Angel Jem's City Cottage

I've just finished watching C4's TV Book Club and they were reviewing Room  by Emma Donoghue. I read this last October, I think, when I sat down one Friday with a cup of tea expecting to just look at a couple of pages and then get on with my life and ended up not moving until I had finished the book. It was mesmerising. The story is told from the point of view of 5 year old Jack who, with his mother, is imprisoned in an 11 foot square room by a kidnapper. It has heavy overtones of Natascha Kampusch and the Fritzel case in as much as you read it knowing that the truth can be even weirder and, in the wrong hands, it could have been sensationalist, adventure-led and plot driven. But the book is told by Jack, in the words and understanding of a 5 year old and it has a naive innocence that stops any reader feeling macabre or voyeuristic. His time in and out of the room is so beautifully told that I found myself crying several times. The moment when Jack meets a breeze for the firs...

I always had a problem with Sunday night. Perhaps it's because I know that the day after Sunday is Monday and school starts again, perhaps I really put the kybosh on it by going to college and living in just for week nights, meaning Sunday was the night that I left the bosom of my loving family for a cold and noisy student block. Even now the Howard's Way theme tune reduces me to tears. Sunday night TV was not a highlight of my viewing week. But if anything can make me happy on Sunday it's Zen. I have really enjoyed these fast police thrillers, which are made so much more appealing by the backdrop of a glorious and eternal Rome.  I love cities; Paris, Vienna, Rome; I'd live in any of them for a year. And Zen has been a real burst of Italian sun in the winter. With sharp suited men ogling the Italian women (we look good, we know, but we don't care and we're not stuck up so come and have a go if you think you're hard enough) and mad mad mad driving I have...

Last September (and probably a big reason why my blogging slowed down last year) I got a Kindle. I resisted for a long while, watched the kinks being ironed out and which e-reader was going to be a biggy and then decided the time was right. I buy roughly a book a week, so 52 books are added to my shelves each year at least (not counting presents, kids books and books that others pass on to me) I worried that I wouldn't like it, that I'd miss page turning, the scent of a book and the tactile feel of the page. I love it. I don't miss any of the sensory elements of a book, because I love the interaction with the story free of any problems. I love the slight size of the machine, the sheer convenience of 3,500 books at my fingertips and the fact that at midnight I can buy a book. I love the fact that I can read embarassing books and nobody knows because there is no cover. It has made me read so much more than I thought I would, over 50 books since September and that I have r...

Wow! Six months off... no, nothing interesting going on, just sheer laziness and a little clearing/tidying/sabbatical work. A little thinking and being rather than doing or blogging. Like all habits, blogging ceases to be a crucial part of your life the longer that you keep off it. That's neither good nor bad; blogging is a good way of meeting like minded people but it can be a time sapper, and I needed my time. Life goes on and I'm living it as well as I can. Personal circumstances are making time short. But this is 2011 and I will try and be back properly more often now.