‘If there’s a healthy way to grieve, Erin Gaines hasn’t found it. After her husband’s sudden death, the runaway success of the tech company they built with their best friends has become overwhelming. Her nerves are frayed, she’s disengaged, and her frustrated daughter, Shorie, is pulling away from her. Maybe Erin’s friends and family are right. Maybe a few weeks at a spa resort in the Caribbean islands is just what she needs to hit the reset button…
‘A collection of seveteen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. A hectic, funny sexual affair between two best friends. A World War II veteran dealing with his emotional and physical scars. A second-rate actor plunged into sudden stardom and a whirlwind press junket. Four friends going to the moon and back in a rocket ship constructed in the backyard. These are just some of the people and situations that Tom Hanks explores in his first work of fiction, a collection of stories that dissects, with great affection, humour and insight, the human condition and all its foibles.’
I went on a charity shop scavenge today and I’m so happy with my haul! All of these for the small price of €5 – what a bargain! Can’t wait to get stuck in.
I’m quite pleased with the books I read in January – while I enjoyed some of them more than others, there are none of them that I disliked or regret spending time with. If I had to chose my favourite, I think it would be A Man Called Ove. It took me a little bit longer than usual to get through it, but it was a fantastic book.
In no particular order of preference, you can find the reviews of my January reads below.
‘One love. Two people. Twenty Years.
From the moment they met, Erin and Dom loved each other too much, too quickly. Everyone said it wouldn’t last. But they knew differently.
A wedding present, a notebook, brings them together through the good times and the bad. On the blank pages of their love story, they write down everything they can’t always say – the secrets, the heartbreak, the highs and lows. It’s where they see the best and worst of each other.
‘Would you read your partner’s texts? What if you thought he was having an affair? Once bitten, twice shy Emma King is in no rush to join Harry’s bustling, big, fat Greek Cypriot family and become Mrs Georgiades. So it comes as no surprise when, after plenty of Dutch courage, his proposal of marriage at a family gathering is met with rejection. Emma doesn’t think they need a piece of paper to prove how much they love each other..
‘Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots – joggers, neighbours who can’t reverse a trailer properly and shop assistants who talk in code.
But isn’t it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?
‘Aisling is 29 and she’s still a complete Aisling.
After a tough year, things between herself and John are back on track, and life with Sadhbh and Elaine in their notiony Dublin apartment is more craic than ever.
But when a shock change means moving Down Home might be her only option, Aisling is thrown. Can she give up the sophistication of brunch and unlimited Pinot Greej? Will she and Mammy kill each other living back under the same roof? And where does that leave her and John?
The Reading Nook 