The Book Hub 📙🐻

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Before, I absolutely used to be a fan of fictional books. I really enjoyed the Jacqueline Wilson books as a child, especially Starring Tracy Beaker. I also really enjoyed The Famous Five by Enid Blyton growing up. I really enjoyed the suspense especially the one about where they are trapped in a room with smugglers. For a long time, fiction has always seemed to be my favourite book genre. However, when I started reading things like Anne Frank's diary or Helga's diary, both excellent true accounts from the Second World War, I got drawn to the world of non-fiction. I especially enjoyed reading about Arthur by Mikael Lindnord. I liked reading about how the helpless dog followed Mikael's Swedish adventure racing team all across the jungle to find a home. I also liked reading about Felix the railway cat and how he became a signified member of the station. I am currently reading James Herriot's book All Things Bright an...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,  At the age of 12 years old, I read an amazing book called Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. In year 8, we did go over the book in English but I had already read it before. It took me a while to understand some things and I often found that I had to re-read some sections just to understand the old American slang but nevertheless, when I did got to grips with the language, I found the plot quite interesting. There are so many amazing chapters I could highlight from this book but there is just one that tops them all in my opinion. The final chapter has not only just got me awestruck, but I'm sure many of you readers out there too. It's the chapter when George has to shoot his companion Lennie, a tall muscular worker with learning difficulties, for his own good. I like this section in the book because it's prolonged and prior to Lennie's death, him and George talk about the future. 'Getting the alfalfa for the ra...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, A couple weeks ago, I did an assumptions post on James Herriot's second book. One of the things that I assumed would happen was that James would join the war. In fact he does. Only when I finished reading the first book did I realise that it said on the first page 'with the exception of his wartime service in the RAF.' This suggests that he had served in the war. However, in chapter 2 of the second book, he clearly states that he won't be talking about his time during the war since it's not a wartime story. I can understand why he didn't decide to write about it since that would take away from the other important aspects of his life such as helping the farm animals. I also assumed that James and Helen would be married and I was correct. In the last few chapters of the first book, they get married within a month! In the second book, they seem to be living happily despite James's late night shifts at 2 i...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Today I'm going to review James Herriot's book All Creatures Great and Small which is basically a collection of his memoirs being a Yorkshire country vet. I really enjoyed this book and it gave me a new perspective on being a Yorkshire country vet which before I read this, I didn't consider it to be a particularly interesting occupation. Now I've found that it is a challenging job, especially since James had to parade around in a car with no brakes through S-bend roads in the Dales! He also had to deal with challenging clients at the beginning of his career, which due to the fact he was only just starting out, they thought he wouldn't be good at his job. Most of the time he managed to prove them wrong, but other times he embarrassed himself by doing the job completely wrong. He also had to deal with forgetful Siegfried Farnon who although he encouraged James to get married to Helen Alderson as soon as possible...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Why do I pick up a book? Most of the time, I get attracted to a book by its beautiful cover. They always say, don't judge a book by its cover but when an author spends extra time on what the book looks like on the outside, it always makes you want to read what's on the inside. This is why I like Jacqueline Wilson books because Nick Sharratt spends a lot of time talking to the author about the book so he can really understand the characters and the storyline and so consequently, his illustrations turn out amazing. Although the majority of the time I pick out a book by its cover, when no book cover seems to be screaming out to me, I also like to just cover my eyes and pick a book randomly off the shelf. I've done this a few times now and although the book cover didn't always look nice, I often found that the storyline was really good. Sometimes a little spontaneity whilst choosing a book is a good thing to als...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, As I'm sure some of you may know, the sequel to the book I'm currently reading now is All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot. As I'm reaching an end to his first novel, All Creatures Great and Small its time to talk about the next book I'll be reading. I read the blurb of All Things Bright and Beautiful and already, I seem rather intrigued. Knowing from the first book that James found some of the medicines of that time fairly useless, especially the tuberculin testing on cows, his second book is about him entering a new decade, the 30s where medical science is improving. I am intrigued to find out how quick some of his treatments just a few years back are like now. As we all know, around this point, Britain is on the verge of war. I am curious to find out whether he joins the war or not and leaves behind his job as a vet since on the blurb it says "with Britain on the verge of war, James faces a dec...

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, A couple years ago, I tried tackling a book by the name of La Perle by John Steinbeck. Since I'm French, I like to read a French book every once in a while so that I can keep up on my French reading as well as my English reading. It was going really well until I guess I kind of lost interest and I got lost into what the story was actually about. Well, a couple years later, I'm giving it another go and I think I'm doing a lot better. The great thing about this version of the book is that one page is French and the other is English so if I get stuck on a word or phrase, I can just look on the other page. I think I'm doing better in reading this book also since I'm already on page 45 and I understand the story clearly. About Kino, his wife, and his baby and about how Coyotito got bitten by a scorpion and about how the doctor was weary about helping the family since they were indigenous and of racial inferiority. ...