Behind The Scenes At The Museum
Product Details | Similar Products | Customer Reviews | Author: Kate Atkinson List Price: £13.70 Our Price: £9.79 You Save: £3.91 (29%) Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours  |
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 | Product Details: Audio CD Release Date: 03 December 2009 Publisher: Audiobooks ISBN: 1846572355 Rating:   Sales Rank: 211359 | | Look for similar books by subject:
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| | Customer Reviews: A little disappointed. (06 September 2010)Why disappointed? I had hoped for an element of historical detail; more emotional depth which on the first hearing seemed lacking. Perhaps when I listen to the story again I may pick up on things missed? Mistakenly it seems, I expected something of the Catherine Cookson content/style. Book club chat (24 June 2010)Behind the Scenes at the Museum really got a good conversation going in my book club - mainly trying to work out the complexities of the story line. The main comments that were made were that the reader needed to be hand held a little more through the book to ensure that readers did not get lost. Having said this, the taster trip through history from WW2 to near on present day at a good pass was enlightening and enjoyable and an insight into women's lives and experiences. This is the first Kate Atkinson book I have read and I must admit it will probably be the last, simply because it lacked a flow and I found I was flicking backwards and forwards trying to link fragments together. Enjoyable but... (16 May 2010)Very interesting and well written book. I have just re-read for a 2nd time, couldn't remember it at all as I had read it years ago but did remember that I had really enjoyed it 1st time round. Main criticism was that there are just so many characters in the book, it is difficult to remember them all. Could really do with a family tree, just so that the reader can place them all. looking for something special? This is it! (11 May 2010)Although the cover and title might not be inspiring at first glance, the story doesn't disappoint. We follow Ruby through the trials and tribulations of life in (on the face of it) a normal family. However, as all good book readers know, families have their secrets and their pasts and the Lennox family is no exception. The story jumps between various generations of the family from the 1900s to Ruby's adulthood in the 1990s. Some of the most interesting parts of the story is how the family cope through the devastation of two world wars. The story doesn't follow any sort of chronological order which may sound confusing but it keeps the book exciting and is effortlessly achieved, boiling up to an ending you have been dying to turn to for the past 200 pages or so. The structure of this book is quite original and is refreshing to the usual `flashback' style. The only downside to this book is that some of the dark humour can be a little too much and you start thinking this wouldn't even seem credible on Eastenders. Nevertheless, Atkinson's style captures your imagination, completely involving you with the characters and their lives from the start. Please don't miss out on this one. A worthy prize winner (19 March 2010)Sometimes when you get round to reading a book which won a big prize and attracted a lot of publicity, the experience is a real let down, but that should not be the case for anyone with this book. The writing is distinctive, original, by turns extremely witty or sad. The tragi-comic life of Ruby Lennox's extended family is brought to life, page by page and you simply have to keep reading, not just to find out what happens next (or what had happened before - there are numerous flashbacks)but because such a well written book is addictive. I did have two criticisms of the book. The first is that I often became confused by the labyrinthine relationships of the numerous characters and was constinually referring back to earlier chapters, in order to differentiate between Babs and Betty, or Albert and Jack. The second is that a central element of the plot relies on us accepting that one particular character suffered from a sustained bout of amnesia, in circumstances which did not really convince me. However the writing is so good that this did not spoil the book and I still have to award it the full five stars. | |
