Raymond and Ray (2022)

Raymond and Ray are half-brothers. united by a name and by their mutual loathing of their late father. However, they decide to honor their father’s wish that they dig his grave for his burial and journey together to do this. The physical journey becomes a metaphorical one as they both discover things about their errant dad, each other and themselves.

Shot through with plenty of humour and lots of tender moments, this film is an absolute joy. There were definitely a few surprises along the way and I wasn’t quite sure where either character would end up.

Ewan McGregor was fine as uptight, twice divorced Raymond, but Ethan Hawke absolutely shone as ex-addict, cynical saxophonist Ray, and for me he was the MVP of this film. A fine supporting cast do a great job as well, including Sophie Okonedo who is wonderful as a former nurse of the father and finds connection of a sort with Ray.

wan mcgregor

I expected to enjoy this based on the trailer, but it exceeded my expectations and I would definitely recommend this.

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‘Three Wishes’ by Liane Moriarty (audiobook)

Liane Moriarty has had a lot of success recently with her spiky barbed female-led thrillers but this was her debut novel, with an altogether different theme. The story is about the three Kettle triplets – flighty, dreamy Gemma, organized and meticulous Lynne and moody Kat (although she has a lot to be moody about!)

In the opening scene, various unnamed characters are describing a scene in a restaurant where the three woman are celebrating their birthday – we know that at least one is heavily pregnant – and a huge argument breaks out. The story then goes back about a year and describes the events that led up to the birthday incident.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and thought Caroline Lee did an excellent job of the narration. Both she and Moriarty gave each Kettle sister their own distinctive character and voice and it was a pleasure to listen to.

This is not a psychological thriller, which Moriarty writes much more of these days; it’s a drama about life, love, relationships, jobs and the whole messy shebang. As the story goes on, the sisters are each fleshed out and we learn more about their motivations, their lives and their secrets. I didn’t warm to Cat but I did feel sorry for what she went through. I also found Lynne hard to like initially, but as the story went on I did warm to her, with her fears of being anything less than perfect. However, I adored Gemma. For all her love of impermanence, all of her refusal to settle down to one man, or one job, or even one home, she was kind and lovely, and her backstory was slowly revealed which explained a lot.

There’s tragedy and heartbreak, and there’s lots of love too and some amusing scenes. (Especially with the girls’ grandmother and their parents). It’s deeper that the cover might lead anyone to expect and very enjoyable. If you like fiction about women, written predominantly FOR women, then you might like to give this a try.

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The Peanuts Movie (2015)

You’re never too old for Snoopy!

This CGI animated feature film has a central message about being yourself and respecting yourself and others for who they are. And there’s Snoopy! Both Snoopy and Charlie Brown meet the respective girls of their dreams, and Snoopy also gets into battle with his old enemy, WW1 flying ace the Red Baron. The animation style took a little warming up to – it’s not how I’m used to watching Peanuts – but the movie won me over and made me laugh out loud several times. Maybe I’m just a big kid at heart, but I really enjoyed it.

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‘Number 11’ by Jonathan Coe (minor spoilers)

This book is a sequel – sort of – to Coe’s 1994 novel ‘What a Carve Up!’ I didn’t realize this until after I had started reading it, but it became very clear that you did not need to read the earlier book to enjoy this one (there are some big spoilers for the end of ‘What a Carve Up!’ though, so you might want to bear that in mind).

This is less a straightforward novel and more of a series of novellas which are all connected by one or both of two schoolgirl friends, Rachel and Alison. It loosely follows them from childhood to around the age of 20 and they appear as main characters in some sections, and on the periphery in others.

Each part of the book centres on the inequality and vacuousness of many parts of Britain in the 21st century. People who are struggling to make ends meet going to prison on a trumped up charge of benefits fraud while multi-millionaires cheat the system on a far greater scale by avoiding paying as much tax as they can (just about) legally get away with; millions watching reality tv which in truth is anything BUT reality; generic stand up comedians making generic stand up comedy about easy targets…the list goes on.

This is actually the first book I’ve read by Jonathan Coe, and I found it thoroughly enjoyable and one of those books that I actually looked forward to picking up. My favourite section – albeit also the saddest section for me – was Val’s story. Val is Alison’s mother, who had a one-hit wonder decades earlier and is always trying to recapture her former brief glory. Without giving too much away, this part illustrates perfectly why I neither trust nor enjoy reality television, where humiliation is shown as entertainment and heroes and villains are pre-determined by the program makers.

The only niggle I had about this book was the very bizarre ending, which seemed out of kilter with the rest of the book. I’m not sure what Coe was going for here and maybe I missed something, but somehow that part just didn’t work for me. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the rest of the book though and I will definitely be looking out for more by Jonathan Coe.

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‘Logging Off’ by Nick Spalding

Andy Bellows is a 36 year old freelance graphic designer – and he is addicted to the internet. When his addiction leads to some physical problems, his doctor advises a digital detox…this means, no internet, no apps, no tech for 60 days (although he is allowed to use it solely for work purposes if necessary).

He quickly realises how much time he was spending on the internet and how different life is (in both good and bad ways) when you don’t use it. His best friend is a reporter who writes about Andy’s digital detox and suddenly Andy finds himself with loads of followers, all inspired to try a detox of their own.

If you have read any Nick Spalding books before, you will know that the initial set-up is a prelude to several absurd situations, and this story is no different. I won’t give away any spoilers but Nick Spalding writes comedy and that is exactly what this book is. I would say that some of the situations were possibly a little too over-the-top to be believable, but still made me laugh out loud on occasion.

It’s an undemanding read too but one that does actually have a serious message at its heart. How many times do you look around in a cafe, or on public transport, or just walking down the street and see the vast majority of people with their heads down, looking at their phones? People ARE addicted to their tech and to having the world at their fingertips. It’s so easy to lose a couple of hours a day just scrolling through Instagram or Facebook for example. On the other hand, it’s useful sometimes to have info as soon as you need it (e.g., I have a couple of days off work soon and thought I might head out to the cinema. It took less than a minute to find out what films were showing and at what times.)

Anyhow, I generally enjoyed the book a lot, although I did feel it maybe lost its way slightly towards the end. But I would recommend it and will definitely be looking out for more by this author.

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‘Olive, Mabel and Me’ by Andrew Cotter

In 2020 when the world went into lockdown, freelance sports commentator Andrew Cotter found himself out of work; after all if there are no sporting events going on, there’s nothing he could commentate on. So, stuck at home and feeling bored he filmed his two Labradors Olive and Mabel eating breakfast, and recorded a sports style commentary about it. When he released it on Twitter, hoping that it might inspire a few laughs, he was stunned by the response he received. So he did another – and another…and a phenomenon was born.

In this book, Cotter talks about how he and his partner Caroline brought Olive and Mabel into their family, and describes life with two beautiful dogs. Very little of the book is about the funny videos; most of it discusses life in general with the dogs, and focuses particularly on the Scottish mountain walks/hikes that they do together.

This was my first book of 2023, and it was a cracker! I read well over 200 pages in two sittings, and would have finished it in those two sittings if I didn’t have to go back to work! I have two Labradors myself, so was very able to recognise a lot of the comical situations he describes, and I think any dog lover would feel the same.

What I wasn’t expecting, and came as a pleasant surprise, was quite how funny this book is. I laughed out loud several times during the reading. Andrew Cotter has a very funny turn of phrase and the way that he described the dogs’ expressions and thoughts was genuinely very amusing. Also, his absolute adoration of Olive and Mabel came through very clearly, and I think anyone who has ever loved a dog would be able to relate to this.

Overall, this was a brilliant way to kick off my 2023 reading and I would recommend this book to everyone, but especially dog owners and/or lovers.

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‘I’ll Have What She’s Having’ by Rebecca Harrington

In this fun little book (easily read in one sitting if you feel like it), New York journalist Rebecca Harrington tries out the diets of the rich and famous to see if they are really sustainable and if they actually work. The full list of celebrity diets she follows is:

Gwyneth Paltrow; Liz Taylor; Karl Lagerfeld; Marilyn Monroe; Cameron Diaz; Madonna; Greta Garbo; Victoria Beckham; Beyonce; Jackie Kennedy; Sophia Loren; Pippa Middleton; Carmelo Anthony; Dolly Parton; Miranda Kerr; Elizabeth Hurley.

Make no mistake – this is not intended to be a serious examination of how dieting works. Most diets are tried for only a few days (some of which I don’t know how anyone could actually do for more than a couple of days without passing out anyway). Each chapter focuses on a new celebrity diet, and they are choppy and short chapters, which make for a quick read.

I really enjoyed this book actually. Harrington is self-deprecating, witty and engaging. The book had me giggling to myself several times and I would certainly read more by this author.

However, it did make me think about celebrity diets and how they are sold to the gullible public – if I thought about it very deeply I would actually get quite angry. Most of the diets feature famous faces with no qualifications in nutrition whatsoever, peddling their wares to their fans and making money off people’s desire to be thinner. Miranda Kerr might be a lovely person but my goodness her lifestyle regime sounds utterly pretentious and completely unrealistic for those of us with actual jobs, budgets and time constraints. Victoria Beckham’s diet was inspired by the diet Tom Hanks followed to lose a ton of weight when filming Cast Away. In other words, she followed the diet that he used to make himself look starved! What kind of messed up is this?!

However, as mentioned above this book is not a commentary on the morality or otherwise of celebrities making money from their diets, but basically an undemanding fun read and a nice way to round off my reading for 2022.

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‘The Girl From Venice’ by Martin Cruz Smith

WWII is nearing an end and Venice is still occupied. Cenzo, a fisherman from nearby Pellestrina is stunned when he is out in his boat one night and sees a young girl floating in the water. He initially thinks she is dead, but in fact the young Venetian girl, Guilia, is far from dead – she is on the run from the Nazis who have killed her family.

He decides to try and protect her, which leads both of them into dangerous adventures, where they are never quite sure who can be trusted, and their lives are always on the line.

Compared to the last book I read by Martin Cruz Smith, the more famous Gorky Park, this was a lot lighter in tone, despite the subject matter. It’s very much plot rather than character driven, with most of the characters not being particularly fleshed out. That said, I did like the world-weary Cenzo very much – drawn into all kinds of situations when he would really rather just be fishing, he had a wry sense of humour and I definitely wanted a happy ending for him.

This is no-frills storytelling – the tale is told scene by scene, with no wasted words, and for some that might not be enjoyable. I liked it; I didn’t get immersed in it, but I enjoyed it overall and I thought the ending was just right.

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‘A Man Called Ove’ by Fredrik Backman

Originally published in Swedish, this book revolves around a curmudgeonly man named Ove, who is exasperated by – well, everything really. He just wants to be left alone in his misery and annoyance at the world, but then a young gregarious family move into the road and they are determined to befriend him. And that’s when Ove finds himself unwillingly drawn back into the community.

There’s so much more than the above to this story, but I don’t want to give too much away. I really enjoyed this story, and how it revealed Ove’s childhood and early youth, which explained why he is the way he is. His marriage to the vivacious Sonja seemed on paper like a match made in hell, but as the story progresses, the reader can see what Sonja saw and loved in Ove. He may be a grump but he has a strong sense of right and wrongs and is never afraid to stand up for what he believes in. Oh, and the cat! My favourite character of the lot!

There is lots to enjoy here, with plenty of humour, but also a lot of poignancy and sadness. I admire the author for going where I absolutely did not expect at the end, and I will definitely read more by Fredrik Backman.

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‘Paradise Jazz’ by Kat Pomfret

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This novel tells the story of two young women, trying to come to terms with their pasts. Georgetown Easy moved to small-town England with her mother and aunt when she was just a young girl, but she really wants to find the father she never knew. Her search takes on a physical and metaphorical journey.

Meanwhile Helena Jones knows her past, but wants to leave it where it belongs and escape the self-imposed confines of her life. Always at loggerheads with her layabout brother Troy, Helena has been the sensible twin for as long as she can remember, and now she is ready for change.

About 65% of the novel is narrated by Georgetown, and the remainder is mainly narrated by Helena. with a page short parts narrated by a young lady named Aurelie who blasts her way into the lives of the many characters, and leaves all of them changed.

There’s a lot to like about this book. Georgetown’s scenes and conversations with her mother and aunt are very believable and peppered with humour. I really liked her character and heart. Helena was less interesting to me, and without the difficult relationship between herself and Troy, she would not have been a particularly memorable character.

But that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the novel because I did, although I think it started to lose it’s way somewhat towards teh end. The titel comes from the name of a blues bar where the characters often met and I must admit the scenes set there did make me wish there was somewhere like that near to where I lived!

Overall, an assured debut – I would probably read more by Kat Pomfret.

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