Cramlington Book Club

And first read of the year goes to.......... The True Story of Hansel and Gretel . OK so I started it in December but I finished it in 2019 so it counts. "In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel." They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch" by the nearby villagers. Magda is determined to save them, even as a German officer arrives in the village with his own plans for the children. Louise Murphy's haunting novel of journey and survival, of redemption and memory, powerfully depicts how war is experienced by families and especially by children." Billed as a retelling of the classic fairy tale all the elements are there: the forest, the breadcrumb trail, the witch, even the oven but tw...

Book of the Month? Blog Tour? Inbetweeny? Yep they are all thrown in to this review. If I have read it this year it counts, no holding back, my opinions only. I thought about doing a Top 10 but there are hundreds of them around at the minute and when looking back over my reads of 2018 nine books jumped from the page immediately so Top 9 it is! In no particular order here goes: Palm Beach Finland by Antti Tuomainen - Best Scandi A glorious mish mash of scandi noir and dark comedy slapped with a large does of plastic neon. Set around a holiday resort billed as the hottest beach in Finland it was unlike any scandi book I have read previously and has left every other one slightly lacking in its wake. The Lion Tamer Who Lost by Louise Beach - Best Love Story, Best Inclusion of Lions (OK so it's the only book I have read this year with a lion but STILL) An intensely beautiful love story, magnificent descriptions, an enriching supporting cast and in need of a tissue or two...

I know! There are so many round ups of 2018 going on at the minute that one just about December seems a little bit piddly in comparison BUT I'm ploughing on regardless if only for my records when looking back over the year. My first read this month was I'm Travelling Alone  by Simon Bjork. It was a solid Scandi Noir that required epic timeline skills from Bjork to connect all the dots (which he did) but for me it lacked a certain something compared to other brilliant Scandi books I have read recently. Up next was my first Blog Tour for the month -  Odette by Jessica Duchen. A modern take on Swan Lake, it was the perfect start to my festive reading. As it doesn't OD on the tinsel or the sweetness it can easily be consumed in January and beyond. Village Christmas: And Other Notes on the English Year by Laurie Lee was the book club's Book Of The Month. I loved the evocative descriptive writing harking back to a time gone by. The group awarded this collection of mem...

"When Sam falls in love with Deptford thug Derek, and Anne’s best friend Kathleen takes her own life, they discover they are linked not just by a world of drugs and revenge; they also share the friendship of the uncanny and enigmatic Deborah. Seamstress, sailor, story-teller and self-proclaimed centenarian immortal, Deborah slowly reveals to Anne and Sam her improbable, fantastical life, a history of hidden Deptford and ultimately the solution to their crises." Attend is the first book from (the brilliantly named)  West Camel  and coincidentally my last Blog Tour of the year. It is told from three perspectives, Anne, Sam and Deborah and flits about between present day and as far back as 1913. I found myself immediately warming to Anne. All throughout the book I was rooting for her to stay clean and stay clear of her nasty ex-husband Mel.  I can appreciate the stance of her mother and daughter given the hell Anne must have put them through as a heroin addict but real...

I'm sure you haven't forgotten (I had) which books we have read this year but in case you just want to see them all in one place -This year we have reviewed: January Did anyone remember that the first book we kicked off WAY back in January was Vanity Fair by William Makepeace? Nope I didn't. I developed a 30 day habit during the reading of this door-stopper which was awarded 6.2 by the group and was much more enjoyable than steamed kale. February A reworking (or should that be a follow on?) of Alice In Wonderland was next up. Alice by Christina Henry was a mish mash of very violent scenes followed by periods of time where not much happened. Not quite a young adult book, not quite adult fiction. We had little empathy for the main character (Alice, unsurprisingly) and awarded it a 6. March A venture into non fiction, Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss was March's Book of The Month that had us all reaching for the Skyr yoghurt. Recounting the year Sarah ...

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart.... No, start again. Last Christmas the book club and my whole family read A Boy Called Christmas by the rather brilliant Matt Haig. Last January Mr Haig signed our very own copy of A Boy Called Christmas and it had always been the plan to read the follow on, The Girl Who Saved Christmas, this Christmas (well it's just wrong to read a Christmas book in June isn't it?) Picking up more or less exactly where 'Boy' left off we are reintroduced to 9 year old Amelia Wishart. Trapped in the workhouse her festive spirit isn't exactly blooming and when Christmas goes spectacularly wrong Troll stylie Father Christmas sets out to find her. Featuring special appearances from Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens (who noted that Christmas could be both the best of times and the worst of times.) Well loved characters such as Noosh and Blitzen (who brilliantly saves the day be weeing on a chimney fire) also made a welcome return. It delive...

When suggested last month we snapped up this 150 page or so collection of Lee's descriptions, memoirs and musings. Consisting of Chapters of no more than a few pages, topics included the river Severn, a pub and the landscaping of a garden! Winter, including Christmas, was the opening section so more than met the one rule of book club requirement (we review a Christmas book at Christmas). Spring, Summer and Autumn sections followed and one of the group chose to stop reading after the Winter section in order to read each section in its correct season. I love this idea but would either forget and end up reading them all in Autumn or would get frustrated that I still hadn't finished such a slim book that I had started in 2018.  "Children trapped in new concrete estates will be denied the freedom we knew. They'll become prisoners of television, as most children are today, and as they grow up they'll start hanging about the streets in gangs and stealing cars." ...