TBR

RELEASE NOTES:

Update 29/6/05

In an Unconventional move, I've had a bit of a cull of the TBR Monster...erm...I mean Mountain. This will be tripping off to Brum with me on Friday & hopefully going home with a new, altogether more eager reader on Saturday...

Enjoy the book - and safe journey! :O)

Picked up at the Unconvention, many thanks lucycat! I hope to be a more eager reader - it's certainly a book I have been interested to read for a while, and another that was foisted upon me with the words "You haven't read this? Well you MUST!" I always do as I am told.

Well I did enjoy the book, even if it took a year to be read!

I found it both moving and amusing, even though at times it was hard to follow who was who. Perhaps this is because I rarely read for more than 30 minutes at a time (I developed the habit while children were underfoot and now seem to have lost the ability to concentrate!). Nevertheless I think a family tree at the beginning would have been a tremendous help to keep track of the Teds, Jacks and Alberts. That, as well as the "footnote" format made the whole thing seem a little disjointed for me. I'm not entirely sure why it was written in this way but I was never sure whether to read the footnote when the reference was made, or wait until I came to it.

One question that seems to come up in the discussion guides I have seen, is why is the book is called Behind the Scenes at the Museum? I'm really not sure but it seems to me that the family is presented as a musuem piece (i.e. over four generations) and we are given a "behind the scenes" look at it. Or have I missed the point entirely? Quite possible.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Leaving this book in the house we rented for a week.

I found the book while on holiday at "Les Palmiers" in Cessenon. I have read it and found it sufficiently compulsive to stick with it to the end. It was well written but I hesitate to say that I enjoyed it hugely. The events described were fairly mundane; it is the book's odd structure that raises it above the very ordinary. Despite the war scenes, I would suggest that it is an example of "chicklit". Its most compulsive characters are female. The closest comparison I could make would be with the novels of Maeve Binchy - but I prefer those. I intend leaving the book where I found it because I doubt if I would want to re-read it or recommend it enthusiastically to friends.