My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The best thing about this book is that it has taught me more about what it’s like to live in Australia than almost anything else I’ve read. Steve Malins goes into detail about how he and his new wife find and buy their first home, how he finds work and what he does as a volunteer for the fire service. With his family growing, he describes their lives and their holidays taking me to places in Australia I will probably never see. This was a very enjoyable and interesting read written with all the lively enthusiasm I recognise from the author’s other writing.
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Being a beta reader for Sally Jane Smith is an absolute delight. This sequel to her first book, Unpacking for Greece, is every bit as lyrical and beautifully written and I feel privileged to have read both an early and later draft. After an incident in her South African youth derails a planned trip to Canada, Sally takes us with her on a solo trip through Greece to compensate for her disappointment. Seeking out the ancient monuments that pepper the countryside and giving us her special insights into their history and context, we travel with her largely on buses and on foot seeing the country as the locals do. It feels like a wonderfully authentic experience, every step of which I enjoyed.
Greece has so many treasures, many of which go unnoticed, but with her relish for walking rural tracks others would baulk at, Sally finds these gems of antiquity in incredible places. I love the way she pairs the books she reads on her journey with the areas and towns she visits; I also love her sensitive descriptions and thoughtful contemplation on the issues of tourism and its impact on this iconic land. Add to that the search for the places her mother visited revealed in snippets from an old diary that accompanies Sally on her travels, and this is a beautiful book and a must read for those who love and, like me, would love to visit Greece.
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve read nearly all Jacqueline Lambert’s previous memoirs. I also have a taste for DIY so I was especially keen to read this latest book in her series. For once, this is not a travelogue; in fact, poor Mark and Jackie have to deal with the enforced movement limitations of lockdowns in the UK during the Covid 19 pandemic. These restrictions dictate the progress of their project to convert an old army truck into a home and set the tenor of what was to result in a series of frustrating delays and catastrophes.
Written with lively wit and understated humour, the book details the problems, the costs, the issues with the friend whose premises and skills they are using and the disasters that occur along the way. Theirs was not a standard conversion, so it’s no ‘how to’ (or not) book in the sense of being a manual for van build-ups. However, there’s some useful information at the end about materials and products that would benefit others embarking on this kind of project. In the end, the fact that Mark and Jackie kept their sanity and their relationship intact is amazing. A great read, as always and I look forward to more of their adventures.
I received an advanced review copy of this book, but this is my unbiased opinion.
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Tammy Horvath is a remarkable woman. Born with a wander and travel lust, she was only really able to indulge her love of journeying to far off places when she remarried. Even so, her adventurous spirit was frequently taxed by fears both personal and for her loved ones. This book is a collection of stories about her holidays, both good and bad, and what she learned during and from them. I loved the way she faced her fears, especially her terror of heights and I was riveted by the chapter about Yellowstone Park.Having read her first book, I was again struck by her honest self-appraisal and her unfiltered stories about her relationship with her son. I was so pleased to learn how good and kind her second husband has been to her. She certainly deserves that happiness.
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve loved both of EJ Bauer’s earlier books and this one was no disappointment. Elizabeth and her sister, Louise, take us on a delightful leisurely tour from Rome to Venice and ultimately to Lake Como. However, the author’s journey begins in Umbria, where she and her brother enjoy a special week of cookery classes in a gorgeous farmhouse, a part of Italy I don’t know but now long to visit. I loved the gentle pace of the journey, the observations on the ‘side scenes’ Elizabeth sees, the focus on the cats they meet on their path and the conversations with the people they encounter. This was Italy from a delightfully personal perspective and I especially enjoyed re-living the Cinque Terra, Pisa and Florence, all places I’ve been to in recent years. Altogether, this is a charming travel memoir to be read and toasted, preferably with a glass of Italian white wine. Sit back, relax and enjoy the experience through Ms Bauer’s sensitively written descriptions.
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I was lucky enough to win this book in a competition on Facebook, and I’ve very much enjoyed my holiday in the British Isles with the three Moore sisters. On the surface, it is a travelogue of a three-week vacation in Ireland, England and Scotland, but it’s also a journey of discovery for the three sisters.
Elizabeth, the middle sister, cleverly weaves stories from their family’s past to explain attitudes and issues the sisters reveal along the way. All three of them carry some extra emotional baggage in addition to their suitcases, and on occasions, this baggage spills out and threatens to topple their ‘sister tent’, as Elizabeth calls it. Humour, however, usually wins the day, and that special connection the three have triumphs in laughter every time.
I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, both in travel and relationship terms. I liked the immediacy of the present tense Elizabeth Moore Kraus uses, and I enjoyed visiting the often unusual locations they chose to see – Belfast was especially compelling. Altogether, this humorously and sensitively written memoir is a lovely read that I can highly recommend.
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This is my first memoir review of 2024. Watch this site for further reviews in the coming weeks and months
This book by Stephen Malins was both a surprise and a pleasure to read. I realise I bought it a year ago now, so I’m happy to say it’s been worth waiting for. Although I thought it would be more about sailing (my fault for not reading the blurb with attention), I really enjoyed the parts about Stephen’s army training and his other travels, which were intermingled with his sailing adventures in Scotland and across the Atlantic.
The book is all about a young man seeking adventure and the path he wants to take in life, so I appreciated that he didn’t ‘sanitise’ his less admirable exploits and I came to admire his courage and determination in some pretty difficult situations.
Altogether, this was a great read, and I’m looking forward to the next book now. Stephen Malins has a lovely writing style for both descriptive narrative and humour; he is both articulate and funny. Highly recommended!
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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It’s been a while since I read Frank Kusy’s Lockdown Chronicles Part One, which I enjoyed immensely. However, I couldn’t help wondering if Part 2 would just be more of the same. I am delighted to say I thoroughly enjoyed this sequel and was just as entertained by Frank and Madge’s special way of enduring the awful swings and roundabouts of the chaotic pandemic regulations they were subjected to in England.
Frank is completely honest about their opinions on the way the pandemic and the vaccination rollouts were handled, but he somehow manages to reveal the madness without being cutting or bitter and his humour overrides it all. I loved all the memes and social media jokes; I enjoyed their daily trips out, often in sensible defiance of the rule to stay indoors; and I laughed at their interactions with the various people who coloured their lives during this taxing period.
Above all, I felt as if I got to know this lovely couple as I shared their daily lives for the duration. It seems hard to imagine it was only two years ago, but it’s even more important that he has written these books as a result. Well done, Mr Kusy. This is a great read and a brilliant record of the time.
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I read this book in December 2023
I’ve read a few of Shirley Read-Jahn’s books and am once again amazed by the incredible history she and her family share. With her father’s career as a spy and her own immensely exciting and adventurous life, I didn’t think things could get still more interesting, but this book reveals a fascinating family history based on her mother’s side of the family in the UK. I enjoyed the mix of memoir and fictionalised biography as Shirley develops the story of her grandfather’s and his forebears’ lives alongside her own quest to find a special book that reveals unique information about her maternal family’s history; a book that, even in her grandfather’s time, keeps vanishing.
I loved all the history and the family photos the author includes to support her story. I was intrigued by her grandfather’s connection to Charles Dickens, and I loved the details of her own attempts to find the book that kept evading her. This is an intriguing and cleverly woven story, and even if the history sections are written as fictional narrative, they are still largely true. Well done, Shirley Read-Jahn. The Vanishing Book is a marvellous testament to you and your family.
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Marvellous Memoirs: Reviews and links 