The Haunted Hotel - Wilkie Collins - Book Review

4 stars

I rather enjoyed this book. It rather reminded me of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. It certainly kept me guessing to the end. I found it easier to read than the other Wilkie Collins book that I've read, The Moonstone, although I don't think it was quite as high quality of writing.



It certainly had a very creepy aspect to it.  The Victorians loved a good ghost story.

Agnes Grey - Anne Brontë - Book Review

4 stars

A very enjoyable read, despite the customary Bronte bleakness.

It's obviously a commentary on parenthood and marriage. Basically: Money, status, and comfort don't buy you happiness; and, overindulging your children (and not instilling good morals in them) is detrimental to their happiness and the happiness of anyone who has the misfortune to come across them. This is the general theme of the book.

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS NEXT*
The children depicted in the book were terrible - oh my, the son in the first family was pretty much a psychopath! And the 'lovely' Rosalie in the second family was selfishness personified. We worry about 'the youth of today', well, as this book is apparently partly autobiographical, it appears the youth of the 19th Century were pretty awful too.

The gentle romance was lovely though.

All in all a good book, very enjoyable.

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen - Book Review

5 stars
This is the only Jane Austen book I hadn't read before...or at least I don't remember reading it! Which is strange, I suppose, as I love Austen.

Being on holiday, and having plenty of time on my hands, and already having it stored on my Kindle, I thought I'd give it a go.

I loved it. Slightly reminded me, in tone, of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. Fanny Price is a great heroine, quiet, unassuming but with strength of character.

Definitely a page turner for me as I waited for the Crawfords to get their comeuppance.

Well recommended.

Westward Ho!

Westward Ho! beach on 'dramatic' setting on my camera.

The girls love the sea, and I do too.

B photographing the sea and the surfers

L loves to paddle

One Beautiful Dream - Jennifer Fulwiler - Book Review

5 stars
This book is just brilliant. I read it in under 24 hours...I'm on holiday, so why not! It is both funny and moving.

I found it particularly moving because it answered inner questions I mull over often about decisions we have made as a family.

I love her thoughts about the 'blue flame' - the passion that ignites a fire within you. About 'wholeness of vision' - that we cannot control the now, but to see what our choices now will look like in the future. About the fear of asking for help because you don't want people to see your mess. The advice from Father George: "Where there is no unity, there is no God. God is always calling us to connection, to unity, and if we don't have that, we are not walking with God...We always think like individuals, like the work that we do has nothing to do with anyone else. God wants us to see what we do as just one small part of something greater..." These and other snippets have given me a lot to think about.

And the image of her climbing in and out of the car window due to a broken door was hilarious.

Well recommended.

How to be Free - Tom Hodgkinson - Book Review

2 stars

So wanted to like this. I have a fairly libertarian outlook and am rather suspicious of big government and the nanny state. I agree that there are so many stupid rules about this and that, these days, that we are all slaves to the machine (although I am in no way an anarchist, like he claims to be).

I totally agreed with his points about the unfairness of these huge companies who will chase you with threats if you are a day late with a payment but who feel it is OK to give you the runaround when they owe you money.

I too would love to avoid mortgage, pension, etc. But I really don't want to live in a commune or a squat.

I agree that the Puritans sucked a great deal of fun out of life [by banning Christmas, etc.] and wrecked a lot of beautiful religious art, etc...though I am not at all convinced by his obsession that if we had just all stayed Catholics then we would all just be such a happy bunch of peasants; nor by his constant claims that the medieval era was one of fairness and fun for all.

Some of his statements are just downright annoying. For example, his 'yay me for driving without insurance what a rebel I am'. No you're just an idiot with no concern about the poor person you might just crash into. And of course, every woman wants to get rid of her washing machine and instead wash her clothes in the river with all the other women (while the men are at the pub practicing their chivalry and dandy manners)! Yes we all like to wash laundry by hand whilst our husbands get drunk. Not. Oh and, apparently, even slaves could become freemen, so yay for slavery. Ah, the good old days...NOT!

And yes, I agree, big pharma are ripping us off (via the NHS) and we probably don't need to be as medicated as many of us are, however, I would suggest that developments in medicine and medical care has improved our lives greatly and we in England now don't often die in childbirth, from the flu, from an infection, from cholera, from smallpox...unlike the middle ages.

So, good premise, badly executed and spoiled by stupid statements.