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Review: J.K. Rowling – Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone
I’ve been wanting to re-read these books since I went to the Harry Potter museum in July, and my lovely parents bought me the full boxset for Christmas, with the gorgeous new covers. I couldn’t wait to start, but I managed to hold back until I’d finished reading Death Comes to Pemberley.It’s actually been a surprisingly long time since I read the books, I re-read the last 3 when the final book came out, but it’s probably been about ten years since I read the first few. I’ve obviously seen the films more recently than that, but I loved being transported back to 10 years old again!
I think we all know how the story goes, so I won’t do a review of the actual book, but I do have a favourite few parts from the book, which I was able to write down in the awesome Book Journal that my friend Andy bought me for Christmas.
I got a nice smile from when Dumbledore and McGonagall were leaving Harry on the doorstep of the Dursley’s, and McGonagall asked Dumbledore if there was anything he could do to remove the scar from Harry’s forehead. Dumbledore said ‘Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Scars can come in useful. I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground’. I had a wonderful vision of Dumbledore in a pair of shorts on the underground consulting his knee for directions.
I also loved the quote on the door of Gringotts;
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned beware
Of finding more than treasure there.Not only is it a good quote about not taking advantage and taking more than you earn, but I’d imagine that if you’d never seen a Goblin before and you saw this quote about finding ‘more than treasure’, it’d probably put you on edge a bit!
But by far my favourite quote from the book is from Dumbledore when Harry is sat in front of the mirror of Erised. ‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that’. I also loved that I’ve only just realised that the quote on the mirror of Erised was actually a message backwards:
“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi”
Which then becomes:
“I show not your face but your hearts desire”
I was quite surprised to remember that the adventure into the third floor corridor past the three-headed fluffy and the subsequent battle with Quirrell/Voldemort was only really in the last 30-40 pages. I seemed to remember it being much longer, although that was maybe because it took up a much bigger part of the film. I’d also forgotten that at the start, Ron and Harry thought that Hermione was an annoying know it all, and weren’t actually friends with her until they helped her fight the troll in the girls bathroom, after accidentally locking it in there with her!
Can’t wait to start the Chamber of Secrets now. I always remembered it as my least favourite of the books, but maybe it will change my mind!
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Biting the Bullet
Well I’ve thought about writing this post many times, but I’m finally biting the bullet. The last two years I’ve been trying to lose weight and I’ve had my Dad doing it with me for motivation, losing about 40-50 pounds in the first few months of each year, but after a while, one or the other of us drifts off gradually and before I know it, I’m right back where I started – fat and miserable again.
My dad has not been well this year and he’s lost a lot of weight as a result, so I don’t have my usual buddy to do this with. So to keep myself accountable, I’ve decided to blog about how I’m getting on. I don’t realistically expect many people to read or care about what I’m writing, but I hope the act of simply writing it down will keep me on track. I hope to write at least once a week to give myself a regular schedule and make sure I don’t let things slide. I was initially going to write my blog on the fitness website I’m a member of (MyFitnessPal), but I’d like it to be more open and part of my life.
I’m still very reluctant to post my actual weight online (I’m just too embarrassed), but what I think I will do is to post my progress graphic from my Fitbit dashboard which counts down how much I have left to lose. I’d also like to post photos every now and again. From the Community Forums that I read regularly on MFP, a lot of people seem to regret not taking progress pictures, so I want to do that from the start.
I don’t know what I’ll end up writing about, probably focusing initially on my weekly stats from Fitbit, and anything interesting I’ve done/eaten during the week. I’ve also got a few exercise DVDs that my sister bought me, so I’ll probably blog my experiences of doing those too.
I’m starting this new leaf next Thursday, after the Christmas and New Year parties are over, so next Thursday will be my initial (and probably most embarrassing) post, but hopefully it’ll be the last time I’ll ever have to start all over again. I’m going to spend the next week thinking about my goals for the year. I don’t want to put all my focus on the big goal, so I’m going to give myself mini-targets with pre-defined treats for getting there.
So one week left, and then ‘Mission: Happier Me 2014’ IS ON!!
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Review: P.D. James – Death Comes to Pemberley
Well I had very high hopes for this book, but I should have known that I was never going to enjoy it. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favourite books of all time, and as promising as a sequel sounds, it was never going to live up to the brilliance of Austen.But not only did this book not live up to expectations, it also made me shake my head in disapproval at some of the things that were happening or supposed to have happened in the six year gap between the end of Pride and Prejudice and the start of this book.
The thing that made me most annoyed was that James kept referring to the fact that Elizabeth only married Darcy for his money and the quality of the situation at Pemberley, at one point saying ‘Elizabeth knew she was not made for the sad contrivances of poverty’.
Well I always believed that Elizabeth was able to look through all Darcy’s supposed faults and his hard outer shell to fall in love with the person inside, and I didn’t like reading a book which suggested that their marriage was made from anything other than mutual love, affection and respect for each other.
The back of the book stated:
“The year is 1803, Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years, and the orderly world of Pemberley seems unassailable. But all this is threatened when, on the eve of the annual ball, a chaise appears, rocking down the path from Pemberley’s wild woodland. As it pulls up, Lydia Wickham Elizabeth’s younger, unreliable sister – stumbles out screaming that her husband has been murdered.”
This sounded pretty promising, I was not a fan of Wickham and as I knew that this was a murder novel, I was quite relieved that it wasn’t my beloved Elizabeth or Jane that were being knocked off. But alas, all was not as it seemed, and it was poor Denny who had bitten the dust. But with Wickham the prime suspect, all was still promising, but not for long.
The thing that I disliked most about the book was the amount of what seemed to me like filler, it took until about 80% through the book until the trial of Wickham, which then seemed incredibly rushed with a lack of detail. It was also written in modern language, rather than sticking to the beautiful, flowing language of Austen, although if James had attempted that, it may have made things worse.
As for the eventual revelation of the true culprit, I found it a strange choice of character. The motive, although fully explained at the end of the book, didn’t seem to tie in too well to the setting up of the story at the start, and was not what I would have picked if I had been writing this story.
I wanted to read this book before the BBC TV adaptation starts on the TV tonight, and while I’m glad I read it before watching it, and while I will still watch it to see what it’s like on the screen, I would rather have spent the last few days re-reading Pride and Prejudice.
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Review: Milly Johnson – A Spring Affair
I’m a self confessed lover of Milly Johnson. What’s not to like, a down to earth Yorkshire lass who writes fantastic books. I’ve actually never read her spring/summer/autumn/winter books, so when I was at Barter Books in Alnwick and I saw the Spring and Autumn ones, I couldn’t resist. I’ll have to hunt down the Summer and Winter ones very very soon!The story begins with lovely Lou Winters in a dentist’s waiting room. She picks up an old dog-eared magazine and stumbles across an article about clearing the clutter. It hits her in a rather strange way, and she decides that she’s going to hire a skip and get rid of all the stuff that has accumulated in her house during her marriage to the tyrannical Phil. To call him a control freak would be an understatement, constantly playing games to undermine Lou’s self esteem and make her feel worthless, so that in turn she feels grateful to have him as a husband.
But when the skip turns up at her door, so does a bounding great dog called Clooney, along with his handsome rugged owner, Tom Broom. Lou falls for him instantly, but she’s still loyal to Phil, so nothing happens except for a great deal of embarrassment on Lou’s part.
All the clearing out that Lou is doing has an impact in other areas of her life too. For a start, the physical exertion of lugging things down from the attic and up from the cellar gets her in the best shape of her life. She starts to thing about how she needs to clear out her life, and not just her home. A chance encounter with her old friend Deb brings back up plans they had to open a coffee shop together, but their relationship was torn apart a few years ago, for reasons I won’t divulge here to spoil the plot, so can they reconcile their hopes and dreams once more? Or will history repeat itself once again?
I absolutely loved the way that this book was written. A lot of books of this genre tend to have one chapter of Lou, one chapter of Phil, one Tom, then one Deb, etc. etc. I find that this can sometimes get a bit in the way of the flow of the book because you find yourself broken off at what seems like the most inopportune moments. But with this book, the switchover of characters wasn’t necessarily at the start of a chapter, and it just seemed to flow really naturally. I loved the way that we didn’t just get the story from Lou’s point of view, but we could also see what a piece of work Phil was, in his own words. And boy, is he a piece of work. I’ll not go any further now, because I really would suggest that you get yourself a copy of this book and devour it in the same way that I did!
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Review: Mary Berry – Recipe for Life
Mary Berry. What can you say? When you see her on TV, she’s exactly like your grandma. And her autobiography was less like a book and more like sitting in your granny’s kitchen with a cup of tea and a cream scone and listening to her reminiscing about the old times.I have to be honest, I’d never heard of Mary Berry until the Great British Bake Off started, but I can see now that she’d actually done a lot before then, even retiring from her career before getting the phone call out of the blue about judging a ‘village fete’ style baking contest.
She led a rather privileged life when she was younger, but worked extremely hard to make it to where she wanted to be, leaving school with no qualifications and working her way up to a regular slot on an afternoon talk show, and even filming segments in her own house, which looks pretty grand by the way. She’s had her fair share of hardships too, from a life-threatening stay in hospital with polio when she was younger, to losing her son in a tragic car accident.
As much as the book was like a nice cosy chat with your gran, there were times when it felt a little preachy, when Mary was talking about the way that she would rather do things, and how everyone else is either stupid or doing it wrong. But I suppose that’s quite like your average gran too.
I found it a rather enjoyable read (and I now keep using the word ‘rather’ far too often, just like Mary). I saw that her life story was actually on TV yesterday, with the second part tonight, so I would kind of like to watch that too, just to see the places she talks about brought to life, especially her beautiful sounding house.
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Review: J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
I really don’t have words for how much I loved this book. Definitely the most fast-paced of the three, I was hooked from beginning to end, unable to stop reading (even when I should probably have been doing other more important things, like working or sleeping). Many times when I was reading, I was so engrossed that I felt like I was travelling along with the hobbits, feeling every bit of peril and hopelessness that they too must have been feeling on the final stages of their trek to Mount Doom.As with the first two books, I find it extremely difficult to write a review that actually does justice to the magnificent detail of the plot, the characters and the world of Middle Earth in general. I’m guessing if you’re here you probably already know the plot of the books, so there’s no point talking about that, but I can’t find the words to describe how much enjoyment I felt from reading these books.
Having watched the films, I obviously had a good idea of where the plot was heading, but I’d either forgotten substantial parts, or the films were a bit hazy in places, as I still managed to read a few things that surprised me. Once again, Sam was the hero of the hour, carrying Frodo up Mount Doom in a final act of strength and bravery when it looked like all might be lost. It was one of my favourite parts of the three books (my favourite being Eowyn’s “I am no woman”).I was tricked by the Kindle app on my tablet into thinking there was much more left of the book than there actually was. It said I still had 23% of the book left when in reality I only had 6% and the rest was the appendices. So it was with disappointment that I headed into the final chapter, and with tears in my eyes as Frodo bid farewell to his faithful friends.
I will definitely be starting to read some further Tolkien books now that I’ve finished Lord of the Rings. I don’t know which I will choose first, but I’m sure I’ll have ample assistance from my best friend Abi, as she’s a huge Tolkien fan.
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November on Instagram
Pictures from November on my Instagram. Follow me here – @louiser89
Can’t believe how much the weather changed overnight!!
Best numbers yet on my FitBit!
Natalie Holmes at the O2 Academy, Leeds.
MeadowLark at the O2 Academy, Leeds.
Gabrielle Aplin at the O2 Academy, Leeds.
Sparklers! #latergram
#datenight
Christmas Costa! #festive
❤
Curled up in bed with Mary Berry. #BakeOff
Full moon.
#autumn
#autumn #park
#autumn #leaves
Trying to find a dress for #SPOTY. #noteasy
Trying to find a dress for #SPOTY. #noteasy
You made it this far, couldn’t go one more step, huh?
Diggory #latergram
#selfie
Holiday smiles!
Alnwick here we come!
Barter Books. Heaven.
❤ #beach
#newbooks
Romantic date at Bella Italia.
❤
Hadrian’s Wall. So peaceful.
Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning! #nofilter
Who would steal a teddy bear from charity? #guiseley #missing
St. Oswald’s Church, Guiseley
Stood on a very cold station platform waiting for Cameron’s train to arrive to kick off our long weekend. #pudsey #excited
Cameron’s poncy drink at Giraffe!
Nutella on toast. Breakfast of champions! -
Red sky in the morning, Shepherd’s warning
I’ve kinda been slacking on my morning walks recently, which is definitely reflected in my average daily steps on Fitbit. It’s really hard to make it to target when you stay sat on your backside! The sky was vividly red this morning though, a brilliant welcome back, and an excellent motivator to get back out there tomorrow!
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Review: J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Why oh why oh why didn’t I read Lord of the Rings before now?! I was gripped from the first word (‘Aragorn sped on up the hill’) to the last (‘Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy’). I found The Two Towers much more fast-paced than The Fellowship of the Ring, filled with much more action and intensity. I loved the switch between the different character groups, it always happened in a very natural place and didn’t distract from the flow of the story.Tolkien’s descriptions really came to life in the second book, from the Ents to Isengard to Shelob and her lair, everything was so vividly described and in such detail that it was as if you were there, adding to the sense of peril that was felt at times.
But above all, my favourite part of this book was good old Samwise Gamgee. He really came into his own, his dedication to sticking with Frodo no matter what, and his brave decision to go on without Frodo when he thought all hope was lost made him the hero of this book to me.
I couldn’t help relating the book to the films, which is a shame, but it did mean that I read all of Gollum’s parts in the voice from the films, which was quite fun. I do now really wish I’d been able to read the books before seeing the film.
I started on The Return of the King as soon as I finished this last night, I can’t wait to get stuck in and follow the quest to the end!
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Holiday to Ashington
Well after a hard couple of months at work, we decided to take ourselves away for a long weekend, heading up north on Friday afternoon and coming back late Sunday evening. We stayed in a Premier Inn in the Queen Elizabeth II country park in Ashington, which is kind of in between Newcastle and Alnwick. It’s recently been refurbished and it was really lovely.
On the Saturday, we started off by going to Barter Books in Alnwick, a huge second hand bookshop complete with roaring fires and a miniature train set running around the top of the book shelves. We spent over an hour looking round the books, and I think I managed to restrain myself pretty well, although I don’t think Cameron would agree! After we’d been there, we headed for the beach at Alnmouth for a bracing walk along the water’s edge. We were both glad to get back in the car after that! On Saturday evening we headed down to a local retail park for a bit of shopping and then a lovely romantic date at Bella Italia.
On Sunday, we stayed in bed a bit later (checkout wasn’t til 12), and after we’d eaten breakfast we decided to head up to Hadrian’s Wall. Cameron had never been there, and I’d only ever been inside the visitor centre, so it was a new experience for both of us. We headed for a National Trust visitor centre so we could get in for free with our memberships, and spent quite a while wandering around the museum and the ruins. We could have driven back across to Newcastle and headed down the A1, but we decided to take the long route and continued across the country to Penrith and then a hairy drive back down through the Yorkshire Dales in complete darkness. I was very glad it was Cameron behind the wheel and not me!
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 