nocto

Very interesting look at all kinds of things to do with sleeping. I have been reading this book, ironically (but deliberately), in the middle of the night when I can't sleep. The book doesn't offer me personally any hope (pregnancy isn't good for your sleep cycle, neither are small babies) but it does have a lot to say about sleeping, dreaming and insomnia in general. It's definitely not a self help book but if you do find yourself awake in the early hours you could do a lot worse than have a read and find out why you're awake or how much worse it could be.

Never again will I think I'm wasting my time sleeping. I think I'd best go and have a nap now in fact.

Borrowed.

Mostly this is a romantic tale about Lucia Sartori and her large Italian family in New York's Greenwich Village in the early 1950s. For a large chunk of the book I thought it was pretty predictable and though it was very readable it wasn't really my cup of tea. Taken as a whole though the story ended up being not quite what I thought it was going to be and I might pick up another of Adriana Trigiani's books at some point to see what else she can do. Entertaining but I liked the book more after I'd finished it than I did whilst I was reading it.

Purchased on 8th January 2005.

3 copies of this book are available on BookMooch.

Fabulous story about Clare and Henry whose relationship is made complicated by the fact that Henry goes backwards and forwards in time meeting both future and past versions of himself as well as getting to meet Clare at various points from her early childhood on. One of the reasons that I really enjoyed it is because it manages to avoid turning into a huge fantasy, a tragedy or a comedy, all of which would have wrecked the book. Also, despite the fact that time is somewhat jumbled and there is much foreshadowing of things to come the plot develops coherently from one end of the story to the other. Really good stuff.

Purchased on 8th January 2005.