Oscar Wilde's obsession with books

Advantages: Full of fascinating information about Wilde's life and love of books
Disadvantages: None really, except maybe best enjoyed by those with some prior knowledge of Wilde

...The controversial Victorian playwright and poet Oscar Wilde, so the introduction to this book tells us, ?devoured and luxuriated in books?. He had a lifelong thirst for reading, so it?s not surprising to find that his house in Chelsea was packed with them. Not only was he an avid collector, but he was also an accomplished speed reader with a remarkable ? and to some extent photographic ? memory which helped him to absorb and recall instantly vast amounts of prose and verse. As a reviewer for the Pall Mall Gazette, he could master a book's content, plot or argument in minutes. (If only ciao had been around in those days as well). Maybe it is only fair to get the one major chink in his armour out of the way quickly. Once, when he was preparing a lecture on the poet Chatterton, most of his notes were made up of entire pages and paragraphs...

JOHNV 24.11.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Oscar's Books - Thomas Wright

A Book Lover

Advantages: Well-drawn characters. Creative use of words.
Disadvantages: A little difficult to adjust to the changing style of writing

...The Book Thief written by Australian author Marcus Zusak was published in Australia in 2005 as an adult novel and in America in 2006 as a children?s novel. It finally came to the UK in 2007 published by Doubleday and Black Swan in both adult and teen-age versions. Though I have to admit, I do not know what the differences between the two versions are! My copy and the one I am reviewing is the adult version. The novel proved to be a triumphant success greeted by glowing accolades from a wide range of literary reviewers ? excerpts of which can be found in the book. The most apt from The Irish Examiner, ?A peculiar tale, whose deceptively plain language and cryptic style describe the most profound of human emotions and the most hideous of human actions . . . an unusual and compelling novel? Set in Nazi Germany during the Second World...

MAFARRIMOND 03.06.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Tweenies Book

Advantages: children will enjoy it
Disadvantages: none unless your child wants you to read it aout 10 times a day

...I got this book from a book club for my eldest and now my youngest likes to look at it. It's a hard back book with each page inside being double thin card so that the pull out pictures are fitted in the middle of them. The book is called 'Come Back Colours' because Doodles (The red dog) has lost its colour and so have all the Tweenies toys. The front cover has a picture of the youngest Tweenie Jake and the colourless Doodles, when you open the book you see a picture of the other Tweenies (Milo, Bella and Fizz) on the opposite page is Jake with his special cape opening his arms to the colourless Doodles. The story starts ' One day, Jake put on his special coloured cape.' His job was to look after the colours but where have Doodles colours gone? Jake comes to the rescue waves his arms and says 'Colours come and colours go...

rojm 26.11.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Tweenies: Come Back Colours - BBC Books

Book Heaven

Advantages: Price, amazing offers, points
Disadvantages: Only one, see below

...If you love books and enjoy a good bargain, then look no further! The Book People are exactly what you need. Now, this isnt your 'usual' type of book club, like World Books for example, you will not be expected to buy a certain amount of books per year and you will not be sent books every month which you have to send back or pay for. When you join, all you will be sent is a thin brochure which shows a selection of the books they offer at fantastic prices. That is it. Read on for more amazement! The key features are: The books are cheap (examples below) The books are good quality You earn 1 point per pound spent and these can be saved up and redeemed for books. This can be done when ordering from both the catalogue and online. 75 points = £2.99, 100 points = £3.99, 125 points = £4.99 Usually free postage and packaging...

watkins11 29.09.2007 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Book People (Shop)

The Book With No Plot

Advantages: It's different...
Disadvantages: Not terribly cohesive, too many characters and sub-plots.

...This was a very strange book and one that I picked up as I was intrigued by the title and the fact that the author was Anonymous. According to the blurb on the back of the book this was originally self-published on the internet. The plot centres around (unsurprisingly) "The Book With No Name" - a book which if read leads to the death of the reader. I thought this sounded quite interesting but the mysterious book is not as central as you would assume from the premise. The other main plot focus is on the retrieval of a precious stone known as "The Eye of the Moon". This stone is rumoured to have magical powers and is guarded by a group of monks known as Hubals who live on an island. The book is set in Santa Mondega, a town that is a dangerous place to live and one that is conveniently forgotten about by the rest of the country. We are...

mogdred1 10.06.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Book With No Name - Anonymous

Books for free!

Advantages: see review
Disadvantages: see review

...Like most people I love a bargain! I also love buying books, both for myself as presents. So when I discovered The book people a few months ago I was very happy indeed! The book people. ************** The Book people are a company selling discounted books. They are not a club so there is no minimum number of books to purchase or any other catches. They simply sell books at hugely discounted prices. There is no shop to browse but you can either order from their web site at www.thebookpeople.co.uk or you can request a catalogue and use the enclosed order form or alternatively you can phone your order by calling 0845-602-4040. I have always ordered on line although once you have ordered you will receive regular catalogues through the post. The web site. *********** The first thing to say is that the web site is nothing fancy...

anwar 24.10.2008 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Book People (Shop)

A cook book for students

Advantages: easy to read
Disadvantages: not appealing

...I was bought this when I went to university. My auntie bought it me thinking that it would suddenly turn me into the next Deliah Smith or something but it didn't really have this effect on me at all! I didn't really use it and it was a good job it was quite a cheap buy so I didn't feel guilty for the fact it sat on my book shelf, hidden by all the huge text books I had to buy! Who is it for? This book is really very obviously aimed at students as you can tell by the title; "The New Students' Cook Book". When I first saw it I presumed that a cook book for students would contain very quick and simple recipes. When I was a student I didnt have much time for cooking and if I did want to cook something instead of order the usual pizza I didn't want to spend hours reading a recipe or fiddling around in the kitchen. This, isn...

lorriellah 26.11.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The New Students' Cook Book - Carolyn Humphries

Book of the boring.

Advantages: Latest Scarpetta - only an advantage for die hard fans
Disadvantages: Continuing downward trend, depressing.

...Overview Book of the Dead is the fifteenth novel in the Scarpetta series, written by Patricia Cornwell. For those who are not familiar with the stories, Kay Scarpetta is a trusted Forensic Pathologist who is extremely unfortunate enough to keep running accross numerous phsycopathic murderers. Luckily, with the help from her fiery but brilliant, millionaire neice, ex-detective and chauventistic side-kick Marino and ex-FBI profiler & long term partner Benton, she usually manages to come good and save the day. Even if there are a few life changing hiccups along the way. My Synopsis From the very first line we are catapulted into the mind of the killer. It is obvious he is above average intelligence and extremely dangerous. He calmy and coldly describes the torture of his victim and her inevitable end, he is...

watkins11 19.02.2008 (18.02.2008) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Book of the Dead - Patricia Cornwell

Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz - 17" TFT

Advantages: nice screen, good battery life, fast specs
Disadvantages: large size (price?)

...Apple mac-books, where to start... ok, so to start, it is an apple, that means you get a solid quality product and on the whole very good customer are. this particualar apple is deffinatly more suited to being a media center than other laptops. At first glance you realise that it is a fairly large laptop, this allows for a big screen, which being an apple ffers clear vivid displays, unfortunatly the big screen increases the overal size and also uses more battery, however, the 4.5 hour yattery is still very good for an entertainment laptop. The laptops technical specs include a very fast 2.5 ghz dual core proccesor which is very fast, the dual core allows it to tackle multiple tasks quicly as well as increasing the overall speed of the laptop. The price is quite steep however, but i believe, if given the money, it is...

pieceofmind 29.04.2008 (30.04.2008) · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz - 17" TFT

Wild about this book!

Advantages: excellent book to encourage reading
Disadvantages: none

...On a recent visit to the library, my daughter picked up this book ? Wild About Books ? and insisted that we took it home with us. I was in absolutely agreement because, as I rightly thought, any book about books had to be good. This is actually quite a brilliant book with an excellent story, clever ideas and rhyming as well! Above all though, and most importantly, it really does promote a love of books and reading! The story starts with Molly McGrew, the Springfield librarian, driving her bookmobile to the local zoo by mistake. At first none of the animals are interested as she turns on her computer and waits. However, it does not take long before their curiosity gets the better of them and they all come forward to take a closer look at these things called books! All sorts of animals come and take a look ? wombats, lemurs, lynx...

kingfisher111 14.09.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Wild About Books - Judy Sierra