Cramlington Book Club

Another quick #inbetweeny for you before I review the book of the month for March. It’s The Buried Giant by the way and if you haven’t already started to read it yet there is still time. I’m only on page 5! The Unmumsy Mum is my first experience of following a blogger right through to their first book being published and I was really excited to read it. Although maybe slightly worried that I would have read most of it before via the blog. This wasn’t the case - Ruth and fake tanned breast fed babies were nowhere in sight. The book was really easy to read – nice short chapters (you can tell it’s been written by a mum right there) and made me laugh out loud on several occasions. I totally resonated with Turners true to life account of being a mum and recognised myself in so many pages. My only criticism would be that’s its very much a ‘you need to be experiencing it right now kind of book’. I’m not sure my mum would relate to references of baby sensory, Bubble Guppies and social med...

So I’ve been thinking one book a month equals only 12 posts a year (well 13 if you count the Big Review of the Year) which is good but I want to give you lovely people more reasons to come and read the blog. So I’ve decided to post about the books I read in-between the books of the months. These ones are read by only me and as at the moment I am reading The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry this seems like a good enough place to start. It was a random Christmas present a couple of years ago that I re-found when stocking my new book shelves (Handmade by hubby - thank you!) I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest I don’t think I would have bought it for myself and I simply wanted to get rid of all the ‘old’ new books I had that I didn’t expect to be staying on my bookshelves – only the best get to stay! I read it after Hemmingway and although I didn’t race through it reading something with normal size print was a delight. It was also beautifully written with quotes scattered left ...

I was really interested to read this as I was still buzzing about Ernest Hemmingway from Mrs Hemmingway a book we reviewed last year. It was also set during the Spanish civil war and war stories always interest me. I ended up buying the book on ebay as Amazon worked out more expensive than my usual budget and I certainly wasn’t going to find a book first published in 1941 from the best seller section in Sainsburys. The book was old and the print was small but I wasn’t put off and set about reading it straightaway. The language was difficult ‘I obscenity in the milk of your…’ being a particular phrase that the group had issue with. Characters were referred to as ‘the woman’, ‘the girl’, ‘the gypsy’ and I also found the use of Spanish throughout the book confusing. Yes I understand ‘hola’ and other basic words but odd phrases kept on appearing that I couldn’t translate without google and lets face it the average reader in the 1940s certainly didn’t have google nor had been to Spa...

I hadn’t a clue what this book was about when I picked it up and came to it off the back of A Clash of Kings (Game of Thrones) so initially found its pace and central characters quite refreshing. It’s not plot lead which in theory appeals to me as I like that sort of book but whereas the first half of Revival by Stephen King drew me in and never let go this one left me cold. I didn’t dislike the characters as often puts me off a book, I just didn’t empathise/warm to them. My main criticism is that I found the book really shallow. Many attempts were made at possibly opening the book up – Susans true parentage being revealed for example but were cast aside in a throw away sentence. I was screaming for Nora to just crack and give us something other than a serene smile or to get in Dennys head and find out what exactly was going on and what he got up to when he swanned off but the closest we got was a phone call right at the end of the book and Nora serving hamburgers instead of lasagne....

It's that time again. A run down of all the books we have reviewed this year followed by the most eagerly anticipated Book of the Year award! Books are in chronological order starting from January 2015 I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes awarded 9.5 I think with the exception of A Christmas Carol which was awarded a festive 10 out of 10 this has to be our highest scoring book EVER. Reading the review back now makes me want to re-read the book again. Its lowest score was 9 which never happens in our group so if you haven't read it yet DO IT NOW Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins 7.3 Weak female characters resulting in us not really caring what happened, film rights have been sold and its very on trend. Most likely to have been read by your non reading friend. The Martian by Andy Weir 7.18 I'm going to science the shit out of this planet! Best quote ever and even resulted in our first ever Film Review The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton 7.3 Set in Amsterdam where a dolls house...

Sorry Folks, Christmas got in the way and before I knew it 2016 had arrived before I had even looked at a computer. So finally after the last mince pie has been eaten, the decs taken down and the obligatory January salad for lunch has been eaten here is the review of A Gift from Bob our Christmas choice for 2015. Let me start by saying this book was actually my suggestion. I had seen the first Bob novel in the shops a few years back and had always been interested to read it but never got round to it. When I noticed Bob had a Christmas book it seemed a no brainer to put it forward as our December pick (#oneruleofbookclub!) It was met with mixed reactions when I suggested it leaving me in doubt as to how well it would go down. I was slightly puzzled as we had read books involving animals before and enjoyed them so maybe we just has one or two dog lovers in the group. Turns out the book wasn't from the point of view of the cat but from his owner James (also the author, yes it...

I read this book in 4 days. Which if you take in to account the fact I have 3 children (one of whom is a baby) its not bad going. For that reason I will give it an extra point when marking it out of 10. I love reading and get frustrated at the moment when a book takes me too long to read. I don't have much time to actually read and when I do I want to feel like I am making progress which I certainly did with The Ice Twins. That's about where the positives end though for me with this book. It was neither a psychological thriller or a ghost storey but at times it tried to be both. I was reminded of Gone Girl (recently reviewed check out blog post!) where you start by seeing things from a very limited view point until the picture widens and you realise what you thought(i.e. what you had been told) is actually nothing like the real situation. I didn't like any of the characters and have written many a time about how poorly a book scores when the group simply don't care ab...