The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón My rating: 3 of 5 stars First let me say that I enjoyed this book well enough and was, again and again, willing to forgive technical issues that leapt off the page because, yes, Zafon has a lovely turn of phrase and, yes, the opening of…
Welcome to the Jungle by Hilary Smith My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the first of, no doubt, many books that I will read on bipolar disorder, so I can’t compare it to others but I enjoyed this one very much. WTTJ is by no means a memoir, it is an expository piece,…
Shinto and Japanese New Religions by Byron Earhart read by Ben Kingsley My rating: 3 of 5 stars Full of interesting information, this audio book makes for a good introduction to Japanese religions and spirituality. I was looking forward to hearing Kingsley narrate but, for some reason, he adopts a tone right out of a…
Today’s procrastination is brought to you by the question “Which audio books have you produced?” I’ve meant to address this question for some time because it is a logical question to ask when someone tells you that they are an audio book producer (“director” in US parlance). For those who are interested, I’ve popped a…
In a post this week, Betsy Learner asked her readers to post a comment about their favourite local bookshops. It prompted from me a meander down Memory Lne, and, since I have been too busy settling into my fancy new Sydney life to write about said fancy new life (which I will do at some point soon), and also since I’d like for my latest post not to remain the one about my father, I thought I’d post what I wrote.
Having been born in 1973 and grown up in Australia, I’ve never really known that much about Cuba. From film and television I knew that smoking Cuban cigars was naughty because the U.S. had a trade embargo with them and any country that wanted to be friends with the U.S. respected that. From the same…
I have finally struggled through to the end of this book but I have to admit that at least the last 150 pages (yes that’s close to half of it) was to find out if it would EVER get round to the point of the plot-line which is advertised on the back of the book….
Standing in my local secondhand bookshop I had a desire to read something about Japan and found myself looking at ever-so-slightly foxed copies of both “Geisha of Gion” and “Memoirs of a Geisha”. I knew that Iwasaki had been Golden’s muse for “Memoirs”, indeed she had sued him for revealing that fact, and so, ever…
The first thing that struck me about this book is how very readable it is – the style is incredibly accessible and occasionally, in the film sequence-breakdowns, laugh-out-loud cheeky (though I loved The Fellowship of the Ring, after reading chapter 12, I would kill for his assessment of The Two Towers but that’s just the…
