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Touching Distance - James Cracknell
by nixtee
James Cracknell - a two-time Olympic gold-medal rower and a great endurance athlete having rowed the atlantic, ran the Marathon des Sables and raced to the South Pole. James, having once pushed limits and boundaries, was now struggling to deal with even the simplest tasks in life.
In July 2010, while taking on a new challenge ... (to cycle, run, row and swim from LA to New York in record time, James suffered a near fatal accident having being struck from behind by a truck when cycling through Arizona. As a result, James suffered several frontal lobe damage and the doctors weren't sure if he'd recover and, if he did, if he'd ever be the same again.
In Touching Distance, James and his wife Beverley Turner give us an honest, powerful and sometimes emotional account of this extraordinary man and his life. We're told of his childhood, family life, career, and of the accident and the lasting effects it has had on not just his life but of his family's too. It also tells of one man's fight to be the man he used to be, to be the best husband and the best father he can be.
I felt rather guilty for laughing while reading Beverley's words about things James would say and how he would say them in the aftermath of the accident, but I think it's a case of if you don't laugh you'll cry. Brain injuries are terribly cruel as, unlike other injuries, they can affect a person's personality. James talks a lot about this in the second half of the book as he's aware he's changed and that he's 'not quite James Cracknell'. Beverley and the family are even more aware of the changes in James's personality than he is and it is they who have taken the brunt of it, yet Beverley has stayed by his side and continues to support him.
Even before the accident Beverley didn't exactly have it easy. Being an Olympic rower meant James focused almost solely on his rowing and his endurance expeditions, leaving Beverley practically alone to raise the family whilst still pursuing her own career. Beverley is one understanding woman!
James obviously doesn't remember the crash, but he doesn't attempt to fill in the gaps, instead he leaves that to his wife, Beverley. She can see the difference in him, in his personality, his ability to do things and in the way he reacts.
The book gives us a great insight into how a brain injury affects not just the injured, but the whole family. I found this especially interesting as a family friend suffered a brain injury having been attacked on a night out a few years ago, leaving him a different man.
Whilst James has been called brave for some of the endurances he has undertaken, the same can be said of Beverley. A high percentage of couples have divorced after one has received a brain injury, but Beverley and James have so far managed to avoid being a part of that statistic. Beverley has steadfastly stood by James and has been a pillar of strength for him, even when things have gone beyond tough.
It is said of a lot of autobiographies, but Touching Distance really is an honest account. Both James and Beverley have opened up their lives and hearts to readers in this book and they haven't held back. Beverley even writes about the time (post-accident) when James attempted to strangle her. It's not sensationalised, just honest.
Whether you're a fan of James Cracknell, rowing, endurance challenges or not, I'd wholeheartedly recommend this book. We get to see the man behind two Olympic gold medals and the determination of a sportsman, as well as how and accident can change a man and how that affects those around him.
Inspirational, in more ways than one.
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Hey Jo - Jo Wood
by Kantankrus
I bought this for my mother for her birthday in March. She had looked at buying it in W H Smiths, but said it was too expensive at around £16. "No worries" I said, I'll order from Amazon and get it for your birthday. I would have paid £10.87 for it which was a much better bargain than W H Smiths but as I had some Gift Cards ... earnt on Swagbucks to use, it actually cost me nothing. Win win all round.
The book arrived a few days before her birthday and one morning when I was feeling rather pre- menstrual with no energy to do anything else I thought, I'll just have a look at that book.
Well to say it is a page turner is an under statement!! I sat all day doing nothing and by the evening had finished the book.
I am not a huge fan of the Rolling Stones and all I knew of Jo Wood was what I'd seen when she competed in Strictly Come Dancing.
What a life she has had!! It starts with her becoming a model and tells how she meets Ronnie and how their romance blossoms. It follows Jo through her marriage, the bands being on tour, the rock and roll life style and the drink and drugs that go with that kind of life.
She tells the story in a funny, honest, warts and all style and you can't help but come to admire and like the woman.
The story tells frankly of their break up and Ronnies much publicised fling with Ekaterina Ivanova.
The book doesn't portray Ronnie Wood in a great light and tells of his struggle with alcoholism and drug taking of which Jo took part at times. You wonder why she stayed with him so long.
The story shows how Jo hits rock bottom when they split but also shows her great spirit and determination when she turns her life around to form her own business and becomes a successful person in her own right.
All in all this book is easy reading with riveting page turning anecdotes. So pleased I gave it a chance!!
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
by 1st2thebar
James Joyce (1882 - 1941)
Chronicling the life of Stephen Dedalus.
Introducing the character of Stephen Dedalus - in James Joyce's 'Ulysses'.
Five Chapters in all.
If a writer inspires a book, it is callous to ignore the honour - especially a book that was runner-up in last year's (2012) Man Booker prize: ... I'm referring to, 'Umbrella' by Novelist Will Self. James Joyce features heavily at the core of 'Umbrella', and having read both books I'm in a heightened state of consciousness to come to a conclusion, unless of course I become semi-conscious while at my keyboard - if so; expect to read a load of 6's' and '7's' or a long row of 't's' and 'ys's' - you know what has happened. Yea, Joyce has a tendency to drift down the thought-process whilst writing - adding it in to enhance realism. "Shall I tear open Darjeeling, or Mint Tea?" - You get the gist. Not easy if you're not coherent in the dreamy state of thinking, or worse still the author thinking - do they think? I think so; Joyce did, in his auto-biographical book called; 'Portrait of the artist as a young man'- published in 1916.
You're reminded of Joyce's Irish literature by the word 'blarney'; which means deceptive talk to put it mildly. Such writing deliberating could be known as a writer's yarn, maybe a yawn is more appropriate, as Joyce's yarns, or story-telling conveyed opposite of 'writer's block' - like Self, Joyce's written word suffered with 'every-thing-itis' -"The air was soft and grey and mild" - "and evening was coming. There as the smell of evening in the air, the smell of the fields in the country..." Rhythmic wordage is only allowed in the classics - such script only exists during the modernistic era before post-modernism writing over-wrote what was deemed as correcting the writings of modernism's authors. Yet we parade these works like masterpieces as if derived from the lost vault of modern literature. Never to be repeated again. I almost feel like blowing the dust off the cover - even though no dust is evident. We're told to respect modernism, yet never emulate it in the post-modernism era - unless of course you write for Bloomsbury and meander about as if you're Wodehouse reincarnated. I generally do not gauge a book via narrative alone - it is one-dimensional if you do. No author's are one-dimensional and as far as I know no human-being is one dimensional - so it is farcical to purely state Joyce's works as banal. I applaud his use of the word 'mollifying' as a descriptive vocal expression and the expressions that make you peruse behind the text: "She was a nice mother but she was not so nice when she cried" A clever but simple turn of phrase - typical of Joyce. There is an essence of the romantic past that reads as if it is a playful, lyrical, jesting verse. This is a lost art-form with today's 'get-it-down-and-out-the-door' writers who churn out the same dribble except this time 'a Plumber is in the bathroom'; the one before that book - 'a Chef was in the kitchen' and so forth; for them it is a progression from Joyce's modernistic literature, post-modernists burp out - amongst the loud burping, Joyce followers still are oiling their 'Oliver typewriter 1912'.
Joyce is hardly a page turner - more of a page creeper. 'Portrait of the artist as a young man' is like wading through stiff treacle -The scenario of a young Stephen coming of age; the churlish behaviour of his peers - Catholicism, Dublin (check-out Joyce's 'Dubliner' book) and Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Ejaculating followed by worshiping - worshiping then followed by ejaculating, the two entwined each a form of 'release' in the spiritual sense, of course. Joyce's notable realism towards the early nineteen twenties certainly shocked his readership; many weren't use to this unconventional script as modernism was indeed too modern for the Victorian sticklers - Stephen found the carved word of FOETUS several times in the dark stained wood while searching for his initials at his old college, I did get the impression that some details are best left unsaid, even in today's liberal state. I could imagine a 1920's aristocrat gentleman spluttering over his 'Darjeeling' when he read that part of the book - mopping his weighty moustache while rumbling with audio discontent. The again, even I wasn't prepared for the grotesquely over-reaction of what was to come - it concerns infatuation - boundless Joyce, in poetic free-fall.
"Her image had passed into his soul for ever and no word had broken the holy silence of his ecstasy. Her eyes had called him and his soul had leaped at the call. To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life! A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. On and on and on and on!"
How he stretched his poetic licence. Shades of Byron, maybe - Joyce had created an unconventional technique for modern literature that was bulbous and ripe. If, 'Portrait of the artist as a young man' (originally called: Stephen Hero) was Joyce's appetiser for the literature world - 'Ulysses' is the main course. What an appetiser though, the caviar on Melba toast - this book is sumptuously written and with dialogue and detailing to swoon over. No wonder the great author's of today are captivated by the modernism of yesteryear - truth to be told Hilary Mantel is heading in the same direction - but what big footsteps to follow. Worth a punt, if you're fascinated in modernism's classics - although it is not everyone's Joyce.
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