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Advantages: Wonderful writing
Disadvantages: None for me

I discovered Margaret Atwood rather late in life, but as the saying goes, better late than never. One of my students had 'A Handmaid's Tale' as a set book for AS level English literature, and so this was my introduction to this wonderful authoress. I have since read my way through several of her novels, and am currently nearing the end of 'Negotiating the Dead', a non-fiction work about writing itself. Born in Ottawa in 1939, Atwood's infancy was ...
...her brother congratulated her. Margaret Atwood's writing career spans three decades, beginning in 1969 with her novel 'The Edible Woman' and reaching a climax with the award of the Booker Prize for 'The Blind Assassin' in the year 2000. For me it is easy to see why the prestigious prize was awarded to 'The Blind Assassin': it is a brilliant combination of two novels. In the first, Iris Griffen relates the story of her family between the two world ... Read review

Advantages: suitable for all ages no violence, sex swearing
Disadvantages: longer books may be a bit hard going for some

Isaac Asimov ------------------ His name hinting at the authors heritage, Isaac Isimov is of Jewish descent. Born in Smolensk, Russia, his family moved to the USA in the period between the two world wars. By mistake, this was thought that his family fled Russia, but this is not the case. Isaac grew up helping to run his parents sweet shop, and was no doubt gifted as a young child. Picking up reading and writing very early in life. his autobiography ...
...life, and on to university Isaac went from being an exceptional student, to being a very bright one. Was this to do with what and where interests really lay? Even not knowing what he may want to do himself, and the conflicts between what held his interest and what he studied at school? There was an explosion of Science Fiction magazines when Isaac was in his teens / early twenties, and Isaac began writing letters to some of these, sometimes with ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to use, home made sauces, no mess, healthy
Disadvantages: None

...We all know and love Jamie Oliver, the award winning Naked Chef, star of Jamie's school dinners and successful restaurants, books and cookery programmes. I am going to review today his Flavour Shaker. If you are not familiar with the Jaime Flavour Shaker it is actually one of his inventions. He modelled it on the process of a traditional pestle and mortar. A pestle and mortar grind ingredients together to make a nice paste or marinade but it a very ...
...strength and makes a lot of mess. The flavour shaker looks quite like a salt and pepper shaker and allows you to put in lots of different ingredients, shake it up with the help of a ceramic ball, and then turns it into a sauce. It has a lid on the top so no mess. My husband and I received one of these for a wedding present last year and have been using it all the time since. I like the fact that I can add my own fresh ingredients and that I am guaranteed ... Read review

Advantages: Hilariously funny and extremely engaging
Disadvantages: You might die of laughter

Jasper Fforde has to be one of the funniest people I've ever met. I met him at a book signing in Hey-on-Wye, where our friends, who run the local bakery, had sponsored him for several years, but hadn't this year due to a communications failure of some kind. Still, despite the fact that they weren't sponsoring him, he'd written them a jingle, which he read out at his presentation. Fforde is as good a stand-up comedian as he is an author, which is ...
...again after it gets the Jasper Fforde treatment. Every book he has written is a pleasure to read and will bring a smile to your face at the most random times, when you see a book sale, for example, or when you see a gingerbread man. If you want to know what I'm talking about, you'll have to read them, won't you? ... Read review

Advantages: interesting
Disadvantages: none

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis Minnesota in 1941. Her father Lloyd Parry Tyler was an Industrial Chemist and her mother worked as a Social Worker,Phyllis Mahon Tyler. They lived in several Quaker Communties before settling down in Raleigh, North Carolina. She managed to obtain useful information for her future novels so this was an excellent background for her to grow up in as she developrd a desire to write books. The other thing that inspired ...
...Duke University and she studied under an American Reynolds Pace who was also a novelist. In 1963 she married Taghi Mohammed Modarressi who is an I ranian born psychiatrist and she went with him to McGill University which is in Montreal, Canada. During her time there she was able to write her first two novels which were IF MORNING EVER COMES & The TIN CAN TREE. Then in 1967 they moved to Baltimore Maryland where she spent her time bringing up her ... Read review