100 books

This is the guy who leads L'Arche communities across the globe. Its a beautiful, warm, practical book that really brings out the wonder of community life. Read it.. Its great.. Sorry such a short review but I'm VERY behind and so need to catch up and read rather than write!!

Picked this up on a whim in Sainsburys. And have been very pleasantly surprised.. this is much more than a celebrity novel. I think much of the inspiration for this story has been taken from Baddiel's own search into his Jewish roots. The story follows the story of a Jewish family: a rabbi and his rebellious son who marries a Catholic girl. Subsequently they emigrate to the UK, escaping the Holocaust. However, he is soon interned in an ironically Daily Mail supported piece of British Government folly. Its pretty well written- easy to read, with some lovely light moments. But in the downside it, like lots of other things I've read this year, has a slightly disappointing ending.. definitely worth a look though..

This is a tiny book that was written after Muggeridge made the first television documentary about the life and work of Mother Teresa. It’s a really lovely wee book. Mother Teresa is portrayed very warmly, at the time before she got hugely famous and was accused of milking the media.. I loved it. Muggeridge is a good writer for a start. And his subject- well lets face it I’m going to enjoy most things that are about a life of prayer and serving the poor. In all a great little read

I liked 80% of this book more than the Da Vinci Code. Brown paints the picture of some really very beautiful characters and you kind of get lulled into this false sense of security that actually he might be shaping up to be quite nice to the Catholic church. Then in the last 80 pages or so it once again becomes clear that someone at a catholic school use to beat him up on a regular basis! I wish I had read this before Da Vinci… its outlandish but more fun in a weird kind of way. And yes, its compelling reading. I dredged through it in about a day and a half.. and that with seeing friends too.

On second (or maybe third) read this is a real grower. Rowling actually threads some good themes through the longest yet of the Potter stories. It doesn't beat Azkaban for me in terms of grippingness (Ithink you expect a big ole fight just now), but it is good. ANd lets face it I'm just looking forward to the Half Blood Prince now.

I don’t like this book. I think I can cope with children finding an amazing magical world in the back of a wardrobe, but I can’t cope with the idea of grown men finding life on Mars. Maybe I was looking for too much in it, maybe I just don’t like sci fi but yuk yuk yuk.. But because its Lewis I’m going to read the rest of the trilogy!!!

Erm.. it took me ages to get this book read. I just couldn’t focus on it. Now I know it’s a literally classic, I know its an essential tool for those studying leadership, political thought and medieval European history. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it does it? Machiavelli focuses his thoughts on what a person (intrinsically male in this context) must do to retain power when they have managed to procure it. Famously he talks about the need to make the people fear you before letting them love you. A good adage perhaps for teaching, but I’m not sure its one I would like to live by. Maybe I’m just not quite clever enough to get it, but I learned more about leadership from Watership Down (still vying for favourite book of the year!)