Having in the past been disappointed in the final book of a series I was very pleased that this lived up to all expectations. The story kept building all the way throughout the book and the only disappointment was that it came to an end.
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Plot: The kind BFG is the only giant who does not eat children like all the other giants but actually horrible snozzcumbers. He catches all the dreams and gives them to children. Sophie caught the friendly giant at his lovely act but she had to be taken because no one was to know of his kindness or even his existence!
An amazing fact about the book connected with the author: The BFG's friend Sophie was named after Dahl's granddaughter, the real Sophie. She was the only member of Roald Dahl's family whose name was mentioned in one of his books.
Another cool comment about the book: BFG was Roald Dahl's favourite character that he created due to his wonderful qualities including his kindness. Which of Roald Dahl's characters ... Read More:
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This story is set in Kansas in 1978. Lesley O'Malley, the young protagonist is at the story's opening in 12th grade. She does not seem a believable teen, but much more like someone upward of age 25!
Lesley has plenty of issues on her plate to accelerate her growth. Her mother, Mara, a Hungarian WWII Holocaust survivor slips into a hazy state between delusions and reality; her 9-year-old sister Megan whom I found spoiled, loathsome and obnoxious is an added cross to bear. I found Megan thoroughly unpleasant and just could not like her. A pie in the face for Megan! The girls' father, O'Malley is a gentle man who tries to keep the peace at all costs.
Mara, always unstable relives the atrocities she endured during the war. Captured ... Read More:
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This is just a beautiful read! The writing is as clear as a bell and the characters are heartbreakingly real. Kambili is a 15-year old Nigerian girl who is caught between the old order and the new: as Nigeria is suddenly brutalised by a military dictatorship, she is forced to make her own choices, between previously unquestionned family life with her tyrannical father vs her free-thinking, liberated aunt and cousins. And just to complicate matters further, she falls in love.....
It's an inspiring and wise mix of the political and personal, which manages to make you think and care deeply about the issues and the people. I have read it twice (rare for me) and it only gets better. Highly recommended reading.
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A nice little book of James Bond short stories, nothing very exciting but pleasing enough and it is always refreshing to read about Bond in the post war world and as he was originally conceived by Fleming, not exactly the superman of the films and all the bettter for it. If like me life has become so busy you have to snatch your reading in the gaps available this book works well. Enjoy
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This is the first Steinbeck book I have read.
I look forward to reading many more.
A simple and touching study of loneliness and all it entails.
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I've really got into this series, of which this book is the fifth, and look forward to further instalments in the life of Isabel Dalhousie. She is such a likeable and honourable character that you want things to go well for her. McCall Smith writes convincingly and sympathetically about her feelings. I've never been a fan of philosophy, but the author manages to interweave moral conundrums naturally into the story such that it makes one think about the issues. I find the Philosophy Club series (and his Scotland Street books) an antidote to the crime fiction that I also enjoy as the former portray the nicer side life. An added pleasure is the descriptions of familiar streets and shops in Edinburgh. I would recommend that readers start at the beginning of the series as each book partly ... Read More:
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A wonderful collection of animal miscellany. It is only let down by an absence of references and the fact that one wishes that they covered more animals.
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Suite Francaise sat on my permanent "mountain" of waiting-to-be-read books for about a year, unopened. Had I only known...
The Holocaust claimed the lives of innumerable people. Irene Nemirovsky was among them. She died at Auschwitz a year after writing the first two novels (out of intended five) belonging to Suite Francaise. "Storm in June" and "Dolce" were re-discovered decades after she died and subsequently published, adding a further and unusual insight to the tragedy of war. The world lost a very talented writer, already successful and well known at the time of her death.
I think it is important however to discern the actual BOOK from the extraordinary CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding its discovery and the personal history of its author, as it would have been, in my opinion, ... Read More:
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