#book

Five Minute Review: The Food of Love by Anthony Capella

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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.

Five Minute Review: Five Go on a Strategy Away Day (Parody) by Bruno Vincent

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Five little minutes, one little book. This one should be easy…

Five Go on a Strategy Away Day (hereafter “Five Go…“) by Bruno Vincent is a short story based on the original Famous Five classics written by Enid Blyton in the 1940s/50s. At only 105 pages long, Five Go… is a quick book to pick up and complete in one sitting. As a slightly slower reader I was able to read this title cover to cover during my train commute (and that’s with two train changes in between). Perfect if you want something to easily tackle in one go, less of an interest if you’re looking for a more long term investment that you’ll come back to time and time again.

The story follows Julian, Dick, George, Anne and Timmy the dog as they tackle the nightmares of a poorly managed team away day. As I read this there were certainly some laugh out loud moments. More than anything because, as someone who has previously had to help organise team building days on a budget, I can heavily relate to some of the scenarios contained in these pages (Eg, “I’ve got 485 unread emails back at the office, so why am I here?” [sic]).

Five Go… isn’t a book to go for if you’re looking for value for money, no doubt my copy will stay on the shelf for a number of months before it gets relegated to a charity shop (as per the millions of other copies in circulation around the country), however it was a nice little pick up to cheer me up and take my mind off work and world issues, even if for just an hour or two.

Five Minute Review: The Garden In The Clouds by Antony Woodward

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Five minutes, one book, one review.

The Garden in the Clouds by Antony Woodward is an autobiographical novel depicting the author’s move from London to the Welsh borders. Woodward’s narration of events takes the reader down the rocky journey he personally experienced in his attempts to get his five-acre plot into the famous National Gardens Scheme (alias ‘the Yellow Book’).

Whilst this book is humorous and light hearted, you get a strong feeling of the inner frustration, difficultly and financial resources ploughed into what I personally thought was a rather unattractive house and garden to start with. I felt the author’s London background resulted in a writing style that overly romanticised country life to a point where it sounded like all rural folk are cheery, friendly people, happy to assist with demolished walls caused by clumsy urban folk wanting a taste of ‘the good life’. I’ll save you the trouble of finding out for yourself, we’re not.

This was a nice little read when sat in the bleakness of January, but I wouldn’t view The Garden in the Clouds as a particularly inspiring tale. It paints a sickly, unrealistic, image of rural life that has not existed for fifty years. Woodward’s need to become ‘at one’ with the landscape seemed so stereotypical you’d think he’d Googled ‘country life’ and adopted all the hobbies that came up on the listing. The National Garden’s Scheme, using a vintage tractor to make hay, keeping bees, in fact all that was missing was sheep farming (unfortunately his neighbour beat him to that one). If I was him I’d have saved myself the time, money and stress and bought myself somewhere in the South of France.

Five Minute Review: Empire of The Sun by JG Ballard

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Five minutes to write a review on a recent read. Here we go:

Empire of The Sun by JG Ballard is a semi-autobiographical novel set in Shanghai (China) during the Japanese occupation of the 1940s.

The novel and centres itself Jim, a young boy born and raised in the Western ex-pat district of the city. Setting the scene on the eve of the Pearl Harbour bombings, what follows is a dramatic series of events resulting in Jim’s separation from his family and the experiences faced by the pre-teen as he fends for himself in Shanghai and in a series of labour camps. Despite all the horrors unfurling around him, Jim maintains an eerie calmness throughout, which is perhaps more disturbing at points than the war crimes themselves. The bright light of an atomic bomb takes the plot down a somewhat more dystopian route as the Japanese soldiers flee and the Western survivors and Chinese communists fight over what little remains. Ultimately Jim comes out of the War alive but a markedly changed person from the little boy we’re introduced to at the start.

Ballard’s novel is by no means an easy read. As the plot progressed I found myself increasingly frustrated by Jim’s naivety towards the growingly desperate situation, especially when it opened him up for other prisoners to take advantage. I am prepared to accept though that if I was a 11 year old in a work camp I might have adopted a similar coping mechanism. Regardless of this Empire of The Sun paints a fair reflection of the often overlooked period of Japanese occupation in China and the work camps. When so much has been written about World War Two in the West it was refreshing to read something with an Eastern focus.

Brace Yourself…This Blog is About to go Off the Chain

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…Why I hear you ask? Two things:

a) This is the fourth post in one week (it must be all that semi-skimmed milk, the fat has gone to my head)

b) I’ve recently purchased this book:

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I mean, not that my blog was lacking before (I think we all can agree it’s the funniest thing since sliced bread), but now thanks to this book I can start myself on the route to fame and blogging fortune. It’s almost enough for me to chuck in the whole career thing and make my sole living off witty commentaries.

I’ve already learnt so much, for example did you know that public blogs can be viewed by everyone on the planet? That one knocked me right for six. I’ve also learnt that a ‘proper’ blogger should blog at least three times a week, hence why I’m gloating that I’ve somehow managed to put up four new posts in one week. Don’t get too comfortable with it though, I mean these bad boy writing skills take time to compose. I’d rather upload one post in two weeks than eight one liners in the same space of time.

Now it may say something about the previous owner when there are numerous frustrated scribbles and highlighted sentences, and I suppose their decision to ‘donate’ it to an Oxfam book shop may also speak volumes, but then I suppose they just didn’t have natural talent to nourish.

I’m not pinning my hopes of world domination and success on this one £3.49 book, I mean that would be silly. I will say this though; brace yourselves to have your minds utterly blown.

(…And if your minds aren’t blown? Well that’s the fault of the book, not me.)