Skip to main content

Nobody Told Me: poetry and parenthood

 Nobody Told Me: poetry and parenthood



By Hollie McNish

Published 4 February 2016 Blackfriars


I have no idea why I borrowed this book from the library. I am neither a parent or a poetry afficionado but I have been dipping in and out of this for a couple of months. It made me laugh, and cry, and get angry. Partway through I bought a copy and gifted it to a friend who is a new mother, and today, I finished it.

From festival tent to the first day at pre-school I have been a fly on the wall with Hollie, Dee and Litte One.

Among the poems are diary entries and stories. Those, I think I enjoyed the most over the poetry however, one compliments the other and either alone would not have been so enjoyable. 

It now has to go back to the library and I will miss having it by my bed. I feel graetful to have been invited to share those family moments full of love and laughter and honesty.

I have found more of Hollie's books to read and I'm interested to see if I am moved as much when she writes on other topics.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Scandinavian Christmas: festive tales for a nordic noel

  A Scandinavian Christmas: festive tales for a nordic noel  Vintage Classics 9781784877675 Happy New Year!  I have just finished this little beauty which I received as a Christmas gift and started the day after Boxing Day. It's a delightful collection of festive short stories (16 in total) from across Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden by some very well known authors and their translators including Hans Christian Andersen and Karl Ove Knausgaard. Although I already knew the Andersen works, this didn't spoil my enjoyment of the book at all - in fact it was a little like revisiting my childhood and so added to the reading pleasure. I can definitely recommend this as a treat for yourself to read during Advent or as a Christmas gift next year. The hardback is particularly snazzy with its foiling across the dust jacket.

Fantastically Great Women Who Made History

  Fantastically Great Women Who Made History  by Kate Pankhurst Published by Bloomsbury, 12 November 2018 This is a collection of wonderfully illustrated mini biographies of some of the most remarkable women who ever lived. Included in here are Harriet Tubman, Boudica, Flora Drummond, Qiu Jin, Noor Inayat Khan, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Pocahontas, Valentina Tereshvova, Ada Lovelace, Sayyida al-Hurra, Hatshepsut, Josephine Baker, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Each great lady has a colourful, playfully illustrated page (more often than not double spreads) of her life. Some of these women I knew but some I met for the first time within these pages.  This is a lovely children's non-fic book that is a joy for adults too. Great for a leisure read as well as curriculum support. 

The Lost Girls of Paris

  The Lost Girl of Paris By Pam Jenoff Published 29 January 2019 HQ I've read Pam Jenoff's books before but some time ago so when I came across this one and read the blurb I bought it. This one is set in the middle of World War Two and is about the SOE (Special Operations Executive). As you may know, I love to read hist fic so dove right in to this easy, pacy read of spies and resistance. The story begins in 1946 New York City where Gracie questionably discovers some photographs of women. On the back are their first names and some of the women are wearing uniform. The same day, an English woman is hit by a car and killed - the owner of the photographs. Something about those women, their faces, makes Gracie hold on to them and try and find out more about who they were and why this woman had them. The dual narrative takes the reader from 1946 to England 1943 where Eleanor Trigg has been put in charge of creating a very special unit for the SOE. Very hush hush. Over in France, the...