Find by Audience Age:
Find by Vintage
Find by Genre:
Category Archives: Contemporary
The Fourth Thursday Next Took Me a While to Appreciate: Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde
Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde is the fourth book in the Thursday Next series. Thursday and her young son Friday leave their life in the Well of Lost Plots and return to Swindon where Thursday attempts to get her husband … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, British, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction
Tagged adventure, comedy, croquet, greed, Hamlet, Jasper Fforde, prophecy, Shakespeare, single-parent, supernatural, Thursday Next, Wales, witty, Wordplay
Leave a comment
My Favourite Thursday Next Novel: The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
The Well of Lost Plots in the third installment of the speculative, absurdist Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde… Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, British, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction
Tagged absurdist, action, adventure, British, bureaucracy, classics, convoluted plot, fantasy, fiction, greed, humour, Jasper Fforde, literature, memory troubles, novel writing, publishing, quirky, rich setting, satire, shady business practices, society, Thursday Next, well written, Wordplay
Leave a comment
Would you like world-ending pink topping with that? Lost is a Good Book is a generous second helping of Thursday Next from Jasper Fforde
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde is the second book in the Thursday Next series. Despite a sudden celebrity for saving Jane Eyre and improving the ending, not every one is happy with what Thursday has done. A … Continue reading
Posted in British, Contemporary, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction
Tagged absurdist, action, adventure, apocalypse, British, bureaucracy, convoluted plot, fantasy, fiction, greed, humour, Jasper Fforde, legal trouble, literature, novel writing, probability, quirky, rich setting, satire, shady business practices, society, supernatural, Thursday Next, vampires, well written, Wordplay
Leave a comment
Wit and wordplay, parody and playfulness, allusion and appropriation: Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair is to classic literature what Hitchhiker’s Guide is to sci-fi and fantasy
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is set in an alternate England, where home-cloned dodos are common house pets and the public’s passion for literature occasionally erupts in street violence. Thursday Next is a literary detective, part of a specialised … Continue reading
Apologetics Updated for our Age and My Favourite Christian Book of 2019: Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin
Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion was probably my favourite Christian book that I read in 2019. Using an engaging mix of research, anecdote and personal story, McLaughlin gives nuanced answers to some of the big … Continue reading
Insightful, practical, wise and biblical: Untangling Emotions by Groves and Smith
Untangling Emotions is a helpful exploration of feelings and what to do with them from a Christian perspective. Solidly biblical and extremely practical, it challenges some of our unhelpful approaches to emotions and unpacks what different emotions actually tell us. … Continue reading
Problem-solving run amok in Stuck, a quirky picture book by Oliver Jeffers
Stuck, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, is an absurd picture book about a boy named Floyd, whose kite gets stuck in a tree. The book follows his outrageous problem solving as he tries to get it down.
Pleasant, light reading that leaves me with a warm feeling towards my fellow-human beings: The 44 Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith
The 44 Scotland Street series by Alexander McCall Smith is a modern serial novel published daily in the Scotsman and subsequently in book form. It follows a number of characters in Edinburgh as they drink coffee, negotiate childhood with a … Continue reading
Posted in British, Contemporary, General adult audience, Light Fiction, Scottish, Serial Novel
Tagged Alexander McCall Smith, character-driven, child-raising, dogs, fiction, gap year, gentrification, good out loud, growing up, humour, lighthearted read, men and women, mild romance, modern life, music, narcissism, neighbours, poetry, Scotland, Scottish, social class, society, uni student life
Leave a comment
Is it possible to have a high powered job and a functioning family? It’s a lot easier if you have a ‘Wife’, according to discussion-provoking book, The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb
The Wife Drought by Annabel Crabb is an intriguing look at work, home, family balance and gender in modern Australia. Why do men, on average, work an extra four hours a week after the birth of their first child? Why … Continue reading
Posted in Australian, Contemporary, General adult audience, Nonfiction, Social Commentary/Analysis
Tagged 21st Century, Australian, child-raising, childcare, conversation-starter, culture, engaging with culture, family, feminism, glass ceiling, having children, men and women, politics, relationships, society, women, work
Leave a comment
Universities and uni students are changing: Lukianoff and Haidt provide a compelling argument for some of the fundamental beliefs that are driving the changes in The Coddling of the American Mind
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. If you feel it, it must be true. People are either good or evil. In The Coddling of the American Mind Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff argue that belief in these three ‘Great … Continue reading →