserved by the eruption of 79AD. We saw things like original sliding wooden doors which was absolutely amazing! I visited Herculaneum in February but it was brilliant to get a second look.

We then went onto Pompeii, by then I was melting under the sun but we carried on regardless! 

Outside of Amphitheatre 

Inside of Amphitheatre

Stairs in a house (proof of a second floor!)

 Palaestra 

Large theatre 

Failed attempt at a panorama of the large theatre 

If you look closely you can see a bit of gladiatorial graffiti! 

View down one of the streets 

Piece of original lead piping 

The House of the Faun 

That was just a select few of the photos I took, I may do a longer and more detailed post when I get home to my laptop and good wifi! 

I have one more week in Italy and then I am heading back to England for a week of camping and then a couple of days in Paris! I hope you are having a brilliant summer! 

Eilidh 

Looking for Alaska: John Green

Well I am sure that you will have heard of John Green, its hard to escape him when The Fault in our Stars seems to be dominating both the book and film world. I fell head over heels in love with TFIOS, I love a book that can make you cry and with this offering I shed bucketfuls! I was a bit sceptical starting Looking For Alaska because I just couldn't imagine how it could live up to my high expectations. Sadly it didn't, it's not that it wasn't good, I really did enjoy it, I just felt that there were moments where it didn't quite reach my high expectations for a John Green book. I felt that characters were alright but not amazing and for me the story line just fell a bit flat.

The book follows the life of Miles aka Pudge who dreams of living the adventurous life of a boarding school pupil. He befriends Chip (The Colonel) and Alaska and they embark on a life of pulling pranks, smoking cigarettes *insert John Green metaphor*, and drinking cheap alcohol whilst trying to avoid the wrath of their headmaster. I really enjoyed the first half of the book as Pudge found his feet and finally found the friends he had dreamt of. I found that as teens the characters were realistic and I found them fascinating and annoying in equal measure. Where I found it fell short of my expectation was the second half of the book, for me it didn't quite hit the mark and when I finished it I felt as though I had been robbed of a good ending. I would just like to add here that I know so many people who preferred Looking For Alaska to TFIOS and this is just my own opinion and I am sure that many people will read it and find it to be absolute John Green perfection.

What I find amazing about John Green is that he writes teen fiction so well that I almost forget that he is a middle aged man with two kids and a wife. To me John Green is the perfect example that you don't have to be a teen to be able to write or appreciate young adult fiction. Looking for Alaska was beautifully written, the compulsory John Green metaphors and good humour dominated the book, making serious situations understandable and relatable.

I can't criticize the writing style as John Green got that absolutely right, for me the story line just wasn't strong enough.

Let me know in a comment what you thought of Looking For Alaska if you have read it!

Eilidh

It's not me, it's you: Jon Richardson

It goes without saying that Jon Richardson is my all time favourite comedian, he never fails to make me laugh and I have been lucky enough to see him perform live twice. I was even able to meet him *eeeek* which is up there in my top 10 moments ever. Of course, with any comedian, when the going gets good the tour DVDs and autobiography's start appearing and the appearances on panel shows increase. This all happened to Jon Richardson, he went from being just a stand up comedian to being team leader on 8 out of 10 cats, then came the book and then the DVD. You can imagine my joy at being able to see my favourite comedian be embraced by the public and I was straight out there buying his book when it was released.

Where Jon Richardson differs is that his book isn't an autobiography as such. It doesn't go into his childhood or teenage years, instead it is advertised as some warped guide to relationships- I use the term guide loosely because in reality it is just 294 pages of Jon Richardson telling us about how all relationships are doomed and in his true self deprecating style we learn about his years of living alone, where a Saturday night activity was cleaning the skirting boards and drinking alone.

It is a quick, lighthearted read and one of my favourite offerings from the stand up comedy world. At the age of 30ish I think it would have been useless for him to go down the autobiographical route. Can you really have lived enough to write a whole book on it?

So, would I recommend it? Yes of course, I mean, its Jon Richardson, duh!

Eilidh

Childhood favourites

The books that I read as a child seem to have been the books that stuck with me through my teen years and into adulthood. They are always my go to books when I am feeling down and they are always the books I recommend to others regardless of age- I actually think that kids and young adult books deal with very serious issues in a more sensitive and understandable way. Anyway, I am about to go into my third and final year at university, which means *drum-roll please* DISSERTATION. I can't quite believe how quickly it has all come around. So a couple of months ago I made the decision to do my dissertation on the influence of classical mythology on modern childrens literature- i'm thinking Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson etc. But it also got me thinking about the books that really made up my childhood, so here goes.

Elsewhere Gabrielle Zevin
Right, so I bang on about this book a bit too much, but I genuinely love it. If you want to see what I have to say about it you can see here and here. To sum it up, as someone who rarely reads books twice, I have read this over and over again which I feel shows just how much I enjoyed it! Elsewhere is an interesting take on an afterlife where the main character Liz finds herself journeying over to this afterlife named Elsewhere and we as the reader get to see how she copes with coming to terms with the end of her life and the afterlife she is now faced with.

Star Girl Jerry Spinelli
This is pretty much a book about non-conformity, as an almost teen when I read it, I felt like I could relate to it on a personal level. We all go through that stage where we feel the pressure to conform, I used to wear wacky clothes- bright colours, clashing prints etc and the only thing that got me through those awkward years was the fact that I didn't care what people thought. Star Girl is a beautiful character and she is a part of a beautiful story.

Chinese Cinderella Adeline Yen Mah
Around the age of ten I went through a bit of an oriental phase, the Chinese Cinderella books really opened the world to me and they encouraged me to expand my knowledge and go on and read the likes of Wild Swans by Jung Chang. Chinese Cinderella is an autobiographical account of Adeline's childhood, she covers what it was like to feel unwanted and her fight to prove herself. It is moving and touching and definitely worth a read. 

Journey to the River Sea Eva Ibbotson
This is another book that I have read over and over again, it shows the exotic Amazon through the eyes of a girl, Maia, who has never seen anything quite like it. Her excitement is contagious and I remember reading it in awe as the most exotic place I had ever been to was Scotland. It is beautifully written and I would recommend any Eva Ibbotson book.

Harry Potter JK Rowling
I'm pretty sure that it is impossible to write a childhood favourites list without including Harry Potter, they pretty much dominated my childhood. I remember the excitement of them being released and how my dad and I would race to see who could finish it first. I miss having the sort of excitement that is on par with christmas eve and I have never found a book that has got me quite so excited. 

The Lottie Project Jacqueline Wilson
When I was in brownies I did a collectors badge, whilst everyone else brought in beanie babies or other soft toys, I lugged in my ever growing collection of Jacqueline Wilson books. I was addicted, in fact my mum eventually had to intervene because when I was supposed to be moving on to more young adult/adult books, I was still tearing my way through Jacqueline Wilson. Whilst most of my childhood books have been passed on to cousins, the Jacquiline Wilson books have stayed with me. I particularly loved The Lottie Project as I went through a stage where every book I read had to be set in the Victorian times. Favourites also include Double Act, the Illustrated Mum and Lola Rose. Wilson deals with very serious and upsetting issues in such a way that makes it easy for children to understand.

A Series of Unfortunate Events Lemony Snicket
My dad used to bring these back from America for me before they were released in the UK. They follow the unpredictable adventures of three orphans and their attempts to escape Count Olaf. The first three are amazing, after that I found they became a bit unpredictable but I loved The Ersatz Elevator and The Austere Academy too. 

Daisy Chain...Joan O'Neill
My favourite Joan O'Neill book is actually Daisy Chain War but my room is currently a mess of towering piles of books and for the life of me I couldn't find it. This was a favourite during my WW2 phase.

Back Home/ A Little Love Song Michelle Magorian
Michelle Magorian really fuelled my love for WW2 fiction, my favourites were actually Back Home and A Little Love Song, but I think they have been swallowed up by my room.

Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman
I find it really hard to put into words how I feel about this book, if offers a view into a world where racism is at the forefront, in a Romeo and Juliet style, cross Sephy falls in love with nought Callum. Dear me did I cry at the end of this, it will leave you feeling numb. There are three other books that follow in the series as well as a short story so if you love it then the story continues.

Let me know what your favourite books were when you were younger!

Eilidh