Tagged: Books

My Approach To Writing Books

Like many people, I’ve daydreamed about writing books.  For a long time I thought this might be something I would eventually get around to in retirement, over the last year though I’ve changed my mind.  I’ve decided that writing a book is going to take too long to keep putting...

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

I have read this book of essays a couple of times, the last time as a refresher for a project I am currently working on.  I like the book, its approachable and well informed and covers the history and philosopy of Open Source well.  However it does suffer from being...

Life of Pi

This is one of the books I am reading this month, its on the schedule of my reading group.  I am only 1/4 of the way through because I am only reading it whilst the kids are in swimming lessons but its good read and thought provoking too.  Its observations...

Year of Wonders

A book about the plague in England is not the most tempting of subjects.  However this book pulls it off.  Its loosley based on a true story about a village that isolates itself to protect surrounding villages from an outbreak of the plague.  There is plenty of death and misery...

Chocolat

A fine book, not in my view quite as good as Blackberry Wine, but then I read them in the wrong order.  Still a very enjoyable read, very nicely crafted, perhaps a little too short as I would have liked to see the characters developed a little more.  They were very interesting characters and I was left wanting to understand them a bit more.

Utopia

Just started this little book so I am not really sure where its taking me.  This version has a lot of preample putting the book in its historical context and talks a lot about the approach taken to the translation, and compares this approach with other translations, ie its a...

Coastliners

Not Joannes best book in my view, but a good read none the less.  being a Coastliner myself though I think it appealed to me more than most other reviewers.  Like many of Joannes books I tend to feel they are a bit too short given the number of interesting...

Blackberry Wine

A really good novel, probably my favourite of all Joannes books.  The only things I disliked about it was the insistence on sticking with the “clever idea” she has at the start of the book of describing things from the perspective of one of the ‘special’ bottles of wine.  Whilst it seems clever at...

10 Secrets of Abundant Happiness

I have just finished reading this book, it’s a cute little book in an easy to read format.  I carried a copy in my combat trouser’s pocket while I was reading it and it made it very easy to dip into it whenever I had a spare minute.  In fact I...

Five Quarters of the Orange

Just finished this book.  I really enjoyed it, fewer characters and better developed, a bit dark but very well developed and with fewer tricks and magic, just good old story telling.