The Night Circus

Brilliant. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was such a beautiful, magical and DIFFERENT book. It took a little while to warm to the story and characters, but the book cast a spell on me literally and I couldn't put it down. It is unlike any other book I have ever read - part fairy tale, part romance, part mystery but mostly just brilliant. I highly recommend this gorgeous book.

'The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads: Opens at Nightfall Closes at Dawn. As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears. Le Cirque des Reves The Circus of Dreams. Now the circus is open. Now you may enter.'

Do yourself a favour - put down the ridiculous fifty shades of grey and read this!

The Woman in the Fifth

In my newly found appreciation for the local library (cost cutting tip #1 for me) - I am reading all sorts of not so new releases.

First cab off the ranks was Douglas Kennedy's 'The Woman in the Fifth'. You may remember me reviewing The Moment (here on the blog) a few months ago and raving about his book. So it was with a high level of expectation that I took The Woman in the Fifth home from the library.

Harry Ricks is a man who has lost everything. A romantic mistake at the small American college where he used to teach has cost him his job and his marriage. And when the ensuing scandal threatens to completely destroy him, he flees to Paris. He arrives in the French captial in the bleak midwinter, and ends up having to work as a night guard to make ends meet. Then Margit, a beautiful, mysterious stranger, walks into his life. But their passionate and intense relationship triggers a string of inexplicable events, and soon Harry finds himself in a nightmare from which there is no easy escape.


I really like Douglas Kennedy's writing - its easy, unpretentious and yet tells an exciting page turning story. This book has all these hallmarks and was easily read in a couple of page-turning nights.


However, about 9/10ths of the way through the book, I was horribly let down. Unfortunately I can't divulge too much because a) it may inadvertently turn you off the book or b) completely ruin the gripping finale. What I will say is that I was very unhappy with where the book went and I'd REALLY love to hear if anyone else has read the book and felt the same way.


I will now hunt down another Douglas Kennedy book (there appears to be quite a few) and see if any of them can live up to The Moment for me.

The Secret River

Kate Grenville's novel 'The Secret River'  published in 2005 is part of a trilogy about early Australia (along with The Lieutenant, published in 2008, and Sarah Thornhill, published in Australia in September 2011).

It's set in the early nineteenth century, on what was then the frontier: the Hawkesbury River, fifty miles beyond  Sydney.

William Thornhill, an illiterate Thames bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep feelings, steals a load of timber and is transported to New South Wales in 1806. Like many of the convicts, he's pardoned within a few years and settles on the banks of the Hawkesbury River. Perhaps the Governor grants him the land or perhaps he just takes it - the Hawkesbury is at the extreme edge of settlement at that time and normal rules don't apply.

His interactions with the Aboriginal people progress from fearful first encounters to (after careful observation) appreciation. The desire for him to own the land contrasts with his wife wanting to return to England and Thornhill will do anything to keep her happy and in Australia 

The story is a terribly tragic account of Australia's earliest history and describes well the confusion, fear and ignorance of the early settlers.

Reading the book made me think about my history - and the history of the white settlement of Southern Africa. It is still an issue there today - land ownership for the black people, especially in rural and farming communities is virtually non-existent. The story of Australia's history is not that different to parts of South Africa and its seems to me that neither have found resolution to the injustices of the past.

This was a great read, a bit dark and brutal in parts, but a fascinating insight into our history nontheless. Highly recommend this book - would obviously make a great book club read. Would we make different choices faced with the options that Thornhill and others faced?

Diminishing book stack

Yes I'm still reading....just not writing about it so much! After spending all day on the computer at work, I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to sit down to the computer again at night.

I've read quite a few books since my last post (not surprisingly considering how long ago that was) - I received books for Christmas and birthday, so I've been making my way through quite an impressive book pile. I won't write much / any on some them as some were too long ago to do justice to any proper review and some were purely designed for an easy beach read.

These are in no particular order (and do not include the easy beach reads!):

The Happiness Project: I really loved this book and I've tried to implement many of her ideas into my life - just to make life a little more easy and a little more 'happy'. The book is the end result of the blog written by Gretchen Rubin on trying to actively make herself happier - there is nothing particularly new or earth shattering in her discoveries on what makes people happy, but sometimes we need to be reminded to focus on these things rather than being consumed by our daily routines.

The first project I adopted was clearing out a lot of clutter - it was very cathartic and it did reduce stress which in turn did make me feel happy!

There are other little 'happiness' projects I've embarked on from inspiration in the book, but I encourage you to read this book and use it as your own inspiration to squeeze any extra happiness you can out of every day.

1Q84: What a bizarre but brilliant book. It took me a while to get into the book - written from the perspective of two quite different characters - but once I got going I thought it was amazing and I couldn't put it down.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes was beautifully written and I can see why it won the Man Booker prize. It really makes you think about your memories and your own interpretation of them. I'm sure many of my memories have been embellished or altered to fit what I would have liked to happen or how I would have liked to think I would have behaved. Food for thought.....and a great book.

Death comes to Pemberley by PD James is set in 1803 and it a nostalgic look at life in the 'big house' from the perspective of the lord and lady of the house. It is a slow, beautiful and easy read with a bit of old-fashioned mystery thrown in. There are some great characters in the book and I could have kept reading about their lives and their connections - but I can't believe that women used to think and live like the ones depicted in the story. They obviously did, but it seems so archaic and patronising. Lovely book and I think its making the book club rounds.

I am about to start an intriguing book - The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks -so off to bed I go.
Would love to hear any recommendations of books to add to the pile.....

The Travel bug

Yes I know its been ages.

I haven't been feeling like writing for a while now as I've been sad. When I'm sad I'm not very good at writing (unless you all want to hear my morbid thoughts), running, cooking, sleeping or parenting - so its been an interesting few weeks but I'm beginning to feel the sun on my face and the joy of the simple things again.

So this post (and probably the next couple too!) are a retrospective look at some of the books I've read since October....

When we returned from our amazing trip to Africa I had been inspired by this lovely lady, Sue - we met on a sunset cruise on the Zambezi (as you do) - who told me that she was a travel writer and was writing a piece on travelling through Zambia and Botswana with her mother. Well - of course that seemed like a dream job and anyone who knows me, knows that I love a new career idea and I went into full research mode as soon as we came back to Australia.

Two books were recommended to me - firstly, Lonely Planet's guide to travel writing (recommended by Sue when I stalked her via email) and secondly, Travel Writing 2.0 - Earning money from your travels in the new media landscape by Tim Leffel (which was highly recommended by Book Depository).

Lonely Planet's guide to travel writing is a fantastic read about how to go about the business of travel writing, the styles to adopt, what to avoid and many, many useful tips.

Travel writing 2.0 on the other hand was a practical look at the realities of the 'business' of travel writing and promptly brought my idea crashing back to earth. It is a very difficult, competitive business with only a handful of writers around the world truly making a decent living out of it (my new friend Sue being one of them).

The realities of my life are of course that we are very settled in our home town, husband's business is here (and without which we couldn't travel!) and most importantly our children are settled here.

Instead I will indulge my love of travel and adventure sporadically. I just no longer expect to make any money out of the venture!

I do have lots of lovely ideas for places to visit in South Africa with children, so please don't hesitate to pick my brain....