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Notes from a Small Island is Bill Bryson's account of travelling around the UK for a couple of months in the early 1990's, just before he returned to live in the US after living in the UK for 20 years. He wanted to recall all those things that had made the country special to him during that time and to take stock of the public and private faces of the people who lived there.
Beginning with a retrospective look at Bryson's first trip to the UK, 20 years earlier, his recollection of arriving in Dover offers such an interesting perspective of a time and a place which no longer exists now and nor did it, even in the 1990's. When his new sojourn begins his observations of Britishness and the things that make the place unusual, are crisp, clear, precise, amusing and cleverly insightful. He draws a picture of those things that we, as Brit's, so often overlook and take for granted, things that make us uniquely us.
I first read this book a few of years after it was originally published in 1995 and loved it, especially as I was living away from the UK at the time. It was a delightful read and had me laughing-out-load in places. Revisiting it again, over fifteen years later, was no less entertaining. This travelogue offers a rare insight into a country and it's people in time. It provides wonderfully clear and expansive descriptions of it's various places. It is an entertaining and humorous account and a joy to read. Even though the years may have rolled on it is clear that some things just don't change. Notes from a Small Island really is a timeless read.
9.7/10
Paw and Order is the 7th book in the Chet and Bernie Mystery series. As usual, Chet the dog is the narrator and his ideas and thoughts are often laugh-out-loud funny.
On this occasion Chet and Bernie find themselves in Washington DC, visiting Suzie Sanchez, who is Bernie's on-off girlfriend. She is now a reporter for the Washington Post and has picked up a keen interest in politics. She stumbles across a source for a story she wants to write about the upcoming elections and steps right into a murder. Chet and Bernie get involved as Bernie becomes a suspect in the crime. So their adventures begin!
I adore Chet the dog. He is funny, smart and gets side-tracked by things like food smells, squirrels, cats and loss of train of thought, but he always gets "the perp". Bernie is a loveable character, too, and the two are inseparable and work as partners in the Little Detective Agency which is based in Arizona.
If you want a different kind of detective/crime novel, filled with humour and narrated from an unusual perspective, then these books are the thing to pick up. Without fail each one has been an interesting adventure filled with all kinds of likable characters and Spencer Quinn makes Chet the dog's voice so realistic that I often find myself forgetting that he is a dog, that is, until he sees a squirrel!
Paw and Order goes on sale on August 5th. Be sure to get a copy, you won't regret it!
9.7/10
This is the first in a series of "Miss Fortune Mysteries" about CIA agent, Fortune Redding, who is in hiding in the sleepy backwater of Sinful, Louisiana after one of the worlds largest arms dealers placed a price on her head.
Having been ordered by her Director to lie low until they can deal with the threat, within minutes of her arrival at Sinful she is drawn into a murder investigation and finds herself embroiled in all sorts of shenanigans with the leaders of local Woman's Association, who seem to run the place. What ensues is a great romp in the bayou with likable characters and an unsolved mystery.
This is only the second book of Jana Deleon's I have read and I really enjoyed it. Even though the story is set in the Bayou, as is the other book I read, the stories were entirely different. Fortune Redding reminded me of Sandra Bullock's character in Miss Congeniality and this story was even more entertaining than that film!
I am so glad I have found Jana Deleon, I really love her books which are part humorous, part mystery, part spoof. I am definitely going to get the rest of the books in this series.
If you like to be entertained with interesting characters, mystery and humorous dialogue, then this is one for you.
9.8/10
