Rude People and Good Books

Well - what a to do. This week I received my second ever rude blog comment. This might be tempting fate, let's hope not. 

My first was a few years back and was quite hilarious really. A geeky oddball who dressed up like Sherlock Holmes assumed the mantel 'The Crap Blog Detective' and spread vicious missives here and there. After I wrote about the happy band of hookers I'd just taught that evening, he asked how much we charged per hour. Nothing nasty in that and it appealed to my sense of humour, so I

replied that he should ask his mother.

Comment No 2 came this week from a pretty blonde called Helen Wong whose grammar wasn't too hot. Her comment was nasty and rude, but way off mark from who I am so I dismissed her as an immature idiot. Then all you lovely people got very annoyed on my behalf, which I thank you kindly for because we all know what lovely people true creative bloggers. Finally The Woolly Dog pointed out that actually it was a Chinese spam site and Helen Wong doesn't exist. Nasty mystery over.

Moving onwards. I thought I'd better get on with sharing my thoughts and feelings about my January book before we're in the next month that starts with a J.

In case you're reading this and don't know, this links up with Laura's great idea for A Year in Books. In a nutshell,  if you join in you try and read at least one book a month for a year. You read the book of your choice, although there is also lots of inspiration from other readers who have signed up, then you share a bit about said book. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. The hard bits finding the time to do the reading.

I really wanted a kick up the bum to get back on track with reading as I've always loved it so. Laura's idea really gave me the ooommphh I needed and so I finished Instructions for a Heatwave with no more January days to spare on the 31st. I've enjoyed Maggie O'Farrell's novels before so thought I'd be just as gripped by this book. However, it took me a bit of time to get to the point where I actually cared whether I knew what happened to any of them, so I put the book aside. Then I joined TYinB's and made myself pick it up again. This is where I'm really glad I did as from then on I really got into the book. 

I was seven years old in the heatwave of 1976 and all I can remember is popping the tarmac on the roads and a day of the bluest cloudless sky where the world seemed to stand still. A friend and I were playing hide and seek with an elderly neighbour. My friend Vicky hid so well that Hannah (elderly lady) and I couldn't find her for what seemed forever. Even at seven I was aware that Hannah was getting a bit stressed. We found Vicky in the end under the sink (nice and cool).

Instructions on a Heatwave is also about a disappearance, but instead of a little girl, it's a retired husband who never comes back after going to get the paper. His Irish wife calls her three children to her and so they leave their lives and the problems in them to come and help find their dad. Along the way various family niggles, secrets and familial love is discovered. By the end of the book I liked the characters. At the start it was only Aoife, the supposedly dysfunctional youngest sister that I felt drawn to. If you like books that focus on what makes people tick then this is most definately for you. To be fair, I'd say I enjoyed it, but I didn't lose myself in it.

February's book was going to be Sebastian Faulks A Possible Life, but after a visit to Waterstones with Miss Rosey I saw that Kate Atkinson's Life after Life was finally in paperback. I read her debut novel Nights in the Museum when it first came out and loved it so. Let's hope this book keeps me as enthralled. If not I'm going to read something else, so I am.

The bottom two books are for the girls. Miss Rosey also chose The Fault in Our Stars by John Green which deals with cancer and teenage love. All Miss Rosey's friends recommended it to her as wonderful, although they said it made them cry. Just thought I'd mention these in case you have 11 and 13 year old's searching for a new read too.

See you soon.