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Golden Acre Park – 12th May
It’s been a while since I’ve been to Golden Acre so on Saturday morning I went up for a walk with my Dad. I think I would probably call Golden Acre one of my favourite places, its so peaceful early in the morning when there’s not many people there, and it’s so familiar from my childhood that I just love going back.
I took my camera with me, but I didn’t get many pictures that I liked. I’ve added my favourites here, but I’m not very happy with them really.
I got a new camera lens today and I’m going to London at the weekend, so hopefully I’ll be able to try it out properly! It’s only a quick overnight stay to see Ron Pope, Zach Berkman and Caggie Dunlop with my brother, but I think we’re going to take a trip back to the Royal Air Force Museum on the way home.
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Now Reading: J. R. R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
I’ve put off reading this book for quite a while now, especially because I know that once I read it I’ll want to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and there’s no way that I can read all 3 books in 9 days to keep on track with my challenge! I’d give it a go, but even I can’t read that fast and still understand what’s going on!My best friend Abi is a massive LOTR fan (and has been since I met her about 10 years ago), and with the film coming out later this year, I’ve booked the day off work to go see it with her. I hate seeing a film before I’ve read the book because I love to have my own ideas about how a person looks and make my own feelings of a place before my head is filled with the director’s version and I can’t get rid of it (as has happened with books like Harry Potter).
So I guess now is as good a time as any to read it, and I have Abi’s assurance that I’ll love it! I hope so, and you never know, my next post may be one telling you all that I’ve inadvisedly started reading The Fellowship of the Ring…
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Review: Dr Benjamin Daniels – Confessions of a GP
Well this was definitely not the book that I expected it to be and I was really quite disappointed with it. I was expecting a series of funny stories about crazy patients that had been into his surgery, but instead it seemed to be mainly a book of moans about targets and management in the NHS. I’d say the book was about 25% funny stories and 75% complaining.I’m not saying it was terrible, and I guess it must have been hard to write while still keeping everything confidential so his patients can still trust him, but there just wasn’t as much humour as I hoped there would be. The author has only been a GP for a few years, so I guess he’s not being going long enough yet to have hundreds of stories that he can call to mind, so maybe it would have been better if he’d waited a few years before he wrote the book.
This edition of the book had a special bonus of ‘additional chapters’, which you would think would be the funnier/more outrageous bits that he’d had to cut out of the first part of the book, but if I were him I probably wouldn’t have bothered including them.
There’s not much else really to say about this book except to move swiftly on and give it 1/5, which hasn’t happened often on here…
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Now Reading: Dr Benjamin Daniels – Confessions of a GP
This book was one that was included in a 3 for £5 deal at Tesco, and it looked like it could be a bit of a laugh, easy reading for a weekend. It looks like a collection of stories rather than a novel so it will be easier for dipping in and out of, good for a busy weekend when it’s hard to concentrate for too long, especially after a long weekend when I’m rather tired!I never anticipated how hard it would be to read 100 books in a year, but it’s turning into quite a challenge! I’ve read 35 so far, but I’m still one book behind where I should be at this point. I’m still hopeful I’ll be able to get there though!
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Review: James M. Cain – Double Indemnity
Well, it turns out that I was a little confused between Double Jeopardy and Double Indemnity, so the slight idea that I had about this book was completely wrong! Whoops!In any case, the book was very good even if it was pretty short (130 pages). It was written in 1936 and you can tell through the style of the writing. It made a refreshing change though from the books that I usually read, better writing and still just as much plot.
The book is about an insurance salesman called Walter who falls in love with a woman called Phyllis and sparks a plot to murder her husband and take the insurance money. They manage to pull off the murder with a complicated but very well thought out plan and everything seems to be going well until the insurance company decide not to pay out the money on the grounds that it wasn’t an accident, but either suicide or murder.
Walter then strikes up a friendship with Phyllis’ step-daughter Lola (the daughter of the poor murdered man), and finds out that Phyllis has previously murdered other people in order to get their money, including Lola’s mother. He realises that he can’t trust Phyllis to keep quiet about his involvement in the murder, so plots to kill her and make it look like an accident.
It’s another well thought out plan, but the one thing he didn’t consider was that Phyllis might try to kill him too. He ends up in hospital with a bullet in his chest, and it looks like Lola will take the blame for pulling the trigger. He has fallen in love with Lola and can’t stand the thought of her being incarcerated or hurt by the policemen, so tells the full truth about everything that has happened, in fact, it turns out that the entire book has been his confession letter.
His colleagues at the insurance company can’t risk the news getting out that one of their salesman was involved in the murder of a client to fraudulently claim the money, so they arrange for him to get on a ferry and run away. But little did he know that Phyllis would be on the ferry too. The book ends with Phyllis and Walter jumping off the side of the boat to their death to avoid being captured and handed in to the authorities.
A very strange book with an unexpected ending, but one that I enjoyed a lot. It was completely different to what I usually read, but I’ve had a lot of books like that since I started my reading challenge this year, and on the whole it’s been a good experience.
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Now Reading: James M. Cain – Double Indemnity
I’ve had this book on my shelf for ages and the last few times I’ve gone to choose what book to read, this one has caught my attention.It’s part of a set of books I bought that have been made into successful films, and this one was apparently made in 1944 (the book was written in 1936). I’ve never seen the film (although I guess I probably should have), so I’m not really that sure what the book is about, but I’ve heard good things about it.
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Review: Nicholas Sparks – The Lucky One
I’m sure you totally didn’t expect me to say this, but I loved this book. When you start a Nicholas Sparks book you know totally what to expect, but it still pulls you in and you find yourself enthralled to the very last page!The book centres around a marine called Logan Thibault, who finds a picture of a woman in the middle of the desert in Iraq. After no-one claims it from the notice-board, he decides to keep it and it becomes a good luck charm.
*Spoiler alert – if you’re going to read this book or watch the film, don’t read any further!*
When he gets back from Iraq, he walks from Colorado to Hampton (North Carolina) to try and find this woman who has kept him safe. Surprisingly enough, he thinks it would be a bit creepy to tell her the truth, so instead he gets a job working for her Nana and gradually strikes up a romance with her.
Throughout the book, we are introduced to her ex husband Clayton, a rather overbearing man who likes to be in control, and is not pleased with the way his son has turned out (not sporty enough for his liking). He’s constantly controlling the situation and tries to get Logan to leave town. It doesn’t look to be working, until he finds out about the photo and goes running to tell Elizabeth the truth.
As you would expect, she goes mad when she finds out and tells Logan she wants him to leave. But, this being a Nicholas Sparks book, a chat with her Nana and a heart to heart with her son Ben brings her to her senses and everything is right back on track.
But not without one last hitch to spice up the end of the story. Clayton goes storming round to Beth’s house to confront her, and when Ben walks in on them, he runs out into a thunderstorm to his treehouse over the (now raging) creek. By the time Beth and Clayton catch up with him, he’s dangling in the water and hanging on to the rope ladder, but it soon becomes clear he can’t hold on much longer. Clayton dives in the water after him, but he’s not strong enough to help, and ends up in trouble too.
Just in time, Logan and his loyal dog Zeus come running up to the river bank and dive into the water. Zeus helps to drag Ben out, but it looks like Logan is struggling with Clayton and he ends up being pushed under the water. The last we know, his lungs are on fire and it looks like it might be the end…
The story then skips to two months later and all we know is that someone has died, but there is no indication as to who. There’s a horrible couple of pages where it looks like the book is going to end in completely the wrong way, but in typical Sparks style, we end up with a happy-ever-after ending.
I really needed this book after the last few I’ve read and not really enjoyed as much as normal. Really looking forward to seeing the film now (if I can persuade Cameron to go with me)!
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Now Reading: Nicholas Sparks – The Lucky One
It’s no secret that I love Nicholas Sparks, I don’t think I’ve ever read one of his books that I didn’t like. Although I said that about Charlaine Harris and I’ve been disappointed with the last books I’ve read. This is one of the few Nicholas Sparks books that I’ve not read yet, and when I saw a trailer for it at the cinema I knew I needed to read the book before I go see the film.The only bad thing about buying a book so close to the film coming out is that it is hard to find one with a nice cover. Instead, I’ve had to settle for one with Zac Efron and generic blonde woman (whatever her name is). I am a sucker for a book with a nice cover, but it’s whats on the inside that counts, so lets hope the book is good! Then I can drag Cameron to see the film with me (or at least I can try)! 🙂
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Review: Charlaine Harris – The Julius House (Aurora Teagarden #4)
Usually in a series the books get better and better, but unfortunately with this one the opposite seems to be true. Up until more than half way through this book, I was actually finding it very boring.For a start (and this may sound rather harsh), no-one died. For a murder mystery, you usually expect a bit of excitement at the start. Instead, we listen to half a book of plans for the wedding and having the new house renovated, most of which was not really book-worthy. There was the mysterious appearance of two of her fiancé’s friends, but that’s not too exciting (at least at the start).
Then when we get half way through the book we finally get to the wedding, and it seems like Harris just decided she couldn’t be bothered to write about it, as the entire wedding and honeymoon was detailed in less than two pages. For a book that has spent 100+ pages in the build up to the wedding, I found this very disappointing.
The book wasn’t all bad though, and after the non-wedding, the excitement starts building up as Aurora starts looking for the family that mysteriously went missing 7 years ago from the house she just bought. There’s drama at the end as Aurora once again makes the stupid mistake of entering the house of a murderer alone and you can guess what happens then!
I was definitely hoping for a better book than this, and it did leave me feeling a bit like I’d not read anything worthwhile. That’s the end of the omnibus for now, until I decide to buy the second part. Rather than being impatient to carry on reading the series, I’m actually glad to be having a bit of a break from it, which is not my usual impression of Charlaine Harris.
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Review: Charlaine Harris – Three Bedrooms, One Corpse (Aurora Teagarden #3)
This book was the my least favourite of the series so far, I was a little disappointed by it to be honest. There was still an essence of Charlaine Harris, but you could really tell that it was one of her earlier books, the plot was just not very strong compared to other books of hers that I have read.
In this book, Aurora has started to shadow her mother at her real estate business, and it is while she is showing a house to the new man in town and his sister that they discover a woman dead in one of the bedrooms. Although this is supposedly a massive trauma, Aurora still can’t help falling for the man that she’s showing the house to, even though she’s already in a relationship with the local minister. Lucky for her though, the minister finds out that he can’t have children, which gives Aurora a quick get out so that she can start dating the new man – how convenient!
I didn’t particularly like this part of the storyline, I can see why she might want to break up with the minister, but there was no scene, they just said goodbye and that was it. I also don’t get why she would drop everything for this completely strange man that she’s just discovered a corpse with!
Obviously, this being a murder mystery book, Aurora has to get nosy and try to figure out who the murderer was, and when she finally figures it out, she goes out to his house alone to try and steal the evidence. This seemed odd to me; I know Harris wanted to create a big dramatic scene, but why would you try to steal the evidence from the murderers house? And not tell anyone you were going there? Cue the big scene, where Aurora is saved just in time by her new beau, but unfortunately not before she is beaten so badly she lands herself in hospital.
And wouldn’t you just know it, she wakes up in hospital with an engagement ring on her finger…
There’s another 5 books in this series, so I can’t see everything working out quite to plan! Especially not with Harris as the author. The next book is called The Julius House, hopefully it’s better than this one was!
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 