Cartes Postales from Greece … a review

I was only meandering through the aisles of my local library and chanced upon another Victoria Hislop novel – since I had enjoyed The Sunrise a lot, I thought I’d borrow it. I wasn’t disappointed – set in Greece and Hislop’s easy style is very engaging.

The story follows the travels of a young English woman as she goes on a whimsical journey around Greece, guided by random postcards that appear in her London flat from a man only known as A. The overall plot is rather incredulous and doesn’t touch upon practicalities of undertaking such an adventure. However, that doesn’t take much away as this story is actually interwoven with fictional short stories from each place. My favourite was the one with the Oracle from Delphi and also the one that featured Lord Byron.

I was quite pleased that this book didn’t take me long to read at all, as at one point I was starting to tire a bit of the repetition in some of the themes, which made the short stories somewhat predictable. And the ending of the book, with Ellie finally meeting A is completely absurd too. But, it’s strange, it was still enjoyable.

I would definitely recommend The Sunrise more vehemently, however, if you are going to Greece or have been, you’ll definitely enjoy this read. It is definitely perfect for summer travels across the continent. Best consumed with some feta and olives!

The Road to Little Dribbling … a review

I was very fortunate to see Bill Bryson in person at a live interview about a year ago. Believe it or not, it was at a Microsoft conference! Anyway, it was his casual wit and his obvious intelligence that made me miss his Notes from a Small Island and I decided to pick up its sequel. That was about 5 months ago.

This book is about the more detailed journeys that Bryson undertakes, to the most quirky offbeat places on mainland Britain. Most of it is set in England (about 95%) which to me is a bit of a disappointment, because I’ve never lived in England and its quirks and cultural connotations are slightly lost on me. However, I could not help but snort on planes and trains as Bryson’s extremely sardonic style of writing struck again. His observations are hilarious, especially the one about the Microsoft Windows Updates (yes, he even writes about that sort of thing!) and the gag about the John Lewis shopping experience.

I would very much recommend this book in fits and bursts, it is not meant to be read in one sitting. Rather, if you have ever been to any of the places mentioned in the book, you must revisit them with book in hand! Now that would be a laugh. It was a bit monotonous in parts for me and I would have loved to read a bit more about Scotland in there too. But hey, for the most part, I enjoyed it.