I am irrationally excited about a book that could potentially be both devastating and wonderful at the same time. Although it hasn’t landed on my doormat yet, the Amazon review makes it sound like the ideal partner for a snuggly weekend of doing nothing other than getting lost in someones else’s world…
"A brilliantly moving and darkly comic novel, which charts the attempts of dying heroine Delia — a modern day Mrs Beeton — to prepare her family for the future and lay to rest a ghost from her past. Inspired by her heroine, Isabella Beeton, Delia has made a living writing a series of hugely successful modern household guides, as well as an acerbic domestic advice column. As the book opens, she is not yet forty, but has only a short time to live. She is preoccupied with how to prepare herself and her family for death, from writing exhaustive lists to teaching her young daughters how to make a perfect cup of tea. What she needs, more than anything, is a manual — exactly the kind she is the expert at writing. Realising this could be her greatest achievement (for who could be better equipped to write The Household Guide to Dying?) she sets to work. But, in the writing, Delia is forced to confront the ghosts of her past, and the events of fourteen years previously. There is a journey she needs to make, back to the landscape of her past, and one last vital thing she needs to do.Hugely original, life affirming and humorous, The Household Guide to Dying illuminates love, loss, family and the place we call home..."
Create your own Brocante Life Book, plan Christmas, set up routines and rituals or live life the BrocanteHome way with my guided workbooks and planners.
Never, ever, never rest on your laurels. Never say I am taking time off to drink home-made lemonade and fall in love with Monty Don. Don’t spend too much time floating in a bath of rosemary salt or slip into bed before…
So there you are standing in Borders with a wailing child and a heavy heart when you notice that there is a really rather good looking man following you around the Self-Help section. You ignore him and chatter on in a really…
Dear me. Some things are so lovely they make me come over a little Violet Elizabeth. You know, if I can’t have it I will scweam and scweam until I’m schick? This beautiful new perfume line from Anthropologie is a case in…
Domesticity Some days I could burn bookshelves, carve weapons from the wreckage, drive fearlessly past dogs and bandits. I could rocket through towns of dust. I could destroy the sheriff’s good name. Then night slips around me and the bedroom is lit…
So I’m reading Vanity Fairs profile of The Prisoner of Bedford-Martha Stewart, and I am thinking yep, same old, same old, ie: Martha’s a control freak, Martha’s lonely etc, when two things strike me: First, Martha is only allowing black animals to…
In keeping with my purely accidental Children’s Book theme of the day (Fairytales below and The Princess of Cozytown on The Vintage Housekeepers Circle) I hereby bring you three cute little images i have finally got around to scanning from the 1950’s…
5 Comments
Ohhh, that one sounds like trouble. I'll stock up on Kleenex in advance. Do let us know!
Sorry everyone but I’ve just read this book and its one of the most badly written novels on which I’ve wasted my money. It is cloyingly sentimental and just plain silly. I suspect I was misled by the publisher’s hype. My verdict – save your money and buy something else.
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Ohhh, that one sounds like trouble. I'll stock up on Kleenex in advance. Do let us know!
Oh! It sounds fabulous! Can’t wait to hear YOUR review! 🙂
I can’t cry and read at the same time so I’m gonna have to rely on your book review of this one. Enjoy! God Bless, Celene
Please do review the book when you have finished, it sounds intriging.
Sorry everyone but I’ve just read this book and its one of the most badly written novels on which I’ve wasted my money. It is cloyingly sentimental and just plain silly. I suspect I was misled by the publisher’s hype. My verdict – save your money and buy something else.