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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
2018 | Drama, History, Romance
4
7.0 (11 Ratings)
Movie Rating
A writer forms an unexpected bond with the residents of Guernsey Island in the aftermath of World War II, when she decides to write a book about their experiences during the war.



This one was a nice harmless kind of movie. Not one I'd feel compelled to see again, but enjoyable.

Before I went off to see this one I was read some comments on it from the Times. The assessment from their point of view was that this one won the award for “absolutely no screen chemistry whatsoever”. This is why I don't read reviews before I go. There was some awkwardness between the main characters, but had I not had that in my mind before going then I wouldn't have noticed. That awkwardness was entirely appropriate for the position that the pair were in.

There's nothing too objectionable about the Guernsey movie, apart from the long and unwieldy title it has inherited from the book. I just can't find anything more to say about it.
  
The second book in Donald Jack's Bandy papers series, this is the novel that convinced me to read more of his works.

Set during the last year of the First World War (1914 - 1918), I have to say I found this book to be funnier than both the later installments in the series, and than the previous entry ("Three Cheers For Me"): indeed, this book was the cause of me getting some funny looks when I burst out laughing in work one lunch-time ...
  
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Emma Watson recommended The Power in Books (curated)

 
The Power
The Power
Naomi Alderman | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
7.9 (13 Ratings)
Book Favorite

"Alderman challenges the cliché that women are more noble than men, and that a world run by women would be more gentle, with benevolent leaders and no war. In fact, women become power hungry and begin to repress men. They commit war atrocities, perform male genital mutilation, rape and maim for sport and kill to occupy land. With power dynamics reversed, the women don’t choose a righteous path – they act no better than men who have abused power throughout history. I think Alderman’s point is that people who abuse, do so because they can."

Source
  
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Dana (24 KP) rated The Book Thief in Books

Mar 23, 2018  
The Book Thief
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
10
8.8 (129 Ratings)
Book Rating
I have waited to read this book for a few years now and I am not sure why I did that. This book is phenomenal and gives a different insight into World War 2 that I haven't often seen in literature, especially in young adult literature.

Susan did a beautiful job in making his characters as human as possible. They were all multidimensional and we'll thought out. I truly loved them.

The narrator being who he was have this another deeper level that I very much respected. It became more than just Leisel's story and instead became everyone's story.

Overall, I adored this book and need to pick up another of Zusak's.
  
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Chris Hooker (419 KP) rated Zone One in Books

Jan 12, 2018  
ZO
Zone One
4
4.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I really wanted to like this book but it just wasn't there. The concept was good and there were glimmers of great character development but it seemed to much like "World War Z" and "I Am Legend", the movie versions which were not that good. Also the structure of the writing was more ADD than me....KITTY!...Oh, sorry but proves my point. With more structure and personality this books would have been much more enjoyable.
  
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David McK (3832 KP) rated Three Cheers for Me (The Bandy Papers, #1) in Books

Jan 30, 2019 (Updated Aug 10, 2025)  
Three Cheers for Me (The Bandy Papers, #1)
Three Cheers for Me (The Bandy Papers, #1)
Donald Jack | 2001 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
First entry in Donald Jack's Bandy papers series, of which I first became aware circa the early 2000s when I actually read the third entry ("It's Me Again"] first, and then had to go back and hunt out the first two!

Mainly because I found myself stifling full-blown belly laughs sitting on a bus on the way home from work reading it.

Which happened again here.

For those not in the know, in these early novels the protagonist is a Canadian air war ace, one Bartholomew ('Bart') Bandy, who seems to constantly find himself getting into scrapes, especially where it concerns the top brass of the time, and then - somehow - coming out of them smelling of roses, as the saying goes.

I have since went on and read the entire series, but - I have to say - I found these earlier instalments, set amongst the horrors of the First World War - to be the better of the books.
  
    Narvik

    Narvik

    Lizzie Nunnery

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    If I was to throw myself beneath that tide...If I was to let the water take me, till the cold felt...

The Tattooist of Auschwitz
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Heather Morris | 2018 | Biography, History & Politics, Religion
10
8.7 (74 Ratings)
Book Rating
It really draws you in (1 more)
Very well written
I love this book
I loved this book, it is so well written, it draws you in and makes you feel like you are there, brought me to tears a few times. This shockingly true story is a fantastic human look at the atrocities that people suffered in the most notorious concentration camps in the second world war and the real struggle to survive just to beat the Nazi's. I don't think I have read a better book about experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, heart breaking and heart warming.