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Advantages: Strong plot
Disadvantages: Too much for it's length

Today I had an AS-Level English Literature, in which I had to write an essay on Brain Friel's "Translations", so I thought since it's still fresh in my mind, I should talk about the author and the book and share this. The play "Translations" is set in 1833 Ireland in a village called Baile Beg, despite the fact it was written by Friel in 1980. This time gap allows the author to distance himself from the times and introduce humnour into what was ...
...an oncoming potato blight, which audience will already be aware of, creating dramatic irony. The play is set in a hedge school, an informal establishment which provides education for adults in Baile Beg. The schoolmaster, Hugh, appears to be the most authoritive figure here despite the fact his son, Manus, appears to be much more intelligent, but the way Friel exaggerates Hugh arrogant ways, by using the most elloquent language in order to assert ... 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

Advantages: great writing in two genres
Disadvantages: she won't lay off cheap romance

Tami Hoag is a best selling American author of suspense and romance novels. I can only comment on the suspense ones as I never read romance. I first read one of her books, Cry Wolf, last autumn. I was very impressed and decided to read more and do some research on this author. Before publishing her first book, a romance novel in 1988, she held various other jobs. After a number of love stories she moved on to crime writing. Hoag published thirteen ...
...been made into a TV miniseries. Due to her high profile success she also participated in one of Barbara Bush's literary function and was asked to read at it. Here is a quick overview of her work, afterwards I will mention which ones I'm familiar with. Independent crime Novels - Still Waters (1992) - Dark Paradise (1994) - A Thin Dark Line (1997) - Dark Horse (2002) - Kill the Messenger (2004) - Alibi Man (2007) Kovac/Liska Series - Ashes to ... Read review