Love For Books

No time for goodbye by Linwood Barclay

I really couldn’t put this book down from start to finish; it is a real page turner that I would highly recommend.
When Cynthia Bigge was 14 she went on a date with an older boy who is a bit of a baddy they both get drunk, and Cynthia’s father finds her with the older boy in a car park. He is very angry with her and they have a big argument. Cynthia goes to bed still feeling drunk and annoyed with her parents. When she gets up the following morning the house is empty, not even her brother is home. Cynthia thinks that there all really angry with her for getting drunk with the older boy and has left her to think about things. But they never show up. She is brought up by her Auntie.

Cynthia marries and has a daughter, twenty five years later with still no sign of her missing family Cynthia she agrees to take part in a TV show about their disappearance, she then starts finding clues about her family.

It’s an amazing book with so many twists and turns, it has you reading as fast as you can just to find out what happens. I loved this book.

A piece of cake by Cupcake Brown

This is the story of a girl named Cupcake who is at the age of eleven placed in the ‘care’ of sadistic foster parents. She is continually running away from home and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all. Cupcake survived by turning tricks, getting drunk and taking every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down California. At the age of sixteen, she stumbled into the horrifying world of gangsters and dealing drugs she survived a drive-by shooting. Cupcake turns into a crack cocaine addict. After a four-day drug binge she wakes up behind a dumpster. She is half-dressed and half-dead, this is when she realizes she had to change her life or die on the streets as a crack addict. Amazingly, Cupcake turned her life around and this is her brutally honest, shockingly funny story.

This book is heart-wrenching . Cupcake survived against all odds,she went on to make a huge success of her life after such an awful childhood. It iss an amazing story that had me gripped i was fascinated by her life and what she achieved. It’s a very inspirational read that i wont ever forget. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about true lives.

Michelle Knight

Michele Knight was brought up in London by her mother who was Itallian and a very gifted psycic. Her beloved father who was English, died when she was just six it was from then that her life changed. She had a very unstable upbringing  and was sexually abused by many different men all through her childhood including her neighbours and her mothers lovers, her mother never knew of any of this and was distraught when Michelle told her many years later.

She was born a twin but her twin Lucy died when she was born, she stayed with Michelle in spirit allways there to protect and guide her to safety. She also has an adopted brother, Nicholas, who has also had a difficult life. Michelle has a son Julien whom she has adored since the moment he was born. She has had to climb a mountain to get where she is today, when many people would have given up.

Michelle was passed on the psycic gift from her mother and has spent most of her life doing readings . She works with lots of famous people and has appeared on TV shows including Housebusters, she is also resident psycic on X Factor xtra and strictly dance fever.

Call me Elizabeth by Dawn Annandale

Dawn was born into two families who didn’t see eye to eye, her mother was from a very wealthy background and her father’s family were working class. Her parents married and her father was very determined to be successful to prove his wife’s family wrong.  Although they always had plenty of money, Dawns childhood was very difficult, she lacked love and attention. After her father had been away on business he came home and sexually abused Dawn, something that was to continue throughout her childhood, until her parents’ marriage fell apart.

Dawn was not allowed to go onto further education and so she got a trainee job in Harrods, soon she moved out of home and began to support herself. She went on to become a legal sectary. Dawn had many failed relationships and a few children to different men. She eventually met her next husband and settled down; she had six children whom she all wanted to be in private school. The costs started mounting up and with not much help from her husband she decided to become an escort to keep the bailiffs away and her children in the lifestyle they had become accustomed to. She worked six nights out of seven and eventually started clearing the debts.

An excellent book about one woman’s struggles, she would do anything to let her children have the life that they deserved.

Sisters in arms by Nicola Tyrer

This the story of the Queen Alexandra nurses during the Second World War. The nurses who were mainly middle-class girls, who were barely out of school, they were brought from sheltered backgrounds and had to go through training regimes which were unimaginably tough they were then sent to share the horrible harsh conditions of the fighting services in the middle of the war. The young nurses had to deal with the most appalling suffering, that they would never have imagined, yet most of them found inner strength that carried them through the episodes of horror that they were to witness.

Over 400 of the nurses died, some were torpedoed in hospital ships, some bombed in field hospitals or even murdered in Japanese prisoner of war camps. Many of them won medals for bravery. From the sands of Dunkirk, to Singapore and through to D-Day, they saw it all. Whether nursing burned pilots from the Battle of Britain or in Japanese death camps, coming from such sheltered backgrounds the nurses quickly adapted to their new roles, their dedication was second to none.

An excellent book that I would highly recommend. The young nurses showed so much courage and dedication they all deserved medals.

Teach yourself complete Spanish

Teach yourself ;complete Spanish is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn to speak and write in Spanish, whether your a complete beginer or a bit dusty and just wanting to brush up on the language its a really good place to start.

The book guides you through the basics of Spanish, from greeting people to shopping it will provide you with all the tools that you need to write and speak confidently. The book is full of excercises to practice and make sure you are picking iy up ok. There is also  4 cd’s that come with the book, which are an essential part of the course. The cd’s help you to understand how to prounounce words the correct way. Once you’ve read a section in the book you must listen to the same section on CD to ensure you understand.

There are many activities in the work book to keep you learning, and you can check you answers in the back of the book. The best way to learn is to have someone to study with so you can test and converse with each other.

I would definatley reccomend this book, great for beginers or even just for someone who wants to learn the basics for a holiday.

Document scanning is a blessing for books

A technique known as document scanning has been making more and more of an appearance over the last few years. The process involves using advanced digital readers to scan printed or written text and convert it into a digital format.

It is mainly used in business to switch from paper-based filing to computer-based filesystems, which for obvious reasons are preferred. The technology is so up-to-date it can read many different styles of writing and text with a high level of accuracy, saving thousands of hours of manual translation.

The reason I am talking about document scanning now though is because of what it brings to the world of books. There are many handwritten books and journals out there, that can become potential novels or fully published books in the future. Previously, these handwritten texts would have been manually, and therefore slowly, typed in to a computer. Now, however,  this can be done automatically using specialist scanners designed to recognise the writing. This may well entice more and more people to try and write books of their own, knowing the work cut out for them is much less than before.

Who knows, we might have another Charles Dickens any time now.

Book or Movie

So many great books have been turned into movies, which people love. But more often than not the people who have read the book before seeing the movie, are a little disappointed by the film. When you read a book you are able to imagine the characters, and the scenery, you picture it how you would like it to be, how you think it should be. When you see the film you see it how someone else pictures it to be and it can ruin the whole film for some.

Most times huge parts of the story are changed when the book is turned into a film. Either big parts are missed out or new parts are added. The story can be nothing like it is in the book. I know myself that whenever I read a great book, and later on the film is released, I can’t wait to see the film, but I usually leave the cinema feeling a little deflated! It’s just not the way it should be, the main character isn’t nearly as good looking as he should be, or they get the accent all wrong or they completely change the plot. Maybe next time I will try watching the movie first and then read the book!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F.Scott Fitzgerald

`The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is about a man that was born at the end of his. Instead of growing old, Benjamin grows young; he lives his life in reverse order.

When Benjamin was born he looked like a frail old man and also has all the ailments that old people have, he needs a cane to walk with and looks nothing like a child. His parents are ashamed of him as he looks so strange. Benjamin and his father eventually grow close, and his father feels bad for being ashamed of his son.

Benjamin falls in love with Hildegarde, who was initially attracted to the `older’ Benjamin. They get married, but as time takes its toll, Benjamin grows younger whilst his wife grows older, which makes them drift apart, as she no longer finds him attractive. Growing younger gives Benjamin a new energy, all his ailments fade away and he gets younger looking by the day. His son grows ashamed of him as he grows older his father looks younger than him.

An excellent little story, which is short enough to read in a few hours, but definitely worth reading. The story has since been made into a movie.

Rachel Vincent

Rachel Vincent learned to read when she was just four years old. At the age of six she had written her first story about a school class that went on a trip to a zoo. In this first story Rachel illustrated it herself, this was to be the first and last time as it seems her talent lies with writing, drawing is not really her thing.

Since she was in sixth grade, Rachel’s being interested in reading about the dark side. When she was in junior high, she wrote her first book report which was about Carrie, by Stephen King, her teacher found it a bit distressing. She poured over books about vampires, magic and werewolves. She was fascinated by monsters whether human or beast. Eventually she started to write books of her own.

All the way through High school and College Rachel wrote short stories, but it wasn’t until several years later when she started to write her first novel that she began writing seriously. After she had completed her first four manuscripts, Rachel knew that this was what she wanted to do with her life.

Recommended by Rachel Vincent – Stray