Cramlington Book Club

This month's book was one set locally. Whitley Bay to be precise complete with a front cover featuring a cafe I recognised (which quite excited me weirdly). When I say local I mean very local, almost a tick box exercise of every pub, tourist spot and police station in the area. I quite liked it, name checking places I had been to, however some found it off putting 'we get you know the area, don't keep trying to prove it to us' If I describe the book to you, you will probably appreciate the group's biggest criticism: 'Down and out cop, whose marriage has fallen apart, drinks too much, is hated by his superiors and still festers over his last case that went badly wrong has to restle with his demons to crack a brutal murder.' Pretty cliche ridden, huh? It was such a shame as we all found the book very readable. The actual detective story was interesting, the killer wasn't identified until very nearly the end and we all finished the book which ...

This has been sat on my bookshelf for aaaaages without me really wanting to read it. I can't remember how exactly it ended up on my shelf, perhaps a random book present from hubby (he's produced some good ones – The Testament Gideon Mack , The Giles Wareing Haters Club ) but I know I wouldn’t have picked it up and bought it if I happened to notice it in a bookshop, for no particular reason other than the blurb just didn’t hold my attention. The book was originally published in 2005 and I remember there being a lot of fuss around this book and White Teeth , also by Smith around that time.   Nevertheless they both passed me by and On Beauty in 2017 was to be my first experience of Smith. It was good to read a book about a family where the children were not too young to be proper characters and the adults not too old. So many times books set around families only focus on one generation, or differing generations but by skipping back in time. This was not the case here ...

I have watched this film every Christmas, in fact I think we actually have the DVD somewhere but I have never read the book. It was a Christmas present from my in laws which I was surprised and delighted to receive as it had never occurred to me that there was a Mary Poppins book yet now I had it to read! Not being aware of the book I researched (googled) Travers and discovered what an interesting life she has led. Books have been written about her (well at Least one – Mary Poppins She Wrote ) which I would read if it happened to pass my lap. Anyway the actual book – a pink candy striped hardback was slim with decent sized text so only took a couple of days train trips to work and back read. Included were the iconic parts of the film such as 'Tuppence A Bag' and Bert with his drawings that come to life but other parts were missed out, notably a spoonful of sugar and I missed the singing and dancing. Granted you can't really make a musical into a book but the spir...