-
Now Reading: Daniel Tammet – Born on a Blue Day
This book is the first of four books that my cousin Hannah lent me when she found out about my challenge to read 100 books in a year. I love reading books that other people suggest – they are usually books that you wouldn’t think of reading but most of the time you find something great.This one looks really good, it’s the memoir of Daniel Tammet , a man with Savant Syndrome (an extremely rare form of Aspergers) who according to the back of the book, sees numbers as shapes, colours and textures and can perform extraordinary maths in his head.
It sounds intriguing, and the reviews I’ve read of it make me think it’s going to be a very good read – definitely something to get me thinking.
-
Review: Rob Lacey – The Liberator
As I have already read this book a few times, I knew it was going to be great, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Every time I read it I get something different out of it, and this time I finished the book feeling more connected than I have in a long time.If you don’t know, The Liberator is a re-telling of the life of Jesus, but the language in the book is brought completely up to date, Lacey was definitely not afraid to change it up a little. It make the book very easy to read (once you get used to the new language he has used – e.g. Prophets are called God’s Couriers, and the temple is referred to as Religious HQ). Here’s an example from the book, from Matthew 5:17-18:
It’s time to rumble the rumours: I’m not here to bulldoze through Moses’ Big Ten Rules. I’m not here to do a character assassination job on God’s Couriers. I’m not here to finish off the Instruction Manual. No, I’m here to complete it. Straight up, on the level, nothing’s getting deleted from Moses’ Contract – not the smallest dot from your paper print-out, not the tiniest pixel, not the faintest watermark – zip. Not till every ending, from main theme to smallest subplot, gets wrapped up and filed under ‘C’ for ‘Complete’.
Compare this to the NIV, and you can see the difference:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Throughout the book are little fictional pieces, for example articles from a newspaper called ‘The Jews News’, and interviews with people from the time. It’s all very fun, and does help you see deeper into the story – a very clever idea.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, Lacey was battling cancer when he wrote this book, and he passed away shortly after it was published. It’s a shame, as he was truly talented and had a natural gift for communication and explanation.
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into the Bible or find out more about the life of Jesus, or to anyone who has read the Bible many times and wants a refreshing take. If you’ve read this book and liked it, I would also highly recommend The Word on the Street – another book by Lacey in very much the same style, only this time he takes on the whole Bible – a very worthwhile read!
-
Lent Reading: Rick Warren – The Purpose Driven Life & John Piper – The Passion of Jesus Christ
For lent this year (as well as giving up chocolate again), I’ve decided to re-read two books that I’ve read and loved in the past.
The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.This book is handily split into 40 sections/days (although I’ve started a bit late so I’ll have to double up for a while, or finish a bit late). I’ve read it in the past, the first time was when I was part of the youth group at City Church Leeds, and it’s basically 40 days to reconnect with God and rediscover why he put us all here, what your life is about. Some people might think it all sounds a bit airy-fairy, but it was great the last time I read it, and it’s about time I read it again – maybe I shouldn’t leave it so long next time!
The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper.I bought and started reading this last Easter, but I never got to the end, so this year I’m determined that I will. This one is in 50 sections, so I’ll have to read more than one a day, but I remember loving what I read before. The subtitle of this book is ‘Fifty reasons why Jesus came to die’, although it makes it clear that it’s not fifty causes, but fifty purposes – fifty reasons why Christ suffered and died for us – perfect for reading during Lent.
-
Now Reading: Rob Lacey – The Liberator
I’ve read this book a few times in the past (as you can probably tell from the tatty edges of the cover), and it’s one of my favourites. I’ve not read it for a while, and I found myself really wanting to read it last night. It’s a telling of the life of Jesus as you’ve never read it before, the language used is completely modern and relatable (and sometimes a little surprising). Throughout the book, there’s also fictional interviews with characters from the story, and thought provoking questions at the bottom of many pages. It’s great as a point of discussion, but also great for reading through from start to finish.As Lacey writes in the intro:
It’s not a Bible, but it might just get you reaching for one.
As with The Word on the Street (another of my favourites), Lacey wrote this book while he was battling cancer, and sadly passed away two months after this book was published. He’s left a marvellous legacy though, one that his family can be very proud of.
-
Review: Maureen Lee – Amy’s Diary
Well, as expected, it didn’t take me very long to read this book. But I felt that the book didn’t really suit the Quick Read format very well, it all felt very rushed. I guess that would always be the case when you try and fit a 6 year war into 100ish pages, but I would have preferred if this was longer with a bit more detail.The book is supposed to be the diary of an 18 year old girl called Amy, but at times it drifted way off from diary format and turned into more of a story, which was a little confusing. The language was also very simple, making it seem like Amy was a lot younger than she is supposed to be.
The author chickened out of writing a few scenes, reverting back to diary form and saying something like “I’ll not write about what happened next just in case someone reads this diary”. I guess it didn’t matter too much in the overall story-telling, but it just seemed like a bit of a cop-out.
I’d only give this book 2 out of 5, it would have been more if the book had been longer, or at least told with language appropriate to an 18 year old. It’s probably not one that I would read again if I’m honest.
-
Now Reading: Maureen Lee – Amy’s Diary
This book is part of the Galaxy Quick Reads that has been released in most supermarkets. There’s quite a large collection of books available, although my local Morrisons only seems to have about 6. I bought 2 of them which caught my eye, only £1.50 each which seemed pretty good value.This book is based on an 18 year old girl at the start of World War Two. I’ve read a few books set in the war, and I have really enjoyed them, so hopefully this one will be just as good. I think I’ll probably be disappointed with how short it is though, I’ve just opened it to the first page and the writing looks huge!
-
Review: Jim Bouton & Eliot Asinof – Strike Zone
This book is the first baseball fiction book that I’ve read, and it was great! It’s been a long time since the end of the baseball season, so it was nice to feel the excitement of a baseball game again.The story revolves around two main characters. The first is an aging rookie pitcher called Sam Ward, pitching for the Cubs in the last game of the season, a game that will decide whether the Cubs make it to the post-season or not.
The other main character is an umpire called Ernie Kolacka, umpiring his last game before his forced retirement at age 60. He has been persuaded to throw the game in favour of the Phillies, by his friend who is in big trouble after he got over his head with gambling.
The book goes back and forth between Ward and Kolacka every half inning, and I was gripped all the way through. I also loved the way that as well as going back and forward between the gameplay action, we also got completely involved in the personal lives of both players, so much so that you really didn’t know who to root for. There’s also quite a lot of insight (whether it’s true or not, who knows) into the hard slog of making it to the major leagues for both characters, and the thought processes that occur during a big game.
Right up until the end, I couldn’t tell how it was going to end, I kept swaying back and forth between a win for Ward or a ‘victory’ for Kolacka. I won’t spoil the end of the book for you, but let’s just say that it made me smile. There’s also a bit of a bombshell thrown in at the end, which shocked me and put a slightly different spin on the story.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that likes baseball, it will definitely keep you gripped all the way to the very last page.
-
A Weekend in London – and Ron Pope!!
This weekend, Frank and I went to London, primarily to see Ron Pope on Saturday night, but also to have a walk round and see all the touristy places as he’d never really been to London before.
I’d booked a hotel in Kenton, mainly because it was cheap (£64 for two of us for two nights). When we went to check-in, he couldn’t find any record of our booking, and eventually found out that the booking had been declined because apparently my card was invalid. Pretty weird, as I’d received a successful booking email, and also an email 3 days before our stay to say they were looking forward to seeing us. There was a big wedding in the hotel that weekend, so we were really lucky to get the last room available. Luckily for us, it was a premium room and we were upgraded free of charge, although I’m not sure exactly what made it premium. You get what you pay for I suppose, and it was nothing special. I’d probably stay there again though, it was only half a mile from the tube station which made it very convenient.
Frank’s first trip on the tube turned out to be quite entertaining too. We were waiting at the tube station for a tube that was due in 3 minutes, and two dogs came hurtling down the stairs and ran straight onto the track. Thankfully, the station staff managed to stop the tubes in both directions so the dogs didn’t get mowed down, but although they managed to get one dog off the line, the other just settled down under the front of one of the trains and made no signs of moving. After about half an hour, someone obviously made the decision that the tubes couldn’t stay there forever, so the one that we needed to be on edged really slowly past the dog, which just laid there totally oblivious. Unfortunately, because of this delay, we only got to spend about half an hour at the Imperial War Museum.
Saturday night was Ron Pope at The Garage (Upstairs) near Highbury and Islington tube station. It was a great venue, and we got there early enough to get right to the front of the stage. Unfortunately they had bag checks at this venue, so we lost all the food and drink that we had been carrying round London and saving for our dinner after the gig.
The gig was opened by Caggie Dunlop. I was unsure at the start of the first song as she seemed really nervous, but she soon picked it up and she was really good. She did a fantastic cover of Do it Like a Dude by Jessie J, and also sang some songs that she had written herself – there was a really good one called You Changed the Rules. I googled her after the gig to see if she had a CD, but all I found out was that she is on the reality TV show called Made in Chelsea.
Ron Pope was awesome!! He sang most of my favourite songs, and he seemed genuinely surprised when people knew all the words and were singing along. He got up from his piano during A Drop in the Ocean just to listen to us sing the song at him, and said that’s the first time he’s ever had a crowd sing along as loud. He was also really surprised that people knew about his band (The District), and joked that he should have come to the UK earlier (I totally agree)!
The only bad thing about that gig was that it was a 14+ gig, so there were a lot of screaming teenagers, including one that started crying when he came out on stage. Frank was also a little bit concerned by the teenagers, there was one girl that was stood really close in front of him, and kept moving further and further back until he was pressed into the wall as far as he could, he couldn’t wait to get out of there!
On Sunday morning, Frank wanted to go visit Horse Guards Parade and see the changing of the guard, which was actually quite cool. The horses are HUGE, but we learnt from the museum that they are all specially bred on a farm in Ireland. After horse guards, we walked through the park down to Buckingham Palace, and were lucky enough to see the guards marching from the palace down the Mall to Horse Guards.
On Monday after we checked out of the hotel, we drove 15 minutes to the RAF Museum in Hendon. It was free to get in, and free to park due to a technical fault. It was a huge museum, with a lot of planes to see, and lots of interesting information. They had a cinema room where we watched a film about Air Traffic Control, and also a 3D film about the Eurofighter Typhoon (including some pretty cool onboard shots)! After we had finished looking round here, it was a long drive home, with Frank sleeping most of the way – I think the huge ice cream sundae at Little Chef must have tired him out!
I think we would like to go to London again later this year and spend more time in the Imperial War Museum, and walk around some of the places we didn’t get to see, like the Natural History Museum. We picked a bad weekend to go as it was the end of half term, but it was still a great weekend!
-
Now Reading: Jim Bouton & Eliot Asinof – Strike Zone
I had a bit of a book-buying-spree last week (someone really needs to stop me!) and bought quite a few baseball books. I’ve read a few in the past (like Josh Hamilton and Dirk Hayhurst) and loved them, so I wanted to read more. The only problem is that it’s quite hard to find them in the UK, so I ended up buying them second hand on Amazon. This one arrived before all the others, for some reason Amazon sent this one by Royal Mail and the others by Yodel. I’ll probably find the others in my bin later this week, if Yodel’s track record is anything to go by.On a related note, I was quite annoyed to read a lot of tweets this week about people receiving the new Dirk Hayhurst book (Out of My League) in the mail. Amazon says that mine won’t be dispatched until 6th March. I know that it might take longer with it being an American book, but I pre-ordered it at the end of October, so why should I have to wait 2 weeks longer than everyone in America to read it? I guess I’ll just have to be patient!
-
Review: Jessica Thompson – This is a Love Story
It’s been a busy past few days for me (more about that in a blog post tomorrow), so I’ve only just finished reading this book. I have a few days off work now though, and I’m expecting a parcel from Amazon tomorrow with the baseball books that I ordered last week.It was really good though, especially for a debut novel. At first, I was a bit dubious as one of the main characters (Sienna) seemed a bit thin, but after a while her character was fleshed out a bit and I started to really get along with both her and Nick.
Like a lot of books in this genre, the book was written from two viewpoints, but unusually you saw most parts of the story through the eyes of both characters. It was a refreshing change, and definitely made the story more engaging.
The main storyline was obviously Sienna and Nick, and the almost love story between them. As I had guessed, it wasn’t quite a perfect love story, it’s definitely unusual when the two main characters don’t actually get together until the last 3 pages of the book!
The book also brought attention to a condition called Narcolepsy which most people find quite trivial (if they’ve heard about it at all), but you find out from the book that it’s actually quite serious and the effect that it has on the person and their family and friends too. Sienna’s Dad has this condition which makes him fall asleep (and fall over) whenever he feels any kind of strong emotion, and she spends a lot of time looking after him. In the end, it’s him that plays a big role in bringing Sienna and Nick together. He was also the reason that I almost cried in the last few chapters, I’ll not tell you what happened but it was very emotional!
I definitely enjoyed this book, very easy going and a nice (mostly) light hearted story. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for Jessica Thompson in the future.
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 