Wednesday 18 January 2017

The Traveller In Me

When I first thought of talking about and recommending books on my blog I really wondered how long I could go before ideas started to dry up.  As I started thinking about books it triggered something very much like word association and more and more lovely books came to my mind, I think it will be a long time before I have nothing to say on books :)

I really love to read autobiographies and today I'm sharing two of my favourites, two books that took me to different countries.

One of my favourite books from high school was all about a boy whose mother packed up the family and shipped them all to live on the Greek island of Corfu.  I felt the warmth of the sun and the waves lapping at my feet as I drifted through the pages.  I laughed so hard at some of the outrageous things that the family got up to and was hardly surprised at how stressed the mother got.  I also loved how she reminded me of my own mum who just lets things wash over her knowing it will all turn out well in the end.  I have watched two TV adaptations of this book but reading the book was much more fun than watching either of them.
The second book was one I heard about during a training session when I worked for a travel company.  Someone had read an excerpt from the book and it was a recipe for how to cook a dead fox!  I really have no idea why this made me want to read the book but it did.  I had spent two weeks of every year of my life in France and that was probably what else drew me to this book.  When I read how the French always greeted each other with a handshake and if their hands were full they would shake elbows or even their little fingers it drew memories from me of the very things I had witnessed.  This book covers the first year of Peter and his wife selling up their house in the UK and moving to France.  It's interesting and oh so funny and I've actually bought this book four times because if someone hasn't read it I insist they do :)
A Year in Provence was also made in to a TV series and yet again it didn't come close to how good the book was.

This got me thinking (the sort of word association thoughts) about another book I read as a child that was amazing and so much better than the film it was made in to:
If you haven't read these books then why not add them to your reading list?

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

3 comments:

Lizzy Hill said...

Read, read and read! You obv have good taste, Jo!!!

Sian said...

I got a box set of Mary Poppins books for Christmas when I was little and I still have them. You are right: much better than the film!

Sandra said...

I've never read Mary Poppins, but I'll look out for it when I'm at the library next

Loving the idea of you doing book reviews