Mister Pip

I finished this a few days ago and I've been a bit stumped about what to write...here goes!
    It's set on an Island called Bougainville.  (I found out it's a real place, an Island in Papua New Guinea...near Australia.)  It's told from the point of view of a 14 year old girl, who's living through a terrible civil war in the 1990s.  As a reader we never really get to know what the war is about. The only white guy on the Island ends up being the village teacher and reading them Dicken's Great Expectations.  This book takes the kids away and opens up their imaginations and they all suddenly realise about the power of dreams.  I'm glad I have read Great Expectations, otherwise this book would have been a real chore.At first the book is quite dream like, almost fluffy in its style  with lots of descriptions of people staring into space and thinking a lot....I wouldn't have minded all this staring and thinking  if the author had given the reader a  slight indication of what the HELL they all were thinking about and staring at.  I just don't think the author was able to successfully get into the character of being a 14 year old girl because when the tone changed and the  extreme violence kicked in, it all just left me cold really. I didn't really care because not one of the characters seemed real to me at all. This Lloyd Jones guy  might have transported his main character successfully into the grimy world of Dicken's England but he totally failed in taking me to the tropical island of Bougainville.
It's a shame really because I really wanted to like this book. The idea behind the story was great but I just think this writer was  trying too hard to be all 'intellectual' and 'write clever stuff' and failed miserably. Terrible things happening to characters in books only work if they are people that you believe in and this was a sham.  To be honest I'm quite angry that the violence left me feeling just slightly sick.
The best thing about this book was the rather beautiful cover.

The Fast Diet

I read this this evening. It took me one sitting to digest this and yes, I was fascinated.  I'm also bloody starving as I have started this 5:2 diet today.  I'm not into diets at all but yesterday I ate enough for 4 people so even if I don't continue the famine at least I have slightly readdressed the balance.

This book was a sane, logical argument in favour of restricting calorie intake (500 for women) on two days a week. The other 5 you can eat what you want to. It sounds easy.  I'm sure it isn't. But the  benefits seem immense according to the book.  I'm not sure about the benefits in reality! Today I have had 2 weetabix, 1 tea with milk, a miso soup and a salad and lots of herbal tea. I have been teaching  teenagers and this afternoon I was climbing around cleaning all the classroom white boards.  I feel BLOODY STARVING AND KNACKERED!  I have decided to come to bed early for a change and hopefully fall asleep soon. I really want some wine to knock me out.  Luckily I don't have any.

It.ll be worth it though because if I keep this diet up I might live to be 140 years old with no dementia. Now,that will be fun! Being so old and remembering with perfect clarity all the days I spent eating BUGGER ALL.  can't wait!  Night...

Lionhearts:Saladin and Richard I

Got this from the library and it's taken me a while to get through it but I surprisingly really enjoyed it. It was a bit like reading A Game of Thrones set  in the 1190s but without the  dragons or any women. 

(I googled  'life of women in the 12th century' and got nothing much apart from poor women got up at 3am, fed the family and the chickens, worked on the land, made candles out of animal fat and died at around  age 35!)  Life really was so grim on this Earth that the symbolic heavenly paradise of Jerusalem was political and religious gold for the people who controlled it.  

The book kicks of with the life of Saladin.  A man of culture and learning who was able to unite most Muslims from Egypt to Iraq and organise an  attack on the foreign invader expansion in his lands. He also had the respect of the local Syrian Christians who liked his fair minded and pragmatic approach to life. He begins the conquest by killing off the evil corrupt Christian knights who control the trade routes. This took me back to his adventures in Karak and  Shobak castles in Jordan. He then had an amazing victory at Hattin where he killed off thousands of Christians by simply blocking off their access to fresh water. Genius.

Richard I , King of England, (who much preferred living in France to the grim lands of England.) heard about the advances of this mighty leader and he decided it was time to reclaim the Holy Land back. 

 Richard I comes across as a great warrior and logistics manager but someone who could also behave like a 5 year old whenever he wanted to.  He was good with money and spent the cash that he gained /stole/bribed through his travels through France, Italy and Cyprus really well .Even though most 'Christians' in Europe were at war with each other, he managed to get everyone behind the greater cause of regaining the holy land back off the Muslims. Richard I was like a self publishing brand.  I see him as a Simon Cowell/Mountbatten character.Weird but true.

Richard's travels across Europe are a joke. Every leader hates him, but he has money, vision and strategy plus he's canny enough to treat his soldiers well.  I love the way he gets his 'Iron Army' of thousands down the cost from Acre to Jaffa. He organises  the boats with supplies. He has the guys on their days off safely walking on the beach completely exhausted carrying  all the equipment. The knights are protected by the longbow men , foot soldiers  and the highly organised Hospitallers and Templars at the rear. It's a perfect example of team work but  the irony was that  Muslim attack was less of a worry than the tarantulas, mosquitos, thirst and  heat. 

Reading this  makes you aware of the long standing political  and emotional reasons behind the tensions in the middle East.  What I didn' trealise was how strongly  Europeans hated each other.  After his experiences in the Middle East Richard decided it was finally time to travel home to sort out problems back  in England.  Unfortunately Richard suffered from extreme sea sickness, so travelled back by land. This resulted in him being locked up in a German jail for 4 more years.  Bad luck!  That guy sure would have a few tales to tell!