Solitary Thoughts ~ William Goff

Solitary Thoughts is a hard book to review because the opinions expressed in the various essays are unique to the author.  William Goff has very strong opinions about today's society, that of corporate greed and mass consumerism, amongst a number of other subjects addressed.

 

I agree that we live in a world that has gone mad, and which is greedy and selfish.  Human beings have this innate ability to over consume, be it food, cars, houses, or technology.  We seem to think that this will buy us happiness but it comes at a cost - heavy debt, declining health, and stress.  Over consumerism has resulted in mass production of products which lack any true style or craftsmanship and are soon outdated causing us to live in a disposable society.

 

The essays in Solitary Thoughts focus on the author's feelings about these various subjects. The presentation of the book is excellent, the cover is very tasteful and each essay is not too long; but there is negativity surrounding each one so I found that reading just one or two at a time every couple of days was enough.  I did find the essays rather verbose and I needed to read each one a couple of times to fully comprehend what the author was actually trying to convey.

 

My favourites were "The Dancer" which is the most optimistic of the essays, and I really liked "Theatre of the Mind" (as its structure is reminiscent of my favourite short story Midnight Express by Alfred Noyes).

 

The essays are not light reading, nor are they uplifting, but each one does contain something profound which makes it worthwhile taking a look at this independently published book.

 

Maxine

Raised to Rule ~ Martha K Hoffman

My reading on the 'Royalty' theme was Martha K. Hoffman's "Raised to Rule - Educating Royalty at the Court of the Spanish Hapsburgs, 1601-1634", as I decided to make a change from my first love ie the Tudors and Henry VIII.
It is a very comprehensive description of the teaching and moulding of Spanish royal children to make them ready for the role of ruler. These kids had no childhood as we know it, and the girls were given the title of 'enfanta' rather than 'princess' in the hope that a son would be born and keep the pesky women in their place! A bit dry at times and with more characters and family bloodlines than I could keep track of; but I did get interested in it, and  fascinated by the international politics that governed the choices of marriage partners etc.

However, I did return to the Tudors by reading Hilary Mantel's fascinating "Wolf Hall" and "Bring up the Bodies". The first tells the sad story of the attempts by Henry VIII to dethrone his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, when he became obsessed with Anne Boleyn; the second is the story of the downfall of Anne Boleyn after she failed to produce a male heir and allegedly had an affair. Well, they were all at it, weren't they? Top writing, great stories, and I loved them - just don't go looking for any happy endings!

Helen