reading

Our Betty – Liz Smith

bundleofbooks Leave a comment

The first time I saw Liz Smith, she was dressed as a swashbuckling grandma in the CBBC series, Pirates, about a family of pirates who decide to settle on dry land in a normal family house. The series was fun and the characters were always getting into trouble. The second time I saw her, was when she walked past me at her local shops near Hampstead Heath. As a child I was so excited that I had just seen Grandma Pirate in the flesh, but was much too nervous to speak to her.

Since then, she has been hard to miss. She pops up everywhere with either quite small parts or much larger roles, such as Nana in The Royale Family, who managed to capture the heart of a nation. Continue reading →

The Autograph Man – Zadie Smith

bundleofbooks Leave a comment

I haven’t read a book like this for a long time and it was a nice change. Reading Zadie Smith is like a breathe of fresh air with her colloquial and modern style of writing. The dialogue between the characters is believable, even if most of the storyline is a far fetched.

Alex-Li Tandem is an Autograph Man who buys, sells and fakes autographs. He has an unhealthy obsession with a movie star, Kitty Alexander. He is a lazy, self destructive twenty-something, living in a messy apartment, spending his days drinking and smoking too much while watching old films. After waking up one morning with a horrific hangover and no memory of the last couple of days, Alex-Li finds a very special autograph, one that he has been waiting years to receive. But why has it been sent now? And is it really authentic? He travels all the way to New York to find out. Continue reading →

Top 5 Books That Inspired You To Read As A Child

bundleofbooks 9 Comments

As a child, I remember hours of car journeys with my dad playing a certain game called Top 5 Favourite. It was more interesting than Eye Spy and more exciting as I really believed my dad had made it up. It’s only in the past few years that he has admitted that he stole the idea from Nick Hornby‘s High Fidelity. However, I still love to play this game on long car journeys.

Recently, someone asked me why I loved to read so much and how they could get there child to love reading. I thought about it and came up with my Top 5 Book That Inspired Me To Read As A Child. Continue reading →