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Book Reviews submitted by Library Users
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Twenty Chickens for a Saddle - by Robyn Scott (2008)
I really enjoyed this book. Robyn was born in 1981, so she is a relatively young and inexperienced author, but she writes very well. The book is a lovely read, because she writes lots of speech into her memoir, so it really comes to life as a captivating story, rather than a heavy and overly detailed autobiography. Robyn’s father Keith, was an accidental medical doctor, also training in acupuncture and homeopathy, and her mother Linda did a degree at Oxford University, before putting her career on hold after the unplanned birth of their first child – Robyn, with two more to follow – Damien and Lulu. They immigrated to New Zealand from South Africa, and then in 1987 back to Botswana, and Keith took over a flying doctor business, while Linda home-schooled their three children, and wrote some books.
What makes the story so fascinating, is the unconventional nature of Robyn’s family, and the adventures they persue. Their first house in Botswana is a converted cowshed next-door to Keith’s cantankerous father, who had served as a pilot to Botswana’s first president Seretse Khama. Her parents loved all things alternative (including environmentally friendly food and medicines), and had a very relaxed approach to home-schooling (which ultimately succeeds). Linda firmly believed that learning was best when their was no clear distinction between work and play, and her ‘lessons’ sometimes consisted of reading to her kids for a day on a particularly interesting subject, or perhaps packing them a lunch and sending them out to explore in the bush for the day. With no television, they had to learn to amuse themselves, identifying plants, catching snakes, training ponies, or selling free-range eggs to earn enough money to buy a new saddle (thus the title). Robyn’s father eventually manages to fulfill his dream, of owning a large piece of bush in the Tuli Block, next to the Limpopo River, and this becomes his retreat, especially as the Aids epidemic sweeps through Botswana, and his work as a doctor is more and more physically and emotionally draining. If this sounds like your ‘cup of tea’, then I highly recommend it – I certainly didn’t want it to finish.
Recommended Audience: Autobiography of an African Childhood |
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At the End of Darwin Road - by Fiona Kidman
This is a memoir of the first half of prominent New Zealand author Fiona Kidman’s life. I went into it fairly blind, having read few of her books, and knowing nothing of her life. But what a treat it was. Beautifully written, she has had a fascinating life, and I now want to read more of her work. She was very influential in the literary and feminist scene in Wellington in the 1970’s, and this book is really a search by her for ‘home’, both in place and occupation, starting ‘at the end of Darwin Road’, were she grew up in Keri Keri, and ending at ‘home’ at her current house in Wellington, being a full-time writer after 20 years of juggling part-time work, family and bits of writing. She finally found her ‘place’ in the world.
She frequently quotes snippets from her various books, linking them often to real life episodes, revealing the blurring between reality and fiction, and the imaginative world of a writer. The narrative follows the normal sort of course of life – school years, moving house, first jobs, marriage and children, and she talks very honestly about each period of her life, her friends, and her family. She writes the book from the objective distance of France, where she is living in Menton for a year as the Katherine Mansfield Fellow. It was not the book she had set out to write, but she finally found ‘the end of Darwin Road’, unexpectedly in a town in France, as a place of her imagination that she could finally move on from.
Recommended Audience: Adult Memoir of a NZ writer (pub. 2008) |
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Last Night I Dreamed of Peace - by Dang Thuy Tram
This is a Diary of a doctor in South Vietnam who was shot while trying to defend her parents. The Diary was discovered along with her few possessions by an American intelligence officer and it was returned to her family 30 years later. In her diary Thuy writes about what it is like to live in the shadow of the enemy, to hide, to yearn for peace, to be full of realism and her hope for love and a future in a world that seems to be collapsing. It is very emotionally written and you can feel her heartfelt compassion for people and her anguish in her words.
Recommended Audience: Adult |
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Bel Canto - by Ann Patchett
This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is a comic drama set in a grand house in a poor Latin American country. A group of terrorists take over a multi-cultural party, with the aim of capturing the country’s President, who was supposed to be present, but had decided to stay at home to watch his favourite soap opera. With no idea what to do next, the terrorists instead detain the whole household, comprising among others the Vice President, a famous American Opera singer (who had just finished singing when the takeover occurred), a Japanese CEO (an opera fan and whose birthday party it was), and his translator Gen. What enfolds is a gripping novel about a group of people forced to live together, under what should be terrifying and awful circumstances, but ends up becoming a place of great love and beauty that some people don’t want to leave.
Bel Canto is about love in its many different forms. It is about love that transcends language and culture, as 2 people fall in love who cannot even speak the other’s language. It is about love between 2 supposed enemy groups, as a hostage falls in love with a terrorist. It is about reacquainted love – a stale marriage becomes very strong again, and the hostages fall in love again with the basic things they have been deprived of and had previously taken for granted. And it is about a universal love of music (thus the title Bel Canto – Italian for ‘beautiful singing’), as the terrorists and hostages alike are stopped in their tracks to listen to the beautiful singing of the opera diva Roxane Coss, and her new found piano accompanist (a fellow hostage). The translator Gen becomes an extremely valuable resource as everybody wants to know what everybody else is saying, and some funny and very memorable scenes are played out within the walls of the house as the terrorists relax into their new role, and the forced segregation within the house is slowly eroded. It is a story about what happens when the world as you know it is turned upside-down, and slowly you start to realize that life on the ‘inside’ is not so bad after all. Bel Canto is a wonderful and unexpectedly captivating read. I highly recommend it.
Recommended Audience: Winner of the 2002 Pen/Faulkner Award Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002 |
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Inkheart Trilogy - by Cornelia Funke
Totally captivating story full of fantasy, danger, hate and love. Those who love books and feel themselves part of the story while they read will love this book, real life characters join fantasy characters to win your hearts and the day.
Recommended Audience: 13+ |
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