David McK (3557 KP) rated Biggles: The Camels Are Coming in Books
Jan 3, 2021
Thankfully, Amazon doesn't know (or care).
I've just re-read this for the first time in something like 30 odd years, and it's amazing how well it actually holds together all those years later.
Like 'Biggles Learns To Fly' (which I also re-read recently), this is more a collection of short stories with little in the real way of any over-arching plot: vignettes which, if the author is to be believed (and I've no reason not to) are all based on true stories that either happened to him or that he heard about during his earliest flying days in the latter stages of World War One.
While the character of Biggles may not be as popular or as well-known today as during the years in which the stories were written (the 1930 through to the 1990s), there's a reason why they have endured as long as they have ...
Hans Ulrich Obrist recommended The Red Book in Books (curated)
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ClareR (5874 KP) rated The Trial of Lotta Rae in Books
Jun 7, 2022
The Trial of Lotta Ready Siobhan MacGowan is a story about the legal trial, and subsequent tribulations of a working class girl. Raped at 15 by a wealthy man, Lotta’s Mam and Pap support her in the battle to bring him to justice. But it all goes terribly wrong and before long, Lotta finds herself alone, on the street and trying to live under everyones radar. She is, however, often recognised from the newspaper articles, where they printed all of the lies from the trial.
This is a story of love and loss, betrayal and retribution, privilege and misogyny, with a background of the Suffragette movement and the First World War.
The narrator is, without wanting to give too much away, very interesting - and much more hard hitting because of that choice.
It’s a stunning book and highly recommended.
Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) rated A Single Thread in Books
Feb 3, 2020
<img src="https://i1.wp.com/diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Book-Review-Banner-18.png?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1"/>;
<i>When the team from LoveReading UK contacted me regarding A Single Thread, all I knew was that I loved Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier and would therefore read any other book she writes.</i>
A Single Thread follows the life of Violet, during the year 1932, a few years after the First World War. Violet has lost her brother and fiance in the war and is still learning to cope. She is labelled as a ”surplus woman” by the society, a woman that in unlikely to marry.
With the grief, the society label and the suffocation of her mother, Violet starts a journey that will change her life.
She is determined to find where she belongs and who she truly is, in a time where being a woman and succeeding on your own was not praised by others.
Her journey starts with a long walk in a few towns, something she used to do with her late father and brother, and it continues with her learning canvas embroidery (today knows as needlepoint), and the beautiful art of bell ringing (which pleasantly reminded me of The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, a book I read in high school and one I should re-read).
With Tracy’s writing, it is always so easy to lose yourself in the book and teleport to the past and re-live every scene as if you’re there. It is such a pleasurable experience.
I loved Violet, and I loved how she coped with all challenges of that era. Post First World War times were extremely hard, with too many men dying and too many women not being able to ever marry. Violet’s courage and hope kept moving her forward!
<b><i>This novel yells courage. It yells freedom. It yells independence. And standing along Violet, while she finds courage when you least expect to was a moment I will cherish.</i></b>
I recommend it to you, if you love novels in the war time period, or novels that talk about courage!
Thank you to the team at LoveReading UK, for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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