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Advantages: Was 247 pages long
Disadvantages: Made me feel guilty about my eating habits, again!

Having read some reviews on this book, I thought it would make a very good companion for my summer hols. A light-hearted look at society in the 1960’s through the eyes of a young boy, and sprinkled liberally with anecdotes about food. It all sounded very promising, and so I popped into Waterstone’s and picked up my copy from the ‘buy two, get third free’ table. I am sorry to say that the book disappointed me. Last year, I read ’Where Did It All ...
...memories of early childhood and which used food as a backdrop for his reminiscing. ‘Where Did it…….’ was a funny read, and I felt a real affinity for the young lad who could have been living down my road. Nigel Slater failed to do this for me. I started to dislike him after a few pages, and hoped that this would change after turning some pages. It never happened. Nigel was cloyingly close to his mother, who had had him after a 15 year(?) gap from ... Read review

Advantages: Insightful, honest, riviting
Disadvantages: nothing - unless you are easily offended

...S Thompson's work has taken the opportunity to write a book about the man himself following his (suicidal) death in early 2006. Stedman himself has admitted this was started as a form of therapy that allowed him to make sense of the hole this crazy man left when he put a gun to his head and left us forever. Very few people are as well placed as Stedman to tell us about the man who was Thompson but Stedman not only worked with him for 35 years but ...
...trip down memory lane that the reader is invited to join. The book starts where the legend of Gonzo began, in 1970 when Stedman was assigned to illustrate an article Thompson was doing on the Kentucky Derby. From the onset the relationship appears doomed after Stedman manages to offend both family and friends of Thompson's with his lewd and unflattering portraits. However, Thompson obviously recognized a man who against all odds, got him and matched ... Read review

Advantages: Interesting read and good insight into Hellé Nice's life
Disadvantages: Too absorbing - you'll finish it too quickly

...I found this book in the biography section of my local bookstore, I had never heard of Helene Delangle, or Hellé Nice, the stage name that she took. The synopsis on the back cover intrigued me, and once I'd started reading the opening chapter, I knew I had to purchase and read this book. Helene Delangle was born in 1900 in a tiny French village, just outside of Chartres. She moved to Paris and became a dancer but went on from there to become the ...
...along the way. A serious accident almost ended her racing days, and then later, after the Second World War she was accused of having collaborated with the Gestapo. I'm not going to use this review to go into her life further, as Seymour does this during her book, and frankly, I don't want to ruin it for you! Seymour lays out this book extremely well in order to capture each different period of Hellé's life in equal measure. She begins the story ... Read review

Advantages: Discriptions of Sculptures and Frescos. Italian Renaissance.
Disadvantages: Subjective interpretation. Lengthy and sometimes difficult to read.

...year old Michelangelo Buonarroti began the carving of the 17ft marble statue the Biblical King David. Now renowned as a masterpiece of Renaissance art, David is regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty. To mark the 500th anniversary, New American Library released a special edition of Irving Stone’s biography of the artist- “The Agony and The Ecstasy.” “The Agony and The Ecstasy” has achieved a reputation of a masterpiece in ...
...Michelangelo but THE biography. No-one can criticise Irving Stone’s dedication and commitment to his novel. He worked on the novel for six years researching primary sources in Florence, Rome, Carrara and Bologna. He studied all of Michelangelo’s existing 495 letters as well as a vast amount of other Renaissance documentation. He even learned how to carve marble to be able to portray the act realistically. A lot of time out of anyone’s life!! But ... Read review

Advantages: Great inspirational reading
Disadvantages: Bit long winded when she laks about other race competitors

Black White and Gold is the biography written by 2 times Olympic champion, Dame Kelly Holmes. She starts the book in March of 2005 as she is sitting in a limousine driving towards the gate of Buckingham Palace. She is off to receive her Damehood and she says how surreal it felt and how she had to pinch herself to make sure it was really happening. She tells how she joked with the other people who were also their receiving their Damehood and Knights', ...
...to have the Queen place the sword on each of her shoulders, she tells them all she is going to kneel down anyway! As we all know she did not and she received her dame hood in the correct way! We are then taken back to her early years and she tells how when her parents found out she was pregnant and had split up from her boyfriend they did not want her to have the baby but she went ahead and when Kelly was born her mother was given the choice of ... Read review