Review: The Surgeon of Crowthorne: a tale of murder, madness & the love of words

The Surgeon of Crowthorne: a tale of murder, madness & the love of words by Simon Winchester
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A surprising read really. After all, who would know that the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary could be so fascinating and intriguing?
I for one had never known the real story being the creation or even any of the story, so finally sitting down and reading the book, sure it's not overly long, but it's easy to read and doesn't lead you off to boredom like other books can. It was interesting to see in to the insight of the men who spent their lives dedicated to a book that they didn't even get to see fully completed.

It's certainly a book that is worth reading, whether you are really all that interested in the Dictionary at all, it's worth it, I promise. The text is easy to follow, easy to read, it doesn't bore you with too much with heavy detail, it touches upon the subjects it needs to and then moves on to the next important thing.

A 5 out of 5 read for sure.

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Review: The Minister and the Murderer

The Minister and the Murderer by Stuart Kelly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Minister and the Murderer.

Quite the title really, catching and intriguing. But I felt a little let down by it really. Sure it touches heavily on the church and on religion, but I found that it only touched about Nelson lightly and about the man. I had bee expecting it to tell you more of Nelson's life story, of who he was as a person, more on his crime and more about how he became a minister.
But in reality, the author focuses more on the religious side of things and relies on the text of the bible quite a bit. Although not really my kind of book, I was quite intrigued to see how it turned out and powered my way through all of the pages, even when I felt like it was draining my soul.

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