What Sophie Said

After a short pause became a slightly longer pause, I’m back and ready to carry on with the next instalment of The Reading List. The blogging paused but the reading didn’t, and I have enough to write about for weeks! The Silver Linings Playbook, Matthew Quick Pat Peoples is trying to get his life back on track after leaving a psychiatric hospital, and amongst his aims is reconciliation with his wife Nikki. He has left hospital with the new purpose of being nice to everyone, and always hunting for the silver lining. When he befriends Tiffany, certain plans he thought he had set in stone start to become unstuck. I saw the film before reading the book, and the film is amazing, but the book just has the edge for me. It was heart-warming, funny, sad, moving… It’s about believable human relationships and also about Pat’s relationship with himself. It’s perfectly written and one I would pick up again. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen Fanny Price is patient and ...

I’m really not doing well at getting these up as regularly as I want! Christmas has confused every schedule, but I can now start getting back on track. These reading list posts include 4 books at once, and I’m so behind that I’m rediscovering things I read and wrote up weeks ago! Oh well, here is the latest list: Sacred Hearts, Sarah Dunant In the 1570s, Serafina is sent to an Italian monastery to ‘save’ her from a restricted love affair. The novel is about Serafina and the other sisters of the monastery. The main focus seemed to be Sister Zuana, who watches over Serafina, and also takes charge of the apothecary. I liked Zuana’s character a lot, but never really felt very connected to Serafina, despite the fact she is supposedly the centre of the tale. There were lots of great things about this novel. The details about monastery life, about worship and about life outside the walls were interesting, and the hysterias and cures made fascinating reading. In terms of the...