I very rarely pre-order things, but sometimes you just have to. Here’s what I’ve pre-ordered off Amazon lately:
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Have you got anything pre-ordered? What’s coming out soon that you’re excited about? Leave a comment below.
Blog soon,
Antony
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Run is a touching and sentimental novel by the marvellous Ann Patchett.
Run starts with a family dispute over the ownership of a statue of Mary. Traditionally it had been handed down from mother to daughter, the mother choosing the daughter who most looked like the statue. But Bernadette and Doyle didn’t have any daughters. They’d had Sullivan and later had adopted Tip and Teddy. Tip and Teddy loved the statue and it reminded them of their mother who’d died when they were little. Doyle had broken family tradition by giving it to the boys. Some years later on a snowy and cold night, Tip argues with Doyle and steps out into the road without looking. He is pushed out of the way of an on coming car by Tennessee. Tennessee is a woman that has been watching Tip and Teddy all their lives in the background. Tennessee is taken to hospital with severe injuries, leaving Kenya, her daughter with no one to look after her. |
Doyle, Tip and Teddy decide to take Kenya in. And this is where the revelations start. Doyle, Tip and Teddy are forced to confront some truth’s about their lives and Kenya suddenly has the opportunity to fulfil her dreams.
Patchett’s voice is soothing, as it takes you on a journey into these character’s lives. Her description creates an almost film like moving image in your mind. The words in Run just flow, making it an easy and pleasurable read. The pacing is just right and the ending brings everything together beautifully.
In short Run is how creative writing should be done. Creative writing is an art and one that Patchett is superb at.
Run is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops.
Review soon,
Antony
Recently my old iPhone 5 battery started dropping it’s charge. So as a loyal long term Vodafone customer, one that had been with them for years, I decided to speak to them about an early upgrade. They said I could and I opted for Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus (64GB, GOLD) as a new handset, which they said would be delivered the next day.
After three weeks of telephoning Vodafone customer services practically on a daily basis and receiving many broken promises, I still had no new handset. I felt frustrated, that the order was no further forward and like anything that they said to me on the phone would be a lie. Despite how I felt, I always remained pleasant and patient. But I decided to cancel my telephone upgrade order and re-order the upgrade in store.
My local store had Apple iPhone 6 Plus (64GB, GOLD) in stock. Hurray! But wait, I couldn’t have it because of their IT systems still showing the original upgrade order as open – despite me cancelling it and reassurances from Vodafone customer services on the phone that I would be able order in store. I tweeted my frustration to them, not that the staff in store, on the telephone or on twitter seemed to care.
I’d lost my trust in them. A search online revealed that I wasn’t the only one experiencing issues upgrading. Vodafone’s problems seem to be:
Up until this experience, Vodafone have always been good with me. But this experience felt like a bad joke. I decided to show them what I thought of this experience by walking away and taking my wallet with me.
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A friend on Facebook recommended that I sign up with GiffGaff. I did and everything went smoothly. The handset was delivered the next working day as promised. It’s been a brilliant, easy and enjoyable service so far. |
Here are some advantages of being with GiffGaff and how they are different to other providers:
So if you’re looking to switch mobile phone providers, I’d highly recommend GiffGaff.
Blog soon,
Antony
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A Million Little Pieces by James Frey is addictive like crack cocaine. Once you pick it up and start reading, you’ll find it near impossible to put back down.
From the cover:
Frey takes the reader on his rollercoaster of a journey to recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. It starts with him waking up on a plane with no memory of how he got there, what happened to his face or where he’s going. |
is set during Frey’s stay in rehab; is well paced and has plenty of tension, conflict and resolution. Both internally and externally. He recalls memories of his dysfunctional and chaotic alcohol and drug using past.
Stylistically A Million Little Pieces lacked speech marks, but this was possibly deliberate. Not having speech marks was a noticeable stylistic change to the normal layout of a book. Frey was probably using this to subtly hint that his story wasn’t like the story of most people. Frey’s lack of dialogue tags was generally acceptable, but on the odd occasion where Frey had written a scene with a group of people, it did get difficult to establish who had said what.
Towards the end of A Million Little Pieces it began to feel fictional. As I was coming to the end of the book and had enjoyed reading it, I decided to look into other books that Frey had written.
After doing a Google Search, I discovered the story of A Million Little Pieces and understood why it felt fictional – because parts of it were.
A Million Little Pieces was commercially hugely successful both in the US and internationally after being featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. But then The Smoking Gun revealed in an article titled ‘A Million Little Lies’ that some of Frey’s claims around his criminal past didn’t match up with court records.
Oprah had to respond to these revelations and interviewed Frey on a few occasions. The most recent, a few years after A Million Little Pieces was exposed as being in part fictional is available to watch below:
I can understand while some people felt lied to, as A Million Little Pieces was promoted and marketed as a memoir.
But I wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised that some of A Million Little Pieces was fact and some was fiction. Because that’s how it read. Who wouldn’t change some of their past if they had the chance? Don’t we all do that all the time? Change things to make them sound better or worse than they actually are with the aim of making our stories more interesting to our friends, family, co-workers, etc. Can we really blame Frey for doing the same for the reader?
Regardless A Million Little Pieces is still a great read. Worth reading if you are interested in addiction, crime, alcohol, drugs, rehab and recovery. Just hold on is a phrase often repeated in the book and was a phrase that I adopted when I was suffering from severe clinical depression.
My Friend Leonard is the follow up book and picks up where A Million Little Pieces ended. I’m currently reading My Friend Leonard and enjoying it just as much as I did A Million Little Pieces.
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey is available to buy on Amazon.
Review soon,
Antony
