Last month, readers from across Mid Sussex picked up books under 200 pages long for the June Mid Sussex Reading Challenge theme. Whether you’re based in Mid Sussex, or come from further afield and just love books, everyone is welcome to follow along and take part. Find the full list of themes here, and send in your own book review via our online form!
Rose from East Grinstead read Love and Misadventure by Lang Leav in June and rated it “fantastic”.
For June’s Challenge it was read a book under 200 pages, so I chose a poetry anthology by Lang Leav, someone I only learned about while researching poems about stars and managed to discover a particularly lovely one of hers called Stardust so on a whim decided to buy every poetry book she’d written, of which so far there is 4.
I loved this anthology and as the title suggests, all of the poems are about love or adventure of some sort, and can be from only a few lines long to a whole page worth of lines. It’s a brilliant mix of both poetry and short stories, all of which are beautifully written and tug at the heartstrings or resonate with some part of your life.
It may be short, but it lingers long after you’ve turned the final page and is certainly something that you can just pick up and put down again at your leisure or when you think you need a bit of a pick me up!
Well worth a read for those who like poetry, or even those who don’t.
Sarah, also from East Grinstead, read The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide and rated it “average”.
This book was originally inspired for me to read firstly by it’s alluring cover (those eyes!), plus the fact I am a cat lover, but also as I have been fortunate to travel to Japan with work and it reminded me of happy memories of a truly unique country, in particular Tokyo, the setting for the book.
It was a pleasant read, of delicate prose over 24 hours. We follow the author and his wife, living in the suburbs, as they discover the joy and light that an animal (not even one’s own), can bring to daily life. Mr Hiraide gave a personal glimpse into their lives and feelings based on true events in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s. It reminds us of how life naturally evolves and touches minds and hearts.
I would recommend it especially as I like to recommend reads of certain countries to my fellow travelling companions.
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The views expressed in this review are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of West Sussex Libraries.
Mid Sussex Reading Challenge 2020 