.. I thought this story had potential, but it wasn’t very well-written. Far too much talking and author comment, too many things going on for a short book, and everything geared towards the Christian allegory about love and sacrifice. But the plot didn’t hang together, the characters weren’t really developed at all, and it didn’t read easily. Maybe kids into fast-moving cartoon TV shows might like this, but I was unimpressed.

The start of this book is rather long-winded and rambling, as the author sets the scene over several chapters. It takes some work to get into the book. But it’s not a long novel and I was determined to read it since it’s a classic and Ivé often seen it recommended.

By about half-way through it was becoming much more interesting. Silas Marner, the old hermit, becomes more of a character and we discover new sides of him as events transpire. Towards the end it was quite moving in places too. All in all, I think it was well worthwhile reading.

Well-written, interesting characters, but rather too Mills-and-Boon-like for my tastes. Delightful main character girl meets gorgeous but bad-tempered and hurting guy, conflict ensues time after time. Some believable, some rather contrived. Rather too many minor characters as well although some of them were interesting and well-written.

All in all, not a bad book, but not up to Alexandra Raife’s usual standards.

I don’t like the hype surrounding this book, or the self-promotion within it, or the rather rigid way we’re supposed to read it. I don’t like the huge variation in Bible translations used, and that some of the quotations from Scripture are WAY out of context. Nor do I like the structured nature of the book, the way churches are supposed to drop everything else to study it, or the insistence that God only has five purposes for people (what about stewardship of resources, for instance?)

On the other hand… Rick Warran does make some good points, even if they’re fairly basic. About worship being an attitude of life rather than just singing on Sundays. About the need for direction. About finding our ministries within the church based on our personalities. About the importance of mission.

If I could take the good points and cut out the padding and irrelevancies, it would probably be about a third the length. Then I would recommend it to anyone who’s newish as a Christian, or who’s been going to church for years but feels a lack of purpose.

On the other hand, I don’t see it as much use for non-believers, nor for those who are already deeply committed as Christians.

Oh, what a lovely book this is. It’s the best type of ‘village’ novel, with the most delightful characters. Father Tim, a 60-year-old Episcopal priest in a small village in the South of America is tired, overwhelmed, and attracted to his new neighbour. In addition he is followed by a large and over-friendly dog, and takes in an unwanted 11-year-old boy. He mixes with friends, and tries to find out where his life is going.

No great excitement, but lots of moving and memorable moments. The Southern dialect is a little difficult to understand at first, but I soon got used to it. It’s the first in a series of nine books about the village of Mitford, and just as enjoyable on my second reading as it was the first time I read it, six years previously.

Quite an exciting novel with a lot of different plots going on, and well-written on the whole. The book starts with a train crash, and Gemma – an aspiring young actress – losing a leg. The part of the book dealing with her coming to terms with her loss, and learning to walk on a new artificial leg, is believable and sympathetic.

The other plot-lines fit in well, but were less realistic. There’s a caricatured villain father, a classic ‘hero’ who has conflict after conflict with Gemma before the slightly unlikely resolution right at the end, and there are political type rants in the mouth of one of the characters about the sorry state of railways after privatisation in the 1990s, and the problems due to cutting of funds to the NHS.

But all in all, I think it was worth reading. I’ll be interested to read some of Beryl Kingston’s more recent books some time.

I’ve read and enjoyed most of Joanna Trollope’s modern fiction, but hadn’t bought or asked for this one due to its rather poor reviews at Amazon UK. Still, when I found it for just over a pound at a charity shop, I thought it would fill a few idle hours…

Expecting to be unenthralled, I actually found it an enjoyable book. It’s very much about culture differences and expectations, set in both London (UK) and Charleston (USA). There are really four main characters, but the title refers to Gillon, a girl raised in the old-fashioned South, by an elegant grandmother and hard-working mother, who feels that she doesn’t fit in. She takes a job in London in the hope of escaping from a claustrophobic family, only to find that they do matter to her more than she realised.

Inevitably there are love-affairs, but they’re not overdone or unbelievable. Gillon isn’t the only person to examine herself and look at her expectations, and there are some thoughtful sections looking at friendship, work ethics, parenting, and general family values. There was almost a hint of a Libby Purves novel, though without the terse style and shock value.

It wasn’t a book to read all at once; for about the first three-quarters of it, I often found I had to put it down at the end of a chapter and take a break, as it became almost overwhelming with so much conversation. It was light enough to pick up in odd moments, memorable enough that I rarely had to backtrack to find out who was whom, and enjoyable enough that by the end I could barely put it down.

Amongst more adult novels and serious reading, I have sneaked in some Enid Blyton books. She was a remarkable person and it’s almost entirely due to her writing that I became such an enthusiastic reader. Oh, I can see now that her books were clichéd, sometimes racist, definitely classist, and undoubtedly not Good Literature. But I loved them as a child, re-read them many times, and still dip in occasionally when I have an hour or two available and need something ultra-light.

This book is one of a series of around 15, about the Five Find-Outers and Buster the dog. I was never all that keen on the better-known Famous Five series, but used to love the Find-Outers’ mystery series. We’ve recently brought a lot of children’s books out from the UK, and some of them were lying around just waiting to be read…

The story revolves around some nasty anonymous letters that have been sent to various people in the village. Mr Goon the policeman is trying to investigate without the children interfering, but they find out what the problem is, and – of course – solve the mystery satisfactorily. It’s quite a good story, although I remembered easily ‘whodunnit’, despite not having read this book for probably twenty years or more. It’s not particularly well-written, but it appealed to me and my friends in the 1960s, and probably still appeals to children today despite being rather old-fashioned now.

I don’t much like the way poor Mr Goon is treated – he’s not exactly a kind person, but the children are very unpleasant to him and often get away with teasing him, and otherwise being pretty nasy. But I don’t really think that gives children a poor idea of the police force; there are other policemen in the books who are fair and generally nice people. There’s even a moral lesson about the nastiness of anonymous letters in general.