Skip to main content

Books I pretend to read and that make me laugh #bookadayuk

Ok so blog was lost to me yesterday due to work commitments but I’ve managed to steal 5 minutes today to write about yesterday’s bookaday and todays.

Yesterday was a book ‘I pretend to have read’. Now regular readers of this blog will know I always finish a book once I start it so there isn’t an obvious candidate as if I waived about War and Peace on the bus but accidently started to read the first page then I would simply have to read until the end, which I did.

I’m not a snobby reader, well I tend not to like classic chick lit genre but I certainly love a good Jilly Collins, jumped on board with the Hunger Games and read all of the Shades of Gray series (really not worth it). So, whilst I would like some day to have read Ulysses, Paradise Lost, The Complete Works of Shakespeare and Les Mis. backwards twice. I have no desire to pretend that yes I have read them and weren’t they very good!

So what can my nomination be? Like a light bulb switching on inspiration hit. I have not one but two books I like to think I have read but haven’t actually. They are (drum roll please) Watership Down and The Hobbit. Shock horror! I can’t possibly have not finished a book and then pretended to can I? Well no because, you see, when I was younger I went on a couple of European holidays with my auntie and uncle and my cousin. They had in their car a tape player, and in that tape player they inserted audiobooks of which they only had two which were (yep you guessed it) Watership Down and The Hobbit. Now Tolkein is not very sparse with his word content but even with his helping hand the number of times the two tapes were repeated on our 24 hour journeys to Switzerland and the South of France were numerous. Not only did my cousin and I became word perfect the latter tape had such an effect on my impressionable younger cousin that he has never fully recovered and now wears his hair long, owns a bow and arrow and would like to be an elf!

So if someone happens to mention Watership Down I freely comment how heartbroken I was and tell everyone who will listen that I haven’t a clue how Peter Jackson has made the Hobbit into three films when really it’s not that long but I hold my hands up and admit, I've never read them and in view of the fact I can still quote from Watership Down (“whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you”) I’m honestly not sure if I ever will.


Today’s book a day is a book that ‘makes me laugh’. Obvious choice for this one, the recently read The Rosie Project. It’s not too often a book makes me laugh but this one did. What made it stand out was the fact that it had so much more to give than just a few chuckles. Rather than repeat myself here I refer you to my previous blog on the very book (see post from February 2014)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mount by Jilly Cooper #inbetweeny

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o...

After The Party by Cressida Connolly

After The Party was May's book of the month. “Had it not been for my weakness, someone who is now dead could still be alive. That is what I believed and consequently lived with every day in prison.’ It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister’s grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences. Years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever.” We were very confused initially as to which party the book was referring to. We all thought it...

The Familiars by Stacey Halls

"Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn’t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy. Then she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife. Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong. As Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the north-west, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye? Soon the two women’s lives will become inextricably bound together as the legendary trial at Lancaster approaches, and Fleetwood’s stomach continues to grow. Time is running out, and both their lives are at stake." We talked first about the cover of the bo...