Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

After a bitter divorce and rebound fling, Elizabeth was determined to embark on a year of self-enquiry.




She bases the structure of her book on 108 beads of the Japa Mala then divides the book into 3 parts - locations: Italy, India and Indonesia.

108 (re: beads) divided into 3 = 3 sections of 36 chapters. What is also curious is she is in her 36th year when she is truly discovering herself!

Parts 1 and 3 made the best reading for me.

Acceptance as well as allowing yourself space and time to think (rather than speak) were invaluable lessons shared.

I read this book in March (some time ago now) as part of a promise to myself to read one book per week (week ending 3rd January being week one) a New Year resolution for 2010.

Due to the film now based on this book, it has become a topical theme of conversation right now, hence I am including a view point in this blog.

I plan to see the film this week,featuring Julie Roberts as Elizabeth, an adaption I am both curious and keen to view.

Read my blog: www.writeaboutfilms.blogspot.com, coming soon!

I score this novel 8/10 (10 is high)

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

First novel by Helen Simonson...

A book with a wonderfully simple cover that provides reasons to set out to discover who owns each coat on the stand.

Ernest is a widower, who prefers the quiet life since his wife died. He demonstrates depth of character, a traditional stance and standards, yet under his formal exterior and awkwardness when someone stirs the passion in him, he is actually worldly-wise and sensitive!

Just when you think the story is going to be about his inheritance of his fathers second gun (after the death of his brother) one that when put alongside his own gun returns a pair, the storyline turns to an unexpected friendship that develops between himself and a shopkeeper in the village.

A love story unfolds that takes the reader into the realms of family obligation and tradition verses risk to obtain personal happiness.

I liked how he described the stage the lady he falls in love is in, "the very prime flowering of mature womanhood."

The character (Major Pettigrew) also reminds his son, "Youth is a wonderful time of vigour and action. For collecting friends and experiences." which I believe is so true to life.

The Author describes his relationship with another lady as having "developed a gravitational pull, slow but insistent, as a planet pulls home a failing satellite". Another description that I think is worthy of note and a situation that you can recall happening if not to yourself, someone else.

As someone who makes the most of an opportunity to take in the early morning air, I also found Helen's description, "The frost was still deep and the sun only a vague promise in the mid-morning sky" quite striking.

A book I just had to finish. A quirky yet lovely novel which holds a few surprises.

I score this book 7/10 (10 is high)

Moon Tiger

This is the first book I was given to read as part of a Reading Group, who I am yet to meet, which did present a challenge.

A Modern Classic by Penelope Lively that starts with a famous writer (Claudia hampton) dying in hospital, however by Page 208 I did not gather whether she was dying due to a terminal illness, accident or whatever... I wanted to know???

Her memories of times and life present an informative history. Main characters emerge such as Tom, her great love, Jasper her untrustworthy lover and father of her daughter, Lisa plus Gordan her brother who she adored.

There are great phrases throughout. An example of just one...
"She had drawn S.Dorset around her like a shawl".

Some food for thought too:
Sometimes in life you can feel "shuffled and re-shuffled" like a pack of cards...
Some do seem to "grab at the status of marriage..... at the first likely young man to come along."

A book which proved a vehicle to extend my vocabulary with such words as: propitiate, incandescent, admonished, malevolent, pruriently, atavistic, esoteric and recalcitrant... to list a number of them!

Lovely to read words I have not heard or used in a while like, "shufti".

Chapter 16 was like a prize after the previous 15, an old & stained exercise book used as a diary which revealed Tom's experiences and feelings. It was left for Claudia by Tom's brother.

This is not my kind of read, so I will not be running to explore more from this Author. I have achieved reading this novel from the beginning to the end. It is good to read many styles of writing and varied types of topic, so I guess it has been a broadening experience. I remain open minded....

On the basis of my liklihood to re-read and dimension of my enjoyment of it...
I score this book 5/10 (10 is high)

The Widow's Tale by Mick Jackson

Proved an easy read...

A rash decision to get in the car and go where the car pointed.... a woman new to widowhood finds herself in Norfolk where she rents a cottage leaving her
north-London home whilst she explores her feelings and new situation.

What the woman does is made more possible as she transpires not to have children or a job to consider. She is a woman who seems quite resilient, very independent with a feisty dimension.

Descriptions that took my attention were:
"The sort of vagueness born of emotional exhaustion."
"How death arrives all done and dusted."
"Death's intransigence that's so hard to swallow."
"Contain within oneself reservoirs of anguish."
"Statistics identifying the multitude of deaths", new widows in an instant, "how this does not generate comfort."
"You don't wake up each morning feeling a tiny bit better than the day before."

Written by a male author makes this story even more remarkable (some readers would despair at my opinion) as he captures a substantial part of the journey that takes place.

A candid account that is quite believable and honest, elements of which, I can relate to.

I loved the use of simple words such as: traipsing, pally, vivacious, feisty, sparkly, gawping, stoicism, reprehensible, resolve as well as tetchy.

A novel I am glad to have made time to read.

It is one route to settling with the past, to arrive at engaging in the present but yet to believe in the future.


I score this read 6/10 (10 is high)