Love, Nina: Despatches From A Family Life – Nina Stibbe

I really enjoyed Love, Nina when it was dramatised for the BBC earlier this year, so I was delighted to discover that it was based on a book. I got it on my kindle for my summer holidays, and read it in Scotland in August. 

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Garlic, Mint & Sweet Basil – Jean-Claude Izzo

Have no fear: an excess of basil, like an excess of love, will not damage the heart.

Mr Chicken Lands On London – Leigh Hobbs

Mr. Chicken can’t wait another minute, so he finishes his breakfast, collects his camera and flies to London. He wants to see everything. Join Mr Chicken and let him show you his favourite city in the world.

Reading challenge update!

There’s only two and a half weeks left of 2015, and I’ve read 35 of the 50 books for the Popsugar reading challenge that I’ve been doing this year. Whoops. Here are the ones I’ve yet to do:

Book challenge #33: A book you started but never finished

A Room Of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf

“But, you may say, we asked you to speak about women and fiction – what has that got to do with a room of one’s own? I will try to explain.”

Book challenge #29: A book that made you cry

Sins Of The Mother, Irene Kelly

I was sent a review copy of The Sins Of The Mother by Katy Weitz, the book’s ghostwriter. This post contains reference to child abuse, and the book contains graphic descriptions of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

Book challenge #28: A book by an author under 30

Vivian Versus The Apocalypse, Katie Coyle

Vivian Apple never believed in the Church of America – unlike her fanatical parents. As for the so-called impending ‘Rapture’, she knew she’d believe that when she saw it. But then Vivian wakes one day to a New World, and all that’s left of her parents are two empty spaces. The Believers have been taken, it seems. And for those left behind, the world is a desolate and eerie place. All Vivian has now are her memories and her volatile friend Harp. 

Faced with society on the brink of collapse, Vivian and Harp embark on a journey across America, in search of any family they have left, and determined to expose the truth about the Rapture. Three thousand miles through floors, fog and heat waves, Harp and Vivian and a boy with the bluest eyes and the kindest heart and driving on to their future.

But will this be a coming-of-age road trip with no return?

Book challenge #27: A nonfiction book

Kitchen, Nigella Lawson

I have a bit of a thing for cookbooks. I had to put myself on a cookbook ban, and the only new ones I’ve had since I put myself on it have been gifts from other people. But last week, I went into Foyles in Stratford, and I had a bit of an accident. As well as buying myself a couple of novels, and The Art of Fielding for my auntie (to make sure that she reads it, because it’s wonderful), and then I slipped and fell into the cookbook section. Whoops. I even got my brother to get two cookbooks, as well – another student one so that he maybe gets some variety in his diet, and a Mexican one, so that he can make me nice dinners. It was a good day.

Book challenge #26: A book you own but have never read

Other Girl, Nicole Burstein

Louise and Erica have been best friends since forever. They’re closer than sisters and depend on each other for almost everything. Just one problem: Erica has superpowers.

When Erica isn’t doing loop-the-loops in the sky or burning things with her heat pulse powers, she needs Louise to hold her non-super life together. After all, the girls still have homework, parents and boys to figure out. But being a superhero’s BFF is not easy, especially as trouble has a way of seeking them out. Soon Louise discovers that Erica might be able to survive explosions and fly faster than a speeding bullet, but she can’t win every fight by herself.

Life isn’t a comic book – it’s even crazier than that.

Book challenge #25: A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet

How To Be Bad, E Lockhart, Lauren Myracle, Sarah Mlynowski

Vicks is the wild child whose boyfriend has gone suspiciously quiet since he left for college; Mel is the newcomer desperate to be liked; and Jesse will do anything to avoid a life-altering secret. Each one has her own reason for wanting to get the heck out of their nowheresville town, even just for the weekend. So they climb into Jesse’s mom’s “borrowed” station wagon and head south. Hearts will be broken, friendships will be tested, and a ridiculously hot stranger could change the course of everything.