📖 Book Review ~ Adventure Travel Twins England by Naomi and Nathan Kyriacopoulos

Travel and Teach Publishing Limited
5 April 2024

My thanks to Cameron Publicity for my copy if this book

Follow Millie, Marcus and Jasper the sausage dog as they set off on a whirlwind adventure to the country of England. Transported through their magical globe, the Adventure Travel Twins share exciting and educational facts guaranteed to spark imagination and interest in children aged 6 - 10 years. Also included a 'find me if you can' game and a glossary helped to teach younger readers the meaning of words that might be new them or difficult to pronounce.

📖 My Review..

So, it must be said that I had some special help with this review from my four and a half year old granddaughter who enjoyed looking at the colourful pictures and was especially delighted to discover that Jasper the dog was almost exactly like her own sausage dog, Tutti. My granddaughter enjoyed looking at the pictures and listened to my descriptions of the places, she especially recognised the London Eye, which she has been on, she loved all the animals and of course, the picture of chocolate. By far her favourite part of the book was the game to find Millie, Marcus and Jasper and with some help spotted all three.

Overall, my granddaughter's opinion was that the story and pictures were 'quite good' - praise indeed from a discerning four and a half year old who loves books as much as her granny does.

About the Author

Naomi and Nathan Kyriacopoulos are sister and brother and Adventure Travel Twins is the first book that they have written together. They both grew up in the UK (Nottingham and Reading) and now live in New Zealand.

Naomi Kyriacopoulos travelled extensively for work before deciding to make New Zealand home. Her personal and professional passions focus on world geography, history, people, culture and politics. She is delighted to share her excitement for our world with those just starting out on their own adventures!

Nathan Kyriacopoulos is Naomi's younger but bigger brother. He has been fortunate to have travelled across the world and it is that experience (and his young daughter) that drew him to the idea of travel adventures for young children. In his spare time, he is a storyteller, driver, chef, teacher and family entertainer to his daughter Ava and endlessly forgiving wife Kate. Not to mention Frida 'Kahlo' the sausage dog.

Twitter / @CameronPMtweets

#AdventureTwins

📖 Publication Day Book Review ~ The Fairy Tellers by Nicholas Jubber

John Murray Press
20 January 2022

My thanks to the publishers and Emma at the Book Publicist for my copy of this book

Fairy-Tales are not just fairy-tales: they are records of historical phenomena, telling us something about how Western civilisation was formed. In The Fairy Tellers, award-winning travel-writer Nick Jubber explores the secret history of fairy-tales: the people who told them, the landscapes that forged them, and the cultures that formed them.

While there are certain names inextricably entwined with the concept of a fairy-tale, such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, the most significant tellers are long buried under the more celebrated figures who have taken the credit for their stories - people like the Syrian storyteller Youhenna Diab and the Wild Sisters of Cassel. Without them we would never have heard of Aladdin, his Magic Lamp or the adventures of Hansel and Gretel.

Tracking these stories to their sources carries us through the steaming cities of Southern Italy and across the Mediterranean to the dust-clogged alleys of the Maghreb, under the fretting leaves of the Black Forest, deep into the tundra of Siberia and across the snowy hills of Lapland.

From North Africa and Siberia, this book illuminates the complicated relationship between Western civilisation and the 'Eastern' cultures it borrowed from, and the strange lives of our long lost fairy-tellers.

📖 My thoughts..

For me, there is something endlessly fascinating about fairy tales. I've loved them since I was old enough to listen and still enjoy reading tales from enchanted forests, of witches and princesses, princes and demons. That the stories span history and continents, folklore and legend, is what makes each fairy tale so unique.

In The Fairy Tellers the author takes us a comprehensive journey into this magical world of landscape and culture, explaining the history behind the stories, the inspiration and the beguiling nature of tales from storytellers which have been handed down generation by generation until they have become as intrinsic a part of our collective culture as the air we breathe.

Reading like a travelogue and breaking down the book into seven distinct parts we get to learn more about the origins and connections of some of our well known fairy tales. I especially enjoyed the fairy story which heads each chapter and which whisk us away to a magical world. The quirky line drawings which are interspersed within the text also add a lovely sense of atmosphere.

Beautifully written, extensively researched, and as descriptive as a history book, I found The Fairy Tellers completely absorbing.  Dipping into and out of the book, at whim, I discovered things I didn't know about the origins of the long lost fairy-tellers, those shadowy people, whose bright imagination once brought all our classic fairy tales to vibrant life.

You can read an interview with the author by clicking here

Best read with...a glass of milk and chocolate chip cookies

About the Author

Nicholas Jubber has travelled in the Middle East, Central Asia, North and East Africa and across Europe. Along the way, he has worked as a teacher, carpet-washer and even had a stint as a tannery assistant. He has written three previous books, The Timbuktu School for Nomads, The Prester Quest (winner of the Dolman Travel Book Award) and Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard (shortlisted for the Dolman Award). He has written for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, Globe and Mail, Irish Times and BBC History.

Twitter @jubberstravels  #TheFairyTellers

Website

@johnmurrays

@BookPublicistUK

🎄 Review ~ Around the World in 80 Words by Paul Anthony Jones

Elliot&Thompson
October 2018
My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

From Monte Carlo to Shanghai, Bikini to Samarra, Around the World in 80 Words is a whimsical voyage through the far-flung reaches of the English language.

My thoughts about it..

Reading is always an adventure and, in Around the World in 80 Words, the adventure starts in London with a journey through the English language. Taking us from the derivation of the term, "Kent Street Ejectment", which I have to admit I hadn't heard of, but maybe Londoners have 😊, through to being sent to Coventry, this absorbing etymological exploration, is a cornucopia of fascinating detail.

Like all readers, I have a curiosity with words, not just in speech and modern fiction, but also in the way our language has evolved, and of the diversity of the origins of words in our shared language.

This is one of those engrossing compilations which is easy to dip into and out of, picking a country or a word and then just letting the beauty of both, and the exemplary research, take you into the fascinating and complicated world of the English language.

Eighty stops, from London, to the Vire region of France, the source of the word Vaudeville, through to Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and all parts of Eastern Europe, from Colombo in Sri Lanka, home of Serendipity, to the Brazil nuts of Rio de Janeiro, there is such a wealth of information, not just about the words we have purloined from so many different cultures, but also in the way their use has changed and evolved over time.

I don't travel much, but that doesn't mean I'm not fascinated by different cultures and so the absolute appeal of Around the World in 80 Words, for me, is that I've travelled thousands of miles and learned so much fascinating detail without ever having to ditch my cup of tea, or leave my favourite armchair.

Around the World in 80 Words is a perfect Christmas present for any wordsmith, linguist or book worm.

About the Author

Since 2013 Paul has tweeted a new old word every day. After just six months, HaggardHawks had amassed more than 4,000 followers, been named as one of the best language-based accounts on Twitter, and had been profiled on The Huffington Post. It added its 5,000th follower in August 2014; its 10,000th in June 2015; its 40,000th in August 2017; and its 50,000th in June 2018. 

Supporters range from Stig Abel at the TLS to Susie dent on Countdown, and many famous names follow @HaggardHawks eg Jack Monroe, Rufus Sewell, Simon Blackwell, Robert Macfarlane, Sara Pascoe, Allegra Stratton and David Baddiel.

Website

Twitter @HaggardHawks


@eandtbooks

Guest Post - Lucy Cruickshanks ~ Author of The Road to Rangoon..

I am delighted to welcome author Lucy Cruickshanks to the blog today 

and thank her for sharing  with us 

the  inspiration

for her latest novel

The Road to Rangoon

Quercus
17 September 2015

Welcome back to Jaffareadstoo, Lucy. It's lovely to see you again...


What can you tell us about The Road to Rangoon?

I have a real love affair with Asia. My first novel, The Trader of Saigon, was set in Vietnam and my second was always going to have its heart in the region too. I hadn’t been to Myanmar before I started writing The Road to Rangoon, though I’d wanted to travel there for years. The country is only beginning to open up to tourism and the long-standing military dictatorship is undertaking embryonic reforms. Their society is poised on the cusp of change. I was conscious that if I didn’t visit soon, it might have transformed beyond recognition, so setting a novel there seemed an excellent reason to expedite my trip.

Before I went, I looked at the issues facing the country, searching for a story. Myanmar is a fascinating but troubled beast. Her history is replete with conflict, from the brawling kings of old, to the arrival of the Portuguese mercenaries, British colonialist and Japanese invaders in World War II, to the decades of dictatorship and civil war that followed, and the emergence and repression of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. There were opportunities for stories galore, but the gem trade captured my imagination above all else. As many as 90% of the world’s rubies come from Myanmar and their quality is unparalleled. They are as much conflict gems as Africa’s notorious blood diamonds, however, funding both the government and the insurgent ethnic armies who vie for control of their historic regional homelands. Many of the most valuable gemstones are from a single region, high in the rugged mountains of Shan State. Mogok is an area where violence, corruption, smuggling, trickery, secrecy and superstition reign, and it became an irresistible backdrop for The Road toRangoon.

Myanmar is a difficult place to research in. The country is staggeringly beautiful but its people have been made wary by decades of repression and human rights abuses. I’d read vicariously before I travelled there, but there’s no substitute for experiencing a setting yourself and hearing about life from the people who call it home. The Burmese are often understandably reluctant to talk about the past or politics, though, and I was always aware that to push a conversation may have been to endanger them as the government is so strict. It was frustrating at times, but I found the more I opened up about my own life, the more people were willing to talk about theirs too. There is a genuine desire to discover about the outside world, to compare their day-to-day experiences to ours and discuss the challenges they face. I learned to read between the lines, to listen to the unspoken sentences, the hints and subtexts, as much as the words that were actually said.

Throughout writing The Road to Rangoon, I felt responsible for portraying Myanmar and the Burmese people as sensitively and authentically as possible, but as a writer, that’s positive. It helps me keep believability at the fore of my mind. The story and the characters I’ve created in this novel are fictional, but the context through which they wade is real. Though I can only imagine what life is like living under a military dictatorship, I hope to have done their experiences justice, at least a small amount.

©Lucy Cruickshanks

You can find more about Lucy on her website

Follow her on Twitter @LJCruickshanks

Visit her on Facebook

Amazon UK
Amazon.com

My thanks to Lucy for sharing the inspiration for her novel

and also to Corinna at Quercus Books for her help with this interview.



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