Meet Julia Donaldson Summer reading Books of my life - RNIB

On our bedside table
On our bedside table
This time we feature several short book
reviews of popular books provided by
the people who work behind the scenes
on Read On.
20
Lynne Livingstone
works in RNIB’s Reader
Services team and read
The Radleys by Matt
Haig (TB 18930).
“The Radleys have problems: a
disintegrating marriage, a bullied
teenage son and a daughter battling
an addiction. The Radleys have also
been hiding a secret
for years. They are
vampires. It was
fascinating watching
this most normal
family coming to terms
with their natures. It’s
Joanna Trollope meets
Twilight and I loved it.”
Jo Franks works in
RNIB’s Products and
Publications team and
read The Daughter of
Time by Josephine Tey
(braille 3V, TB 1396).
“Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard
finds himself bored and frustrated in
hospital with a broken leg so he turns
to investigating the alleged crimes of
Richard III whose bones were recently
found in a car park in
Leicester. Was he really
a villain? The answers
that Inspector Grant
reveals are really quite
surprising.”
Kim Normanton is Read
On’s audio producer.
She is reading The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
(braille 9v, giant print,
TB 17729).
“It’s set in Mississippi in 1962 and is
written from three distinct perspectives
which are cleverly interwoven. The book
has a really strong sense of time and
place: you’re in the deep American South
in the early sixties. Civil rights have got
under way – there’s an awareness that
things might be about to change but
they haven’t hit Mississippi yet. Author
Kathryn Stockett has a good ear for
dialogue and the book really moves
along at a fast pace. For me, most
interesting is that the
author is white and
writing about black
maids, a brave thing to
do. It’s very readable
– not quite To kill a
mockingbird but it
reminds me a little of
that book.”