Book Reviews
-
2024 Christmas Book-shopping Guide: Helpful Gift Ideas for the Bookworms in Your Life
Still stuck on exactly what to get for your family and friends this Christmas? Books are always the perfect gift! Here are a few ideas to get you started on Christmas shopping for the bookworms in your life, organised into specific categories of reader to help you find exactly what you need. For the Animal Lover My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell: A hilarious account of the Durrell family as they migrate to Corfu, remembered through the eyes of Gerald as he connects with the island’s natural inhabitants. Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty: A moving record of a year from the perspective of a young…
-
Review: A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
Arthie Casimir is the owner of Spindrift — teahouse catering to society’s elite by day, and bloodhouse illegally serving White Roaring’s vampire underworld by night. Having clawed her way up through society by her own means, Arthie now has a place to call her own, and a lucrative business trading in tea, blood and secrets. But when all of it threatens to come crashing down overnight, Arthie and her crew must band together to pull of a masterful heist which just might be enough to save Spindrift — and earn them some coveted power along the way. But as long-held secrets come to the surface and loyalty is questioned, threats…
-
Review: Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater
Dora Ettings has a problem: she is missing half of her soul (which was stolen by a faerie when she was a child), and therefore is unable to feel emotions such as shame or embarrassment. Far from being an advantage, it has caused quite a few difficulties in the regency society where she lives with her aunt and her cousin Vanessa. When Vanessa is taken to London by her mother to try and find a husband, Dora is allowed to accompany her. Hoping only not to cause too much trouble and interfere with her cousin’s prospects, Dora’s plans are upset when she meets the handsome but bad-tempered Elias Wilder, the…
-
Review: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
A series of unfortunate circumstances and unfaithful friends combine to cause the bright and promising young Edmund Dantes to be thrown into prison just as the best part of his life is about to begin. Confined to a dank dungeon cell, Dantes loses everything: his prospects, his family, his fiancée, and even his name — he becomes only prisoner 34. Despite his dire position, Dantes makes an unexpected and valuable friend: Abbé Faria, the prisoner in the cell beside his, a wise and knowledgeable old man from whom Dantes learns much — including the location of a secret treasure. Many years later, when he emerges from the prison, the positive…
-
Review: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote of La Mancha has his head turned by reading far too many books on knight errantry, until he believes that he himself is a gallant knight. Together with his long-suffering horse Rocinante and his loyal but gullible squire Sancho Panza on his beloved donkey, he sets out on many ill-fated adventures. Deluded into making everything around him fit into his ideas of the world of romantic chivalry he constructed from his readings, Don Quixote blunders into a series of hilariously mistaken escapades — taking a set of windmills as giants to be battled and vanquished, a travelling party on the road for a group of villains and an…
-
Review: Dracula by Bram Stoker
Solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula in the purchase of a property in England; when he arrives, however, things are very different from what he expected. The locals seem fearful when he tells them where he is headed, and his journey there is strange and fraught with danger. When he arrives, he is welcomed by Count Dracula into his dilapidated castle — but Jonathan soon learns that getting out might be much harder than getting in. Back home in England, Jonathan’s fiancé, Mina, and her friend, Lucy, are beginning to worry about his lengthening silence. When a strange ship washes up into their harbour in the…
-
Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious and ardent young science student, stumbles upon the secret of ‘bestowing animation upon lifeless matter’; rather than bringing him the glory he seeks, however, the discovery leads him down a dangerous path. In the testing of his theory, Frankenstein creates a creature assembled from parts of the deceased, and brings it to life, but he immediately feels horrified by the being he has created. To his relief, the creature soon vanishes. Betrayed by the rejection and embittered by his treatment at the hands of society, the creature seeks retribution, and as Victor’s life begins to fall apart, bit by bit, he is driven to extreme lengths…
-
Review: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
The outlaw Robin Hood and his band of merry men dwell in Sherwood Forest, stealing from those who have too much and helping those who have little. Their lives are filled with rollicking adventures, fights, fairs and feasts, all the while dodging the danger of getting caught by King Henry or the vengeful Sheriff of Nottingham. This book recounts some of those adventures, including how Robin met his right-hand man Little John, his minstrel Allan a Dale, and the jolly Friar Tuck, who all join his band; how he rescues some of his men from out of the clutches of the sheriff, and dodges all the agents sent to catch…
-
Review: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
One July day in London, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing to give a party. As she goes about her business, her mind floats back to the past, and to the people and places that have mattered to her. Elsewhere in the same city, others also go about their lives; Peter Walsh, who once proposed to Mrs. Dalloway and was turned down; Septimus Smith and his wife Lucrezia, who are struggling with the impact of Septimus’ spiralling mental state; and several others, whose lives, inner and outer, are touched on throughout the course of this one day. Mrs. Dalloway is beautifully written, in a lyrical style that draws you in, despite the…
-
Review: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
The orphaned Philip Ashley is brought up by his cousin, Ambrose, on his Cornish estate. The two form a strong bond, and when Ambrose’ health forces him to spend his winters in Europe, leaving Philip in charge of the estate, they both feel the separation sorely. One winter, Ambrose fails to return home from his trip to Italy, instead informing his heir that he has met and married Rachel, a distant relation of theirs. Strange and troubling letters from Ambrose soon begin to arrive, and Philip’s suspicions are aroused — he makes the journey to Italy, only to find that he is too late: Ambrose has died suddenly, and cousin…
