The first book I read this month was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I really loved this book, although it did take a while to read. It was divided into three main sections, which related to the travels taken by the main character in the book. After a bitter divorce and a subsequent not so healthy relationship, she decides to spend a year travelling to Italy (to learn Italian), India (to learn spirituality) and Indonesia (to learn the art of living a balanced life).
This book charts her journey and the things she learned about herself on the way. I just loved the whole feel and journey that this book portrayed, the freedom of travelling, the simplicity of the life she led whilst travelling, and how by the end she was able to actually start doing positive things for both herself and others. I think I will now have to watch Julia Roberts in the film version of this book. I can imagine that she played it beautifully. I have already given this book away to a family member and I hope she enjoys reading it as much as I did.
The next book I read, whilst away over Easter was this book by Deepak Chopra.
I've already reveiwed this book in a blog post, so I won't repeat myself here, save to say it has caused me to completely rethink our eating habits and my beauty routines.
Concurrently with reading the above two books, I was also dipping in and out of this book by India Knight. If you've read some of my monthly reading posts before, you will know that she is a regular feature in my reading lists. This book is about what it says in the title. It doesn't strictly tell you how to shop, but she does let you into some of her shopping secrets. As ever, the book is written with her usual wit and I enjoyed reading it.
I would say that this book is slightly dated in that it was written 7 or 8 years ago and as we all know the internet has come a long way in that time. Some sections that weren't particularly relevant to me I did skip, but I did particularly like the little story that she ended the book with. No spoilers here though, so you'll just have to read it if you want to know what it was.
My next read was this book that I picked out of the Little Free Library up the road. It told the story of Frank a local newsreader in a Midlands TV station who finds himself drawn to the things that don't always get mentioned in the news stories he presents. Although finding himself a cult figure amongst students who find his on screen corny jokes hilarious and branding him the least funny person in the world, Frank takes it all in his stride and is not in the least bothered by this. He is more interested in taking his young daughter around to see the last few buildings built by his architect father, before they are demolished and gone forever. In addition, he finds himself drawn to investigating the death of his predecessor and friend Phil who was killed in a hit and run accident.
This book was also good. I liked the humour with which it was written. It did seem a little bleak at times, but perhaps that was because it dealt with the banal everyday realities of life more than many books do. I will be popping this book back in the Little Free Library for someone else to read when I'm next walking the dog past it.
My final book this month, was this book by Kathleen Tessarro. When I first bought this book, I thought it was a factual book about how to be more elegant, which appealed to my sensibilities at the time. When I read the reverse more closely, I realised that it was a fictional book, based on an actual book about elegance written by a female French writer in the 1950's. As a consequence, it kind of got left in the book pile for longer than it might otherwise have been, only to be read as I got nearer to clearing the pile.
Having picked it up, however, I really enjoyed reading it, and although some of the exerts from the original book which are used, are not necessarily so relevant in this day and age, they are very interesting. The main thrust of the book is the main character's journey brought about by reading the book. A lovely read. I will be looking for other titles by this author from now on.
No comments:
Post a Comment