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Tackling the Brickwall

Tackling the Brickwall by Ulrike Hill

Rugby inspires dreams. But, it is a controversial game. Rugby shows life at its best… and worst. Many schoolboys who play rugby understand this. So do their parents.

 

Sometimes the biggest challenges are faced off the field rather than on it. Schoolboys have faced many disappointments. Like team selections or an injury that smashes chances of playing in that all-important game. These challenges make tackling the opposition’s prop seem small in comparison. The brickwalls faced by schoolboys and their parents can be daunting.

 

Rugby is more than a game and Tackling the Brickwall is more than a book. It is about finding the guts to discover the hero within and to discover that it is all about developing the necessary life skills. Tackling the Brickwall is the book that parents and their sons should read to develop potential on and off the rugby field.

 

ISBN 978-0620-45485-8

To purchase this book, please click here.

 

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Extraordinary SA Rugby

The Extraordinary Book of SA Rugby

The Extraordinary Book of South African Rugby by Wim van der Berg

The anecdotes show the fanatics of the rugby fan whether spectator, player or administrator. Manie Reyneke, former CEO of the Lions franchise was late for his wedding reception. He felt that playing a club game was far more important that celebrating his wedding. Controversial fan, Piet van Zyl, also makes an appearance in the book. He is that little rotund man who interrupted a test game by tackling and injuring a ref because he was not happy with the ref’s decisions.

 

Somehow, the rugby writer cannot stay away from statistics. Van der Berg is no exception. What would rugby be without reminders about how many times the Boks lost a Tri-nations test, how many tries were scored at a game or how many people attend the Easter Rugby festivals.

 

For the most part of the book, it is interesting. I would like to have seen an index at the end of the book. And a final request. Can we please move away from numbers and focus on stories that entertain?

 

(Penguin)
ISBN: 978-0-143-528807

Reviewer:
Ulrike Hill
www.writerswrite.co.za
Score:  3/5
Word count: 238
Review Date:   5th July 2012

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Reviews

Fifty Shades Darker by EL James

Fifty Shades Darker

I have to admit, I was curious. What was the hype about the Fifty Shades Trilogy by debut author, E.L. James? I decided to buy a copy. Alas, I did not realise that I had bought the second book in the series.

Although the second book in James’ trilogy does link to the first, first-time readers can follow the story-line easily enough without reading the first book in the series. Not that it is a complicated book to understand. It is, after all, Mills and Boons on steroids.

The sex scenes did not launch straight away as expected. The reader has some time to reconnect with Ana Steele and her love interest, the tormented Christian Grey.

Christian Grey is wealthy. He buys the company Ana is working for. The reason? He has control issues and wants Ana. Badly. Ana stamps her little feet and tries to gain some form of independence. His strange sexual preferences and her innocence are not enough to keep them apart. They fall in love. But, more than that, they have a lot of sex. They cannot keep their hands off each other.

 Fifty Shades Darker is about dominance and control. There are some lessons about love.

But I suspect this is not the reason why people are buying the book.

The erotic scenes are good. The story-line keeps the book from becoming a porn story. The problem is that the climax was premature (excuse the pun). The minor climax scenes after the main suspense left me feeling a little … umm … deflated.

 

Reviewer:  Ulrike Hill

Score: 3/5

Published by: Arrow Books 

ISBN: 978-0-09957992-2

Review Date: 4th July 2012
The above review first appeared in The Bluestocking Review (Facebook).