by Judi Dench

as told to John Miller

***** (5/5)

Autobiography: And Furthermore by Judi Dench

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Book Review:

This autobiography of Judi Dench’s career was a fun and easy read. As an actor myself, I loved reading about her stage productions and the different experiences, directors and actors she encountered. Dench comes across extremely down to earth and hard working actor with a playful sense of humour. I read the book with a mixture of envy and awe – Dench was actually fought over to play Shakespeare’s Cleopatra by two directors, Peter Hall and Terry Hands, who had both decided to direct the play at the same time!

The autobiography, as told to John Miller, contains lots of stories about the productions that she acted in throughout her long career, a couple she directed and also touches on some major personal life events – meeting her husband Michael Williams, their daughter Finty, the fire that destroyed their first home and Michael’s death. I was surprised about how candid she was in recounting her bad experiences with productions – run-ins she had had with theatre directors, or how disorganized a film set was. She goes into the negative experiences she has had as much as the positive ones.

I loved reading about Dench’s playful side. She is such a trickster, always enjoying a good laugh. One example is the long running challenge that developed between her and one of her actor colleagues Tim Piggot-Smith to see who could return a black leather glove to the other in the most unexpected places – usually on stage. The game has become so well known over the years that when questioned by the audience, someone always asks, ”Where is the glove now?” I guess it’s stunts like this and other more subtle games Dench and her fellow actors play on stage that keeps them going through a 6 month run of the same show!

Dench recounts her Oscar experiences when she was nominated for Mrs Brown and Shakespeare in Love. She even kept a diary of the days leading up to the first one because she knew how surreal it would be. It was fun to read about her amazement and awe at the experience, to know that even seasoned actors get excited and swept up in it all. Dench, who won the Oscar for her supporting role in Shakespeare in Love, said, “I was so surprised to win it for eight quick minutes with bad teeth.”

This is a good book for actors as well as people interested in theatre, not to teach you about acting, but to get an insight on how Dench lives the life of an actor, as well has her attitude towards working in theatre. I read ‘And Furthermore’ with a healthy dose of jealousy, but moreover received inspiration from a veteran actor whose work I really admire.

I’ll end with an anecdote about Anthony Hopkins who was playing Anthony to Dench’s Cleopatra in Peter Hall’s production for the National Theatre (Hall won out in the end). Hopkins never minded not being in the fifth act, in fact he actually loved it. In his death scene, as he was lying cradled in Cleopatra’s arms, he would whisper, ”I’m going upstairs to have a nice cup of tea. You do Act V, and I’ll have a nice cup of tea.”

Love that!

x Julie

Online Bookstore and Book Review Site

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Cally Taylor

***~~ (3/5)

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Book Synopsis:

Lucy Brown is about to marry a wonderful man. Dan is handsome, caring and funny. Lucy has never been happier, she is about to get everything she has ever wanted.

But, on the eve of her wedding, Lucy dies in an accident.

Lucy has a choice to make: she can go to heaven and be separated from her soul mate, or she could be with Dan forever…as a ghost.

Lucy will not leave Dan, and she makes her choice. But things are not quite so easy for Lucy. She has a task to complete before she can become a ghost. First, she has to find true love for a total stranger.

My Book Review:

I was really excited about reading this book after seeing that it received 10/10 reviews on chick lit websites, beating Bridget Jones’s 9/10. (I love Bridget!) However, although I enjoyed Heaven Can Wait, I didn’t love it like others did. To me, Briget Jones still leads the pack by miles.

I enjoyed the fantasy of the story: Cally Taylor’s vision of heaven, limbo, tasks and ghosts. I particularly liked Lucy’s housemates from ‘The House of Wannabe Ghosts’. Brian, the endearing smelly train-lover and Claire the petulant young goth.

You know when you read a synopsis or watch a movie trailer and it basically tells you the whole story? I wish I hadn’t read so much about this book before I actually read it. I removed the last sentence from the synopsis above, so that there will be a bit more surprise in the story for you. I think my biggest issue with this book is that that last quarter of the story is rather predictable. Its a case of the reader being a step ahead of the character.

I’m still waiting for another book to overtake my esteem for Bridget Jones but until then, if you enjoy this genre or need a fun, perk-me-up read, definitely give Heaven Can Wait a chance.

x Julie

Book Reviews

Reading Like Rabbits

p.s. I know I’m constantly raving about it, but if you haven’t read Briget Jones’s Diary, you’re missing out. She’s a menace to herself but she’s lovely.

Click here to read my review of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

by Wendy Holden

On the grand scheme of good books: **~~~ (2/5)

On a fun light-reading  level: ***½~ (3.5/5)

Fiction / Light Reading

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Book Synopsis:

Jane is an ordinary journalist. She has love-life stress, stress from work and she just can’t seem to shed those extra pounds. Then, the gorgeous celebrity-for-celebrity’s-sake social butterfly Champagne D’Vyne is thrown into her life. Champagne is as different from Jane as could be. As their worlds become strangely entangled, Jane discovers that this busty blond goddess will do everything to get what she wants. She lets nothing get in her way. Including Jane.

My Book Review:

I think this is a book you will either love or hate. It’s very very fluffy, and centers on a most foul and fabulous celebrity-for-celebrity’s sake character Champagne D’Vyne . She is truly horrid, and frustratingly beautiful. She is a piss take on all the ridiculous celebrities like Posh Spice, Paris Hilton and Jordan – multipiled by about 5000.

However, there are also characters you empathise with, Jane – the Bridget Jones-esq, muddled protagonist who does her best to keep her life ordered amidst the whirl-wind of Champagne. And the young dowdy aristocrat Tally who is doing her best to save her crumbling family estate.

So, if you hate the glorified over-privileged (untalented) celebrity, and want a bit of fluffy weekend reading, and to have a bit of a laugh, this chick lit is for you. I have to say, it didn’t enhance my life in the slightest, but it did give me a giggle.

This is definitely a chick’s book, but surprisingly, my friend who lent Simply Divine to me said that her brother found it in the bathroom, started reading it, and got hooked, thoroughly enjoying it!

x Julie

Light Reading Chicklit Book Review

- Reading Like Rabbits-

by Audrey Niffenegger

**~~~ (2/5)

Fiction

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Book Cover Synopsis:

Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers – normal at least for identical ‘mirror’ twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cosy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn’t know existed has died and left them her flat in an apartment block overlooking Highgate Cemetary in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin… but have no idea they have been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the twin’s mother – and who cant even seem to quite leave her flat…

What I thought of this book:

I just finished Her Fearful Symmetry, and I can’t decide if I liked it or hated it. I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife, and was ecstatic when I spied Audrey Niffenegger’s new book on the bookstore shelves. I didn’t buy it immediately, I was saving the promising experience of reading it for a later more deserving time.

The book starts off great. It’s all about 21 year old American twins who move to London to live in their recently deceased aunt’s apartment that she left to them in her will. It’s full of dark secrets of the past, present twin-ly tensions, and a spirit that cannot leave. It’s a ghost story, but don’t be fooled into thinking it will be scary. It’s not in the least. I’d say its ghostliness is surprisingly normal, until the plot takes some rather strange and not quite believable turns.

I’m glad I read this book, precisely because of the bewildered way it made me feel after I finished the last sentence and because of the side character Martin. Martin is an old man who lives on the top floor of the twin’s apartment building. Martin has OCD, and is so charming in his disabilities that you can’t not adore him as he struggles with his compulsions mingled with the distinct knowledge that they are just compulsions and he could simply get up and walk out of his flat – if he wanted to. With his counting, scrubbing, smoking and his love for his wife, I was with him all the way in his quiet inhibited journey. He really was a lovely old man.

The story seemed to swerve absurd directions in a way that left me thinking ‘This doesn’t any make sense, why on earth would he/she/they make that decision?’ There was not enough lead up to the major plot twist, not in a good surprising manner, but in a way that distanced me from the characters because I didn’t believe the decisions they were making had enough basis. I didn’t believe how their state of mind could end up at this point.

More surprisingly for me, the twists left me exclaiming both ‘I didn’t see that coming!’ and ironically ‘I saw that coming’ at the same time. I think the reader is just a little ahead of the pace of the book. Talking about pace, I did find the first half of the book slow, it’s very domestic and nothing much happens. Maybe this is the set up for the action of the second half, but nothing’s extreme enough to justify what happens. Moreover, all the little reveals along the way seem contrived and not quite believable either.

I feel rather harsh, but I get so passionate and riled up about stories, that I can’t help it. I want to be thrilled, enamored and to fall in love with a book, but this one left me frustrated.

All that said, I WAS absorbed in reading Her Fearful Symmetry, wanting to know what would happen next. It was both fantastical and domestic. I’d love to hear comments of other readers because this book left me mixed-up, with a kind of disappointment but also with a kind of hole that was caused by having travelled on this crazy journey with the characters.

Despite this gloomy review, do read Niffenegger’s first novel The Time Traveler’s Wife. That story is truly magical and moving.

x Julie

Book Reviews

- Reading Like Rabbits