Book: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a powerful memoir about growing up poor in the Walls household - with eccentric non-conformist parents who had no interest in feeding their children. The Walls siblings moved to a new town within the United States or slept in the car each time their charismatic but alcoholic father lost a job. Jeannette Walls' story is one of resilience and coping with hardships in an unsympathetic world. Looking forward to the Hollywood movie adaptation releasing in August 2017: Brie Larson as the adult Jeannette with Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts playing her parents. I smell some Oscar buzz already.

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Book: The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh

The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh by Evelyn Waugh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This underrated British writer is a master of short fiction. The enthralling collection includes the story of an explorer who is lost in a remote Brazilian jungle and finds himself the prisoner of an illiterate native who wants him to read aloud the works of Charles Dickens - a storyline that was later expanded into Evelyn Waugh's novel "A Handful of Dust". Waugh's body of work would have merited a higher rating were it not for the dull opening story, but I persevered and my patience was rewarded. My only other grouse was the inclusion of fragments of incomplete novels, which serves no purpose and detracts from this otherwise brilliant collection.

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Books: "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

David Sedaris is at his wry best in this collection of autobiographical essays that mostly deal with his moving to Paris. All the essays are enjoyable but my favourite is one where American tourists travelling on the Paris Metro mistake him for a pickpocket.

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Books: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I wanted to read Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel before watching the television adaptation. I have been let down by hype before, but "The Handmaid's Tale" lives up to its fame. This is a powerful and hard-hitting tale of a theocratic dictatorship that may have seemed far-fetched back in 1985, but is entirely plausible in the new world order of 2017. Highly recommended.

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DEAD CELEB INTERVIEW: Audrey Hepburn

Audrey, did you read this newspaper feature about Christie’s auctioning your stuff?

Hand me my purse, will you, darling? A girl can’t read that sort of thing without her lipstick.


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Books: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yaa Gyasi's "Homegoing" explores the slave trade and its impact over the generations from the 18th-century British Gold Coast colony to modern-day Ghana. Each chapter in this ambitious novel is from the point of view of one of the descendants of half-sisters and the stories are linked by a pendant passed down by families. Highly recommended.

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Books: A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates

A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was my first Joyce Carol Oates novel and it's a difficult read beginning with the lives of "white trash" migrant farmworkers in the United States. Teenager Clara somehow escapes this depressing life and finds herself torn between her unreliable saviour Lowry and lover Curt Revere. Her son Swan cuts a tragic figure. Protagonist Clara is a strong yet almost unlikeable character in a novel that takes a harsh look at the difference between the social classes. I would have given it more stars and it probably isn't Oates' fault, but Swan's story in the third part just didn't resonate with me.

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Books: Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished this just in time for the new Netflix series based on the 1908 novel by Canadian author L. M. Montgomery. Anne, the red-haired orphan girl who doesn't stop talking, moves to Green Gables farm in the fictional Canadian town of Avonlea. Her vivid imagination and charming quirks eventually win over anyone she meets. This is a heartwarming novel - for readers young and old - about Anne's journey through the joys and sorrows of life. Recommended.

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Books: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a disturbing novel about a man with a low IQ becoming a human test subject for an experimental surgery that turns him into a genius. Does this make Charlie Gordon happier? Written as a series of diary entries by Charlie, with grammar and clarity of thought improving in each entry, the reader is given heartbreaking insight into the treatment of the mentally disabled. Now I need to read something that will cheer me up.

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