June 2017 – Book Haul

2017 – Summer Holiday TBR

Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar – BOOK REVIEW

2017 – Book Haul #1

Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal – REVIEW

January 2017 – Wrap Up

The Casual Vacancy – Geek Heaven Review

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.

Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils … Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

The most important thing to remember before you start reading this book is to not expect anything like the Harry Potter books. This is a book for adults and there are no spells, wizards, Voldemort (even though some of the people in the story are equally cruel) or Hogwarts. You have to start this book with an open mind because this is a totally different kind of story.

This book has so many characters that in the beginning I found it difficult to keep up. I found myself flipping back and forth to find out the details about the characters. After a while though you get to know them a bit more and they stick. Some more than others.

The Casual Vacancy is not a cliffhanger book and after the first hundred pages or so, I really did consider putting it back on the shelf. My curiosity won though so I did get through the five hundred-page books, but unfortunately I’m not that impressed.

It could be that this just wasn’t my kind of book. There were too many characters for my taste and I felt like I was constantly waiting for something big to happen. All in all it is a well written book. It tells the story of the little town of Pagford in a way that anyone who has ever lived in a little town where everyone knows everyone can relate to. She describes the characters in a way that makes them come alive to you, even though you probably wouldn’t want to befriend so many of them.

I give the book a four on the dice. It was entertaining in its own way, but somehow I felt like something was missing.

Every book is like a new relationship, but there wasn’t much spark between me and The Casual Vacancy I’m afraid, but I’m pretty sure that it will make someone else perfectly happy!

There is no doubt that J.K. Rowling is an excellent writer, but I think I’m sticking with the Harry Potter books for now.

 

Sweet Free Books!!

If you haven’t heard about Sweet Free Books then you are in for a treat!!

Although a Kindle tablet is placed high on this years wish list I have really gotten to know and love the Kindle App that I’m using more and more on my HTC One.

So today I got a pleasant surprise when I got a new follower on Twitter. Sweet Free Books (@sweetfreebooks) was my new follower and I was intrigued. Free books you say? This I had to check out!

And this is so amazing! You sign up for their newsletter and they send you mail everyday with specially selected free books from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. When you sign up you also register your favorite genres so that the everyday newsletter is custom made after your book taste.

Is there anything NOT to love?!? I’ve been subscribing for about, oh, four hours and my Kindle App already has four new books on it!

Try it out for yourself! Click on the Sweet Free Books logo to get to their site and sign up!

Poem of the Day – 26.08.2013

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

– Dylan Thomas

Poem of the Day – 24.08.2013

The Saddest Poem

 

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

– Pablo Neruda