Sue Fairhead's Blog, page 63

Bread and Wine (by Shauna Niequist)

About a year ago I read Shauna Niequist’s book ‘Present over Perfect’, and on the whole liked it. The style is gentle, biographical and thoughtful. If a tad repetitive, it makes some good points in a thought-provoking way. So I put a couple more of her books on my wishlist, and was given two, including ‘Bread and Wine’, for Christmas.

The book, which has a Christian focus but can be read by anyone, is divided into four main sections. Each section has several short chapters, with a similar...

The Dark is Rising (by Susan Cooper)

It’s over twenty years since I first came across Susan Cooper. My sons had been given a copy of ‘Over Sea, Under Stone’ which they enjoyed - and which I re-read in December. Not long afterwards I spotted the sequel, ‘The Dark is Rising’, in a discount store. It was very good value and we were delighted to learn that there were others in the series.

‘The Dark is Rising’ does not, at first, seem to be a sequel. The children in the first book are not mentioned. Instead the book focuses on a boy...

The First Phone Call from Heaven (by Mitch Albom)

Browsing a church bookstall a few months ago, I spotted a book with an intriguing title:‘The first phone call from Heaven’ by Mitch Albom. I remembered having liked very much his first novel, ‘The five people you meet in Heaven’ (though I am shocked to discover that it’s almost fifteen years since I read that!). So I bought it, and decided to start reading it a few days ago.

We meet, in the first chapter, three different people who have unexpected phone calls. They hear the voices of loved...

Off-Balance (by Mary Sheepshanks)

When I first discovered Mary Sheepshanks' books, nearly twenty years ago, they were not all easy to get hold of, and I acquired them gradually. She only wrote four novels under this name, and by the time I read ‘Off-Balance’, I had not noticed that it was - in a sense - a sequel to ‘Facing the Music’. But I re-read that just a couple of months ago, and the name Flavia is an unusual one…

Not that Flavia is the main character in this book. She doesn’t appear until about half-way through, as a...

Writing from Life (by Lynne Hackles)

When I’m interested in a topic, I tend to collect rather a lot of books on the topic; as soon as I’ve bought or acquired a couple, I get recommendations for others, and they all seem interesting in different ways. One of those topics is writing - I have an entire bookshelf devoted to this topic, and am trying hard not to want any more. Instead, I determined to re-read some of them this year, and work my way through the advice or exercises.

I don’t know how I came across ‘Writing from Life’ by...

More Lives than One (by Libby Purves)

In slowly re-reading my novels by Libby Purves, I reached ‘More Lives than One’. I was given this at the end of 2003 and read it in July 2004. But whereas I had almost entirely forgotten the plots of other novels which I hadn’t read for fifteen or more years, this one was so powerful that I recalled the outline, the climax and the unexpected, traumatic revelation.

It was with a little trepidation that I started reading this again, a few days ago, not sure if I wanted that emotional trauma...

A Farewell to Mars (by Brian Zahnd)

I did not think I had heard of Brian Zahnd, until I realised that I had - a few years ago - read his book 'Unconditional' on my Kindle.  In addition, I am not generally very keen on political books. But ‘A Farewell to Mars’ was in our Christian bookcase, probably acquired by my husband. I picked it up in an idle moment, read the blurb on the back and thought it looked like an interesting read.

The author is an American pastor, and starts the book by confessing what he considers his worst...

Hetty's Farmhouse Bakery (by Cathy Bramley)

I loved the first novel I read by Cathy Bramley, so I added a few more of her books to my wishlist. I very much liked the next one I read, too I was given ‘Hetty’s Farmhouse Bakery’ for my birthday last year, and finally picked it up to read at the start of the year. I assumed it would be like the others: gentle women’s fiction with a bit of low-key humour, some good characterisation, and a satisfying conclusion.

It’s certainly gentle fiction; the story revolves around a woman called Hetty,...

The Pooh Dictionary (by AR Melrose)

I have been a fan of Winne-the-Pooh, AA Milne’s classic creation, since I was a small child. I listened to some of the stories on records, and of course read the two books (as well as his poems) several times during my childhood and teens. I read them to my sons, too; the characters were popularised by Disney, but I much preferred the original stories, with their tongue-in-cheek humour, and wonderful characterisation.

But I had no idea, until a few weeks ago, that there was a Pooh dictionary....

The Moonspinners (by Mary Stewart)

I have liked Mary Stewart’s mid-century romantic thrillers since I was in my teens, and have been delighted to find many of them in charity shops over the past couple of decades. There were some which I had never read, so I was particularly pleased, in the summer, to discover a relative new edition of three or four of them which I didn’t have, in another charity shop.

I’ve just finished reading ‘The Moonspinners’, and don’t recall ever having read it before. Mary Stewart set several of her...