Louis Sachar – Holes

Louis Sachar
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.

It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption

My rating: 3/5
Tagged: 101 things in 1001 days, adventure, childrens, mystery
Date I started this book: 31/05/16
Date I finished this book: 01/06/16

What did I think? While reading this book, it didn’t really appeal to me. Although I really loved the characters like Stanley and Zero, I still don’t get what the big deal was. This story of a boy named Stanley Yelnats gets into Camp Green Lake because he stole a pair of shoes. He then makes friends that have weird nicknames and eventually he gets a weird nickname too. He was ‘Caveman’.

I really liked Zero’s and Stanley’s friendship because Stanley risked his life to go and look for Zero. And they did things for each other. Stanley teaches Zero how to read, and Zero digs a part of his hole every day. And they didn’t even have a problem with that, only the other kids did. I thought it was really awesome when the lawyer and Stanley prove that Zero is clean and he can leave the camp.

I think both Zero and Stanley are underdogs, as well as losers and outcasts. I think both of them are underdogs because I didn’t expect them to survive. And if they did, I thought the Warden would do something really bad to them. And they’re losers because being a loser is to have bad luck in life, to be unpopular and/or unsuccessful. Well they did have bad luck because they got into Camp Green Lake. They aren’t popular either. When Stanley was in school, he didn’t have any friends and he was bullied. Zero is a loser because he doesn’t have friends and he basically almost died. And they are outcasts because they both don’t fit in with other kids. Stanley has no friends and he gets made fun of for being fat. And Zero gets underestimated and everyone thinks he’s stupid.

Gillian Flynn – Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn – Gone Girl
The blurb:On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

My rating: 4/5
Tagged: 101 things in 1001 days, contemporary, crime, mystery, thriller
Date I started this book: 26/05/16
Date I finished this book: 30/05/16

What did I think? I am very late to the Gone Girl party. Despite the rave reviews, the movie and the office colleagues’ discussions, I have managed to steer clear of any spoilers and came to the book with no idea about the plot twists.

I enjoyed it – I found it an above average thriller. I particularly enjoyed going on the ride when one of the protagonists goes to the cabins and the oh-oh feeling you get when a story takes an unexpected turning. I even found certain phrases quite resonant eg. “My value has decreased” in one of Amy’s diary entries. I don’t know why it struck me but it encapsulated her thoughts then about that particular subject.

Yes it does not have a conventional ending but even that made it interesting for me – though I would have found it more satisfying if it had.

All in all, a decent page turner which I enjoyed but will probably not be rereading for some time

Save Our NHS

I am a big fan of the NHS, in more ways than one.

As an organisation, they are my employer and I find them utterly wonderful to work for. It could just be the department I’m in but I’ve never been able to fault them. I get a good wage, ample annual leave a year and I’ve always been able to take the time I need to continuing my studies – even though they’re only vaguely related to the role I do.

As a health service provider – like any there are flaws in the system but when you consider the vast magnitude of services they provide combined with the ever lessening numbers in the work force.. it’s pretty damn amazing. I’m privileged to have them in my life. Free healthcare for all – hard to argue with that, even though some are trying to… and of course it’s people who probably don’t even use their services. But that’s not what I’m about, I’m not going to get political if I can.

I am a full supporter of our NHS and a member of Keep Our NHS Public. I will defend it to my dying breath. Yes it has its faults. Yes there are issues with some of the services. It’s not a perfect system but it’s the best damn one we’ve got and I do NOT agree with it’s privatisation. Healthcare, as Aneurin Bevan stated in 1948 should ‘be based on clinical need, not ability to pay’.
It sickens me that there are countries where people will be turned away from necessary medical treatment because they cannot pay. Basic healthcare should be a right!

The National Health Service is the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. Primarily funded through the general taxation system and overseen by the Department of Health, the system provides healthcare to every legal resident in the United Kingdom, with most services free at the point of use. Some services, such as emergency treatment and treatment of infectious diseases are free for everyone, including visitors.

Free healthcare at the point of use comes from the core principles at the founding of the National Health Service by the United Kingdom Labour government in 1948. In practice, “free at the point of use” normally means that anyone legitimately fully registered with the system including UK citizens and legal immigrants, can access the full breadth of critical and non-critical medical care without any out-of-pocket payment. Some specific NHS services do however require a financial contribution from the patient, for example eye tests, dental care, prescriptions, and aspects of long-term care. However, these charges are often free to vulnerable or low income groups, and when not free, often lower than equivalent services provided by a private health care provider.

The NHS provides the majority of healthcare in England, including primary care, in-patient care, long-term healthcare, ophthalmology, and dentistry. The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948. Private health care has continued parallel to the NHS, paid for largely by private insurance: it is used by about 8% of the population, generally as an add-on to NHS services.

I am firmly against the threat of privatisation of the NHS. For more than 60 years Britain has enjoyed a National Health Service that strives to be comprehensive, accessible and high value for money. But government reforms threaten both the way in which the NHS cares for people and the values it is founded on.

The threat is based on the creation of a market for profit-driven companies that answer to shareholders, not patients. This makes hospitals and health professionals, who have traditionally cooperated, compete with each other and with the private sector. The private sector is in competition with the NHS and is already breaking it apart.

If this continues:
•Income and profits will increasingly come before what is best for the patient.
•Inequalities in healthcare will get worse. Profitable services and those who can afford to pay for them will attract money at the expense of unprofitable ones.
•Forced competition will stop the NHS working as a network which shares resources and information.
•There will be winners and losers, with some units and even entire hospitals having to close. We are already seeing job losses and bed closures.
•Even more of our money allocated to health will be diverted to shareholders and company profits, and wasted on the costs of establishing and running a market. Which was not voted for, or agreed by the British public.

There is no evidence that these reforms will improve the health service.

The value of our NHS is immense and cannot be mirrored by the private sector. It must be kept in public hands, not given in pieces to the private healthcare industry.

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett -Good Omens

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett – Good Omens
The blurb:According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth’s mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .
My rating: 4/5
Tagged: humor, urban fantasy, religion, supernatural
Date I started this book: 17/05/16
Date I finished this book: 20/05/16

What did I think? An angel and a devil who are good friends (after all they’ve been meeting for 6000 years since the world began in 4004 BC) and who like things the way they are, work to avert a plot to bring on Armageddon, with the help of a number of other unusual characters. I suppose I should have indicated a spoiler alert there, but after all, you know already that Armageddon didn’t happen.

A fun read, thoroughly recommended. Mentally summing it up as “Just William meets Dennis Wheatley” (does anybody still read Dennis Wheatley?) I was then amused to discover that the book had had the early working title of “William the Antichrist”. I docked a star because some of Terry Pratchett’s later books are so good, and I must keep something for even better books that in many ways are similar. In a less clunky system I would give it 4.8 stars.

Wonderfully inventive on every page. The only reason that I wasn’t completely bowled over was that I came late to this clever work. I’ve long admired the surreal comedy of Douglas Adams, which had shown the way earlier, and that plus the influence of this book during the quarter-century since the Gaiman/Pratchett co-operation has made its originality a fraction less startling.

Richard Adams – Watership Down

Richard Adams – Watership Down
The blurb:Set in England’s Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.
My rating: 4/5
Tagged: classics, fantasy, animals, childrens
Date I started this book: 12/05/16
Date I finished this book: 16/05/16

What did I think? I want to read more classic books, and older titles that I feel I should’ve read, and one of these is Watership Down. I had been aware of the book and film and the basic premise, but didn’t realised that it was such an adventure story.

The story begins as young rabbit Fiver has a vision that something terrible to going to happen to the warren, he convinces his brother Hazel to go to the Chief Rabbit and tell him that they need to leave the warren. Hazel is dismissed, but Fiver is so insistent and has had visions before, so he decides that they should leave the warren, taking certain of their trusted friends with them. the Owsla, or council, of the warren find out about this and try to arrest them, but the small band of rabbits is able to escape.

The rest of the first part of the book then describes their journey to finally find a new warren on Watership Down, evading dogs, snares and other suspicious rabbits, but this is by no means the end of the story. Once the band have begun to dig their own warren, Hazel realises that they are going to run into a problem – they are all male rabbits and there are no Does to breed with.

With the help of a seagull, Kehaar, that the rabbits take care of when he is injured, they locate Efrafra and hope to negotiate a peaceful coexistence with them, if some does would like to leave with them, but this is not to the liking of the despotic leader, General Woundwort.

As classics go, Watership Down was not hard to read at all, maybe it’s because it’s a relatively `modern classic’. It does have some `rabbit language’ which can be a bit difficult to decipher, but it’s worthwhile to stick with it. What really comes through in the text if Adams’ love for the countryside and creatures he is writing about, it’s almost a love letter to the English landscape and while seen through the eyes of the rabbits it can be a scary and uncertain place, there is still time in their trek to enjoy their surroundings.