Category: Rooties Recent Reading

I often think I’m lucky. Well luck isn’t just mine, Rhonda won two tickets to see a special screening of a new film not out until March, from the local radio station Invicta FM. Things got better, Uncle Dave agreed to baby sit and said he really liked the book. Marley and Me* was set to be the first grown up film we’d been to together for years. Children affect life in many ways, Wall-E, Toy Story and other similar films become the only cinema experience you remember after a while.

Marley and Me is based on a nonfiction book, which is based on 15 years or so of a news paper reporters life. Starting just before he and his new wife get a dog after a friends suggestion that will delay her needs for a baby for a little while. It ends…. hmm, I’m trying not to give too much away, but it ends when the dog dies.

I liked and enjoyed the film. It follows the real life trials and tribulations that happen to us all and that I think gives something that almost everyone can relate to. It’s a true life story that hangs around the presence of a pet dog but could just as easily hang around a much beloved family car or home. That said, Marley added his own life to the situation as only an animal can. Time flew by, the film was 2 hours long and there were good times and bad, happy times and sad, making the whole audiance move from laughter to tears then back again.

I always find it hard to know whether a film is worth watching before hand and I’m often disappointed by the ends. In all honesty I’d often choose not to go the cinema and just have a couple of hours time with one of the many books I have waiting to be read. This film though was well worth watching. If you’re not lucky enough to win the tickets as we were, I’d recommend it as worth paying for.

Rootie Ratings are normally a book thing, but I’d give this a four out of five. If only it could be found in the second hand bookshop along with all my other favourites.

*The little animated dog also came from the films web site http://www.marleyandmemovie.co.uk/ where you can also dowload desktop wall papers and other parephenalia. The animated gif was suggested as an ‘e-signature’ that you can use within your email. I wont be, but it makes a nice little place holder graphic for the review.

Part 2 and Part 3 of a trilogy I started in the summer with “Out of the Silent Planet“. I loved the first book, giving it a Rootie rating of 5 out of 5, surely these would carry the trend, may be drop to a 4?…

Perelandra sees our character visit a different planet. This planet is almost entirely covered by sea and floating islands made of plants. The description of the environment was great but for me the story dragged more than if I’d had to read it as part of my English Literature lessons at school. I really can’t say I enjoyed this story, just forced myself to continue turning pages. I give it a Rootie Rating of 1 out 5 and hope the third part of the trillogy is better.

That Hideous Strength is different from the first two. Hmmm, how to describe the difference; instead of traveling to another planet, the whole story happens on earth. It links into early medieval history and the time of Merlin the magician. It has a clever set up where people are used by others to control the media and alter the perception of society. For all that, I found this story very hard to read through. This trilogy started so well for me, but I can only give this part a Rootie Rating of 1 out of 5.

Wow! This was a big surprise. The setting is a town in France where the author himself meets with an old lady. She, it is revealed, was the inspiration of the heroine in his earlier 3 books (and there are 3 earlier books which I’ll now start looking out for). Rosie was a special agent during the war and this story is about her first mission, the one mission the author couldn’t have written about because his source didn’t know about it. Best of all, there is a twist at the end which I’ll not tell you lest I spoil it.

I tend to like books where a history is revealed. In this book we hear not only of Rosie’s struggles to survive as an undercover agent but also of what happened to her after the war, right up to the present day or in this case, right up to the reason she is talking to an author in a small French town, attending a re-union of the few remaining resistance and special operations staff that still survive after 60 years.

Rootie Rating 4 out of 5, time to go and find the other 3 books in this series.