The Reading List #52

It's time for my next round-up of mini reviews...

This time, a life upgrade, money talk, a trip to Kenya and a twist on a classic fairytale.


Leopard at the Door, Jennifer McVeigh


18 year-old Rachel has returned home to Kenya after six years at an English boarding school. Her father's new lover has moved onto the farm and times are changing. Outside the farm, rumours are growing of violence between Mau Mau freedom fighters and British soldiers.

I absolutely loved this novel. I love using fiction as a way to explore places and situations I know little or nothing about and I felt completely immersed in this world. It was a pleasure to read, with amazing characters and made me gasp out loud in places. The historical note at the end was also well worth a read, and I was shocked at the examples given of the power of the media and media perspective.


Money: Master the Game, Tony Robbins


I'm a huge Tony Robbins fan, and the focus of this book is pretty obvious from the title. It's about the steps towards financial freedom, and contains lots of case studies and motivation and explanation of the way things work in the financial world.

Unfortunately, because the advice was so specific I feel it has dated, and it's also very America-specific as financial processes and offerings differ from country to country and from year to year. There were some interesting concepts and I enjoyed the parts where he was speaking about money and attitudes towards money, but a lot of the information wasn't relevant to me.


A Whole New World - A Twisted Tale, Liz Braswell


'What if Aladdin had never found the lamp?'

This is part of a whole series of tales offering twists on the stories we all know and love. They're written in that distinctive fairytale style and do feel like a sort of parallel version oft he original stories, rather than being totally different.

Aladdin isn't one of my favourite Disney tales so this one didn't resonate with me as much as some of the others in this series, but what I did like was that this story felt much more meaty and full-bodied than the story we all know. I enjoyed thinking about the effect of changing one detail of a story and the knock-on effect that could have.


Leap Year, Helen Russell


This is one woman's story of a year-long 'life upgrade'. Broken down into sections including home, finances and career, she tries out techniques commonly believed to help improve your life and talks to various 'experts' in each of these practices.

It's a light-hearted read about feeling a bit stuck and wanting to do something about it. However, it's written by someone at such a different stage of life to me that I found it hard to relate. It was a good reminder, though, that whatever your circumstances are, you're able to make a change.


That's it for this round-up, but there will be more mini reviews on the way soon...

Sophie x

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