I recently read ‘Driving Over Lemons'by author Chris Stewart. It is a pleasant read from start to finish; he gives an honest personal account of his experience living in Spain. He moves to Alpijarras, in the region of south Granada, where he buys a house which has little electricity, bad access and no running water. He revels in the thought of living a simpler life, and takes on new tasks optimistically. He used to work in an office in the UK, working with octopus hr software and he couldn’t be more grateful to get away from this way of life.

Chris Stewart gives an honest account of living with locals and their attitudes, it is well worth reading this book if you are considering moving to Spain. It will give you a different insight into the reality instead of just an idyllic outlook of what it might be like; sometimes reality can be harsher than the dream. The funniest part I thought, was when the previous owner of the house he bought named Pedro, led him around the village on a horse looking like a prisoner. He has a good sense of humour and he honestly tells you an accurate account as the event actually happened, he admits to himself that he was too trusting. I think he longs to be accepted and be part of the action, so when his sheep shearing took off he enjoyed having attention.

You clearly see the transition that his house, which is named El Valero and his family take, they become more accustomed into the village and gradually begin to make friends. They enjoy the good life; she gardens and he looks after the animals, the condition of their house improves and they eventually extend their family. When they have a daughter named Chloe the picture seems complete. Their journey will never end though, because he has written two more books since, his journey is ongoing as he is improving his life for his family and restoring an old building. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.

Similar Posts:
The homecoming  : My work in the sales line ensures that I am…
Patrick Rothfuss Gets Critical Acclaim  : Easily one of the…

Easily one of the most unique and intriguing writers of this generation is Patrick Rothfuss. Don’t expect to find any Twilight love stories in his portfolio. His unique style of writing coupled with his unmatched sense of humour has helped to give rise to arguably the most mind enslaving pieces of work we have seen over the last decade. His uniqueness in his sense of writing style coupled with the manner in which his story lines are captivating has bought his work critical acclaim.

Walk into any store and you are sure to find his work shown on special Banner stands and displays. It is not likely to be too long before he begins to make millions of dollars from selling the rights to his book for the development of a big motion picture trilogy of his books that are bestsellers.

Rothfuss is an American bestselling writer who creates fantasy works and also does some guest lecturing at a number of the major U.S. universities.

He was born in 1973, on the 6^th of in Madison, Wisconsin. At the University of Wisconsin he was very active at the school’s newspaper The Pointer - Stevens Point. From an early age he showed that he was a gifted fantasy writer with natural abilities and this displayed in every piece of literary works of art he did.

His career as a writer really took off when we penned The Kingkiller Chronicle which was critically acclaimed and which eventually ended up being a three-volume series.

Back in 2002 Rothfuss was the winner of the prestigious Writers of the Future award for his work The Road to Levinshir.

In 2007, he was the winner of the Quail Award and also Publishers Weekly’s “Best Books of the Year” award. He became a New York Times number one Best Seller for his trilogy. In March of 2011The Wise Man’s Fear which is the second book in the trilogy was released. The Doors of Stone is the trilogy’s final book and the release date is not yet set.

Similar Posts:
Change everything! : One of the best places to recede to after…
The Outcast by Sadie Jones : The Outcast, Sadie Jones’s…

The Outcast, Sadie Jones’s debut novel, was published in 2008 to wide critical acclaim. Her second, Small Wars, was published last year to an equally good reception.

I’ve been meaning to read both for a while: their mid-century settings and post-war subject matter appealed as much as their attractively retro-styled book covers.

However, it wasn’t until gifted The Outcast by a friend last week that I finally got round to reading Ms Jones’s first novel.

Just after the end of the Second World War, the powerful bond between seven year old Lewis and his mother is disrupted by the return of his father from active service. Lewis is sent to boarding school, and his mother starts to lose her days in a haze of loneliness and furtive drinking as she waits for her husband to return from work.

Three years later tragic events in the local wood devastate the family. Lewis is the only witness and at barely ten years old struggles to articulate what he has seen, both to himself and to the rest of the community.

Nine years later and Lewis returns home after a two year spell in Brixton prison for a crime which has made him the titular outcast of the title. Waiting for him is fifteen year old Kit who has long been an outsider in both her own home and with the other local children.

Set in a stiflingly close home counties village, fraught with class distinctions and unspoken emotions, it’s a intense debut. Sadie Jones started her literary career writing screenplays and the novel carries a filmic, immediate punch. It’s very readable and evokes both the emotional and physical upheaval caused to families and individuals by the return of battle-scarred soldiers after VE day. The day to day strains of this period are touched upon without emphasising too strongly the nylons, chewing gum and metal tins of peaches cliche of rationing. It has an inherent dark romance that keeps the reader fixated from the first page.

The Outcast is an excellent first novel, with broad appeal, and I am eager to start her second. Long may Sadie Jones stand up for outcasts…

Similar Posts:
Mirror, Mirror … : Most homes have at least one room or area…
Little Children by Tom Perrotta : When it comes to…

When it comes to understanding the complex intricacies of family life and relationships, few writer’s are as skilled and at ease than Tom Perrotta. By the time Little Children – now a popular movie featuring Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet – was written, Perrotta had already established himself as a writer with an ability that played as much on the fantastic as the explicitly mundane; canvassing both with the kind of wit and charm that is impossible not to be absorbed by.

In Little Children, the lives of people in a small community mingle with one another in spectacular fashion and we see the highs, the lows and the downright cheeky deviousness of people come to light. These are battles fought in every facet of suburban life, from the bored stay-at-home Dad to the man who is so obsessed with keeping a local sex offender at bay that he has made it his job to drive by his house every day and leave flaming bags of dog poo on his porch. Amongst all that, if you can believe it, is the kind of dry humour which we can all associate with. The result, many are saying, is Perrotta’s best novel yet. I certainly wouldn’t argue with that statement.

Little Children is also an ode to our lives, I think. They may be mundane sometimes, and revolve around our children and our jobs, but at the same time there is real beauty there

What I liked best of all about Little Children was how it managed to be a great mainstream book which conversely also had an edge which many mainstream books seem to lack. For example, while waiting for my local it support services london to hand me back my laptop, I got into a conversation with the guy who always man’s the desk – the guy who is unusually fussy about books (something we have talked about a few times, which is the only good thing about my computer being broken so much…). He spoke of how he had read the book and enjoyed the simple not-too-over-the-top language. Similarly, I’ve heard a few other people say that they breezed through it – the story being so compelling and so mundane that you just can’t fail to associate with the lives of the characters.

In truth, Little Children is also an ode to our lives, I think. They may be mundane sometimes, and revolve around our children and our jobs, but at the same time there is real beauty there which is completely extraordinary. I for once won’t look at a stroll through the park ever again, and I highly doubt you will after reading Little Children.

Similar Posts:
Darkly Dreaming Dexter : No matter whether you look for…
It Begins With Tears by Opal Palmer Adisa : The story in…
The Shining – A book review : Books are not only a great way to…

No matter whether you look for entertainment or an Apple Mac repair, a book can always address your needs. However, there are books that are generally better than the others out there and that deliver the best of entertainment to the reader. Such a book is Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay - and probably many are familiar with it since it was recreated in a TV show called Dexter.

The book is about a police assistant who investigates blood spatter patterns. This might sound like a quite strange and horrific career and hardly would be there someone to predict what a career growth would mean within the meaning of this profession. However, the main character Dexter, is a person who except for helping the police, is also a person with a serious problem. He is a sociopath, a person driven to kill and to satisfy his inner needs of causing death. However, his connections with the police allow him to redirect his psychological needs to murderers, rapists and pedophiles. Thus, being a murderer himself, he cleanses the society from the socially dangerous criminals.

The book is quite well written and tells Dexter’s story in a third-person perspective. The talent of the author is evident as he describes different details about murders, laws, investigation techniques and so on with extreme precision. The reader would remain satisfied with the dynamics of Dexter’s story, with the motives behind his acts of violence. Furthermore, the author has managed to display sophisticated social attitudes towards people working against crime by committing such. For all crime literature fans, Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a masterpiece and a must-read book from a brilliant author.

Similar Posts:
A Review of the Book “The Poison Tree” : The book “The…
A Review of the Book “The Alchemist” By Donna Boyd  : The book…
Book Review of “ADAM & EVE” By Sena Jeter Naslund  : The book…

The first few pages of the novel dwell on the delicate family relationship, difficult reunion and parenting responsibilities. The relationship between Karen and Rex slowly regains normalcy after the many years of separation. One feature of the novel is that the story is being told by Karen, as a first person narrator, who slowly unfolds the reason behind the imprisonment of Rex. Karen speaks about her student years in the mid 1990s when she was in Queen Charlotte’s College, where she met Biba, who was then an upcoming and budding actress, full of free spirit and intriguing ideas, and her meeting with Rex.

Karen during her student days was an introverted person and hated the rooming arrangements in the college. She was dumped by her boyfriend, Simon, but her room mates knew about it earlier than her, which was rather a humiliating experience for her. As she was introverted and shy, she could not do better in the university, and spent her days in daydreams and the unreal world. Her meeting with Biba changed her life as she was introduced to the bohemian lifestyle of parties and drugs. She moved into share rooms with Biba and Rex.

In comparison to Biba, Karen is just like a blank screen that can be impressed by anyone and easily led astray. The character of Karen is not particularly interesting, though there is some romanticism in her, but it fails to draw the interest of the readers.

The characters of the story, Karen, Biba and Rex seem to be conjoined by circumstances and fate and seem splintered and disastrous. The relationship between the three people is unhealthy and gives a feeling that something evil, that is inevitable, will happen.

The story has tension and suspense and offers enjoyable reading. In fact, it will even hold the attention of non readers who would rather spend their time on researching the price of cars for sale in Lebanon, Las Vegas or for that matter anywhere in the world.

Similar Posts:
C.J. Sansom, Shardlake, and “Heartstone” : So this week, in…
The Tender Bar..A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer : Being an avid…
The Two States – Chetan Bhagat : One of the new age writers…

The book in question is, of course, Brighton Rock; which also recently became a major motion picture. The summary goes something like this: Pinkie is the leader of a mob in Brighton. They’re not what you’d think when you think of the word “mob”, and, led by Pinkie, they sort problems out in a low-key sort of a way. Of course, every now and again somebody has to die, but that’s part of the job for Pinkie. He may be young and naïve but he is also determined, smart and quick-thinking. More than anything, he won’t let a rival mob stand in his way, and when they start to, Pinkie takes action.

All of these skills are called into question when a murder seems to point the finger in Pinkie’s direction. Unwilling to allow this to hang him – quite literally – he sets up a way out: a way to insure that his investments are protected and his reign over Brighton’s underworld continues.

That’s just the start. Greene is a master at thriller writing, and does so with a romantic charm that very few writers – in any genre – can proclaim to be in control of. Beautiful, but also dark and disturbing, this is a book that will easily take you away from your Industry Market Research and make you question how love and hate can be so closely intertwined.

Similar Posts:
Book Review: The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld : Manhattan’s…
High Fidelity (by Nick Horny) : When it comes to humour laced…
Book Review: ‘Black Boy’ by Richard Wright : First published in…

Similar Posts:
Book Review: The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld : Manhattan’s…
High Fidelity (by Nick Horny) : When it comes to humour laced…
Book Review: ‘Black Boy’ by Richard Wright : First published in…

Hands up who here has read the Millennium Trilogy by the Swedish author Stieg Larsson? You may know them better as the novels featuring the spunky and spike heroine Lisbeth Salander – the girl who not only had a dragon tattoo, but who also played with fire and kicked the hornet’s nest. I feel that I’m probably alone in not having read any of these publishing sensations; though they are neatly piled on my “to read” shelf, along with a hundred other charity shop bargains, birthday presents and new releases that I just couldn’t resist.
The fact is that Scandinavian fiction, writers like Norway’s Jo Nesbo and the creator of the Reykjavik Murder Mysteries Arnaldur Indridasson, have seen a real upturn in fortunes in recent years, thanks to the success of Larsson’s books and the subsequent movies. Industry market research shows that each of the books that make up the trilogy have been at the top of the best selling lists since they were first published in the early 2000s. What must be kind of annoying for Nesbo and Indridasson (who now have “The next Stieg Larsson” stickers covering their books) is that they both started writing in the 1990s, long before anyone had even heard of Lisbeth or Larsson or his tragic early death and the conspiracy theorists'view that he didn’t even write the novels in the first place…
So if you liked Larsson’s nooks, why not try out something by one of his Scandinavian compatriots next time you’re looking for a holiday page-turner. Just do me a favour and remove the “Stieg Larsson” comparison sticker from the front cover before you start?

Similar Posts:
Book Review: The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld : A bomb…
High Fidelity (by Nick Horny) : When it comes to humour laced…
Book Review: ‘Black Boy’ by Richard Wright : First published in…