Review: The Bookstore by Deborah Meylar

bookstoreBloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ)

 

Esme Garland is an English girl in New York. She is studying art history at Columbia University after gaining a first from Cambridge. After a shaky start she’s loving life in New York. She has made friends, met a wealthy boyfriend, Mitchell van Leuven, and more importantly found a great second hand book shop, The Owl. Unfortunately she gets pregnant and dumped before she can tell Mitchell. Desperate for work she gets a job at The Owl. Staff and regular customers help her through the trials and tribulations of the next year.

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Criminally good books

I’ve just finished reading a couple of good books:

Silent Witnesses

Nigel McCrery

and

The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton

And Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press

Jeremy Clay

 

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Review: Timesplash by Graham Storrs

Originally: 2010 – Lyrical Press

Edition reviewed: 2013 – Momentum

 timesplash

In forty years a new underground craze will start – splash parties. Time travellers known as ‘bricks’ will be thrown back in time, ‘lobbed’, and their actions in the past will cause a ‘splash’ as their presence disrupts the timelines. The back wash from the ‘splash’ mixed with the new drug tempus causes a high. It’s marginally illegal; police forces concentrate on controlling the drugs and noise caused by the splash parties, after all the timeline can’t be changed because it fixes itself.

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Review: ‘My Brief History’ by Stephen Hawking

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10th September 2013

Bantam

Stephen Hawking has written several popular science books that have been incredibly well received. And now he has written his own story. I have read an uncorrected e-book and am now able to review it.

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Review: ‘Happy women live better’ by Valorie Burton

 

2013

Harvest House Publishers

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America’s ‘Happiness Queen’ Valorie Burton wants to start a conversation between women about why they aren’t happy and provides thirteen ‘happiness triggers’. Ms Burton is a professional counsellor I understand, from this book, and has made a career of helping others find happiness; so just the person to write this sort of book. I have a review copy, which is incomplete, so I shall confine my comments to structure and available content. I would have liked to have seen the contents of the projected appendices and conclusion; I’m sure they would have been very interesting.

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Review:’Spirit’ – the new album from Reckless Love

http://open.spotify.com/track/7vKZIz31BW6IMIDcLjUHUJ

I reviewed this album (badly) last Monday, the UK release day. Now that I’m feeling marginally better (I haven’t died from this cold yet) and have had a chance to listen to the album a few (dozen) times, I feel more capable of reviewing it properly and fairly.
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Finally: Outta Line

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This is the band that all the drunk teenagers appear to have come to see. They were here last year apparently. I must have missed them.

They’re not half bad, tackling The Beatles and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. And plenty of Green Day.Still waiting for some original stuff though; it’s another covers band, albeit a lot younger than the previous two.

It’s still disturbing that there’s kids here who weren’t born when I first heard these songs and they’re singing along so happily.

While they are really good at the songs they’re covering, I wonder just how far they could go with original material; they certainly have the talent. I had videos of them, but something went wrong and I can’t find them on my phone to transfer. It’s most irritating because I played them back earlier to check they were okay and the quality was actually quite good.

 

In all I enjoyed my evening, especially spending time with my sister and niece. The bands were not bad, for a free festival. I was soaked, because it began raining again, hungry and cold. I also really needed my bed. But I saw it out.

The evening finished with spirited rendition of ‘Highway to Hell’. And shouts for more; unfortunately the organisers didn’t agree.

Bye

Rose

Bob Jovi and Bond themes

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This was the next band that came on, there name is, er, I don’t know, they haven’t said. But the keyboardist is one of the RMQA’s at my day job.

It took them some time to warm up and they had some technical problems with the drums, but once they hit their stride they were enjoyable to listen to. Even if they are bit ‘pop’ for me.

It’s started raining.

Rose

[I freezing, and soaked, but it’s stopped raining!]

I-fest; or Immingham attempts to rock

And it doesn’t do to badly either.

So far The League of Mental Men have entertained us with covers from a variety of bands, including Papa Roach, Guns n Roses, My Chemical Romance, The Foo Fighters and The Darkness. They’re apparently really popular in the local pubs and I can see why; the singer is fairly good. He manages to hit the notes 95% of the time (he’s not no Dave Grohl but he’ll do for Immingham) and the musicians are competent.

They were enjoyed by the whole crowd, even my sister who’s leery about this sort of music.

Back soon with a review of the next band. Provided my phone plays nice and I don’t lose the network again.

Rose