Dear Reader

Welcome to BookCrossing and thanks for being a part of World Book Night 2011, the largest book giveaway in history. 1,000,000 specially printed copies of 25 different books changed hands on March 5th 2011 and began their journey from reader to reader. This book is one of them. World Book Night has joined with BookCrossing to help track these books as they travel. You can be a part of that journey by making a comment in the book's journal here on BookCrossing. Your journal entry can say how you got the book, what you thought of it, your plans for it or whatever else you might like to add.

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Thanks in advance for being part of World Book Night and BookCrossing. And happy reading and sharing.

This book is being released via BookCrossing on 5 March 2011 as part of the inaugural World Book Night. With the full support of the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, World Book Day and the BBC, one million books will be given away by an army of passionate readers to members of the public across the UK and Ireland.

Read and release!

I picked this up as I was dropping off some books at the The Forget-Me-Not Trust shop in Brighouse. I have read it but when I spotted it was a WBN book I had to have it! I was hoping to read some JE's from previous readers, maybe find out how it got from London to West Yorkshire but that will have to remain one of life's little mysteries. It will travel on from me, either to another BCer or will go north of the border when I head to Scotland next year...watch this space ;o)

And here's a copy of my review from when I first read the book in May 2009:

I loved this book, an intriguing mix of mystery, drama & Atkinson's (sometimes) warped humour. The characters leap into life & situations are so easy to visualise.
This scene from very early in the book has particulary stuck in my mind & for some reason makes me smile...Julia, five years-old, at the time has just cut off her finger...

Rosemary(the mother) threw a tea towel over the bloody hand, scooped up Julia & ran to a neighbour who drove them in a screech of barkes to the hospital, leaving Sylvia & Amelia(older sisters)with the problem of what to do with the tiny, pale finger, abandonded on the kitchen linoleum. (An ever resourceful Sylvia thrust the finger into a bag of frozen peas & Sylvia & Amelia caught a bus to the hospital, Sylvia clutching the defrosting peas all the way as if Julia's life depended on them)

(The book I read before this The Mermaid Chair also involved amputated fingers...hope it's not some sort of omen....)

I think this is my favourite Kate Atkinson book....well so far anyhow :o)

Released as part of the 4ELEMENTS Challenge (#40)
& the 2012 TV SERIES Challenge (#5)




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Thrilled to have picked this up - set in Cambridge, so I'm hoping for some descriptions of the town centre and buildings.
Will take back to the launderette when I've done!

Brilliant! I'm getting hooked on Ms Atkinson - I like that she "breaks the rules" i.e. tragedies happen but it (weirdly) doesn't add a sense of sadness to her tale, and she uses recurrent themes: young neglected girl looking after older chap: Jackson and his car crashes: and the theme which has intrigued me the most (in the 2 books I have read, the other being When Will There be Good News) is the study of victims years after tragedy has struck them. Riveting and a real pleasure to read: she takes the reader skipping through the pages, and her attention to detail (which I admit I'm far too picky about) is pretty much flawless.

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