Sofa Spotlight - Shades of Light, Sharon Garlough Brown

 I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I picked up this book. I’m not the biggest fan of Christian fiction so my expectations were not high, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The storyline is about Wren, a social worker in her late 20s who suffers an emotional breakdown after the departure of her best friend, Casey. Casey doesn’t feature much in the book but his presence is throughout and he isn’t certainly key to the story and Wren’s mental health.

What I loved about this story was the care that was taken to describe what Wren was going through. I’m sure that her experience will ring true for many people, as it did for me. But what gave the book great depth was also the impact of Wren’s illness on the people around her. Her great-aunt Kit is clearly a solid support for her but her mum’s journey is just as significant as Wren’s own.

I would say this is a must read, even if it is just to get a glimpse into what life is like for someone who loses their grip on their mental health, even for just a little while. Great book, loved it.

Sofa Spotlight - Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane

I chose this book because having just read Underland I needed a post great-read fix. This intrigued me because of its reference to language. I love words, and their origins and use is fascinating to me. So a book that looks at the locality of language, and how it is used to describe the world around us, was a must read.

My favourite part of each chapter was the glossary section at the end. I spent hours looking over the different words that describe subtle differences in weather, or details about hedgerows that I would normally miss. It’s a book that encourages you to engage with the world that we can see and experience and to go out and find or create our own words to describe our environments.

It was another excellent read, well enjoyed and very important. Language gets lost all the time and there’s such a wealth of vocabulary that we are losing.

Sofa Spotlight - Underland, Robert Macfarlane

When I saw this book I was so intrigued by its title and blurb that I had to pick it up and read it. What’s not to love about someone exploring deep places underground and mixing in a bit of the concept of time. Amazing. And it didn’t disappoint, for many reasons.

I like my books to teach me things and take me places I wouldn’t normally go (which, if given a choice, would be anywhere outside my front door). This book fulfilled both requirements, in fact, it was so good at taking my imagination on a journey underground that I was left feeling slightly claustrophobic. There was so much to learn from these journeys that I will be mulling them over for some time. The chapter on the tunnels under Paris alone makes this book a good read.

My recommendation would be that you read this on a really chilly winter’s day. It helps because it’s dark outside so you get a bit of a feel for the underland, and the chapters that are about the glaciers in Greenland – you’re going to want to fell cold so that you can appreciate them even more. So good was this book that I immediately went out and bought Landmarks, review coming soon.

Sofa Spotlight - Hamlet, William Shakespeare

This is my first time reading this since I studied it for my a-levels, sadly quite a while ago. I also read the edition that I used back then and having all my notes in the margin made it quite a nostalgic reading.

But it is interesting reading it as an adult, and somehow, I saw so much more this time. I still feel that Hamlet has a lot to answer for and that he could have handled things much better. Although, if my father’s ghost came to me and told me that my uncle had murdered him, I’m not sure how I would handle that situation either. But still, I would try not to kill one person, make another person go mad and then have my actions lead to the deaths of multiple other people.

If you’ve not read or seen it performed before, it might not be a Christmas read. There isn’t much that is jolly about it and by the end the only character I have any respect for is Horatio. Some great lines in this though and would recommend reading it.

Sofa Spotlight - Hunger, Michael Grant

 So, this is book two in the Gone series. I picked it up because I’m really intrigued to find out what is going to happen in the FAYZ. I can’t work out how this will end so I’m thinking I’m in this now until the end of the series. Which is unfortunate because what some of the kids get up to is a bit grim and sometimes makes for uncomfortable reading.

The FAYZ stands for Fallout Alley Youth Zone, which is a massive bubble around a large part of land and a bit of sea, which appeared when there when the nuclear power plant exploded. Also, everyone over the age of 14 disappeared. Which is where it gets uncomfortable because there are kids walking around with machine guns and those who have new powers are also perceived as lethal.

There’s a lot going on in this book and it was hard to keep track of all the problems the main character Sam is trying to sort out. I felt exhausted just contemplating his list so no wonder he was close to a break down. But the biggest one is sorting out the lines that being drawn between those with powers and those without and how do you stop society deteriorating to mob rule.

Now I just need to decide if I can handle the third book!

Sofa Spotlight - GCHQ, Richard Aldrich

This is the second time I’ve read this book, although the edition I’ve just read had a new chapter so that was exciting. The book is about the history of what GCHQ has been doing, how its role has changed and how effective it has been. It’s very factual and a good informative read. I particularly enjoyed the sections on the Cold War but that’s because I looked at it in history sometime when I was at school.

But there are some very interesting conclusions to the book around privacy and security as technology arises and computers are everywhere. I think we are all becoming more aware of how much influence social media and algorithms and digital advertising are influencing our lives now, along with the rise of things like fake news. And these things are probably not going to go away anytime soon. But what this book made me think about is – how much do I like the convenience of all the technology – like ordering take out on my phone without having to speak to a person (brilliant) or my washing machine being smart enough to remember how I like my laundry to be done, and how much do I hate the invasion of my privacy when all these things can be monitored and tell marketers all about my preferences for spicy curry.

Certainly food for thought.