More than just an old book shop

Advantages: Selection of books, atmosphere, good website
Disadvantages: Parking, distance from most of the UK

...I am an avid book reader & purchase books new & seconhand. The new ones are bought from places such as Amazon & the supermarkets & the used ones from Green Metropolis web site or the odd book sale. At book sales the choice of books can be limited to dog eared Mills & Boon novels, Delia Smith's cookbooks from a generation ago, how to operate a computer using Windows 3.1 & a 1954 steam train spotter's guide. All absorbing stuff to some people, but not for me. About once a month I drive to the North of England & pass a lovely town called Alnwick just off the A1 between Newcastle & Edinburgh. In Alnwick is one of the largest second hand book shops in Britain located inside the old Victorian Alnwick railway station called Barter Books. In stock are about 350.000 books & there is something for everyone. HOW TO FIND IT To find Barter...

ScottishWestie 21.11.2008 · Read review
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Review of Barter Books (Shop)

Free Old Man's War book

Advantages: Imaginative, Free
Disadvantages: Read the book on computer

...John Scalzi's sci-fi trilogy begins with Old Man's War (followed by The Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony); the story is told in first-person narrative by a retired ad writer named John Perry. As the title suggests, Perry joins the military when he is seventy five years old, and is given a brand new enhanced body via mind transfer (kind of like the Hulk - green and bigger) The story then go through the basic training and eventual deployment against a variety of aliens; John Scalzi certainly put alot of effort on making them as varied as possible. While the storyline and structure of the book is somewhat similar to Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers (especially towards the end of the book), the general style and tone of the book can be more associated with Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. I regard this book as an update...

blueonred 23.07.2008 · Read review
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Review of Old Man's War - John Scalzi

A great read for an old book

Advantages: a great read from start to finish
Disadvantages: none

...When I was younger I used to love reading, I would read pretty much anything, but then I had kids and my life became quite busy and my enjoyment for reading soon went out the window, not a lot of time for reading anymore, then I found sites like Ciao.co.uk and Dooyoo.co.uk and I would spend my spare time reading, rating and writing reviews but never really any books. Well that was until lately, my mum passed away in July of this year and being her only daughter I got most of her personal belongings which included her large selection of books. Why I picked this book in particular The book in question is called Born Innocent, a fiction book published by Bernhardt J. Hurwood, judging by the condition of the book it is a pretty old book, I think that?s why I choose to read this book in particular, rather than anything else from my mum...

jenny967 30.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Born Innocent - Bernhardt J Hurwood

A Book Lover

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

...the sky turned red; the second recounts her presence at a scene when a group of starving Jews were being marched to a concentration camp ? a young boy in the crowd takes pity on an old man giving him a piece of bread ? the boy and the Jew both beaten as a result.. Zusak weaves both stories into his novel. The Book Thief of the title is nine year old Liesel Meminger. Liesel steals her first book at the funeral of her younger brother. Liesel and her brother were on route to be fostered, taken by their mother. Her brother dies unexpectedly and is buried quickly in the snow. Liesel spies a book and hastily grabs it as a reminder of the last time she saw her brother and her mother. Liesel, alone, is deposited with her new family Hans and Rosa Hubermann; a quiet kindly accordion-playing papa and a foul-mouthed hard-working mama. She is...

MAFARRIMOND 03.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

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
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Review of Oscar's Books - Thomas Wright

Theatre of Dreams - Old Trafford

Advantages: The best team in the world, good facilities
Disadvantages: Expensive and busy

...I have visited Old Trafford twice in 2 seasons now specifically for the United v City Derby. The ground has good transport links to Manchester via Tram, Bus, Car and "Football special" train. Initially I had some reservations about attending the ground for such a "hard fought" fixture, however the reception of fans and organisation was most excellent. I would recommend catching one of 3 special football trains from Manchester Piccadilly (on match days) to get you to the ground in around 10 minutes.... these trains are two commuter style trains that are joined together - arrive totally empty and can generally find space, with some standing, for everyone who is waiting. The train drops you off by the south Stand, which is not far from the away section, major entrances to stands and the club shop. Match days are very well policed...

jedimasterlincoln 30.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Old Trafford

Old Man of Hoy

Advantages: Beautiful scenery and an unusual natural sight
Disadvantages: Walking is necessary-although that isn't really a disadvantage at all!

...The Old Man of Hoy is the tallest sea stack in Europe at 137m and an impressive natural site for those who are sick of all the archeological sites around the Orkney Isles. Originally a headland, the sea stack is created when the force of the sea washes swirls and causes pressure on the land between the stack and the mainland until it falls away leaving just its very edge as a stack. Early drawings show the stack with an arch extending from its base, which has since been swept away, from hence it gets its name since it looked like a bent old man. The island of Hoy is the second largest of the Orkney archipelago, just off the Orkney mainland and is said to have got its name from the old norse meaning high island as it is the only island in the chain to have any high land with the highest point being Ward Hill at 479m. Hoy can be reached...

flyingllamas 22.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Old Man of Hoy, Orkney Islands

Tweenies Book

Advantages: children will enjoy it
Disadvantages: none unless your child wants you to read it about 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
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Review of Tweenies: Come Back Colours - BBC Books

Old design hides great new features

Advantages: Huge, High res display. Very quick, great processor, ram, high capacity HDD
Disadvantages: No unibody design, some features only available on SMALLER model, Still no Blu-Ray

...Let me be frank. I am a fan of Apple computer. This is no secret. I love more or less everything they do, and although I hope to be objective, here, you are reading the review of a card carrying member of the Cult of Mac. I had heard that apple had been prepping a redesign to the MacBook pro line for some time, and had held off on purchasing my new macbook pro until this happened. Sadly, the updates came, and the 17 inch top end model was not part of the refresh. The cool new unibody macbook pro's are limited to the 15 inch model. I agonised over the choice for some time, the new 15 inch MBP's are so impressive, but eventually, screen real estate won out, and I brought the older design 17 inch model. I have to say, I am not disappointed. The computer is a replacement for my old 17 inch PowerBook G4, which was itself no slouch...

bitesizepankakes 18.11.2008 · Read review
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Review of Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHz - 17" TFT

Hardwick Old Hall

Advantages: Historical, interesting, great views
Disadvantages: Not a huge amount to see

...A couple of weeks ago Mr Tart and I headed for the Peak District to visit his family. As a big fan of all things old I wanted to visit some sort of historical site as my part of the weekend (don?t worry, her got a 7 mile walk out of me for his part!). I?d always wanted to visit Hardwick Hall, especially as the Tudors is one of my favourite historical periods and was very happy to hear it was so close to where we were staying. SOME HISTORY: I doubt if many people will have heard of Hardwick Old Hall. I certainly hadn?t and I like to think I?m quite a bore when it comes to these sorts of things! The Hall was built by Bess of Hardwick (Elizabeth, Countess Shrewsbury) between 1587 and 1596. Bess was one of the foremost women of the Elizabethan age and managed to get through four husbands on her way up the social ladder. Bess was...

tartlette83 11.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Hardwick Old Hall, Derbyshire