The Wondrous Adventures at Puffin's Book Nook

Much fun and delight and a great antidote to a hard week. I also watched the DVD with Kenneth Branagh and enjoyed that. A fine romp.

I knew next to nothing about Newfoundland before I read this well written book, but now I have an understanding of it's history, geography and people. One of the main characters is Joey Smallwood who was a real person; the main force that brought the Dominion of Newfoundland into the Confederation of Canada in 1949, and Newfoundland's first Premier. He worked throughout his life towards bettering the lot of the poor who lived in harsh living and working conditions. This is a book which I think one day will be seen as a classic alongside Dickens; with it's cast of characters and depicting the poor and downtrodden.  A 100 pages in and I am already drawn into the story. At this point the most memorable chapter for me was the episode of the sealers and the hard life they led. Having recently read Moby Dick I recognize the same tribute made to men who may have had to do a cruel hard job so as to save their families from starvation. People today complain so much about con...

Cover of the 1902 first edition. It is my second time reading this wonderful novel. Set during the brief time of the West, the protagonist, the Virginian, is a true man of noble convictions and generous heart. The story is a little slow at the beginning but once the school marm is introduced it takes off at a pace that keeps you reading with delight right to the last page. This one is chicken broth plus for the soul and will be one I will keep on my shelf. The cover picture on my edition is A Cold Morning on the Range by Frederic Remington who was a friend of Wister and Roosevelt Far too many great quotes to list all but a few of my favourites: I’ll tell yu’ this: a middlin’ doctor is a pore thing, and a middlin’ lawyer is a pore thing; but keep me from a middlin’ man of God. Here in flesh and blood was a truth which I had long believed in words, but never met before. The creature we call a gentleman lies deep in the heart of thousands that are born without chanc...

quote Anthony Trollope: I doubt whether any young person can read with pleasure Felix Holt, Daniel Deronda, Middlemarch. I know they are very difficult to many that are not young. George Eliot struggles too hard to do work that is excellent. She lacks ease. Latterly...her style has become occasionally obscure from her too great desire to be pungent. It is impossible not to feel the struggle... I agree that I did not find this work as enjoyable as Eliot's earlier works, The Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede, and Silas Marner. However, Middlemarch is still a great work and worthy of reading entirely at least once and in parts, several times. George Eliot was an authoress at a time when it was difficult to be accepted as producing anything serious. It was a time of difficulty for a woman to be anything other than a wife. To have a great mind and intellect, as she obviously had, was not rewarded and commended as it would have been in our times. She was in the main a self taught ...

This is my first time reading this author and so far I am loving this little masterpiece. Why have I not read Maugham before? His understanding of human emotion and motives, as well as excellent story telling skills is making me fall in love. 'it seemed to her as though her body were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit. Here was Beauty.' 'When all things lasted so short a time, and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.' 'the beauty which now and then men create out of chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life.' I loved this book. This is awarded the best book of January 2018 and will go forward to my list of 12 that I will use to decide the best book I read in 2018. It is sad but beautiful. Do we liv...

Born in Ontario, Canada, Duncan spent most of her life between India and England. She was a journalist and author. The Imperialist is her best known work and was the only one set in Canada. Part romance, part politics, this novel speaks of a time when Canada was emerging as a new country but still with strong ties to Britain.  Lorne Murchison, of Presbyterian, Scottish stock, makes a bid for office with his ideals of a rejuvenated British Empire. His sister, Advena, who reminds me very much of Anne Shirley, has high flown ideals and dreams of her own.