Book Reviews - H
Henson, Pam
Tile of Book : Shimshal
Reviewed by :
Book Club Member
Category : Non-Fiction
Suggested Audience :
The story of a teacher teaching in a remote village in Pakistan in 2000. Three days walk from the nearest road, vastly removed from any way of life she knew. A privileged insight into a vanishing way of life. She tells of her experiences with sympathy, pathos and humour. Cooking unfamiliar food on a yak dung fire and the language barrier make a shaky start. Interesting short read.
6/10
Hill, Julie
Tile of Book :
Footprints in the snow
Reviewed by : Book Club Member
Category : Adult Non-Fiction
Suggested Audience :
As she drove home from work, in 1990, 29 year old Julie, broke her back after her car crashed, paralysing her from the waist down this disrupting her normal life, totally. She volunteered to become the worlds first paraplegic to have a revolutionary electronic device implanted into her spine and attached to the nerves that control her leg muscles. Julie’s story is unique and the culmination of thirty years of pioneering British research, started by eccentric Cambridge Professor Giles Brindley. Held together with little more than sticky tape and hope, the implant’s predecessors were a “Heath Robinson” creation, born out of DIY technology. Now, after acting as a guinea pig for 5 years, donations and the expertise of the medical engineers and the Surgeons, nursing staff, and electronic experts have made it possible for Julie to press on a button stand and step, even go cycling with her children. Furthermore the research has uncovered amazing and remarkable scientific discoveries that require the medical text book to be completely rewritten. An amazing story about Julie’s life the ups and downs, changes in her life, and challenges.
7/10
Hislop, Victoria
Tile of Book : The Island
Reviewed by : Book Club Member
Category : Fiction
Suggested Audience :
On the brink of her own life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother’s past, but Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete. Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend Fortini, and promises that through her she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Crete. Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone’s throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leper colony. Then she finds Fortini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip. Got into this book from the very beginning and found it very hard to put down. It was great from start to finish.
9 /10
Hoffman, Alice
Tile of Book : Skylight confessions
Reviewed by : Book Club Member
Category : Fiction
Suggested Audience :
This is a story of a couple who marry young and find they are the opposites in every way. They have 2 children before the wife dies of cancer. The children are both affected by her death and the fact their father has not loved them. This beautfully written story, follows on to the next generation, a grandson.
8/10
Hosseni, Khaled
Tile of Book : The kite runner
Reviewed by : Book Club Member
Category : Fiction
Suggested Audience :
Set in Afghanistan this is the unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant. The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel of a country in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption. It is also about the power of fathers over sons, their love, their sacrifices, their lives. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship, against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvasses of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. Just as it is old – fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject – the devasting history of Afghanistan over the past thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.
Although I found the subject matter to be a bit disturbing, it is however a very well written story and I for one cannot wait to see what else this author produces. I read it in four days which is fast for me.
8/10
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