Themself by James Kemp

Book review: I've read some short story and other writing collections before, and there is an element of stop/start as you move from one piece to the next. In this collection the author has created a flow by linking his writings to an OU creative writing course.

What we have here is a collection of short stories and poems, a military theme being evident in a lot of them, interspersed with little tips on writing that the author has found useful to himself and for his course. Therefore you can imagine that this book would be useful to OU students undertaking the same course, but also novice writers. 

From page 1 you can see that there are weblinks so if you have the paperback version you may want to have an internet connected device nearby. This will certainly help with giving some context of bits where there is assumed knowledge. Through the writing you can see that the author can hold a story but one of the problems with some of the writing is that he was restricted by word count (as he mentions in his reflection pieces where he analyses his writing and where he looks at things such as character, setting, conflict, show and tell...). For example a whole story on a complicated world is built up around a "creation myth I wrote for the primary god in a theocracy" with many twists and turns but is covered in just 5-6 pages. There is definitely scope for fleshing out that story and others. Also some of his analysis may be too detailed for a book like this, e.g. the author talking about word count: "taking the mid-point of words per minute, it's within a single standard deviation of the median, mode and mean...".

With most of the content in the book coming from the author's blog there were elements that could have been changed a little to reflect that they are now in a book, e.g. "tell me in the comments ...", plus some other pieces from his blog not written specifically for the course felt shoehorned into the relevant sections just because the author was proud of them. Having said that though they were good in their own right. I enjoyed reading about self-drive cars for example.

Also you could tell this was self-published as there are little edits that the book would have benefited from. For example after chapter 1 we go onto chapter 3.

But overall I liked it.

Amazon UK Link: THEMSELF

Publication date: 21 Jan 2016

Pip and the Paw of Friendship by Gill Lewis, illustrated by Sarah Horne

Book Review: "Pip and the Paw of Friendship" is the story of a Labrador pup called Pip who is a pupil at the Sausage Dreams Puppy Academy where he is training to be an assistance dog. His mum and dad were assistance dogs before him so there are huge expectations on him, which, together with his strong desire to play with balls, leads to problems in his quest to qualify to be an assistance dog and to get his "Paw of Friendship" badge.

This is an early reader book suitable for readers around the ages of 6-8 moving on from picture books to a slightly longer read. It has lots of quality black-and-white illustrations throughout.

I read another Puppy Academy before, the story of Star, and it won't surprise you that the plots are similar, both are training for roles their parents did, both meet obstacles along the way etc. This one though is better because of the emotional connection formed between Pip and his human Kayla.

My 9-year-old and 5-year-old daughters both enjoyed it.

AMAZON LINK: PIP AND THE PAW OF FRIENDSHIP

Publication date: 4 Feb 2016

Brilliant Answers to Tough Interview Questions by Susan Hodgson (5th edition)

Book review: The blurb says this book will “banish your nerves”. Well I don’t think it will banish them completely but this book, being thorough, will certainly aid you in being as prepared as possible.

The author “was head of the careers service at London South Bank University” and she “worked with a wide range of employers to ensure that she knew exactly what they were looking for.” Basically she has lots of knowledge and she’s put a lot of work into getting the best advice possible, and it is all here in this book.

If you are preparing for interviews then just reading through this book will get you into the mind-set to do well. It covers everything you could think of, although you obviously have to tailor the answers to your situation.

Chapters typically start with a few questions at the beginning with some detailed guidance of how to build and plan your answer for these types of questions, followed by lots of other questions with suitable answers following the same approach. It’ll help you develop your own answers related to yourself.

There is even a chapter covering competency based interviews, which is useful for me if I want to progress where I currently am, and how to interpret these types of questions (which isn’t always obvious). Furthermore things you wouldn’t consider to be covered in this book are, like illegal questions because of discrimination laws, how you should approach the “do you have any questions?” question at the end, and how to deal with Skype and telephone interviews. Even interviews you might conduct yourself to gather information about an industry you are interested in to see whether it would suit you are covered.

Even if you think the material might be a bit dry it isn’t as it is broken up with a bit of humour, e.g. “your answer might provoke a follow-up question – or even the need to reach for a sick bag” and some “Never Never” boxes giving you real examples of where interviews have gone wrong, which may help relax you (at least my interview won’t be that bad). If you still don’t feel like reading the book in detail then you can refer to the index and pick and choose the questions you want to read.

Maybe if you are critical you might say there is a little bit of repetition, especially in the introduction of the book which seems to have been hastily put together at the end. But the rest of the book is excellent (although with the caveat I have yet to put it to test in actual interviews).

Publication date: 1 Dec 2014

AMAZON UK link: Brilliant Answers to Tough Interview Questions

Bond 11+ English and Verbal Reasoning Assessment Papers for the CEM 11+ tests: 8-9 years

Book Review: We've got a few of these Bond 11+ books for our 9-year-old daughter. It gives her a little extra help with the stuff she is learning at school. This one is for the 8 to 9-year-old age group. Despite her being in this age group she hasn't learnt all that is in this book at school yet. For example she knows synonyms well but was unfamiliar with the opposite term antonym until she got this book.

Although she doesn't live in a grammar school area and so is unlikely to do an 11+ exam this is still good in helping her with her schooling. For those with children facing the 11+ I imagine these past papers would be the best possible preparation.

My 9-year-old says, "It is really good because it tests your knowledge, and your memory."

Available on AMAZON

Trickster by Tom Moorhouse

Book Review: I read Tom Moorhouse's The River Singers which was predominantly about water voles, but also featured rats I remember. This book focuses on the rats and their world which revolves around earning a name for themselves by pleasing one of their "gods" as it were, the Hunter, the Taker, the Trickster. Their world is quite expertly built up within this book. The rats live in their separate clans, the Greenhedge, the Damplings and in Notratlan, and within their clans is the hierarchy with the clan leader, the Akla, followed by the bigrats, the ratlings, the flatfoots, with other rats being drudges or the Mothers.

Within that world are Gabble and Ash, two brother rats, living in Greenhedge. They are opposites, one "impetuous, reckless, set on living life to the full", the other "cautious, sensible but determined to protect his brother." And that leads to trouble, a war between the clans, unless the Trickster can skilfully find a peaceful solution.

So that is the book. The rats have funny names (Fo'dur, Ar'bus etc.) and a way of speaking which isn't necessarily the most child friendly reading. And there are no pictures along the way either. But it is good in the creation of the world, which I assume is because it relates to real-life behaviour of rats given the author's day-job is working in a zoology department. 

Amazon UK link (currently £6.29): Trickster

Publication date: 4 Feb 2016