Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

“Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.” 🦡📚 I love this quote — I think many, many bookish people can identify with Badger and his aversion to socialising. I definitely fall into this camp! 😅 The Wind in the Willows was our choice for May for #classiclitbookclub and I loved it. I thought I’d read it when I was a child, but I must have only read parts of it. I remembered Toad in the motor car and the riverbank, but I think there are many TV adaptations and spin-off stories too that I may be remembering. 🚗🌿 I loved the cosiness of the animals’ homes, the camaraderie as they share a meal, and the stoic way they all look out for one another when something goes wrong. The book is full of nature, and the descriptions are so powerful I felt as though I was living on the riverbank amongst Mole, Ratty, and Badger. 🍃✨ The edition I was reading was gorgeous too, with some beautiful illustrations that brought the story even more to life. 🎨📖 I loved ...

“Good Luck is rather particular who she drives with, and mostly prefers those who have got common sense and a good heart…” Black Beauty was my March read for #classiclitbookclub. 🤎 I’m pretty sure I’ve read this before, but not for many, many years—and definitely not with the same understanding I have now. Also, how pretty is this Wordsworth Collector’s Edition ? ✨ It’s such a lovely one to have on the shelf and made the whole reading experience feel a bit more special. Told through Beauty’s own voice, I slipped so easily into his world, starting from his early days as a young colt. 🐎 It’s set in a time when horses were part of everyday life—used for work, travel, and everything in between—and honestly… I wasn’t quite prepared for how differently they were treated. Some owners showed real kindness and care, but far too many were cruel, pushing them harder and harder just to get more out of them. 💔 It made parts of this really difficult to read at times. I absolutely loved his kinde...

'What if a dragon started the Great Fire of London?' I regularly return to the books I read as a child—especially when I'm feeling a bit down or stuck in a reading slump. There's nothing quite like rediscovering that first love of losing yourself in a world within a book. So when I was asked if I wanted to read Patrice's new book, I jumped at the chance, knowing I'd love it—I mean, just look at that cover! Sometimes, even as an adult, it’s fun to step back into childhood and just 'be'. Anyway, back to the book. It was fun, fast-paced, and full of weird and wonderful fantasy creatures—most of them good! (The human-like characters were the villains, of course.) I loved the idea of the elemental spirits who helped Marisee and Robert—our two brave adventurers—and always had their backs. Whether ensuring they landed safely after jumping into a well or sweeping them away with the help of the wind, the spirits were always there. Patrice’s imagination is astound...

'The sun has drowned itself in the sea," said Lucy-Ann at last, as it disappeared.' Another winning series from Enid Blyton which I adored when I was a kid and still adore today. Last year, I read some and listened to others, losing myself in the adventures of brother and sister Philip and Dinah and their friends, brother, and sister Jack and Lucy-Ann, and Jack's vocal parrot, Kiki. Kiki is absolutely hilarious and honestly the star of all the books! Each of the eight books, see the children fall into another adventure, how they find danger is beyond me! 🤣 They jump on aeroplanes on their own, hide in caves, camp on islands and search for lost treasure, all with barely a parent in sight. They have so much fun and take the reader (or listener) along for the ride. I mean I know kids had more freedom decades ago, but these children are feral. Drinking from streams, picking berries to eat and tackling villains all alone. I wish I could get my grandkids to read these books...

'The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.' Sometime in 2024, I decided I wanted to listen to all the books which I loved as a kid and most of these (in fact probably all of them) were written by a British author called Enid Blyton. All my UK friends should have heard of her, but I don't think she was a 'thing' in the US. Anyway, luckily Borrowbox seemed to have a lot of them, so I'm slowly going through them - usually when I need a little pick-me-up! I'm going to review the series, rather than the actual books, otherwise we will be here until 2030! My first reviews come from Mr Galliano's Circus Story Collection, which comprises Mr Galliano's Circus (1938), Hurrah for the Circus! (1939) and Circus Days Again (1942). Mr Galliano is the ringmaster in a travelling circus and in each delightful book, we meet a wide variety of fun (and sometimes bad) charact...

'Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.' I can't believe I have never read this before. Thank you to #classiclitbookclub for choosing  The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery  for July's read. I used to work in a library suppliers which stocked only children's books and time after time I would shelve it, or prepare it it libraries and never once did I think to even take a glance inside. I was missing out! This book is gorgeous, and would be absorbed very differently, depending on whether you are a child or an adult as you read it.  It's full of life lessons, vanity, innocence and beautiful similes.  If you are an adult and want to remember what it was like to be a child, then read this - it's only short - it'll only take you an hour or so to read. If you have a kids, then read it to them or buy them their own copy. I have the Penguin Clothbound edition and it's beautiful. It...

"When he (the sun) says good-night to the mountains he throws his most beautiful colors over them, so that they may not forget him before he comes again the next day." I adored Heidi when I was growing up, and to say that I was obsessed with the BBC adaptation is an understatement. Despite it being originally filmed in German and dubbed (very badly) into English, I could watch it over and over again. From what I can remember, it was shown on a Sunday morning, week in, and week out, and then repeated all over again.  Until I reread it for June's read for #classiclitbookclub, I'd forgotten how much I loved it. Even now, at 52 years old, I want to be Heidi. I want to be springing from rock to rock as I climb up and down the mountainside. I want to sleep in the loft on a bed of hay and gaze up at the stars through a hole in the roof! When Clara visits from the city, she arrives being unable to walk and leaves, very much recuperated. This reminded me very much of The Secre...

This weekend was hot, far too hot to do anything at all. This is unusual in September in the UK, but there you have it. I needed something easy to read that was going to require zero effort, so I reverted back to my childhood and picked up one of my Enid Blyton books. The Island of Adventure is the first in the Adventure series and one I haven’t read for aeons! I remembered the characters' names, Philip, Dinah, Jack and Lucy-Ann, but that’s all I remembered. I didn’t recall how they met or how their adventures started, so it was like going in as a first-time reader. The Island of Adventure is fast-paced, exciting and, as the title suggests, adventurous. I love Enid Blyton’s writing, her sense of wit and all her old-fashioned ideals. You know the ones, where women should stay at home and do the housekeeping, the kids should probably be at boarding school and the Dad earns the money. Well, as long as you see past all this - the book was first published in 1946, so just keep that in y...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐   This is a pretty awesome book and the first in the Jimmy and Andrew adventure series. Jimmy is a young lad who has always wanted a dog, and so, for his ninth birthday, his Dad takes him to the rescue centre and Jimmy chooses Andrew - or rather Andrew, chooses Jimmy! Written as a children’s book, this will easily entertain and educate adults, too. I certainly didn’t know about some things Goldstein writes about, in particular, the Egyptian history he explains in great detail, through Andrew (yes, the dog)! As we travel on Jimmy’s adventures, if there are words or situations that he doesn’t understand, these are explained to him and consequently, any kids reading the book will learn lots of new stuff too. I googled American Stonehenge, and it really exists, although in New Hampshire, not Washington State. Something else that I wasn’t aware of but loved reading about. Think Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, meets Harry Potter with some aliens thrown in and you’ll have a good idea of...