The opening jacket blurb for this book tells us that 'The Fields is an unforgettable story of an extraordinary character: Jim's voice leaps off the page and straight into the reader's heart...', and for once, the blurb gets it exactly right.

Jim Finnegan is a thirteen year old only son in a family of 5 sisters, growing up in Dublin in 1984. The Fields plots his story over a year or so in which his whole life changes and this innocent, loving and slightly cheeky young boy is forced to grow up very fast indeed. It is indeed written as if his voice leaps off the page and you are absolutely captured by him by the time you get to the end of chapter one. His voice is authentic and painfully honest and starts off incredibly naive and innocent. Even as we progress through the book and some horrific twists in his tale mean that he gets some harder edges, all he wants to do is to help the people in his life, often at his own expense.

There are some seriously disturbing descriptions of his encounters with an abusive priest, and author Kevin Maher does not pull any punches in telling Jim's story through this. As the reader is so attached to Jim at this point, it lands an absolute sucker punch which leaves you actually physically winded, and it was at this point that the book started following me around until I had read to the end of his story.

It is so well written, and the supporting characters are all believable, that it takes no time to fly through reading this book. I did notice that with about a third of the book left to go, that Jim starts to get a bit older and wiser and he takes on a bit of a Holden Caulfield echo. This really works in the circumstances, and in fact, leads me to shed a whole new light on 'Catcher'.

A great book, worth reading through the harrowing bits to get to the bits of pure, absolute, beautiful naivety with which Jim embraces his world. I'll be looking for more from Kevin Maher.

As I am not a bearded lady, I let my fiancee test drive and review this product for me, here's what he said:

There appears to be very little difference between this and the normal fusion pro glide. I shaved half my face with the vibration thing on and half without, and there is no noticeable difference from one side to the other, the vibration was just a bit annoying. I think maybe the blade on this was a bit better at not catching the skin, but for the difference in price there isn't really any reason to throw out my old pro glide and get blades for this. Shaves nice and close and as long as your other skin care routines are good there shouldn't be too much irritation to the skin.

Michelle Williams is an actress that interests me. I've seen in her in several roles over the years, from the Dawson's Creek days through to Marilyn Monroe impersonations, and the 'edgy' stuff she so often does with her career these days (Blue Valentine being a recent example, but 'Take this Waltz' probably also falls under that category). But I can't say that I necessarily 'get' her, or the kind of characters she so often seems to play.

Once again we see her as this fragile seeming woman stuck in a domestic situation which appears not to be fulfilling for her. This time at least her hubby Seth Rogen (in a rare and strangely convincing non-comedic role) isn't physically abusive. He might be concentrating on his deadlines for his latest cookery book rather than concentrating on the fact that his wife is wavering into the arms of a mysterious oddball neighbour, but otherwise he seems to be a good bloke.

Perhaps then it's for this reason that once the inevitable happens, that any ounce of sympathy for Williams' character swiftly disappears. There's a beautiful bit of cinema when Williams goes to an indoor wurlitzer where they play 'Video killed the radio star' whilst the ride is on and the lights are off...then the ride ends and the lights come up to reveal a dingy looking warehouse. Lovely visual there on the excitement of escapism and what it really looks like when the lights come on.

I stuck with the film, but I have to say, it's such a slow burner (with little return aside from the moment mentioned above) that I probably wouldn't have finished it had I not been reviewing it. I'm sure it will have its fans, but it wasn't for me.

There's a whole host of goodies in this pro pack (and that is reflected in the price tag), but it does pretty much kit you out as an acoustic guitar player - all you are missing is a case and the instrument itself!

I should revise the above to say this is probably a pack for electro-acoustic guitar players really, otherwise you're paying for an £18 guitar lead that you will never use.

D'addario strings are great, and having the triple pack rather than just one is a nice decision by the manufacturers. It also makes the inclusion of the (pretty darn nifty) winder/string clipper/possibly also a bottle opener thing make sense. Of all the things in this pack, as a guitar player of some years who has never had one of these yokes, this was the pleasant surprise for me. Very useful tool!

The tuner is small and discrete and can be used during gigs etc as it sits on the headstock of the guitar and can be angled towards you. I've tried it out on my mandolin (already have an in built one on my guitar) and it works great.

The capo also works, but is slightly more fiddly (in my opinion) than the clip hinge jobbies that you can just squeeze on and off. Just a personal preference - but always good to have a spare.

The strap is quite substantial and much more comfortable than those cheap neoprene jobs that most novice guitar players get fobbed off with.

If you have much love for a newbie guitar player in your life, then this pack is pricey at first glance, but contains everything they need to really kick start their journey into guitar player-ship. I hesitate to say it will accelerate that journey in anyway, but I played without a decent capo or strap for the first 3 or 4 years and I do have to say that I noticed an immediate difference when I got a decent one. Just sayin'!

There are times when reading a novel or watching a good sketch show or film script, that you just know the writer spends a great deal of time people watching.

Dawn French definitely falls into this category, and what's a neater trick, is that she manages to help her reader shine a light on her characters using this skill. Without getting too down and dirty into inner monologues and wrangles of psyche, she leaves us in no doubt who these people are, what their motives might be, and their piece of the story.

It's almost as if she doesn't even try to cover up plot 'twists', and allows you to see them coming from quite a distance, because that's sort of not the point. She knows that you know where the story is going, she just wants to take you by the hand and guide you through it and make sure you don't miss the humour, the emotion, the sentiment and yes - the lesson.

Look, I'm a fan - I loved her first book too, and although this is darker in places, there is no denying she is a talented writer. Purchasers will not be disappointed.

Being on the Amazon Vine reviewer programme is sometimes a funny exercise in cosmic returns from the universe. Last week I noticed my pair of kitchen scissors was getting blunt, and despite having been in this house for 4 years, I still haven't obtained a knife/blade sharpener for the already overstuffed kitchen drawer. I made a mental note to invest in one shortly. Then, lo and behold, my Amazon Vine review products for the month include a sharpener! I concluded this must be fate and selected said item.

The first thing to note is despite the compact size and shape of this little gizmo, Amazon have chosen to package and ship it in a rather large box with lots of wasted space filled up with packing. This meant that as I missed delivery, it couldn't be put through my letter box and got delivered over the road instead (that's another story). Anyway, when I finally retrieved it, it's ready to go straight away.

Features include a suction cup to stop the item moving when you are sharpening, and sharpeners going across the top (for knives) and along the side (for scissors). I wasted no time in trying out the scissors and here's where I came across the only design flaw I could see - being a neat sort of person, I wanted to put some kitchen towel under the device to catch any filings that might come off. The suction cup means this isn't exactly easy, but you just have to make sure your towel is in place before you clamp down the suction cup.

Sure enough, within seconds my scissors were noticeably sharper (which led to me sharpening all of my vegetable knives too - not sure if this was necessary!). Easy peasy. It also goes away easily into a well stocked kitchen drawer.

One thing the marketing proclaims is that it 'even sharpens serrated blades!' - just beware that once you read in the inner blurb, this only applies to large-toothed serrated blades, the closer/smaller ones 'may not achieve the same results'.

My Mandolin and I have had a difficult journey.

I acquired her about 6 years ago after a long period of lusting after a Mandolin of my own. Surely by just listening to enough bluegrass music on CD, I would magically be able to play at lightening speed as soon as I got the instrument?

Erm...well, not exactly.

Since then we've had periods of making progress, frequent periods of stalling, and prolonged periods of not talking to each other.

Enter - Mandolin for Dummies!

As the Mandolin Dummy in this case, I'm also a guitar player of some years, so there are a lot of things musically that I already do as I'm supposed to with the Mandolin, but this book really is a 360 degree guide which is helping me to pin point the bits I don't do properly, and helping me to hone those skills. In addition to the hefty (but easily dip-able) manual, there are several downloadable music files so that you can actually *hear* what you're supposed to be sounding like instead of just working it out from the sheet music. This is very useful, especially for those of us who learn music by ear. There are also plenty of pictures, but here's the one thing I've marked it down for - sometimes those pictures drop on to the next page, and it's a tad confusing in places where the text refers to the picture and you don't get that picture til you turn the page over.

All in all, I've already seen the improvement, and I think it really would appeal for complete beginners as well as people already a little familiar with the Mando who just want to learn more. Recommended. Surely it's only a matter of time until I'm playing as fast and as brilliantly as Chris Thile?

It says in the back of Kathleen MacMahon's debut novel that she comes from a family of short story writers, and in reading 'This is how it ends', I can well believe it. In fact, it seems the mistake that MacMahon made with this story was in trying to flesh out a short story into a complete novel.

Basic premise is that we meet Addie, a lonely, getting-toward-40 woman living in Dublin. Despite recent economic times in Ireland she appears to be well off enough to not have to work too hard at being an architect and instead spends a lot of time walking her dog, swimming with said dog, and being live in help to a recently, temporarily invalided father. Her life (and the story) gets the sudden jolt it needs with the arrival of Bruno, a distantly related cousin who has turned up from the US in search of his 'roots'.

Along the way we meet a supporting cast of family and friends, but here's the thing. No one gets fleshed out enough, even with Addie and Bruno, I never feel like I know them or their full intentions. It makes it hard to foster sympathy with the reader when events take a turn for the worse. You kind of feel like you're watching it all from very far away, possibly through a misted up telescopic lens. With no sound.

There are some nice bits of writing, like when we first meet Addie swimming in the sea, with her dog. It's this kind of thing which would work well as a short story, but trying to weave it into a bigger plot just didn't work for me with this kind of writing style. I didn't feel involved and as a result it took me a while to work my way through the book.

I was a little disappointed, but I would read a collection of short stories from MacMahon should she ever release any.

I hesitate to call this book a yawn-fest, but the fact is that it has taken me several weeks to read it, simply because I kept falling asleep after half a dozen pages.

John Banville's novel flits between the main character's affair with a friend's mother when he was 15, to his present state, grieving for the loss of a daughter and being surprised by a high profile acting job.

This, for me, is the key area where the novel falls down. If his past is played out in a fairly inevitable way, then the present is fractious, disjointed and as a result - does not hold the reader's interest. I honestly can't really tell you the plot or the point of those parts of the book, which just seem to go nowhere. The author's flow is quite rambling anyway, and when we have pages and pages of inner musings without keeping us up to date with what is actually happening in the story, it gets tiresome.

The main character is never very likeable and does not engender much sympathy. Neither is he a misunderstood genius, a wasted talent, or anything else remotely redeeming. It appears that nothing in his life has happened between these two events of having been seduced as a teenager, and his daughter committing suicide. I just couldn't get any handle on it at all.

Not for me, I'm afraid.

Firstly, let me say that I ordered this Audio Book by mistake. I had thought it was the actual book, which will teach me to pay attention and not just order stuff to review when I recognise a title from a Radio 2 interview with the author. I was very annoyed with myself for this because I never, ever, ever listen to 'books on tape'. I know they work for a lot of people, but I want to be able to savour the voices and the words in my own head, without someone else's interpretation. Plus, it takes so *long* to listen to a book compared to reading it, imagine how my heart sank when these discs arrived and I realised there would be 8 hours and 45 minutes to get through.

So, being as I have a 45min commute in the car every morning and evening I thought I may as well give it a go. Within the first disc my opinion had been thoroughly altered. A combination of Nathaniel Parker's understated and sympathetic reading, and the story itself, had me hooked for my next fix. The plot weaves and changes character perspective so frequently that it is like listening to a radio soap. Parker does well to differentiate between the voices we hear, but on occasion the changes are too fast for the listener to catch up with. Had I had a hard copy of the novel I would have gone back a few lines and re-read, but you don't have that luxury with an audio book (fussing with the rewind/fast forward on the car stereo whilst bombing up the A1 is not advised!).

The story focuses in on two halves of a family where it seems that no one has any real connection with anyone they are related to. Angela and Richard are adult siblings who have recently lost their mother, after many years of estrangement, the death prompts Richard to invite Angela, her husband and 3 children to holiday with him and his new wife and step daughter. There are clumsy attempts to build bridges, revelations, seductions, high drama and comic moments. Surrounding all of this is the ghosts of what might have been, quite literally in the case of Angela's still born daughter Karen.

It neatly highlights that sometimes, you just can't help it that you have nothing in common with your family, and when is a blood tie not enough anymore? It prompts the question of whether we do more harm than good sometimes by trying to be a 'tight knit family' when distance would be safer all around.

Some language, adult content etc, but very much a recommendation. I would also consider getting it in hard copy to read myself at some stage.