Book Reviews

[Daisy]

A place to tell us about what you are reading, what you've read and what you'd recommend! Start a new thread/topic for each book for easy reference for our avid bookworms.

[Gemini]

Great idea for a thread Daisy! I often read a book I want to tell you all about

[Guest]

I'm reading 'Concretopia by John Grindrod' a fascinating book about post war architecture as it impacted on the lives of ordinary people. The author began life in New Addington which is Sarf London shorthand for a 'perfectly dreadful estate' and goes on to discover the ideas and principles of the post war housing programme and also where penny pinching and bad decisions impacted on those builds. He's researched prefab building too which is fascinating. Haven't finished it yet, but it's a good and easy read and will. It will bring back many memories for a lot of us.

[Daisy]

MS - it certainly will. As a child I lived across the road from a large estate of prefabs, so I had lots of friends who lived in them. By the standards of the day (ie post-war) they were luxurious, with large kitchens which had built-in fridges. this was at a time when most people didn't have a fridge at all! The living rooms, which were also large and light with big windows, had enclosed fires which burned coke (I think) but were quite efficient. They all had decent-sized gardens to play in or grow veggies. Of course, they were very inefficient heat-wise, with metal framed windows and little or no insulation, so they suffered badly from condensation. I think it was a big kitchens which caught my eye the most as most houses had really tiny kitchens.

I remember the first time Iheard the phrase 'the slums of the future' - said in relation to a block of dreadful flats on the main road up the Wirral towards the Birkenhead ferry. They were built in the early 60s and by the mid- sixties were looking ready to fall down. I bet Glamm knows where I mean!

[Guest]

I'm now reading 'Once Upon a Time' by Marina Warner. She, like me and many others, loves what are often called fairy stories or traditional tales. This is a very scholarly but also very insightful and enjoyable look at the entire genre, history and meaning of fairy tales.

[Plantaholic]

That sounds interesting MS, I will make a note.