YC Reading

Recently The Guardian ran an article discussing Prue Leith’s comments on contemporary cookbooks. ( “Cookbooks’ key ingredient now design not recipes, says food writer.” CarolineDavies and Nicola Slawson, Guardian website, Tuesday 18th August2015.) In this article, the authors discuss Leith’s comments regarding modern cookbooks being primarily aesthetically pleasing, rather than designed for practical use and, well, actual cooking. This got me thinking. Which cookery books do I actually use? And which ones do I enjoy? Are the two necessarily different?  Currently, cooking shows and competitions such as Masterchef and the Great British Bake Off are highly popular. The resurgence of baking has led to a massive boom in all things cupcake. Food festivals, gourmet fast food and local produce have all become more mainstream affairs rather than specialist pursuits. This would suggest a nation which is growing more passionate about food, and therefore cooking. Cookbooks themselve...

This academic year, Yeovil College Learning Resource Centre encouraged our students and staff to take part in the Six Book Challenge (now renamed Reading Ahead ).  A dynamic reading and literacy initiative created by the Reading Agency, this challenged participants to read six things - from whole books to short stories and poems, magazines and journal articles, and even website articles and digital games. Our challengers read widely, filling in details and thoughts about their reading in a reading diary, which encouraged analysis and evaluation of texts and proved a popular way for even seasoned readers to find new ways to expand their horizons and challenge themselves to try new genres and books. We asked some of our Challengers to report back on what they enjoyed about the challenge and why, and in the coming weeks, we'll be sharing what they told us, in a bid to demonstrate exactly why it's such a great idea. Today, our Academic Resource Centre Co-Ordinator, C...

Reader’s block is something all of us might recognise. Like writer’s block, where you sit looking at a blank page and despair because your mind is likewise empty of ideas, with reader’s block you’re looking at pages filled with words and you just simply can’t get into reading them. It’s like lacking the key to enter a magical world. Narnia is before you...but the wardrobe door’s stuck. So here’s how it started. Some good intentions. A healthy stack of prize winning literary efforts intermingled with a couple of bestsellers and charity shop finds. A whole summer’s worth of lazy hours to linger over the pages, in a variety of sunshine soaked places.  A reader’s dream come true. So what went wrong? A few weeks later and I’ve barely read anything. True, I’ve grazed a couple of chapters here and there. I read a beautifully composed and insightful first chapter of “H is For Hawk” by Helen McDonald, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014. Mainly, however, I’ve read a coup...

This is a Catch 22 every reader both longs for and fears – what happens if you read a book so wonderfully, thoroughly and genuinely good that you cannot wait to talk about it with, well, everyone – but it has so many delightful plot twists, turns, revelations and about-faces that you actually can’t talk about it in case you spoil it completely? That’s where I am right now. How to review a book without ruining it? Or rather, how to describe all that’s good about it without – well, you know – actually telling you too much about what’s good about it? Let’s give it a whirl. I picked this up expecting a standard thriller. However, all the cover hyperbole proved to be right. This is a thoroughly post-modern novel, playing affectionately with structure and reader expectations of genre. With every twist, it constantly snaps the reader out of their armchair complacency and instead actively engages them in interpreting and analysing the text. In this excellent novel by Joel Drucker, the c...

How many things do you read in a day? It’s an odd question. Yet, think about it. Every time you glance at your phone or scroll through Facebook, check your emails at work or flick through a textbook in class – even when you’re waiting at the bus stop or doctor’s surgery, browsing the rails at H&M or ordering your morning latte – words are everywhere. And they want your attention. And they won’t go away. In fact, in this digital age, we need reading more than ever. We’re more likely to be looking at, and taking in, more written communication than ever before – and far more likely to write something ourselves. What if we did start counting everything we read each day – and thought about how much we actually read just for the sheer enjoyment of it? Nowadays, if we want to enter an imaginary world it’s a click away. Netflix, boxset binges, MMORPGs, YouTube…Done. But let’s think about this. Our most popular entertainment is based on books; Game of Thrones, The Hobbi...

The general consensus as a book club was the book was easy to read due to the author’s easy style of writing.    Deep moral life issues are addressed in the book.   There are too many important issues in the story plot to give gravitas to life changing events and actions and the moral issues of:   Forgiveness; Guilt; Parenting; Marriage; Infidelity; Secrecy; and ‘what if’ scenarios. Comments from the group I enjoyed reading “The Husband’s Secret” and the author hooked me into the story very quickly.  Whilst searching for a piece of the Berlin wall for her daughter, Cecelia finds a letter from her husband with a note to read only after his death – what should she do?  What would you do?  After reading it the lives of the three main characters become inextricably linked.  At first I thought there was too much going on but very quickly got involved with each of the characters.  Cecelia is very organised and Tupperware stalwart – a pill...