I Used to Know That: Geography: stuff you forgot from school, Will Williams

I bought this book for an extremely reasonable 99p, with the intent of refreshing my fuzzy and unreliable memory re: GCSE Geography. The author puts a modern and relevant spin on concepts, as well as reminding you of certain ways of teaching long passed that are amusing to look back on. I found the physical Geography section a bit mind boggling, with too many tricky graphs. But it was still fun to re-visit river formation and coastlines. Unlike when I was at school, I really enjoyed the human Geography chapters, probably because I am more interested in the wide world now than I was then and have first hand experience of a few places. There were lots of statistics about consumerism and the effects of natural disasters, as well as a refreshing stance on global warming.
After reading this book I felt inspired to jog my memory on the other subjects, specifically History, Maths (eek) and Science (double eek). But unfortunately, as is a trend with Kindle products, the offer is no longer on and the price has gone up to 4.91, which just seems a bit steep for something I got free when I was sixteen!

3/5 ¶¶¶

The Wise Man's Fear, Patrick Rothfuss

The second book in the trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle (the third yet to be published), I was very excited to read this after loving the first instalment. Set in a fantasy world somewhere between Middle Earth and Hogwarts, the 1000 page story looks back on the early life of the legend Kvothe, a man now in hiding as a pub owner in a small town. The retelling of Kvothe's life picks up where it left off, at the beginning of his second year at university, with all the familiar people in tow: his best friends Sim and Wil, Devi the money lender, Ambrose the arch enemy and Denna the elusive but irresistible girl. After one term of lectures, lute playing, increasingly dangerous fights with Ambrose and continually scraping money together, Kvothe has to go to court for a crime committed in his first year. After this is dealt with, the people closest to him recommend he take a break from university, so he goes in search of Maer Alveron, a rich man who might just become Kvothe's patron if he plays his cards right. With quick wit and a fighting desire to survive, Kvothe soon finds himself living in the Maer's house, comfortable but bored and pretty much a prisoner.
At this point I'm afraid to say that for me the book got a little dull, dragging on for about a hundred pages. It just felt like nothing was really happening. I was extrememly glad therefore when Kvothe was finally sent by the Maer on a mission to kill some bandits. This was the beginning of many adventures, including mass killing, rescuing kidnapped women, losing his virginity to Felurian- a mythical creature so beautiful that men die rather than leave her- and training to be a Adem warrior. When he finally returns to the university Kvothe is a grown up, self assured and rich. I couldn't help mourning the loss of the cute-but-terrible-with-women pauper Kvothe, but alas, we all have to become adults sometime.
The most intriguing parts of the story were when Kvothe was continuing in his quest to track down the evil Chandrian. Especially his conversation with the Cthaeh, the all knowing oracle tree that revels in telling people everything bad about their lives. But I found myself wanting more of this, and willing Kvothe to get a little closer than he did to the truth.
The Wise Man's Fear was all in all an extremely enjoyable epic read (is it me or are books getting longer?), and one I would definitely recommend, although of course The Name of the Wind needs to be first.

5/5  ¶¶¶¶¶

F**k It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way, John C. Parkin

The F word in the title, huh? It must be worth a read!
I decided to look into this book after someone posted it on Facebook. I've always cringed at the phrase 'self help' and would never be seen dead in that section of Waterstones, but the Kindle has allowed me to explore new areas without anyone knowing. Haha! That's right, I can read self help books, erotic chick lit, even the bible and no-one will know.
At the beginning of the year I read The Secret, and enjoyed it in part but found the majority of it incredibly cheesy. Also it focused far too much on money. Of course we all want money, but I think the idea of being able to 'make money come to you' is quite gross. Like saying all poor or starving people just lack The Secret. And money often doesn't equal happiness anyway.
Fuck It, on the other hand, was much more up my street. The way of life involves realising how insignificant we and our problems are in the grand scheme of things and through this developing the ability to say 'Fuck It' and not worry. It talks about ways to relax and how to implement the Fuck It way in different areas of life. I particularly liked the part about not beating yourself up for not reaching certain goals, or for not doing things when you expected to. It's all about just letting things happen whenever, really. John C. Parkin is a bit cynical (maybe cos he's English) which made everything easier to read (for me, an ultimate cynic at heart). He's spent a lot of his life studying Eastern religion, and has taken a lot of it on board but with a very Western twist. He makes things seem achievable, rather than leaving you feeling like the ideas are too spiritual. For example he calls meditating 'sitting and thinking for a while.' And he's very aware of himself, his views and how not everything works for everyone. After explaining something he'll say something like- but not all of this will relate to you, so pick and choose what you think is good, and if you don't like any of it, then, well, fuck it.
I like that a lot.

I do think this book could be taken too literally, and lead to someone saying Fuck It to being pro-active, leading them to just wait for the bad stuff to go away and the good stuff to come. Which I don't believe would end well.
For me that's not what the book was saying though- the Fuck It way is simply about not worrying so much about stuff.  

Have a look at the website if you feel like it. Particularly the video of Parkin's kids talking about the Fuck It way of life. Pretty funny watching children being allowed to swear so much.

5/5 ¶¶¶¶¶

Brave

I know what you're gonna say- this film's for kids. But I don't care! I love Disney (and Pixar) and I'm not ashamed to say it. I believe the films have a universal audience and therefore deserve to be reviewed like any other film. So there!
I've been awaiting Braves release for a very, very, very long time, which of course paved the way for lots of hopeful expectation. And I'm terribly sorry to announce that, unfortunately, the film didn't live up to it.
I need to get over the fact that we've entered a hateful era of entertainment, where film makers are intent on creating 'epicly' beautiful images, vast scenery and fast moving action, at the expense of storyline, but I can't.
Why can't we have both, I ask you?
The story of Merida, the princess that doesn't want to fill her own shoes, is unoriginal, containing rehashed parts of numerous other adventures such as The Princess and The Frog, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. I understand it must be extremely hard to come up with new and interesting plots, but isn't there a whole team of people whose job it is to do just that? I know Pixar can do better (Monster Inc, Toy Story 3, Up) and to me the plot of Brave just feels lazy. Merida as a heroine is far less brave than Mulan, for example, and as a result the climax of the story is far less moving.
There are some nice sub-characters but none developed enough for me. The three brothers are entertaining but need dialogue to give them more backing. And the 'woodcutter'- clearly the best character going, barely has more than a cameo role. What's that about?
I do hate to whine about modern day cinema (or do I? haha), but I just don't see why a children's film can't be amusing and brilliant for adults too.
Having said all that, I'd still recommend it, even if simply for admiring Merida’s wonderful hair. It’s so pretty!

If you have seen it and utterly disagree with my miserable viewpoint, please do attempt to change my mind. Because honestly I wish that I'd loved Brave as much as I love so many others timeless classics that came before it.

The Treasure Seekers, E.Nesbit

Whenever I'm home now I take the opportunity to see what's on the shelves and read a real book. You have to believe me when I say most of them recently have been for adults, it's just that I decided to start writing reviews at a particularly child-literature-heavy stage. The Treasure Seekers (1899) is an old book of my Mum's and I love the Railway Children-also by E Nesbit- so I thought I'd give it a whirl. 
It is such a sweet story of adventure and mischief, quite fitting of an age where to live in Lewisham was not something to be feared.
Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel and Horace Octavius (HO) Bastible have no Mum and think their Dad is on the brink of financial ruin, so set about trying to 'restore the Bastible fortune' through any means possible.
Their schemes include digging holes in the garden, trying to sell home made alcohol and kidnapping their next door neighbour, who they get annoyed with for crying rather than playing along with being chained up in a makeshift prison. Another scheme involves Dicky desperately trying to get ill so they can test a new medicine on him. But all attempts to catch a bug are futile and when Noel gets a bad cold instead and is confined to bed, Dicky feels cheated. 
In the end, despite all the unsuccesful attempts at restoring the Bastible fortunes it all works out thanks to an 'Indian relative,' who mysteriously turns up. And this is where the fun really started for me. Oswald says, 'he didn't look like an Indian but just like a kind of brown, big Englishman.' Brilliant. Then the children proceed to interrogate him about wigwams. The racial icing on the cake, however, comes when the Indian gentleman himself says 'and as to young Oswald, he's a man! If he's not a man, I'm a n*gger!'

All in all a jolly good read for the under-ten child of the early 1900's!

3/5 ¶¶¶

The Other Side of Truth, Beverley Naidoo

            'A lie has seven winding paths, the truth one straight road.'

The Other Side of Truth tells the story of Nigerian child Sade and her brother Femi, who witness an appalling murder in their family: a murder that comes as a direct result of  the political opinions their jounalist father has been voicing in his articles. Worried for the safety of his children, he then sends Sade and Femi to England, a place where they will be safe and he can later join them. But after being screwed over by the person accompanying them, a series of bad things happen and Sade and Femi find that England is anything but safe.
The story follows the twists and turns of two terrified children, alone and clueless in a scary new place, as well as the role that social services has to play. I think Naidoo portrays these elements very well, in fact in parts it is so true to life that it brought back some serious memories for me of the African young people I used to key work in London. In the story, Sade refers to the woman that brought them to England as 'the lady,' which is exactly like the Ethiopian girl I worked with who would talk about 'the man,' who accompanied her. I realised in reading The Other side of Truth that it was probably fear preventing her from being more specific or giving more details- something that used to aggravate me during her important meetings with solicitors. The children in the book are too scared to give the woman's real name. 
Sade's feelings and both her old and new relationships are put across very well in the book. The bullying that happens is huge to her and through her eyes I really felt like a twelve year old girl, afraid of those who threaten her. The only thing that let the young people down in the story was some of the British dialogue, which I didn't think was particularly believable, although this could be simply due to it being outdated (the book is set in 1995).
As the children become more and more entangled in trying to help their Dad, the book unfortunately takes a rather farcical turn, proabaly to make it more exciting or hopeful for young readers. I also felt that the story ended abruptly, but if anything the fact that I was left wanting more could be viewed as a good thing.  
This novel is for teenagers, and I think Beverley Naidoo does a great job of trying to open young people's eyes to possible reasons behind immigration, as well as to the fact that England is a safe place, with freedom of speech that doesn't exist in other places in the world.
The Other Side of Truth has brought back a lot of memories for me, unfortunately mainly angry ones relating to the system we have here. The big problem that I have with unaccompanied children gaining asylum in England is that, as I know only too well, at eighteen they are more often than not sent back to their native country, regardless of the massive problems they are going to face.


Puffin Books, 2000

4/5  ¶¶¶¶

Why, Hello!

I have nothing to review right now. So there.