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First impressions of Call of the Wild by Jack London

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Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently, I just finished reading Noel Fitzpatrick's book, Becoming The Supervet so I decided that I would start reading a book that my grandmother got me for Christmas and that is Call Of The Wild by Jack London. It actually comes with a second book which is White Rang but I'll be reading that next. So far, I'm not the biggest fan of Call of the Wild. I mostly don't like the way it's written because it is written in the perspective of the St Bernard and Scottish Collie cross-breed, Buck. The beloved dog gets stolen from his pampered life in California and shipped to Klondike to work as a sledge dog during the time of the Gold Rush. Whilst this is an interesting topic to base a fictional story on, he fact that it's all written in the perspective of Buck, kind of personifies the dog too much and you just end up losing all the emotion. It does highlight a lot of serious topics since Buck does unfortunately g...

Noel Fitzpatrick's book, Becoming The Supervet book review

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Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, Recently, I finished reading Professor Noel Fitzpatrick's book, Becoming The Supervet. Honestly, without a doubt, one of the most amazing books I think I've ever read in my life. That is a statement I don't say that often but in this case, it is generally true. When you look at who Noel's become now, without looking at the last fifty years of his life, you'd think that he's a very privileged person who's rich and has got a lot of practices across southern England. However, looking at his past, you'd actually realise that he's a person who's generally been through a lot. Without having read his book, I would have never realised that he was bullied for the whole of his 5 years in secondary school. He talks about being beaten up during school and also having his bike broken by his bullies on his way home from school. Without having read his book, I would have never realised that he actually st...

What is my favourite book genre and why? Ranting Tuesdays

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...

Of Mice and Men end scene film vs the book- Ranting Tuesdays

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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...

Did James Herriot's book All Things Bright and Beautiful live up to my assumptions?

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...

Book review on James Herriot's book All Creatures Great and Small

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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...

Why do I pick up a book?- Ranting Tuesdays

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...

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