Paper Airplane by Kersten L. Kelly (A Review)

Goodreads Summary:

In this tumultuous, distinctive memoir, Kersten L. Kelly looks back on the most influential individuals that she encountered while flying through the clouds. Confined in a small vestibule for hours, Kelly identified an opportunity for learning and growth by chatting with the fellow passengers around her. After a few life changing conversations and unforgettable emergencies, she put the in-flight magazines to rest and never looked back. She recalls life lessons from perfect strangers about love, family, perseverance of dreams, and humility through a series of brief anecdotes all taking place on airplanes. Selfless philanthropy was discovered, long-term friendships bonded, and talents unveiled. The book proves the phrase “you never know what you will learn on an airplane” over and over again. Every chapter will capture the mind and sometimes the heart of anyone who jumps into this collection of humanity at its best. The personalities present in this book assimilate with the intrinsic characteristics all readers can relate to. With a raw authenticity stemming from old notes in a ragged journal, Kelly delivers a personal reflection of unique tales from a mile high.

My review:

A mixture of tales, linked together by people met on an airplane.

There were an interesting mixture of tales in this book; some of which I found very enjoyable, others less so. Each of them was different and special in its own way.

Each story had a clear moral. Unfortunately these were overstated in places, expressly repeated in case the reader missed them within the telling.

I very much enjoyed getting to know the people within each tale. Each personality was unique, and this reflected how they told their story. Their individual characters came across really well.

Remove the intros and prologue, rewrite a little and this would be a fantastic book. It shows great promise. As it is, it would make an interesting read during a plane journey

I was provided with a digital version of this book to review.

Action Readers' Action: 

Consider those around you. Take some time to talk to them and learn their stories

What's the most interesting experience you've ever had on a plane?

Casper the Community Cat by Susan Finden (A Review)

Goodreads Summary:

Casper became a national celebrity when newspapers ran the story of the amazing cat that regularly took the No. 3 bus on journeys around his home town, Plymouth, in Devon. While his devoted owner Sue Finden had wondered where her elusive pet was disappearing to each day, Casper was brightening the lives of countless commuters. Bus drivers, too, were getting well-acquainted with Casper, and notices went up in their depot alerting staff that a very special passenger might board their vehicle. In fact, he became a mascot for the bus company, and pictures of him and Susan adorned No. 3 buses. When Casper was sadly killed by a car in early 2010 messages of sympathy flooded in from places as far a field as Australia and Argentina. It quickly became clear that Casper and his remarkable story had touched the lives of many people around the world. Movingly told by the owner who loved him dearly, Casper the Commuting Cat is the touching story of a very special black-and-white cat who rode the bus and stole our hearts.

My review:

A heartwarming and entertaining tale of Casper, the cat who rode the bus.

This book is charming and a lovely relaxing read. Susan's love for her cats truly shines out of every page, making each moment recorded extra special. Each feline mentioned comes across as truly unique.

I recommend this book for all animal lovers. It would make a great holiday read.

Action Reader's Action:
  Consider whether you can adopt an animal for a homeless shelter.
If you can't, make a donation or give up some of your time instead.


Why not share a story about your favourite moggie?

The Impossible Room

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

It was a room within a room. There was a large, heavy-looking desk on a raised dias, with a leather swivel chair behind it. There was a large model of the Discworld, on a sort of ornament made of four elephants standing on the shell of a turtle. There were several bookshelves, the large volumes piled in the haphazard fashion of people who are far too busy using the books to ever arrange them properly. There was even a window, hanging in the air a few feet above the ground.

But there were no walls. There was nothing between the edge of the carpet and the walls of the greater room except floor, and even that was too precise a word for it. It didn't look like rock and it certainly wasn't wood. It made no sound when Susan walked on it. It was simply surface, in a purely geometrical sense.

The carpet had a skull-and-bones pattern.

In the distance, towards the wall of the greater room, the metaroom or whatever it was, there was a suggestion of... something. Something was casting complicated shadows, too far away to be clearly seen. 

Rivers

The high banks reminded her of the bluffs of her Des Moines, though these ridges lay like layers of dark molasses poured across flat cakes. Higher on the north side, the ridges were dusted partway down with snow. Hunt's party stood on crusty mud. A pair of geese honked downriver, then settled in lichen-covered rocks within sight of the stream. Ice like strings of pale beads nestled into the edges of blue-grey water that looked as smooth as a lake.

from A Name of Her Own by Jane Kirkpatrick

How to Eat Out by Giles Coren (a review)

Goodreads Summary:

It has taken Giles Coren a lifetime to master the art of eating out.From a lonely childhood spent in pub car parks, peering in at a magical world of chickens in baskets and butter in little foil squares, to belching his way through taste clouds of prawn gas and chocolate air at 'the best restaurant in the world', to mock dog in Shoreditch, sperm sushi in Tokyo and delicious fricasseed field mouse in 'Ancient' Rome, Coren has experienced pretty much everything a restaurant can throw at you, and thrown it right back. Or at least caught it, sniffed it, and bagged it up for later.Bad waiters, bum tables, little rip-offs, big cons, old fish, cheap meat, yesterday's soup and tomorrow's gastroenteritis... Coren tells you how to avoid the lot, and even come out of it with free champagne and a dish named after you by way of apology.It doesn't matter if it's fish and chips, takeaway pizza, a medieval banquet with Sue Perkins or a slap-up nosh at the Hotel de Posh, there is always a right way and wrong way to do it. How To Eat Out is a bit of both.

My review:

Hilarious and entertaining, this book is much more comedy than a real guide on how to eat out. It will be loved by everyone who enjoys a good laugh. You certainly can't say that Giles has led a boring life!

The Wizard's Home

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

It was warm inside. There was the usual wizardly paraphernalia- a forge, a bench with bottles and bundles strewn over it, a bookcase with books rammed in anyhow, a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling, some very big candles that were just lava streams of wax, and a raven on a skull. 

Valleys

Seven days after the engage has drowned, the Shoshone guides had led them into a wide valley with clusters of trees and mountain ridges standing as sentinels.

from A Name of Her Own by Jane Kirkpatrick

Two days later Hunt's party overlooked a valley that spread like a gold-and-brown blanket patched with white. Snow-dusted tips rimmed the flat below, surrounded by a thousand horses. And beyond flowed a  river, a vivid ribbon of blue.

from A Name of Her Own by Jane Kirkpatrick

What's your favourite valley?

Meadows

"The thick forest gave occasionally onto grassy meadows, dotted with herdbeasts and runners who would gallop wildly away when the first scent of the humans reached them. By the middle of the next day, they had reached higher ground, more frequently broken by meadows, until suddenly, they came to a low buff, as if the land had suddenly fallen away from the level on which they stood. Below, stretching to the far hazy horizon, was a marshland, dingered with black strips of water, which wove and disappeared about the clumps of drier land on which grew giant bushes of stiff, tuft-topped grasses."

Dragondrums by Anne McCaffrey

Bedrooms

Crashing Eden by Michael Sussman

It was tiny and had no windows. All it contained was a metal-framed single bed bolted to the wall, one measly chair, and a metal bureau bolted to the opposite wall, with drawers that couldn't be removed. There was no glass or mirror to break, no hooks anywhere, nothing that might be used to off yourself.

Whats' your bedroom like?