Books

This post was inspired by Christina from A colourful Life thank you Christina.  I always intend to write something about the books I read if only  to keep track myself.  Time moves on however and I'm onto the next book so prompted by Christina's post I'm making a start.  I did photograph some of them  last month so the intention was there!
The first book I read last month was 'David and Goliath' by Malcolm Gladwell.

I really enjoyed this book and if you have read any of his other work this one doesn't disappoint.  This is a non-fiction book and discusses the relationship between adversity and success.  How come some people seem to create triumph out of the most difficult of circumstances whereas others appear to have every opportunity and yet fail to thrive.  Also some really interesting points on how over priveledged children do not always succeed in the way you would expect given their educational and material opportunities. That in fact the struggle that many face to reach their goals is in fact important.  I've heard the phrase 'character  building' before, this book gives examples of how this can be so. 

The next book I read 'How to live on 24 hours a day, is very old and some of the politically incorrect comments in this book will make you wince!  This is another non fiction book.  There is a lot of wisdom there, in realtion to how we use our time and the excuses people make as to why they can't get things done.   I read this one in a day and also laughed a few times at the old fashioned language used but also wanted to throw it across the room a few times in relation to the  remarks about women and people of other cultures.  It's worth a read to pick out the wisdom that is there.

Moving onto 'The quest for Mary Magdalene'  I started off really well with this and super interested but halfway through I lost my way and didn't continue.  I think it was possibly just too text bookish.

El misterio de la llave is in Spanish and is ongoing as I am using it to learn, I'm not allowing myself to move on until I know each page well so it is taking forever!

Next I moved onto a fiction book 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' recomended on another site. here

While this book did take a bit of getting into and gets  bit high brow in places, I loved it.  Renée is a concierge in an apartment block for wealthy people but there is more to her than the narrow minded residents can grasp.  Lots of little glimpses into her mind and that of one of the residents, a young girl who feels there is no point to life.  I had to stop and have a little think many times throughout this book, it is not one you can whiz through but I did enjoy the characters.

When I finished that one we went off on holiday and 'Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage' went with me.  I felt this was slow to start, I know the author has been translated into so many languages but I just plodded on with it.  Halfway through I started to get into it and wanted to know the outcome, but I needn't have bothered as the ending was poor.   The story is about a young man who has four close friends, he moves out of town for his first year of university, the rest stay behind.  At some point during that year his friends decide they never want to speak to him again, giving no explanaition.  The story moves on from this, I may try another by Murakami at some point, but not just yet.

Finally I read 'We are all completely beside ourselves'  I bought this one from a charity shop a few months ago and it sat on the shelf after just reading a bit of it.  When I returned to it this time I loved it.

  Rosemary had a sister when she was young who suddenly disappeared from her life.  The family refused to talk about where she had gone and her older brother Lowell was left with resentment towards his parents and eventually he too leaves the family home in his teens.   There is a really good twist in this story so if you are going to read it don't skip on and read a bit from the middle as I know some people do when buying books.  You will spoil it for yourself,  a lot of the issues raised I found very interesting and in some cases upsetting.  This book makes you laugh and cry my, definite favourite of the month.

I shared this image before when I bought the book.