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Janet

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Everything posted by Janet

  1. Are you enjoying Life on Mars? Okay - you can have Kevin and I'll have Phil! :)

  2. I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini today. Only one word for it - amazing! I thought The Kite Runner was very good, but this just blew that out of the water. I wonder how he'll follow this?! If I could give it 11/10 I would! I don't know what to read next now...
  3. Well, I've been waiting as patiently as possible for this to come out in a reasonable sized paperback (I can't get on with those huge ones, nor do I like hardbacks). It was totally and utterly worth the wait. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. I immediately felt empathy with Miriam and when Laila joined the story it became absolutely 'unputdownable'! I thought The Kite Runner was very good, but this just blew that out of the water. I wonder how he'll follow this?! If I could give it 11/10 I would!
  4. It looks from the pile next to it that you need a second one! Is that a Dark Side of the Moon hanging I see behind it...?
  5. I read about that Hovis one in the paper but I haven't seen it yet. I wonder whether it's on YouTube yet? </Goes to look> ETA: It is! It's fantastic!
  6. I take it you enjoyed it then?! I've been reading all day long too - naughty me! </Ignores ironing pile>
  7. Have you read Rebecca, Tiger? It's one of my favourite books.
  8. I tried reading Getting Rid of Matthew straight after my A level exams in June, but I found that I had no empathy with the characters at all so I gave up and put it in the charity shop bag. Perhaps I should have persevered with it as your review makes it sound like a good read. I see she has a new one out now.
  9. Thanks. It's great, isn't it! I used to have a small free-standing one under there but we did nothing else with the space, so I paid my friend's very talented husband to make me one that filled up the space! I love it!
  10. I have a mainly non-fiction understairs bookcase (with a few 'soon to read' novels double stacked in the gap next to the phone) and one in the lounge (with my 'long-term to read' books on the bottom shelf. Hubby has a bookcase upstairs!
  11. Can Beef anyone please help with the following... Not a problem as such, but I was sitting at my computer earlier when someone popped up on Messenger and made me jump! I was a bit surprised as I hadn't got MSN open. I have no Messenger icon in my toolbar and I hadn't signed in. I clicked on 'help' and got this message. It doesn't look like my normal messenger. I'm usually 'appear offline' but it doesn't seem to have that option. Can anyone tell me why it randomly decided to sign me in, and how to prevent it happening again, as I didn't like the box it brought up and I couldn't see which email address it was using, or any of my contacts? Thanks in advance.
  12. I could have sworn I'd said hi on here already, so apologies for the lateness, but hello and welcome. Have fun.
  13. We are nothing if not passionate about books - reading and talking about them - here! Welcome to the forum. Have fun.
  14. Janet

    Hello

    Hi Sharon - welcome to the forum. Have fun.
  15. I *love* Yorkshire! Welcome to the forum - have fun.
  16. Escape by Carolyn Jessop. Not my normal type of read (that's the good thing about Bookclubs!) and the print is very small, but it sounds better than this usual type of book. Incidentally, I looked up the song quoted in Playing With The Moon - it comes from a song called 'My Curly Headed Baby' but the real lyrics
  17. They've set the Shopaholic film in the US, haven't they? She wasn't even there in the first book, was she?!
  18. I know you found my review and I commented there, but I didn't want it to appear that I was ignoring you. Yes, I thought it was very informative for a non-Shakespeare expert.
  19. All my fellow 'bookworms' really enjoyed it too.
  20. It's fine - I like getting comments on my blog! I should probably provide a link when I review.
  21. Finished Shakespeare by Bill Bryson. Moving on to A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini now.
  22. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson The 'Blurb' Examining centuries of myths, half-truths and downright lies, Bill Bryson tries to make sense of the man behind the masterpieces. In a journey through the streets of Shakespeare's time, he brings to life the hubbub of Elizabethan England and a host of characters along the way. Bryson celebrates the glory of Shakespeare's language - his ceaseless inventiveness gave us hundreds of now indispensable phrases, images and words - and delights in details of his fall-outs and folios, poetry and plays. Stitching together information from a vast array of sources, he has created a unique celebration of one of the most significant, and least understood, figures in history - not to mention a classic piece of Bryson. As someone who has only 'discovered' Shakespeare in her 40s, I think this book is the perfect introduction to him and his life. I didn't really know an awful lot about Shakespeare apart from the fact that he died on St George's day, and that this date is popularly given as his birth date too. This is taken from the Christening records which show he was baptised on 26th April. It was usual for babies to be baptised within a few days of birth due to high infant mortality rates. Oh, and obviously I knew he was the Bard from Stratford-upon-Avon, but there my knowledge ended! This book also contains interesting facts about the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods of history, all told with Bryson's trademark wry humour, albeit that it's not as funny as some of his other offerings. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone know knows Shakespeare's life well, but to a novice, it's definitely a great place to start.
  23. Stephanie - if you've seen the films then you'll love the book! I haven't seen the Muppet one (sorry, but I can't bring myself to watch puppets in such a great story) but the films I have seen (Alastair Simm, Albert Finney, Jean Luc-Picard (can't remember the actors name!) are exactly the same as the book (apart from the songs in the Finney one! )
  24. That's it! Thanks. I'm afraid it put me off reading any of his novels - although I believe he wrote About A Boy and the film of that was quite sweet.
  25. I saw that (dragged by my daughter too!) and thought it was terrible too. I think perhaps if I'd taken some hallucinogenic substances beforehand then it might just have been bearable! Chocolat - I hated what they did to the book so much. Recent ones have included Over the Hedge and the awful Wall-E (I know these are kid's films but they were soooo boring!). Oh, and something with Jon Cusak in it - based on a Nick Hornby novel about a bookstore (I think) which I actually fell asleep towards the end of!
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