AD Hartley

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Re-reading books: Top 5 on my shelf

January 19, 2016

Someone said to me recently, "Oh, I don't re-read books". In fact I know a few people who feel the same, though I'm certainly not one of them. I can understand where they are coming from. In many ways you will never be able to re-read a book and have it surprise and delight as much as it did on the first read. The magic will always be slightly diluted by fore-knowledge of what's coming, no matter how much you love the book. Others will point out that with so many books to read, re-reading leaves less time for new ones. Similarly, with so many entertainment and time killing activities available to us in the 21st century, time available to devote to reading is so limited it makes no sense to return to something you have already read. These are good points and I can't argue against them. Time constraints and an expanding TBR list will always put pressure on your next choice of book and I do try to go for a new one most of the time. But occasionally, just ...

The Write Fantastic - Terry Pratchett

March 19, 2015

At the end of last week I had decided to follow up two recent posts about the books I remember reading as a child and the books I studied at school , with a third post looking at some of the books I chose to read as a young adult and how that shaped my reading from then on. Almost certainly that post, had I written it, would have featured the books of Terry Pratchett quite heavily, because there was no doubt that at the age of 15 Terry was my favourite author. More so than even Tolkien , Douglas Adams , Raymond E Feist , Grant Naylor , Michael Crichton and whoever else I was reading at the time. But as I was clambering into bed that night thinking about what I would write in the morning, I quickly scanned the news on my phone and my heart sank. Although I knew Sir Terry had been seriously ill with a form of early onset Alzheimer's for some time, it came as quite a shock to read about his passing on the BBC. The following day I was pretty me...

School Run

February 10, 2015

I was thinking about my old walk to school earlier this morning, prompted by half an hour of horn honking from just down the road. The large school next to us causes loud fume-filled chaos every morning, blocking the roads in the entire neighbourhood for an hour and a half due to the persistent need of the parents to drive their children to school and drop them within millimetres of the entrance despite most living within a 3 km radius. I'm never quite sure why the parents do this because they end up stuck in the jam they create just as much as the poor commuters trying to get to work and ending up stuck behind giant SUVs instead, normally with one lone child rolling around on the back seat like a marble in a crate. I'm sure the kids would much rather walk to school. I walked past two parents not so long ago who, having dropped off their child, were now chatting away whilst double parked on the already small road making the whole jam even worse. One w...

Harry Potter and the Middle of Nowhere

February 03, 2015

I was recently looking through some old photos from one of my first trips to Borneo, a couple of years before I moved there full time, which has brought back a lot of memories. I had joined a Raleigh International expedition as project manager, leading groups of 30 or so young adults over a period of three months. The project I was leading with a colleague was to build a Kindergarten in a remote village in the centre of the Malaysian State of Sabah ; mainly an area of subsistence farming communities. Although I have hundreds of photographs from this expedition, I had forgotten about this particular picture which was taken as we were waiting a couple of hours for some local transport to take us from the main road, where we had been deposited by buses from the local town an hour away, to the village, Paus, via some pretty rough terrain, through jungle and mountains. It being Borneo, it was thunderously hot and humid. In t...

Books I Was Forced To Read At School

January 30, 2015

Not long ago I wrote a post about the books I remember reading as a very young lad , from nursery age through to pre-secondary school. I re-read this post recently and started thinking about the next step in my reading education. By the time I was ten I was reading quite a few adventure books aimed at young readers, many based on World War Two, which even in the 80s was a huge cultural reference point. I was also a fan of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, which were very popular at the time. (Do they still print those?). Others I remember specifically were The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, which was later made into a wonderful animated film called The Iron Giant; as well as Stig of the Dump by Clive King and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, both due in part to the wonderful TV series which were broadcast in the mid-80s. But eventually, of course, the world of adult literature is forced upon you, usually at school. I've never really ...

Paperback Writer

December 22, 2014

Very excited that The Secrets of Ice Cream Success is now available in paperback. With a new cover to boot! If you prefer a good old paperback to e-versions you can get a copy here: http://tinyurl.com/neukzq3