The White Hare by Michael Fishwick is a Young Adult novel which juxtaposes an urban, contemporary sensibility with ancient rural myth. I'd have liked a sharper focus to this tale of Robbie, a troubled lad who has moved from the big city to a small village in the West Country where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with the offbeat Mags and discovers - in very real terms - the legend of the white hare, but this coming-of-age story in which ghosts are laid to rest and there is resolution of sorts is an interesting read.
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Singing for Mrs. Pettigrew: A Story-Maker's Journey by Michael Morpurgo combines a collection of his short stories with the stories of their making. There's a snippet here to give you an idea, but all told this is very engaging and enjoyable, if at times heart-rending. "I [do not] go looking for stories," he says, "but I do go to places where they might find me." Long may he do so.
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The Art of Discarding by Nagisa Tatsumi is the book which inspired Marie Kondo. There's a lot of good sense here, but it needs a major edit. It suffers, as so many books in the wider 'self-help' line do, from the over-elaboration of an essentially simple message in order to fill pages and justify the price. I could go on but I'll leave it there.
I must say that your comment on the third book you reviewed is exactly my view of almost everyone one of these books I have read (or have read reasonably comprehensive reviews of). Come on folks it isn't rocket science (as they say in some quarters) and rocket science isn't even ABJM superconformal field theory (look it up I have no idea).
Posted by: Dark Puss | 01 May 2017 at 08:11 PM