poppyshake

French fries Thin crust or deep pan?

It's a very funny but odd book about life in a mental health hospital .. both sad and hilarious in places. It's probably an acquired taste but I acquired it anyway. I love the reasons you chose your name Peacefield, what a lovely way to remember special times.

I used to collect pigs but I don't so much anymore .. there are still signs of them all over the house though. Butterfly brooches .. I wanted to do a display of butterflies rather like lepidopterists do but instead of using real butterflies I used brooches. Hubby helped me make a padded board for them and I pinned them on. People bought me them as prezzies and I collected some when I went visiting etc. I've been meaning to do another with either moths or dragonflies. Heart shaped things .. again the house is full of them. Books .. you can never have too many.

I got mine from the title of a book that I'd just read and loved when I joined the forum ... 'Poppy Shakespeare' by Clare Allen.

I'm sure I've been guilty of a few of the above crimes I do like my books to look nice, I can be quite anal about it, but I'm sure an author would prefer to see their books looking battle scarred, it's like cookery books, the one's that are the most food splashed are the one's that are seen as successes. I'm trying to wean myself off of being too picky about it, someone lent me a book recently and it looked like it had been through hell and back, she retrieved it from the boot of her car and it had been dunked at least once in the bath, but she said she loved it so much she'd read it four times and I thought I bet the author would love to see that book, to me it didn't show a lack of reverence .. quite the reverse. Having said all that I still hate stickers on books that don't peel off etc etc but I don't mind 'damage' caused by overly loving a book or being so engrossed you've fallen asleep and dribbled on it or dropped food on it cos you can't put it down for five mins. Leastways I'm trying not to mind it

I've read The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, White Teeth, Life of Pi and A Short History of Nearly Everything. They were all good but I struggled a bit with Bill's book because it was too scientific for me .. my brain nearly capsized. I've got The Lovely Bones, Fingersmith and Never Let me Go on the shelf to read and I'd like to read No Country For Old Men and Persepolis (seen the films and enjoyed them). Somewhere I think I've got a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves but I've never read it .. I should read it, my punctuation is terrible.

Great reviews Chesil, I've got The Outcast on my shelf to read, glad you enjoyed it (if that's the right word). It's one I've got to get around to reading sometime this year.

The Undrowned Child - Michelle Lovric Amazon Synopsis: It's the beginning of the 20th century; the age of scientific progress. But for Venice the future looks bleak. A conference of scientists assembles to address the problems, among whose delegates are the parents of twelve-year-old Teodora. Within days of her arrival, she is subsumed into the secret life of Venice: a world in which salty-tongued mermaids run subversive printing presses, ghosts good and bad patrol the streets and librarians turn fluidly into cats. A battle against forces determined to destroy the city once and for all quickly ensues. Only Teo, the undrowned child who survived a tragic accident as a baby, can go 'between the linings' to subvert evil and restore order. Review: This is a great adventure book for young adults and for the most part really enjoyable. It's 1899, Teodora lives in Naples with her adoptive parents, she's always wanted to go to Venice but her parents have been reluctant to take her (I know the feeling, I couldn't get my parents to take me anywhere more exotic than the Isle of Wight!) but then fate intervenes. Venice has been engulfed in a wave of strange and sinister events for months and the 'worlds greatest scientists' have been summoned there in order to try and get to the bottom of it. It's a stroke of luck for Teo that her parent's are amongst the worlds greatest scientists because let's face it, they could have been the worlds greatest estate agents. They try and fob her off with talk of leaving her behind, they mention schoolwork etc but it's to no avail, Teo is determined. Venice is such a magical city that just to have the place described in all it's glory is entrancing, you can imagine all sorts of adventures happening there. It's everything that Teo has imagined and more, her favourite place is a dusty old bookshop and this is where all the excitement begins. She's rummaging around on the shelves, when a book falls and knocks her senseless. There are a few strange things about this book 1) It has no title 2) It has a pearly, fishy smell 3) It has a picture on the front of a girl, and she appears to wink at Teo 4) When examined in more detail later, the book has the following inscription on it's inside cover ... 'Welcome to Venice, Teodora-of-Sad-Memory. We have been waiting for you for a very long time' Very odd! The book sets in motion a thrilling chain of events, firstly Teo goes 'in between the linings' which means she is entirely invisible to adults. This of course sounds marvellous but in actuality was terrible, firstly she wasn't sure she was alive (until she found out that children could see her) and secondly her poor parents almost went out of their heads believing her to be missing for days and days. She soon meets her partner in crime Renzo .. or 'the Studious Son' as he is also also called. He dislikes and mistrusts her on sight, he knows (or believes) she is a Napoletana and therefore his deadly enemy. He doesn't think she should have the book, he thinks he should have it. They fight and argue but trials and troubles bring them closer together and by the end they are as thick as thieves. Also, amongst the 'goodies' are a bunch (I'm sure that's not the collective noun) of mermaids. Fairly conventional in looks, but fairly salty in language (having learnt a lot of it from sailor's). They say stuff like 'What a drivelswagger! Drags on like a sea cow's saliva!' and they eat curries. It's the mermaids that first call Teo the 'Undrowned Child' and this name relates back to an incident that happened in Venice some 11 years before .. something that we read about in the prologue. The main 'baddie' is Bajamonte Tiepolo or 'Il Traditore' as he is also known, a man who actually did live in Venice in the 1300's. He had tried to destroy the Republic of Venice and kill the Doge, but was unsuccessful. He was believed to have died in exile but the fictionalised account here says that he was captured, murdered and thrown into the lagoon. Unfortunately, he's not resting in peace, he want's revenge, and if his disembodied spirit can find his bones .. with a bit of help from some 'baddened magic' he'll be back to full strength. Of course it is Teo and Renzo's job to stop him and mayhem ensues. Towards the end I found it all a bit hectic and there were too many similarities with other fantasy books for me to entirely believe in the plot. Baddies that made the air chill, maps with tiny moving footprints, an upturned turtle shell where the past could be viewed, Venetian treacle which was a kind of cure-all rather like Lucy's vial in Narnia and a baddie needing bones and a spell to become whole again. There were books in the bookshop that would have been right at home in Flourish and Blotts ... Smooth as a Weasel and Twice as Slippery by Arnon Rodent Lagoon Creatures - Nice or Nasty? by Professor Marin The Best Ways With Wayward Ghosts by 'One Who Consorts with Them' .... and a cat that transfigured into a lady. But then they may not have been original ideas when I read them in other books and in any case the book is not really aimed at me, perhaps age has made me cynical. It's certainly not a book that is just a re-hash of past stories though, there are lots of new ideas here and placing all the action in Venice makes it extra exciting, sharks swim down the canals, stone statues come to life and as the city falls under the grip of 'Il Traditore' it begins to revert back to the 1300's with the buildings crumbling and the paintwork falling off in great scabs revealing the stone underneath. A story that I'm sure most 9-12 year olds would love, especially girls or anyone that loves reading about Venice. 8/10

Yes it was Nic .. nothing too taxing but very enjoyable.

Tough one!! Sydney Harbour Bridge Shepherds Pie or Cottage Pie?

I just love the humour, you have to smile when reading Wodehouse. They can be a bit samey but there's something comfy cosy about reading about the same group of people. Bertie especially is so endearing. Some favourite quotes from Jeeves and Wooster .. I could go on for pages though. "You could fling bricks by half hour at England

I'm suddenly finding it a struggle, my reading mojo hasn't exactly left but it's curled up in a corner sulking and asking if it can go out for a pizza instead. At the moment I'm three quarters of the way through The Undrowned Child .. it's a good story but I'm finding it hard to give it my full attention. June is full of distractions. I always think that about all the TV screens you see now mounted on walls, and TV's in all the rooms of the house (or a lot of the rooms) I said to hubby .. Big Brother is just waiting for us to install all the equipment .. and then he's going to plug us in to his network. Frightens me half to death. As you say a lot of his predictions were scarily accurate, and are becoming more so all the time, man was a genius.

That's not Heskey's only job though is it, I thought he did as well as anybody and better than most, I would have preferred Defoe, and thought Crouchie should have been on a lot sooner but Heskey worked hard which was more than some did, I thought he linked up with Rooney well. Sadly the keeper lost it for us, it wouldn't have been a sparkling performance anyway but that was a terrible goal to let in, bet he feels like **** today. The 7ft donkey has scored 20 goals in 37 appearances (most of them as sub) .. he should've been on sooner, by the time he came on it was all over bar the groaning.

Yes, don't start with The Book of Dave, unless you want to tangle up your brain. I started with that one and haven't read any of his since because of it. I lent it to a couple of friends/family ... they've just about forgiven me, most of them abandoned it. Hopefully someone else will have some recommendations, I'd be interested to know as well.

Ah thanks for the tip , The Poisonwood Bible wasn't read by her, but I think The Lacuna might be. Some authors are terrible at reading their own work, most of them in fact. Neil Gaiman does a great parody of a fellow author reading an extract from his own book, though the text should have been exciting he made it sound as dull as ditchwater .. he wouldn't say who it was though.

How do you mean?

I did something similar outside Windsor safari park (Legoland now), they used to have disco's there and me and my friend had just met a couple of boys who said they'd walk us home. We all had to run across the main road outside, it was pitch black I couldn't see anything, and I ran straight into a really deep ditch. I was so mortified that I almost wanted to stay in the ditch (it hurt loads too but you have to put a brave face on ... I literally did look like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards). Most embarrassing though has to be when I did some temp work working for my Dad whilst his secretary was on holiday, I stayed in the office on my own at lunchtime and a guy came in and started chatting, he launched into this complete character assassination of my Dad, told me he was a right **** and that it must have been my unlucky day when the agency sent me there. I had to tell him ... though I cringed for a full five minutes first .. that it was my Dad. His back pedalling was almost worse.

I do this, it's a disease with me. I think I need therapy because when I go to a holiday cottage I want to, and sometime do, rearrange the books. Love your bookshelves Kylie, fantastic

I think my basic tastes have stayed the same, but I've definitely read books that I wouldn't have before because of good reviews on here. My TBR list is out of control and I've bought a lot more bookshelves

Exactly, it drives me up the wall. Celebrities who write their biographies aged twenty something!! Then they write another two years later, really they're just diaries and you only want to read someone's diary if they've got something worth saying .. and most of these celebs haven't. The talk will all be about which premiere they attended or their new boob job. Honestly Katie Price (you may not know her .. if so, be thankful) has published as many 'diaries' as Samuel Pepys .. it's outrageous.

I've read fictional works by Stephen Fry that I enjoyed but also books by Jo Brand and Will Self that I've liked less. On the whole, I'm less likely to pick up a fictional book by a famous celebrity, I hate that whole celebrity multi tasking thing .. actors that are suddenly pop stars, singers that become TV gardeners, singers that write books etc etc. Taken as a whole the quality isn't good it's just another way of utilising their fame and putting money in the bank, a lot of them are ghost written anyway. I wouldn't read a book by Katie Price, Kerry Katona, Martine McCutcheon, Geri Halliwell, Coleen Nolan or Sarah Ferguson et al, my head would dissolve. I wouldn't read stuff by Alan Titchmarsh (unless it was a gardening book) or Edwina Currie either or even Jeffrey Archer though I know 'Kane and Abel' is generally considered to be brilliant. Every feeling revolts. I've made exceptions with people that I revere or like a lot .. like Fry, Brand (either .. if Russell wrote a fictional book I'd give it a go probably) and Self. I haven't read anything by Hugh Laurie but I would. There's something about them that tells me that they wouldn't write rubbish for the sake of it. Even those that I haven't liked were well written. I'm not against them writing biographies or factual stuff apart from when it becomes a disease, as it has with Richard Hammond, Kerry Katona and Katie Price.

The Room of Lost Things - Stella Duffy Waterstones Synopsis: Under his railway arch in Loughborough Junction, South London, Robert Sutton is taking leave of a lifetime of hard work. His dry-cleaning shop lies at the heart of a lively community, a fixed point in a changing world. And, as he explains to his successor, young East Londoner Akeel, it is also the resting place for the contents of his customers' pockets - and for their secrets and lies. As he helps Akeel to make a new life out of his old one, Robert also hands on all he knows of his world: the dirty dip of the Thames; the parks, rare green oases in a desert of high-rises and decaying mansion blocks; and the varied lives that converge at the junction. Humming with life, packed tight with detail, The Room of Lost Things is a hymn of love to a great and overflowing city, and a profoundly human story that holds us in its grip from the first sentence until the last. Review: A very readable warm story about Robert, who has owned a dry cleaning shop at Loughborough Junction, South London for years, and whose mother owned it before him. He has decided it's time to call it a day and sell the shop. He finally settles on selling to Akeel Khan, a young British Muslim from east London, but it's going to be a wrench. The place is full of memories and full of lost things, things that careless customers have left behind. Robert's mother Alice started a filing system for all these things years ago, a box full of keys, one full of shopping lists and one with best man speeches in etc etc, she never threw anything away .. bus tickets, lottery tickets, hankies, earrings, receipts, letters and so on (are people really that careless?, I'm sure I'll check my pockets from now on). But Alice is long dead and Robert has been steadily adding to this collection for years. Akeel will come and work with Robert for a while, so that Robert can show him the ropes and fill him in on all the secrets and tricks of the trade. Robert's customers are a mish mash of people, he knows them all well, likes some and disapproves of others. There is Australian au pair Helen, her employers Claire and Andrew, Stefan a gay fitness instructor, social worker Marylin, poor confused Mrs Ryan .. one of Marylin's clients and Dean a family man with a shady past (and present). They pop into the shop with their various items of clothing, or walk past the shop and give a cheery wave to Robert, but then we stay with them and follow them home. Most of them have secrets or problems they are struggling with. These are quite Lilac Busish in feel ... little vignettes within the main story whereby we get to see behind the polite conversations in the dry cleaners. There are sundry other characters too, Charlie and Dan are encamped on a sofa placed at right angles to the road (exactly 3.15 miles from the statue of Eros as the crow flies) drinking body warmed beer, the new owner of the halal meat and veg shop owner just across the street and a Rastafarian man named The Poet who journeys all day long on the 345 bus talking and singing his own compositions, sometimes singing a little Bob Marley, Sir Bob ... messenger of Jah. Some people smile at him, some move away. I'd like to think I'd be a smiler but I know I'd be one of the one's that would be uncomfortable with it. We learn a lot too about Alice, Robert's mother and Jean and Katie, Robert's ex wife and daughter. I loved the relationship betwen Akeel and Robert, polite and formal to begin - Akeel a bit in awe of Robert and Robert not quite sure about how to behave around a Muslim - softening with familiarity into a quiet confidence, both men revealing their anxieties and fears for the future and Robert especially revealing secrets from his past. It was very touching in places, I loved how Robert gave Mrs Ryan an old uncollected overcoat, when she had come in to pick up her husband's coat, not remembering that he had died years ago. Everything about Mrs Ryan was affecting, the way she had to have her key and address tied into her handbag, the way she knew the cold wet white stuff that was falling outside her window but couldn't remember the name of it, the way that she got anxious and lost her way when out shopping and couldn't remember where she lived only remembering when she eventually saw her address label, the way she only remembered what she had gone out shopping for when she made herself a calming cup of tea and found there was no milk. Enjoyable story but sad in places. It has an unusual ending in that one minute you have your heart in your mouth, the next she's given you a different, more happy version. 8/10

I must add them to mine too. I only know Sherlock Holmes's stories through TV and film, I've never actually read any of them, same with Miss Marple etc. I love them anyway, but I'm sure there's far more to them than what you get to see on screen. In any case I don't think I've seen any of these particular stories dramatised so it won't spoil the endings. Thanks for your review Kylie

Have listened to The Poisonwood Bible and loved it so will be looking out for The Lacuna (especially on audio). Also loved The Help and am about a third of the way through listening to Wolf Hall .. loving that too, I'm in Tudor heaven. I prefer to listen rather than to read big tomes, I find I'm much less likely to wander or get bored if someone else is reading it to me, especially if the narrators are good which in all three cases they were. The only other one's I've read are The Little Stranger which I thought was excellent and The Way Things Look to Me which was just ok. I've got Hearts and Minds and The Very Thought of You on my shelves waiting and I bought home The Still Point from the library a few weeks ago (and have had to renew once already). Hope to get around to reading all three of them soon.

1. Bread 2. Butter 3. Bacon 4. Cheese 5. Chocolate Just about as unhealthy as it gets