What I'm reading

I have started The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This is not really my kind of book, but it was time for fiction again and I received a very strong recommendation to read it. Here is the blurb:

A fight to the death - on live TV. The game show where you kill or die, and where the winner's prize is survival. In District 12, where Katniss Everdeen lives, life is harsh and brutal, ruled from afar by the all-powerful leaders of the Capitol. The climax of each year is the savage Hunger Games - where twelve boys and twelve girls from each District face each other in a murderous showdown. When sixteen-year-old Katniss is chosen to represent her district in the Games, everyone thinks it's a death sentence. Only one person can survive the horrors of the arena. But plucky Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature... 

Memoirs of a Fruitcake - by Chris Evans

This book was a natural follow on from the first one and is just as well written and organized. This part of the story of his life  includes a period when he nearly lost everything and was in a strange mental state. I enjoyed reading about his slow return to success, but was most impressed by the attitudes that the experience seems to have left him with. It is very honest writing, which is what I value in an autobiography.

I look forward to the next volume, as, even though this book brings us more or less up to date, I am quite sure that Chris Evan will have more to say before long.

What I'm reading

I have started Memoirs of a Fruitcake by Chris Evans. I enjoyed the first volume of his autobiography, so I thought it was time to get up to date. Here's the blurb:

In Its Not What You Think Chris Evans had written himself a recipe for success. He was poised on the brink of seeing it become a reality. All the right ingredients were there: he was rich, famous; now he was the owner of his own radio station and media company. What could possibly go wrong? As it turned out, the answer was everything…well almost.When we left our loveable ginger hero at the end of It's Not What You Think, Chris Evans had just used his hard earned cash, built up over a hugely successful TV and radio broadcasting career, to purchase the immensely lucrative Virgin Radio.For a while, it looked like Chris had made it. He had achieved some of the highest listening figures radio had ever seen, defined an era of television with Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday and as owner of his own radio station, had become a media mogul playing alongside the big boys.But little did he or any of us know, things were about to take a very dark turn. Fired by the station he once owned and embroiled in the ensuing bitter court case, Chris’s long held childhood dreams of a job in radio lay in tatters. An endless drink fueled lifestyle with an array of so-called ‘mates’ began to take its toll. Bored and creatively frustrated, the shooting star of British broadcasting had plunged into a downward spiral so deep that escape seemed almost impossible. Until, that is, along came his salvation in the form of a young singer called Billie Piper. Only then could Chris see a way out of the madness.Would he be able to rise phoenix-like from the ashes again? Would he ever be able to regain his popularity, his professional reputation and find true personal happiness? Wouls Chris finally find the maturity to discover that in fact, it is not all about him?Told with the same wit, verve and startling honesty that suprised and delighted readers of It’s Not What You Think, this is the final part (for now) of Chris Evans’s journey of self discovery, in which he learns what it is in life that is most important.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - by Mary Ann Shaffer

I was a little nervous about this book, as I had recommended it to my book club without having read it myself, but I was reassured when a couple of friends told me that they had read and very much enjoyed it. I am even more reassured now that I have read it myself.

This book suited me on all levels. It is a good story, with strong, well rounded characters and I felt confident that I was learning something. There are essentially three stories: the events in the life of the main protagonist, the soap opera of the lives of the Guernsey people and the history of the German occupation.

I very much enjoyed the letter format, which gave the story a pleasing immediacy - almost like email. Although there were dates, I found myself paying little or attention to them. It is quite an emotional book. It starts out very "feel good" and cheerful, but induces other emotions as the story proceeds.

What I'm reading

I have started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, This is the next book for my newly formed book club.  Here is the blurb:

It's 1946 and Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her - and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name.

One Good Turn - by Kate Atkinson

This story starts off as an apparent road rage incident occurs, with various witnesses. It proceeds from a number of viewpoints  - mainly the aforesaid witnesses. Numerous story lines with all kinds of interconnections are a trademark of the author and this book is typical. It needs concentration to keep track of all the threads, which don't really come together until right at the end. I enjoyed the book and I am wondering if any of Kate Atkinsons's book have been made into books or put on TV.