This was my first novel by Isabel Allende and I really enjoyed it. A story spanning a 100 years, written as a letter to her grandosn on her deathbed means the whole thing is first person and more or less entirely in the past tense. This gave the whole book a very relaxing feel, regardless of what was happening it never felt suspensful, which can be a positive or a negartive depending on what you're looking for in the book really. The writing is very nicely done, my edition is translated by Frances Riddle who seems to have done a great job.

I enjoyed the whole book and while there is no overarching theme there are common threads running through the book, feminism, failure, redemption and so on. The feminism side of things is interesting in this, as many of the secondary characters are active feminists involved in the movement while the protagonist doesn't seem too bothered about the search for womens rights, however she herself lives as though she already has all the rights and is clearly a feminist in the way she lives.

I'll try to read more of her work in the future as it looks like her other novels receive similar praise as this one has.

This was clearly a labour of love for the author, the amount of research that he must have done to cover so much is truely outstanding. The entry for each composer is relatively short but more than enough to give you a picture of the person and where they fit in the history of classical music composers, any more detail and the book would be unmanagebly long. I have since ordered specific books about certain composers based on what I read in this collection of mini biographies.

Whilst reading this I tended to put on music by the composer I was reading about, or related composers at least since I'd listen for about an hour to a single composer but would cover 3 or 4 biographies during that time.

In addition to the impressive amount of information here the way it is written is great. Within the first 2 pages for a given composer the author manages to paint a picture of the personality of them so vivid that it feels like I'm several chapters into a novel with that composer as the protagonist. The ability to give such a clear impression in a short amount of prose is to be admired.

There're some subjective opinoins throughout of course given we are discussing their music along with the composer themselves and whilst you might not agree with all of it it's always backed up with a solid line of reasoning and non combative. I'm sure as well the amount of space given to different composers also reflects the authors preferences somewhat but in the case I want to know more I'll search for a specific biography.

If you enjoy classical music and want to know more about how the music you listen to fits into the history of the world it's a perfect book for you. Loved every minute of the 3 months it took me to get to the end :)

I think there's some good advice here and some of the trainings do look they would work. As is always the case though each baby and family are unique so following the training perfectly will be almost impossible for most people. I plan to take parts from this book along with other advice from other books where they compliment or reinforce each other. One major issue with this book is that it's much harder to execute the plan if you are exclusively breast feeding. Whilst there are workarounds in the book for managing without formula or bottle feeding it's clearly not the approach the author would like you to take and means some of the steps won't work very well. 

This was such an enjoyable book I'm very grateful to the random stranger in the book store who recomended it to me. I was worried the diary structure would start to be iritating when I began, and had concerns that only viewing the world through a single perspective would mean the secondary characters would be a bit flat but these concerns turned out to be wholey unfounded. It's been a while since I felt emotionally engaged with characters but this hit hard in some places and was a nice chuckle in others. Well worth a read!

 There're 2 others written after the success of this and I might read them later but worry they won't be as good, I'll have to take a look at the reviews to avoid dissapointment.

The 3 body problem has a really strong premise, quite good characters and is nicely written. Sometimes it felt the characters behaved a little inconsistently and as a result it wasn't always easy to fully engage with them. Some of the parralels between the alien civilization and humanity were interesting but in both cases the way each character reacted to making such a large decision didn't feel quite right. The pacing is a bit mixed, with some sections being much faster than others which works in some cases but in others starts to feel a little rushed.

The plot itself is brilliant, as a first book in a series it sets everything up nicely ,though a little more closure in the volume would be nice. I'd read a few short stories by Cixin Liu before which I enjoyed so I expected to enjoy this one, especially given the acclaim it has received. That being said it's not phenomenal but still well worth reading and I'm looking forward to the rest in the series.

2nd Read

I've finally got around to tying to read the next in the series but since it's been a year I decided it best to re-read this first one before hand. I think I actually enjoyed it more this time, primarily because I wasn't expecting as much, and was pleasantly surprised rather than mildly disappointed. I still found some of the characters tricky but it's got me excited to read the second book.

This was a really nice biography of Lionel Logue with a lot of insight into his relation with the King. It works as a great companion to the film, it covers much more either side of the corination and his life as a whole. Full of details taken from his own records and notes compiled by his Grandson it tells the story in an engaging way whilst minmising literary license. Teaming up with the respected biographor Peter Conradi has resulted in a well paced, cleanly written, interesting book which is nice to sit down to for a relaxing informative read.

I enjoyed this collection of 10 short stories. I'd never read anything from Sudan before so a small collection can be a nice intro, this is a rather bizarre collection though. I've done a one sentance review, more or less, of each and the average rating comes out to near 3.5,hence that being the rating overall.

The Tank: An enjoyable little story, not too serious - 3.5
In the city: A look at a country boy moving to the city and how his confidence is misplaced now being a fish in a much bigger pond, - 3.5
A boy playing with dolls: I really liked this short story, which is actually another short story collection in side exploring various themes. Some of them I didn't fully get but the once I did were very nicely written . - 4.5
It's not important, you're from there: A second person view of a refugee from the south coming to the city. A bizzare dream like writing style that works well in these few pages - 4
Next Eid. Another look at a country boy moved to the city, this time more focusing on the difference between how those left in the countryside think of him and the reality of his life ein the city. I wasnt really gripped by this one, it felt a bit normal. - 3
Paasing. I struggle to see much related to the  city in this story, felt it could be a short story / study on death set anywhere. It was nicely written, just not sure of it's place in this collection - 3
The story of the girl who's birds flew away. A firts person account of a poet who becomes obsessed with a girl and her sister having seen them in the street. The imagery of the city is really nicely done in this one, but if you someone could give me a clue as to what we means by the birds it would help! - 3.5
The passage. Vivid imagery but doesn't feel like a story, would be an interesting part of a larger story however I see no plot in this so struggle to judge it as a short story - 3
The butchers daughter. Another in the theme of a villager moving to the city told from the perspective of a father concerned his daughter has fallen into an unnoficial marriage and eloped. A good little story, with some humor thrown is as well - 4
The void A brutal look at war from the loosing side, a lot of historical information throughout, it was a very interesting but heavy read. - 4

I chose to get a copy of Longfellows collected works after reading the Dante Club, a murder mystery where he appears as a key character (as the American poet who translated the DIvine Comedy). This certainly covers almost every poem ever written by Longfellow along with a few translations as well. It took me 6 months to read picking it up when I felt like it, and for the vast majority of the time it was very enjoyable. I wasn't a big fan of the 3 part epic "Christus, A Mystery" which did take up about a 5th of the anthology, which is the only reason why I am giving this a 4 instead of 4.5. I've put a little list of my personal faveourites at the end of this review, for my own reference more than anything. This was really the first classical style of poetry I'd read for a long time, excluding ancient works like Dante and Ovid, and I'll definitely be getting some more to read from other famout poets.

This must be the lowest rating I've ever given a book I plan to re read. Like a lot of reviewers have said you need to concentrate when reading this book, if you're in the wrong mindset you're not going to have a good time. I expect for a chunk of it I was not concentrating enough, but even when putting in the effort I'm not sure this is really for me. I must be missing something given the praise this book has received. 

The way the book flows is a bit jaded and leans towards the feel of a history textbook much more than a novel. Regularly it jumps months at a time in a few sentances with sometimes major plot points mentioned seemingly in passing during these jumps.

I can't say I found any of the characters particularly loveable except maybe the very first José Arcadio who was a bit of a loveable fool. The rest of his descendents seem to be mostly incestuous lunatics.

The idea that family members named Aureliano are

cursed with certain traits and lives when compared to those named Jose Arcadio 

is a fun idea, until you realise this means in a novel with about 30 male characters, 22 are called Aureliano, and then 5 or 6 José Arcadio. Even trying to figure out who is who in context is a nightmare because of the incessant incest. I assumed at one point that it must be cousin Auréliano having sex with the girl, but no... It's her

nephew... 

Not be confused with the other other Aureliano who gets of with his

  niece

, which started as rape but became a consensual ongoing thing because she liked it a lot?

The mirroring of the house, family, and town across 200 years effectively is really nicely done. With the

final

incest

of siblings resulting in the end of the family, and the final memories of the history of the town going with them

being the end to the saga

I'm going to keep hold of my copy to plan to read again given how well regarded this book is, but given how much I have my on my to read pile arguably more deserving I suspect it will be a long time coming. 

Having recently getting into more classical poetry recently I thought it could me interesting to try some more modern work and when I came across this on my local used book store I decided to cover it a shot.

I know Tim Key as a comedian and enjoy him as such, unfortunately the poetry is not for me. It's probably just a bit to abstract for me so allot of it just feels like random prose rather than poetry, it's a very subjective art though and I appreciate many people will not feel the same. That being said I did enjoy a few, and the Keith Power collection showing the process was very good. Given that I'll rate this 3 stars, despite being confused for the majority of the time. 

The ones I particularly enjoyed were:

* The Keith Power Collection 
* Identity
* On the Expenses Scandal
* Longtermism
* Ag
* The Valley of the Kings 
* Fun
* Brown's Eye
* For my Passagers Sake