Air Babylon by Imogen Edwards Jones

 
I am really not at all sure why I bothered to read this as within in a few pages I just knew it was going to be rubbish. However I do not give up easily and kept going in the hope that it might improve or even be funny!
After all it must have made its way on to my wish list of titles due to having read 'Hotel Babylon' and 'Tuscany for Beginners', both of which I found funny and enjoyable. In theory this book was a good idea as only trying to do what was previously a success for the hotel industry, even becoming a TV programme, but for the airline industry a disappointing failure.
I am far from a prude but the antics that some of the airline crews get up to left me feeling rather disgusted! I am sure that some of the material used in the writing of this book would also make the majority of men and women that currently work for the airline industry, somewhat embarrassed. At times it almost seemed as if the anonymous people in this collection of supposedly true stories were proud of themselves. I just cannot think why.
Maybe it is another case of me picking the wrong book at the wrong time as I am due to fly myself in 48hours and would maybe have been better off not knowing about some of the horror stories that go on behind the scenes of the ultimate travel service industry.
I would not recommend this to anyone unless maybe you are thinking of entering the industry yourself, it will certainly help you decide one way or the other, depends if you are game for a lifestyle of debauchery or not.
Of course I may well have taken the book far too seriously and it is really written tongue in cheek!
If this is not an overly exaggerated account of life in the skies then traveller beware.
My reviews for the other two titles can be found here
'Hotel Babylon' http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4686747
'Tuscany for Beginners'  http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/3658412

When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson

                                                


This the third mystery novel of Kate Atkinson’s that I have read and thoroughly enjoyed. She draws you into the story very cleverly and I was quickly engrossed in the lives of the at first seemingly unrelated characters. Though of course having read her work before I knew that by a series of coincidences the mystery would gradually become clear and all link together seamlessly. Maybe rather a lot of coincidences to be completely believable but this is reading for pleasure and it is how Kate Atkinson’s novels work.
Once again the characters of Jackson Brodie and Louise Monroe appear as they have done in her previous two mystery novels. Although it does not matter if you have not read the first two, for me it was a pleasure to reconnect with these protagonists. I found every one of the characters appealing and it was intriguing as to how all the overlapping connections between them were eventually going to be resolved. She certainly kept me guessing and entertained right to the very end.
Thirty years ago a terrible crime was committed in Devon for which a man was convicted. The novel starts with this vignette that sets the scene for the mystery that follows when the man convicted of the crime is released from prison. Switching to Edinburgh thirty years on a mother and baby go missing,  but the only person who seems concerned at first is the child's Nanny, sixteen year old Reggie Chase, a character with an intriguing background.
If you are looking to loose yourself in a suspense mystery with great characters then this can be recommended.
In case you are interested I have included links to Bookcrossing entries for her previous two mystery novels
Case Histories http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/3147510
One Good Turn http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5880955
Kate Atkinson’s Website http://www.kateatkinson.co.uk/

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro

My Original Review.        Josephs Reviews Blog

I was really chuffed a few days ago when I was contacted by another Book Blogger Joseph, asking if he could share my review with his readers!

It would be much appreciated if you felt able to pop across there and leave a comment.

Thankyou friends.

Kazuo Ishiguro Kräków (Poland) 29 October 2005
Born	November 8, 1954 (age 55) Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	British
Writing period	1981-present
Notablework(s)	The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go

Amalfi by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One hundred and thirty-five years ago today, the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807- 1882) wrote a poem reminiscing about the beauty of Amalfi. 


Ciao Amalfi is a great blog which I read regularly as the  Amalfi coast has a special place in my heart. 
Today Ciao Amalfi shared this poem with her readers promting me to do so also, with full credit to her for the idea. Thankyou. Do pop over and visit her Blog I think you will find it is worth it.


http://www.fotosearch.com/CRT001/78362-030mv/

Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,                                                    
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas. 

In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.

Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?

Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendors of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays,
Swallowed by the engulfing waves;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves!

This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost
On the dim discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom.

On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these,
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep!

Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marco_ask/638376743/