My January Reads and other news....

Well, I have quite a bad start to the year to say the least. I will explain later.
My reads this month were four very good books. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn was recommended on a lot of "best of 2012" articles so I sent for an American import, only for it to come out over here in paperback in January! It is an excellent thriller told by a husband and wife. Nick's wife Amy has gone missing on their fifth wedding anniversary and the action unfolds through her diary and Nick's narration. The plot is very clever and has many twists and turns, the reader's sympathies veer from husband to wife and back again many times.
"The One Hundred Year Old Man.." By Jonas Jonasson was an absolute delight. Allan Karlsson goes on the run from his own 100th birthday party and becomes embroiled in a big adventure. He has also been involved in the most momentous events of the twentieth century, in a Zelig/Forrest Gump type of way. This was a funny, original read and the characters were drawn so well, I could not put it down.
My daughter is studying "The Turn Of The Screw" by Henry James for English so I read it too, it comes with the novella, "Daisy Miller". I enjoyed Daisy Miller, a tale of an ill-fated free spirit ( for her time) in the fashionable resorts of mid nineteenth century Europe. The Turn of The Screw was very spooky and quite different to the recent BBC adaptation. It ended very abruptly and I had to re read it to see if I had missed anything. It is extremely gothic, spooky stately homes, strange children, ghostly presences. One is left wondering if the poor governess imagined it all or if it was real.
Finally, I read "A Year of Doing Good" by Judith O'Reilly. The title says it all, Judith resolves to do a good deed every day for a year. She is a writer who lives in Northumberland and I found this delightful, funny and very moving. She examines what it means to be "good" and how we can benefit from altruism. She describes people she comes across who do great deeds without fuss or thanks. She is also very honest about hard it can be to try to do a good deed. I found this a very inspiring read and was determined to go off and try and do more for the local community after I had finished it.
However, life can sometimes hold nasty surprises and I will be taking a break from my blog for a while. I hope to return as soon as I am able but I have got a major health issue to face which I don't feel like writing about at the moment. So happy reading everyone and thanks for reading thus far!