Tobias Reeks

Herbert has produced what will no doubt be one of the many biographies about Lady Gaga that will appear over the course of her career. Spread over two hundred and sixty something pages, she recounts Lady Gaga's past twenty four years into an informative tome of biographical data, wordy description and scarily un-sourced sound bites from Gaga's various interviews over the last sixteen months or so.

As a fan, most of these quotes are familiar and doesn't really add to anything I didn't already know or haven't heard already, and it may be possible to say that Herbert spent many hours in front of her computer trawling the Internet in the name of “research”, rather than going to New York and trying to infiltrate the Haus of Gaga.

As a biography, Herbert seems totally in awe of her subject whereas a biographer's duty is to remain objective - this is not the case here. The cut and paste nature of this biography gives us a product that appears to be hastily put together in order to be sold quickly, and unfortunately it shows.

Unless you are familiar with the British tabloid newspapers and the concept of Page 3 (or what was, yes, again another British phenomenon), then reading Ms Price's first (of many an) autobiography may confuse you a little, if not a lot. You may find yourself asking yourself, “Who is she and what is she famous for?”

Well, a little perusal of Google's Image Search will probably inform you better than I can, or even asking a Brit, as the Kindle version of the book has completely removed any visuals that indeed are part and parcel of the “celebrity” autobiography.

Covering her life from her youth up to her blossoming relationship with then partner/husband/ex-husband Peter Andre, she remains one of the fascinating aspects of British zeitgeist since the turn of the twenty first century.

Easily readable? Yes. Likely to satisfy her fan base? Yes.

Complete and utter escapism needed right now in the midst of a global pandemic? Definitely.

In this short and indeed quick read, Mama Ru presents us with his life lessons learnt along his own way, how to embrace and love ourselves a little more as well as how to figure out what clothes look good on us. In theory this can be done without purchasing a Prada suit, as mentioned.

Lots of this book wasn't really relevant to me (how to transform into a drag queen) though but certainly I gained something from it, as there are lots of inspirational quotes or lines I made a note of for future reference, as recently life has been a bit tough!

Not really a self help guide as such, as a lot of ingredients have been added to the brew here so it comes off a little like candy floss - pretty to look at and it gives you a decent enough sugar rush but may not provide you sustenance for what you're looking for.

I got this on my Kindle, so perhaps if I had got a physical copy, the photographs would have entranced me for hours. The book is now nearly ten years old, and I swear RuPaul hasn't aged a day since then.

The idea is nice in theory, but in practice poorly executed. Much of this “Workbook” consists of graph paper to doodle on, which does not inspire me, as sketching out on paper how to apply Feng Shui is something many of us have done long before being issued graph paper by Too.

Much of the information has been regurgitated from her previous bestsellers so no information here is new or indeed remotely helpful, as an owner of Too's other Feng Shui publications.

Packaged in a spiral bound book, complete with elastic band to presumably hold it together when it falls apart, this is a low point for Lillian Too.

Let's face it, anyone who has completed teacher training in whatever form has found it a complete emotional roller coaster. Like nothing can really prepare you for the training year, nothing can really prepare you for the NQT year either.

Amazingly, despite completing my training and leaving my second placement full of confidence, I quit my NQT job back in March 2013 for various reasons and I needed a bit of a confidence boost before I leapt into supply work. At the time, this was it.

It's divided into well thought out sections covering everything from “Before you start” to “Professional development and promotion”.

If you've had an excellent teacher training period and proactive/helpful mentors in your placements, and you took the time to find a school that works for you and your NQT year, then reading this will provide you with a source of comfort and satisfaction over the next few months.

For me, as someone with two terms of NQT experience, the chapters and sections I found most helpful were “Climbing the Paper Mountain” and possibly “The First Lesson”. However a lot of what I read was relatively straight forward and each school is different, so in reality you do learn on the job.

So not essential, but certainly worthy of perusal in any spare moment you may have.

Relevant to new teachers entering the profession within the British education system.

As a Madonna fan, I read J. Randy Taraborrelli's Madonna: An Intimate Biography and loved it. Sensational, trashy and in bite size pieces, I devoured chapters at a time.

O'Brien's biography of Madonna is completely different to Taraborrelli's. Her work seems more academic in it's written style, and as a former university student this is apparent when you read that O'Brien is an academic herself. And the opening chapters tell us of her own personal fascination with Madonna as opposed to Taraborrelli's journalistic endeavours.

The biography itself charters Madonna's life up to present times, from her beginnings to the then settled adoption saga of David Banda. If you're a Madonna fan this will all be pretty familiar.

A biographer should not be afraid to critique their subject and this aspect is what made the book for me. O'Brien took a step back from the fly on the wall documentation used by Taraborrelli and psychoanalysed and critiqued Madonna, what made her the person she is now, and possibly where she is going next.

A thoroughly modern and mature read about Madonna.

Like many other television personalities, and indeed some of her fellow “Made in Chelsea” co-stars, Binky has written an autobiography... at the age of 25.

Interjected with “Being Binky” tips at the end of each chapter over its 213 pages, Binky tells her story in a very matter of fact way, mostly covering her upbringing of private schools, her parents' divorce, bullying due to an unnamed learning difficulty before moving to London, which then lead to “Made in Chelsea”. Sounds boring?

“Being Binky” certainly is an autobiography in that it chronicles Felstead's life so far, but this is not where you'll find figurative dirt on any of her fellow cast members, and in reality a lot of the later chapters cover what you may have seen on screen already. By this I mean that “Made in Chelsea” is there, but is not gone into specific detail as perhaps you'd want it to.

Did I hate this? No. Did I love this? No, but “Being Binky” will appeal to young women and hardcore fans of “Made in Chelsea”, rather than anyone else.

I really enjoyed reading this book as well as I have enjoyed many a book by Lillian Too, but I think there are a couple of reasons why this didn't get a 5 star rating in my opinion.

The first is Lillian's relentless mentioning of going along to your local Chinatown or Chinese shop and buying products to aid your Feng Shui. For me the idea of this is quite ridiculous, as I know of no Chinatowns or Chinese shops within my local vicinity - the nearest one is in London. Therefore if you set your heart on a remedy or cure, you have to buy from her web site franchise which is (probably) mentioned at the front of the book.

Another thing you may come across is that even if you only have a few of her previous titles, you do get a feeling of “Haven't I read this somewhere before?” - meaning that it's possible that some of the information in this book may have appeared somewhere else.

Having said that the book is easy to read and Lillian's style is chatty and fun, even if she does mention how Feng Shui has changed her life so much. I enjoyed reading the section about Flying Star Feng Shui and also thought the parts about the wealth vase and water features were good too.

Overall I would recommend this book as a must buy if it's your first Too publication otherwise, approach with caution.

The “magic” in the title in no way refers to actual witchcraft or Wicca practices so your aim's a bit off if you want to read about that...

Before I read this book, I was hoping to gain some more concrete advice on how to manage ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), CD (Conduct Disorder) and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) but having worked as a Teaching Assistant for the past two years at a secondary school, I have learnt a huge amount about how to manage these conditions simply by observing my colleagues' efforts.

I loved this book because it was a quick read, informative and I loved the cartoons. I also loved the fact that I was able to identify some of the students I encounter on a daily basis within this book. Due to its size, it's ideal to have in your drawer for a quick peek between lessons.

I would say this book is better suited for PGCE students and NQTs within school, who may not have encountered students with these behaviours before. It's a great back up to read just in case all the information and abbreviations on your SEN register confuses you. Therefore, even though I enjoyed this book, I didn't find it particularly helpful from my perspective as a Teaching Assistant of two years.

This was one of the texts, studied during my first year at university, back in 2003, though originally in Spanish. All these years later, I thought it high time to sit down and properly read one of the texts I was supposed to study in depth at university, though now without the socio-political and historical context to go with it.

The story's protagonists are The Colonel and his wife, who live in a small town in Colombia, possibly in the same time period as characters such as Aureliano Buendía, who appears in García Márquez's “100 Years of Solitude”.

The story tells us of the misery and desperation they face on a daily basis, whilst the Colonel awaits his long awaited war pension, which never seems to arrive, and money the couple could make from their dead son's fighting cockerel and it's sale.

We spend most of our time spent in limbo, pondering - Is the Colonel's pension ever going to arrive? Will the fighting cockerel ever win a fight? Will life ever get better for the couple?

There's no chapter structure in the traditional sense of a novel and at times, I also found the lack of names annoying as well, and to me, these are what frustrated me more than anything else.

I may read it again in the future, but for the minute, I'm left with a sense of relief that I've finished it and can move onto something else.

In just under two months, I will be doing what Jeremy did – packing my bags and setting off to sunny Spain to teach in a private immersion school working with primary school children in the Canaries, no less.

A lot of the humour comes from the anecdotes written about the children themselves as well as Jeremy and his wife's lack of language skills in doing things we would consider fairly run of the mill communicating in our language. I remember being giggled at because I couldn't get my English tongue around the Galician version of George (Xurxo), being offered pig's ear and assured it's the most delicious part – so yes, these anecdotes made me chuckle out loud.

Anyone who is thinking of upping sticks and moving abroad, especially to teach should read this as a preparation for what's to come.

Was I entertained? Yes. Did it remind me how much fun teaching can be? Yes. Am I likely to be telling my friends and family anecdotes of a similar nature in the next few months? Yes!

Zen kyu Jeremy!

With this book now being fourteen years old, one could indeed suggest that another Kate Moss biography could be on the way with this published just after her dramatic fall from grace in 2005.

Unfortunately, the book is riddled with so many spelling mistakes and editing errors that it makes you wonder whether this was checked before being sent to the printers, and ends on a weird note not really concluding everything written previously.

Despite that, it is a very in-depth and indeed well researched biography about her providing a social and cultural context, telling us the how's and why's to how she got to where she is today.

Content - 3/5
Spelling mistakes and editing errors reduce it to a 2/5.

Veronika decides to die... a rather morbid title, don't you think? This is my second Coelho book, having battled with “The Alchemist” some years previously. I just didn't get it at all, despite all the (online) praise.

What did I like about “Veronika”? Coelho is a gifted writer, very able to transport you to another world, in this case, a psychiatric hospital in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Did Coelho need to include himself as a character in the book in the opening few chapters? Not really...

It is in no way a perfect novel, but at its core, it has inspiring messages that many of us could take into our day to day lives, especially with 2018 now on our doorstep and when perhaps many of us have gotten bogged down by winter blues and want a fresh start. Am I likely to revisit this again in the future? Yes.

This book allows the reader to reevaluate the importance of life and that each day is precious... not to be wasted.

“Do Not Disturb” picks up where “The Girl in 6E” left off, with the reader rejoining Deanna about two weeks after the events of the first novel.

Having stepped outside once, Deanna is now taking massive steps at rejoining the real world - her relationship with her love interest steps up a gear, and even going as far as making a massive purchase on something we may take for granted.

Deanna's online activities, however, leads a caged beast to make a more active interest in her, to the extent where the lives of her nearest and dearest are now in the firing line.

Told again, in a mixture of first and third person narrative, the short chapters make the story fast paced and lively, so you will finish it within a few days.

Again, there is scope for the reading of the third novel in the series, called “If You Dare”.

Another great thriller from Ms Torre!

By Saunders' own admission, this is a book of memories rather than a rigidly told chronological diary so to speak, so time frames are lax and fluid.

Her university application process? Sounds a lot like my own. My own mother, like Jennifer's, was more delighted at the prospect of having their child attend university than I was. My own bedroom resembles her own, with my laundry exploding everywhere. She also turns out to be a massive procrastinator as well, something I'm guilty of myself.

‘Bonkers' takes us on a journey of some of the highs and lows of Saunders' professional and personal life and perhaps I did cheat somewhat by having this read to me by the author herself, and that's partly why I enjoyed it so much.

While not being a perfect book, it has made me chuckle quite a lot with Saunders' various voices and sheer joy for comedy booming out of my headphones.

The story of The (Dark) Phoenix has always intrigued me, having first seen it adapted in the 1990s X-Men cartoon, but not quite taking in how complicated the X-Men/Marvel universe was at the time and more recently with the X-Men/Fox film franchise that started in 2000, culminating in 2019's “Dark Phoenix”, starring Sophie Turner as Jean Grey.

So, in the build up, I go looking for material and I come at this as a fan of the film franchise, which created an Earth based singular X-Men universe, rather than an aficionado of the comic books/Marvel universe which incorporates other characters from Marvel's universe with crossovers from other series as well as multiple timelines.

Here we have a twenty first century novelisation of the graphic novel that is recognised as a classic within the X-Men canon, a difficult task by Moore's own admission since the original Dark Phoenix Saga was published back in the 1980s - complete with Skype and mobile phones. The characterisation of the X-Men reminded me so much of the cartoon series.

Did I like it? Yes. Would I have enjoyed it more if I were more aware of the Marvel universe and read the comics before hand? Yes.

Spread out over the eight chapters, Bündchen delivers a mish mash of a biography and life advice for us all, and arguably I think it's perhaps aimed more towards women than men, even though what she does impart is applicable for both.

What I did enjoy is that for someone who has played a stereotype, the supermodel, who publicly usually says very little - Gisele's advice comes from the heart and she means well by it all, having gone through some trying times in her early career.

If the book is filed under biographies, then perhaps it's not as deep on this label as I would have liked it to have been, as the timeframes are not particularly chronological.

The end result is a quick and easy read, and Bündchen writes what could be best be described as a self help book with a strong autobiographical element and hey, it is a comfort to see that even the rich and successful have problems like the rest of us.

The question is that will 2019 make (m)any of us brave enough to sort ourselves out?

Having inhaled Gordon's previous two books, it didn't take me long to sprint through her third, and I'd recommend perhaps going back to her previous tomes, but it may not be necessary in this case. I adore her madcap (British humoured) style of writing, hence why it didn't take me too long to finish.

As kids, we do PE / Sport in school or outside of school, myself included - I used to swim for four hours a week at one point. It was definitely two hours of brain off mode at the time, I loved being in the water, had a six pack, long since gone and still mourn for a little. I stopped swimming however, around the age of 15-16, my mother putting her foot down for me to concentrate on my GCSEs, which actually didn't happen, I underperformed in almost all my subjects. I was dealing with my own teenage issues, and perhaps continuing with the swimming would have helped - in retrospect.

As we get older, life and responsibilities catch up with us and we become more sedentary, and whatever dramas we had as children or indeed teenagers seem to multiply. I know mine did. Having had a few mental health struggles, I never would have thought that doing exercise would indeed be the possible magic wand to solve them.

I'm lucky enough to work in a school where my students have one lesson of PE every day, and if there's any advice I'd give them in the future, it would be to find a form of exercise that they enjoy and ultimately works for them. In my case, it will never be football or rugby. For me, it would be getting back into the water and becoming the imaginary frog, dolphin or merman that I did when I was younger.

Gordon reminds us that in order for us to be healthy and indeed happier, the thing we need to do is get off the sofa and move.

Simply put, I loved it.

Written as a collection of letters to her late father and various other relatives and friends, Dear Fatty is so much a very private autobiography coming from Dawn French, to the extent that I found myself extensively Googling the various names and places I wasn't familiar with, thus disrupting the flow of my read.

Some of the chapters were very endearing, like meeting The Queen Mother at a young age and a chapter dedicated to (her now ex-husband) Lenny Henry. Other sections were quite odd, employing a West Country accent to try and entice Madonna to collaborate and the extended joke/sketch ideas to ‘Fatty', which again I didn't get.

What did stick out however, is that large parts of this were very rambly, in that there's plenty to read, but didn't seem to say a lot. As French has maintained a high level of privacy throughout her career and also by her own admittance, I feel the whole thing could have gone much deeper in places.

In all, a nice (meh) read, but it may not mean a lot if you're not British or aware of Dawn.

If you're looking for a Kylie style biography, for example who made a dress or outfit for a certain tour or video, this is for you. This isn't rocket science however and Baker does seem to use some words like femininity and sensuality a lot in this book, and I finished it in a few days. “La La La” is also very short so if you're looking for a juicy read about Kylie's ups and downs, both professional and personal then I'd advise to look elsewhere, but if you prefer to read the ‘official' version of things, this is the best you're going to get until Kylie decides to tell her own story.

All the characters you loved (or loved to hate) are back, plus some new ones, since this takes place five years after the events of the 1989 film.

The premise of the story is simple, what would have happened if Ursula had not been defeated? We meet a mute Queen Ariel at the beginning of this Twisted Tale, Ursula is now ruling on land as Princess Vanessa, and Prince Eric is still under her spell.

It's not a short read to say the least, clocking up over five hundred pages and at one point I did stop reading for a few weeks, since I felt like it had nowhere to go after a particular plot event about a third of the way in. I guess if it had a rating akin to a film, it would be 12A and it is at times quite dark in tone but still family friendly enough, but that's the idea - it's Disney.

My star rating would probably be about 3.5 but I'm giving it a 4.

If you want a fresh take on Disney's The Little Mermaid, you'll find it here and probably like this too.

A book that is frighteningly similar to [b:The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse 43708884 The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Charlie Mackesy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579017235l/43708884.SX50.jpg 68017220] by [a:Charlie Mackesy 3242801 Charlie Mackesy https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1564684605p2/3242801.jpg].Pros:Both are easy reads, full of inspirational quotes. In Norbury's case, the artwork is inspired by Buddhism and both encourage moments of reflection in our busy lives, wherever you choose to have them. You can read this alone or to a loved one, so it will appeal to all ages. The text is much clearer/more accessible to read, especially when not on paper.Cons:The similarities to [a:Charlie Mackesy 3242801 Charlie Mackesy https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1564684605p2/3242801.jpg]'s work may put others off, and due to it's length, paying the full price of £14.99 may put many off, considering it's done and dusted within thirty minutes.Like [a:Charlie Mackesy 3242801 Charlie Mackesy https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1564684605p2/3242801.jpg]'s, this book is one that can be treasured and picked up in times of need, again and again.

“Big. Small. We all rely on each other,” said the Ceratium wisely. “We all have jobs to do. The world belongs to no one.”

An adorably illustrated little book where younger readers (and even their parents) can learn about some of the mini beasts that do important work in our environment.

I chuckled aloud at parts of it - “Now, eat your plants.” - Sound familiar? The appearance a protist chef called Flagella Awesome, again made me smile too.

To finish off, there's a glossary at the back which explains some of the things you've read about and more importantly, their pronunciation.

I loved this enchanting little book about a hungry crocodile, which involved me singing (once more) at my class of five and six year olds, and I'm sure it will not be the last time either.

Lots of new vocabulary here to be discovered and it subconsciously seems to have taught them the melody for “The Twelve Days of Christmas” as well.

There is plenty here to be enjoyed over and over again with your little one or people, coupled together with the important message of eating your vegetables.

I decided to revisit this after spotting a paper copy of this on a bookshelf when I worked in a school in 2021.

The plot features a female protagonist and her (80s named) friends, which serves as a charming introduction to similar writing aimed at young adult readers.

Very much a product of its time, I enjoyed this little nostalgic trip down memory lane.