Spotted, on one of the rabbit-hole forums I’m part of.
“The Family That Got Abuse Instead of Justic After Reporting Incest”
Okay, okay, let’s hear it out. This book might be something completely different to what the cover suggests. Maybe.
No, you’re right, reading this would be a terrible idea. I’ll stick to watching clips from Mary Poppins.
**
**
Five minutes to type up one review. Wait until that second hand reaches twelve and…we’re off!
Reasons To Be Cheerful (hereafter Cheerful) by Nina Stibbe is the comedic novel set in 1980s Leicestershire. The plot revolves around Lizzie, an 18 year old who is recruited as a dental nurse in a practice and follows her antics as she works in her new position, working under the demanding (and quite often racist/xenophobic) JP Wintergreen as boss. As part of the job Lizzie also gets the use of a onsite flat, offered at a heavily subsidised rent. This opens the story up for several subplots featuring her work and personal life as Lizzie tries to navigate adulthood, including her co-worker’s attempts at getting pregnant, her fledging relationship with well known ‘weirdo’ Andy Nicolello and learning to drive.
Despite the occasional darker moments, Cheerful has all the hallmarks of a British comedy. The underlying humour is there throughout, even if at points it has an awkward edge. You know the characters you’re meant to root for, and those who are (at best) jerks. Given it’s central focus, I didn’t find the details of the dentistry too gory (surprisingly I found the prologue the hardest bit to read!)
If I had to be critical, I’d comment that a lot of the 1980s references were lost on me (I was born in 1992) and a subplot story about a three-legged dog didn’t make much sense to me (in my mind it didn’t add to the plot). However, with a few surprise twists and turns, on the whole Cheerful is an easy and enjoyable read to work through. It wasn’t until afterwards I realised this is actually the third book in a series, however I was very easily able to read this as a stand alone and not be held back by lack of character knowledge from Stibbe’s previous work.
**
“29/04/18. My arms are aching, my legs are covered in bruises and I’m completely shattered. I must be in London.”
It has been a week since I vacated my flat in central London and returned once more to Swindon. It almost feels like the past year has all been but a dream, vape steam in the breeze. Invisible, abstract and only memorable by the faint smell it leaves behind.
On 2nd May I left London Paddington station for the last time packed like a loaded Buckaroo: an overfilled holdall case, a heavy rucksack, an additional handbag, a canvas tote filled with redundant bedlinen and a heavy laptop across the body for good measure. I learnt from my mistakes moving out and managed the travel back relatively bruise free, however my body has ached for days from strain. The day before I fully moved I’d completed a separate trip to Swindon with a similar amount of goods and wondered why I couldn’t stop violently shaking. I spilt coffee everywhere at the formal work function, of course. At the time I put it down to the amount of rushing around but now I see it as the culmination of mental and muscular stress.
Other than the short term pains it would be easy to pass off what I’d been through and achieved in just over twelve months living and working in the English capital as nothing more than normal. ‘Business as usual’ as my colleagues would say. But it isn’t. And it’s not just the big things that make me say that, like moving into the flat and travelling solo in Europe for the first time, but it is the little things as well. The events I put myself out of my comfort zone to attend, the weird obsession with finding the cheapest eggs, the men (goodness the men). And as I stood in Brompton cemetery one Sunday afternoon while a random man called Nicolas tried to chat me up I thought only one thing.
Thank God I’m writing this all down.
Seven separate notebooks, all documenting the experience of spending a year in London. Seven books with unique but different personalities as I went through a deeply personal and professional journey. Just glancing over extracts from book one and comparing it to book seven the transformation is really quite something (excluding coffee spilling and egg hunting, those two are deeply trademarked parts of me). Admittedly I haven’t read any of the books in depth since writing, I want to let some water trickle under bridges first. But I remember so clearly picking the first notebook off a shelf in a stationery store and telling myself I would make every effort to record the upcoming eight months in London (as it was then supposed to be) so that I should not forget the experience when I returned once more to Wiltshire. To ensure that I never let this fantastic opportunity turn into little more than a faded dream. And maybe, just maybe, one day I will do something more with my scribbles, that people will know about the time I ended up at a celebrity wedding, when the artist Grayson Perry became a fan of my writing, the time I got screen tested for a dating show. And again, the men.
If two things show how much I’ve changed over the past year then look no further than these separate quotes.
“11/05/18…Let’s make this work.”
“06/04/19…Because I can.”
Here’s a newsflash…I like books.
I once read somewhere that book lovers never go to bed alone and well I’m that. I read books in pretty much every stereotypical place, including in bed and I’ve woken up with a book is on the pillow on more than one occasion (‘oh God, 50 Shades of Grey, we didn’t…?’) But at the same time another reason why I never go to bed alone is because my room is packed full of books. It’s only now when I’m (tying) to have a clear out that I’m beginning to realise quite how many feature in my life. Call it a bit of soul searching, because I don’t care if you’re Mr Rockefeller or if you saved fifty refugees from a burning missionary school, if you don’t have time for literature then this ain’t gonna work out.
Think I’m being a bit over the top? Well here are all the types/places I keep my books. Bear in mind as well that these are just the ones in my bedroom.
I have a pile of unread books…
…And a pile of recently read books
(Before you ask I do a little bit of yoga which subsequently means I’m now super flexible. I used to do more but I have reason to believe it contributed to stuffing up my knee eighteen months ago but that’s a story for another day.)
I store books on my window shelves which is great because it means I don’t need to open/close my Venetian blinds when I get up every morning (I call them my ‘modesty books’)
(That’s right, I own four Blue Peter badges but that’s a story for another day.)
I have intellectual reads
I possess old book buyer catalogues (in case I ever needed more coffee table material)
I own a box of old books
I have books on the waitlist for more permanent accommodation
I also have a few Alice books (aka photo albums) with glossy memories I value more than pixels. One of the best friend presents I ever got was the album titled ’21 Things I Love About Alice Bennett’ (left).
And do not get me started on notebooks
Good news though, I’ve recently purchased an oak bookcase so now I can purchase and store even more books! (I kid, I really need to clear a lot of these out and move the rest to the book case – except my modesty books.)
Looking to take my conversation engagement from 0 to 60? Give me a book and tell me why my life is poorer without it.
You know that feeling when you walk out the door without a book?
Nicole Scherzinger does, it’s probably why her and Lewis Hamilton aren’t together anymore.
“Nicky, did you remember to pack War and Peace?”
“Urm…”
“Oh for Christ’s sake Nicole, you had one job to do, one! What am I supposed to read now? Thomas Hardy?”
(That’s totally what caused their countless break ups and getting back togethers. I mean what else could a pop star and racing car driver possibly talk about?)
It’s no secret I like a good book. I like the escapism they provide, the ability to make you conjure an image in the mind that can vary incredibly from person to person. It’s a testament to the human mind that we can read a bunch of random symbols on a page and turn it into pure emotion. It’s equally a testament to incredibly skilled writers that the reader can be taken on a journey and laugh, cry or even be deceived by the story before them and yet, despite the abuse, the reader carries on to find themselves begging for more when the tale is complete. I refer to this feeling as a ‘book hangover’, when you finish a novel but feel empty inside. Unable to come to terms with the end of a good book.
My recent read, Gone Girl, was one recent example of a book hangover. Without spoiling the book and/or film (NB I have not seen the film yet, but am quite sure it’s terrible vs the book – they always are), Gone Girl is a gripping thriller involving the disappearance of Amy Elliot Dunne. A whodunit with countless twists and turns. A book worthy of anyone’s time.
That said, I think a sizeable chunk of my present book hangover can be attributed to all the locations I read this one particular novel. Now I likes my tea and coffee and I likes my intellectual style. For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamt of being sat in a stylish coffee shop and a handsome male swooping in and saying ‘Orwell, nice. What do you think of the book so far?’ instead of ‘is this seat taken?’ which is what I usually get. Hopelessly romantic ambitions aside, a good coffee shop with the right music and buzz is the best place the read a book. Fact.
One wash out weekend I basically went from coffee shop to coffee shop to read my book. (‘Oh look, its stopped raining’ *goes outside* ‘ah damn, its started again. Oh no, I’ll have to find another coffee shop to read in. The horror!’) What started as a one ‘look at me, I’m so intellectual!’ Instagram post turned into a mini series, a documentary of all the locations I read this one book. Aside from the plot of the novel itself, I now look back on these carefully posed photographs and think of the stories behind the locations. Those mini tales of no consequence or interest that form the back bone of daily human interaction.
Below are these said photos, complete with a slight description of the location. In taking and stylising these photos I learnt a bit about my tastes, how I like to relax and also that Gone Girl looks great in every filter. Show off.
Enjoy.
Every book has a million stories.
I found this under my bed the other day…
To the vast majority of people it represents just another book. Priced at £16.99, to my parents it probably represents an overpriced, emotional blackmail purchase, but to me it will always represent something far more significant. Unknown at the time (and for many years afterwards), this represents a key cornerstone in my life so far. For in this thick little book is my first ever published piece of writing.
Back when I was thirteen years old my English teacher got the class to write mini S.A.G.A.S (short, adventurous, gripping amusing, stories), short pieces of writing no longer than fifty words in length. At the time we were suitably hyped up by the prospect that the top students would get their work published in a book. My teacher’s words had the same effect on me as a child on blue Smarties (I was that sort of kid). Rising to the challenge, I poured out tens of short pieces in quick succession. While my peers scratched their heads over content, I found the greatest difficulty was knowing when to stop. Fifty words in which to write a complete, self-contained, passage is actually quite hard. In the end I selected the piece of work I felt best reflected who I was and my writing style (it was also the piece that my teacher chose to read out to the class. Take that Will Townsend!)
Unfortunately what our teacher had failed to tell us was that being selected to appear in the book wasn’t quite the big achievement originally billed up to be. It turned out that every submission made it to print, so long as their parents were prepared to stump up the money to buy the book in advance. Barring one girl, everyone in my class got a mention in the publication (even Will Townsend). Of course at thirteen this didn’t stop me being dead chuffed that something I’d written had achieved a degree of recognition. It meant that someone had seen value in my work. The fact that I still own this book in a state of near mint condition says it all.
Flicking back through the pages of Mini S.A.G.A.S. all these years later I still feel the same way as I did then, that for a thirteen year old my entry is by far the best. It’s certainly the most cohesive and unique of my class and regional peers (oh yay, yet another entry about a crush). And, although it would take another eight years to get me into proper writing, I like to think getting a little piece of my mind published sowed the seeds of creativity. If there was a prologue to my blog’s creation this would be it.
(And the best bit? You’ll never know what it was.)
How do I sum up this book? Alcohol, that’s how. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Amusingly you open the cover and see not a Drink Aware message, but instead a warning against consuming raw eggs (a foodstuff that features in some of the recipes.) Sandwiched between the hard covers of this recipe book are some very attractive looking images and nice little introductions to each drink (where their name comes from, the type of ingredients in the drink etc.). You’ve got the classics, your Mojitos, Bloody Marys Martinis, but you’re also got the different, for example Kinky Witch, Rusty Nail and Bobby Burns. In many ways there is something for everyone here* (unless you’re teetotal or under eighteen, in which case no, there isn’t).
All this however doesn’t detract from the simple truth that, as with all cocktails, you need about 100 different spirits and mixers tucked away in the cupboard to make them. The Classic Cocktail Bible is a classic by name and a classic of its genre; it is a book which sits on one’s shelf for many months/years until one day you think “oh, I really fancy a Cosmopolitan right now, I’m sure I can make that”. You open this book to mild disappointment when realise you can’t so instead you reach for a can of cider and consume that instead.
The Classic Cocktail Bible is a must have for the coffee table of the young professional or the kitchen cupboard for the impulsive buyer but be warned, it takes more than vodka and coke to make a good cocktail.
For The Ocelot – Wiltshire What’s On Magazine
When it comes to mutually exclusive, ‘disability’ and ‘comedy’ are two words which you would normally expect to be in the taboo corner. So why do I find myself laughing at a “wobbly” lady’s failed attempts at cherry knocking?
Welcome to the hilarious and wonderful mind of Francesca Martinez. Born with cerebral palsy but waging a one-woman mission to have it renamed ‘wobbly’, Martinez sheds a brutally comedic look on her experiences growing up in an able-bodied world. Without blinking, she sweetly comments ‘funny how the girls who used to bully me now want to add me as a friend on Facebook. F**kers!’ before taking a long sip of water. It makes you wonder why anyone would pick a fight with Martinez. Not because she’s funny or a genuinely lovely person, but because under the smiles is a deeply vengeful personality.
Chatting with her in a in a stylish coffee shop in Swindon’s Old Town, without warning Martinez’s conversations divert from the trivial to the deeply philosophical. Two sips into my moderately priced Americano she states that the root cause of unhappiness is the consumer-based drive to always want better. ‘We want to look prettier, be thinner, have a better mobile phone, a better house. Our society is so aspirational we never stop and think about what we have. Once you stop and reassess those things you realise that life could be a lot worse,’ Martinez poignantly observes, before quickly adding ‘for example, I could have been a Rice Krispie…or Donald Trump.’ Cue another timely sip of water. ‘We’re all trapped in toxic bonds of our own making so when you think about it breaking yourself away is actually a form of civil disobedience.’
Having taken most of her life to discover and liberate herself from the evil clutches of self-loathing, Martinez is keen to spread a message of positivity. ‘I spent years thinking negative thoughts and my only regret is that I’ll never get that time back,’ she comments, ‘I do a lot of talks at schools nowadays where I ask students to put their hands up if they’re happy with their appearance. It’s really sad when no one raises their hand so I tell them “you’re in the prime of your lives. This is as good as it’s ever going to get!”’
Spending an hour in the company of Francesca Martinez is a delightful, if not insightful, experience. It is a testament to her abilities that in her presence you can see beyond the disability to the woman who lies beneath. Perhaps put more succinctly by the wobbly expert herself, ‘if I was retarded I’d have voted for UKIP’.
My most recent five minute review can be viewed here: http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/five-minute-review-how-to-get-filthy-rich-in-rising-asia-by-mohsin-hamid/
Ergh, do I have to spend five minutes on this? Ok, fine.
The Food of Love by Anthony Capella is a rom-com novel, based in and around the streets of Rome, Italy. The plot follows the story of two Italian men who work in the restaurant industry, as they fight for the love of one woman (what’s new there?) The more attractive of the two, self-styled player Tommaso, woos the fair American student, Laura, first by convincing her of his extraordinary culinary skills. The catch? He cannot cook to save his life. However his roommate, the less attractive and uncharismatic chef Bruno, can. Secondary catch, he too is in love with Laura (dun, dun, duuun). So instead of confessing his love what does he do? He helps his player friend by teaching him culinary skills to charm the fair lady, thus becoming the ultimate wing man/gooseberry. Unsurprisingly as the lie gets bigger so too does the (supposedly) hilarious consequences.
As my sister noted when I told her the synopsis, The Food of Love story is basically an Italian version of the Disney film Ratatouille. If you liked that story, but wanted something with more sex, swearing and over sexualisation of mushrooms then you’ll probably enjoy this. *
I should have known that this book would not be an Austen or Orwell when I picked it up in a charity shop for 50p (on sale). At the time I needed a light read as a rest bite from more serious subject matter. No guesses for where my copy will be swiftly going back to in the next week.
*FYI rats and bestiality do not feature in this novel, at least the author didn’t stoop to that level.
My Housemate's a Mermaid 