Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns

 

 

The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E Nesbit

 

The Snow Forest by Charles Masefield

When I initially saw this book, the muted grey cover picture of an classically quiet forest covered in snow and the name of the author sounding like an eighteenth century romantic poet lead me to believe that the gentle plot would about nature and the weather. How wrong I was! I was swept away in an intricate and dynamic story more akin to a fast moving Midsummer Night’s Dream acted out by the Marx Brothers.

The plot shows Heaven, Hell and Purgatory as a modern bureaucratic organisation and how the characters in that system interact with each other and the physical world down below from where they originated. The plot is extremely imaginative. Characters from the upper world discover how to go back to the mortal world where they interact with mortals. This sounds rather grim and bleak, but actually is the opposite. There is a lot of fast-moving humour. I was particularly impressed by the author’s imaginative manipulation of the plot and character development.

Ananda by Lali A Love

 

This is a book containing 38 poems written by Lali A Love about the spiritual world and the journeys and experiences within that world.

As beings we have dual existence. We live physically as flesh and blood: we also exist as a soul which lives just behind the pineal gland in our brain. Just as our physical body needs food our spirit needs nourishment also. This books provides some wonderful sustenance, reminding and teaching us of our own spirituality, our qualities and how to grow them; love, creating good karma, positivity, light thoughts, change, self love, gratitude, humility. Each poem provides a meditation that centres on aspects of spiritual life.

|I think that it is impossible to just read the poems once, they can be kept to refer to when you feel low or need spiritual guidance and confirmation. They are not to be read in one go but dipped into throughout your life. It is the sort of writing you can go back to years later and find new things.

I didn't know the word “Ananda” so researched it. Ananda in sanskrit means bliss and happiness, signifying reaching nirvana and escaping the reincarnation birth/death recycle. Ananda was also the cousin of the Buddha, who persuaded him to allow women to become buddhist monks. He was called Ananda because he was born on the day that the Buddha achieved nirvana.

Below each poem is a short extract from an established spiritual writer such as Rumi, Ray, Chopra, the Buddha as a sort of qualifier and strengthener. The cover pictures the soul as a burning flame, and established truth, but in contrast the text for the cover is in a very modern font, san-serif, almost like it comes from a computer. I liked these two concepts in juxtaposition, the new growing on, giving new life and developing from the established old. This symbolises the spiritual life as something relevant and vital in the modern world, something that we all need right now.

Lali A Love must be congratulated on writing such a wonderful collection of poems. She has done a very good job in portraying spirituality through physical words. I imagine myself picking up one of the poems, holding it to the air in my hand and squeezing it. I watch a cloud of starlight and colourful sparkle fly out and trail into the sky.

A Time For Violence: Stories with an edge.

I have never entered the world of written crime noire before and was pleased to the take this opportunity of a free download for a review. I have read all the other excellent reviews on Goodreads of this book and don't think I can surpass their quality so I will just add my own impressions. The book consists of twenty-six short stories about crime and violence. This means twenty-six different approaches and written styles. The stories are varied and each one comes as a new surprise. If you don't like the plot you will be carried through it by the author's style. There is blood and violence, I normally don't like this in media, but I could accept it here as it was the written word in my mind and not graphic pictures seen from my eyes. The violence didn't seem real. I found it exciting to discover new ways of writing; new imagery and simile that I learnt from. I could almost taste the blood in my mouth. The pedigree of the writers is impressive. I didn't know any of them so researched some of them out of curiosity. Andy Rausch, please forgive me! I should have known about you. Your writing pedigree is impressive. I stand in awe. The stories are firmly based in American culture. Words are different, things are different. Being English I didn't always understand them; I often don't understand plots of police crime, have to see a TV programme more than once to "get" the plot when it gets complicated. I sometime become lazy and don't "get" it at all and don't bother to find out, so just soak in the feeling and ethos. Did this with some of the stories here. The American approach made it harder. Will finish off by talking about just one story which stuck out for me, "Guns, Mirrors" by Richard Godwin. I found this a bit of a puzzle. Not set in America but Surrey, England, about a man fantasising about the American Cowboy Dream and living it out in Old Blighty. At least, that's the way I interpreted it. Either this man really did come from Kentucky, or he was so  delusional that he though he came from Kentucky, I was never sure about the reality of this. I always felt the dichotomy of what was real and what wasn't. The truth blurred between the two. No one really imports a thousand bottles of Wild Turkey from Kentucky, no-one keeps one thousand buffalos in a field in Surrey. It is all a fantasy in his head. In the end I felt nothing but pity for the characters living in such a psychosis. I give credit to the author for writing so cleverly to give out this blurred image. I think he gives a clue from the title of the story. This anthology is a collection of interesting and varied stories. I appreciate the quality and diversity. In antithesis I felt that it  approach the subject in a somewhat fixed way; stereotyped images of money, revenge, misogyny, blood, robbery and violence, gender and race. Ideas and thought systems stuck in the past: ideas have now now moved on.

 

Bernice Takes A Plunge by Ann Harth

I found this book to be a delightful, sunny and joyful read.

It is about an older child living in Australia who aspires to be an author, and as all authors should do she carries her author's notebook with her and is very observant of things. She is continually planning out her next novel and takes inspiration and interpretation from incidents she sees. This leads her to seeing things that she thinks will help the Police following a recent robbery from a famous local person, and takes her into some wonderful adventures.

I particularly liked the way the author, Ann Harth, planned out a very tight plot. She puts in several devices as clues along the way and the several strands that I wondered why are included come nicely together at the end. Being a seasoned police detective studier I recognised some of these strands and could predict why they were there and the outcome; but some I did not and there were some surprises for me. It was like a jig saw puzzle being pieced together. So although the book is aimed at children, it gives adults that like detective stories a shorter light read as well.

I did like this book. I consider it police drama for beginners. 

Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns