Category: Books
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Shaun Bythell – The Diary of a Bookseller
First book of the year and my dreams have been destroyed. Just kidding, kinda. I always had a dream that I’d open a bookshop, but I’d always imagined it as a dream to be surrounded by books and book-loving people. I’d never really considered the customers though, and after reading Shaun’s diary, I’m not sure
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The One Hour Bible
I can’t really review this book in the same way as I would usually, for one simple reason. Unlike some other ‘read the Bible’ books where the content is rewritten to make it fit into an hour, this was the actual words of the Bible – selected passages to give you the general overview of
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Salley Vickers – The Librarian
As an avid reader, it’s probably no surprise that I mainly picked this book due to the title and the front cover – I know, I know, judging a book by it’s cover and all that. But a book which is probably going to be mainly about books, how could I resist? Having finished the
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Susan Cain – Quiet
Why did I want to read this book? I’ve always thought of myself as an introvert, and actually (although it was probably pretty obvious), this book confirmed it. I thought that perhaps this book would contain ideas for coping with being an introvert at work, and it definitely did. Backed by plenty of research, the
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Jane Austen – The Beautifull Cassandra
I’ve had this book on my shelf for quite a long time, but since I’m so close to the end of the year and not quite at my reading target for the year, it was time to finally read it – at only 55 pages I thought it would be perfect for catching up. Unfortunately,
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Matt Redman – 10,000 Reasons
Starting with the story of Matt at the Grammy’s, you’d be forgiven for starting to think this book was going to be a popularity thing. But it rapidly becomes clear that Matt is not like that at all. The book is so unexpectedly humble, and more an homage to the power of worship in the
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Bryony Taylor – More TV Vicar?
When I spotted this book on a trip to my favourite book shop (Barter Books in Alnwick), I knew I had to have it. Firstly, because I’ve heard Bryony’s name mentioned many times at our church as she was here before she went to train to be a vicar. And secondly, I’ve always found it
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Krystal Sutherland – Our Chemical Hearts
This book has been sitting on my shelf for 2 years, never quite making it to the top of my to-read list. But since I found myself with 6 days to read 6 books if I want to achieve my reading target of 60 books for this year, I picked this one up as it
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Milly Johnson – The Mother of All Christmases
My love for Milly Johnson grows with every book I read. After queuing up for over an hour and a half in a Tesco in South Yorkshire to meet her and get this book signed, I made myself wait until closer to Christmas to read it, so I could feel properly festive! The Yorkshire Pudding
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Emily Chang – Brotopia
For the last few years, I’ve been reading a lot more about women in tech and the problems faced. I’m really lucky at the company I’m in now that gender is not an issue, but it’s still a really big problem in the industry and I think the only way we can change things is
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George Orwell – 1984
I first read this book when I was 14 and I had a little crush on the local librarian, and when he recommended it I binged it in one weekend. But I was only 14 and completely clueless about politics and such, so although I thought it was a great book, I don’t think I completely got
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Patrick Ness – A Monster Calls
I really had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up, my friend bought me a Blind Date with a Book voucher for my birthday and this was one of the choices I was sent. The clues were: Heartfelt Profound Fantasy Courage Healing Truth Young Adult I woke up early yesterday
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Lee Cockerell – The Customer Rules
I bought this book to read as I thought it would give me some insights into providing better service at work. I’m not on the support department, but I think it’s important for everyone to know how best we can help the clients we’re working with. Unfortunately for me, this book was quite focused around
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Scott Lynch – The Lies of Locke Lamora
I have really mixed feelings about this book which I am finding quite hard to process. Now that I’ve got to the end, if you asked me what I thought, I’d tell you that I absolutely loved it, that it was fast paced and exciting and had so many twists that I just couldn’t guess
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Heydon Pickering – Inclusive Design Patterns
I’ve always found the topic of accessiblity an interesting one, and I this book had so many great ideas that I ended up turning it into the basis of a lightning talk at work. I really appreciated that each section started off with typical bad practices, then shows you how to change what you’ve done
Louise Douglas 