Everyday Superfood - Jamie Oliver

Blurb: Jamie’s Everyday Super Food makes eating well exciting, delicious, easy and fun.

No matter how busy you are, you’ll find that healthy eating the Jamie way is both straightforward and achievable, making it super easy to choose exactly the kind of meals that suit you.

The book is divided into breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and every tasty meal is nutritionally balanced so that any combination over the day will bring you in under your recommended daily allowance of calories, allowing you to enjoy snacks and drinks on the side. You can eat Smoothie Pancakes with Berries, Banana, Yoghurt and Nuts for breakfast, Tasty Fish Tacos with Game-Changing Kiwi, Lime and Chilli Salsa for lunch and Griddled Steak and Peppers with Herby-Jewelled Tabbouleh Rice for dinner, and still be healthy! Whether you dip in and out of it, eat from the book Monday to Friday to use it faithfully every day for a month, it’s totally up to you.

In Everyday Super Food, Jamie’s done all the hard work for you—all you need to do is choose a delicious recipe, cook it up and, most importantly, enjoy it.

Every meal in this book is a good choice and will bring you a step closer to a healthier, happier you.

My Rating: 5 Stars

Genre: Cookbook

My thoughts: 

Great book, lovely looking recipes, fab photos, excellent explanation of Jamie's Super food ethic at the back. As always a stunning book from Mr. Oliver.  Although as typical of health food books many of the ingrediece are expensive and I would love it if he could combine the superfood ethic with more frugal recipes like those in Save with Jamie as for millions of us out there that want to eat well but need to do so on a tight budget.

I love that his books have a TV series too so you can become truly inspired when you see how he makes the recipes and where the food products he uses come from.  Can wait to did in and get cooking.

Read: 16-17th September 2015 

Concent8 - William Suttcliff

Blurb: In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn't it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What's good for society is good for everyone. Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They're not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick - the only one Blaze really trusts. They're not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it. What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random - a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn't even have a good phone - hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain him to a radiator? They've got a hostage, but don't really know what they want, or why they've done it. And across the course of five tense days, with a journalist, a floppy-haired mayor, a police negotiator, and the sinister face of the pharmaceutical industry, they - and we - begin to understand why.  This is a book about what how we label children. It's about how kids get lost and failed by the system. It's about how politicians manipulate them. 

My rating: 4 stars 

Genre: YA

My thoughts:    A very thought provoking YA book. A population of youths drugged to keep them out of trouble to control a social epidemic of violence and trouble, all with their parents blessing as after all they are being paid to make sure their kids take the drugs. The withdrawal of funding from the drug leads to rioting and worse, the kids in the story get muddled up in a world they don't yet understand.

A must read.

Read: 4-18th September 2015

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley

Blurb:  1883. Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, a kind, lonely immigrant from Japan. Although Mori seems harmless, a chain of unexplainable events soon suggests he must be hiding something. When Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist, unwittingly interferes, Thaniel is torn between opposing loyalties.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a sweeping, atmospheric narrative that takes the reader on an unexpected journey through Victorian London, Japan as its civil war crumbles long-standing traditions, and beyond. Blending historical events with dazzling flights of fancy, it opens doors to a strange and magical past.

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Science Fiction, Historical Fiction

My thoughts:  A strange book, good strange but very odd nether-the-less.

As a whole, the book made sense although in parts it was a mix of both confusing and predictable. The genre of the book is also equally perplexing - a mystery, a love story, a historical drama, a coming of age (Thaniel)? 

Mori is somewhat an enigma, his character and his intentions - strange and confusing and certainly not straight forwards. Nathaniel (Thaniel) is straightforwards, predictable, likeable and genuine. Grace - unrelenting, boyish and selfish. All three completely different and manage to bring out the best and worst of each other. Katsu the octopus was a fantastic addition although he somewhat cartoonises Mori and Williamsons characterisation as a police officer was great.

I can say no more at the moment as I'm still to involved in London in the 19th century to think of it objectively. 

Except that I love the cover.

Read: 9-29 September 2015

Into the Magic Shop - James R Doty

Blurb: Extraordinary things happen when we harness the power of both the brain and the heart

Growing up in the high desert of California, Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which the Dalai Lama is a founding benefactor. But back then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb. Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between the brain and the heart.
 
Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science,  part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.

My Rating: 4 1/2 stars

Genre: Health and wellbeing, Biography

My Thoughts: Don't be put off by the title of the cover, there is more yo this book than what is first perceived.  

As soon as I picked up this book I was hooked, the language used reaped me in. The mix of self help and biography drew me deeper into the book and my own mind.   I do believe that we have a certain level of power that is based on our confidence and self belief and that is what this book is based on. The ability to meditate as directed in the writing is the key to finding ourselves. The amount of times I have told someone who keeps moaning they are unhappy - that only they themselves have the ability to change and without the effort nothing will change.

I liked this book a lot and I think some of it will stick with me for a long time.

Read:  22-24th September 2015

Placid Girl - Brenna Ehrlich

 Blurb: Punk was created for the malcontents, something that loner and aspiring drummer Hallie understands all too well. Trapped in a boring suburban life – dysfunctional parents included! – Hallie drowns her angst in the angry songs of Haze, a masked musician who has not been heard from in five years. So naturally she’s surprised – and more than a little skeptical – when someone who seems to be Haze starts flirting with her via her favorite photo-sharing app. Is he who he says he is? What does he want from her? The questions only multiply when Hallie — along with bandmate Sarah and aspiring music journalist Steve — roadtrip to Haze's comeback gig to unmask the reclusive musician once and for all.

Genre: YA

My rating: 4 stars

My thoughts: I liked this book a lot, mainly because the meaning behind it is real. You can not trust people are who they say they are on the Internet. So many kids get suckered in by weirdos and quite frankly dangerous people out in the real world that it is good that there is fiction that can show the dangers without being condescending or outright didactic.

In addition to this the story was well written, protagonists likeable and language both accessible and fun. 

I would definatley recommend this book to my nieces and friends kids of the relevant age.

Read: 24-25th September 2015

Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

Blurb: A literary adventure for booklovers, a dystopian thriller about the digital age and a love story set in a world threatened by the disappearance of language.
PRINT IS DEAD

LONG LIVE PRINT

Imagine a world in which books, libraries and newspapers are things of the past. A world in which we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but have become so intuitive as to hail taxis before we leave our offices and even create and sell language in a digital marketplace called the Word Exchange.

Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language, and they're hard at work on the final edition that will ever be printed. Then one evening, Doug disappears and Anana discovers a single written clue: ALICE. It's a code word Doug devised to signal if he ever fell into harm's way.

Joined by Bart, her bookish colleague, Anana's search for Doug will take her into dark basement incinerator rooms, underground passages, secret meetings, and ultimately to the hallowed halls of the Oxford English Dictionary - the spiritual home of the written word.

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

review	Having just finished my literature degree, I couldn't wait to get into this book. I wasn't disappointed, the I totally see the point of where the idea of the book originated and can identify with many ways that technology is beginning to rule peoples lives. I enjoyed this book very much.    Read 28th may - 14th June

Children of War by Martin Walker

Really enjoyed this book. I won this book through first-reads and although it was a bit out of my normal reading zone (I am consciously pushing to expand). The characters captivated me and the storyline kept my attention throughout, plus being a bit of a foodie too, I loved the descriptions and recipes for the food.

Well done Mr. Walker I may have to find others in your series :).

Read 1st June - 4th July

4 stars

Smilers Fair by Rebecca Levine

I won book through good reads first reads and I am very glad I did.

This was an easy and enjoyable book to read. The many characters and storylines felt awkward at first but in soon got to know where each story as leading. I can't wait till the rest of these books come out so I can find out what happens to Krish, Dao Hyo, Jinn and Eric.

I see this book as 'like' Game of Thrones only much more mild.

A very enjoyable 5 stars.

War Girls

 A great little YA book written to mark the centenary since WW1. These short stories written by prestigious writers depict an image of what World War One might have been like for young women of the time.

My favourite of the nine was Storm in a Teashop by Mary Hopper, a story of a young waitress whom does her bit for the country in a unique way. 

I gave enjoyed this book very much and I will defiantly be sharing this book with my children.
I won this book through goodreads first-reads.

 Read 7th July