Book Review: CHECKOUT: A LIFE ON THE TILLS BY ANNA SAM

Genre:  True Stories
Published by:  Gallic Books
Pages:  174
My Rating:  7/10

About the Book:
Anna Sam spent 8 years as a checkout girl in France.  This book is a witty look at what it’s really like to work in a supermarket: the relentless grind and less-than-perfect working conditions, along with people-watching and encounters with every kind of customer from the bizarre to the downright rude.

If you’ve ever wondered what life is like on the other side of the checkout as you buy your weekly shopping, then wonder no more as Anna Sam talks to you as if you were applying for the job yourself.

I learnt that supermarkets in France don’t supply their customers with free bags anymore, unlike the UK where they’re given out every day in their thousands and then thrown carelessly away, cluttering up the rubbish dumps.

I also discovered what the three most common questions the till operators are asked, and which European country uses the most toilet rolls!  Oh yes, this book is full of gems like this.

I quite enjoyed her easy style of writing and short paragraphs with titles such as ‘Embarrassing Items’ and ‘My Till, My Love’.  
But I started to get a little bored about ¾ of the way through and I was glad it was just a short book (only 174 pages).  It is a unique and very quirky read and there were some funny parts.

Even though Anna worked in France, I’m sure it is equally relevant wherever it is set, as I’m sure retail workers can identify with the many amusing, awkward and downright rude customers!

I must thank Gallic Books for sending me this book to review - you can read a sampler chapter on their website here

BOOK REVIEW: MORE THAN JUST COINCIDENCE BY JULIE WASSMER

Genre: True Story

Published by: Harper Collins (Sept 2010)

Pages: 271 (Paperback)

My Rating: 9/10

MORE THAN JUST COINCIDENCE BY JULIE WASSMER

About the Book:

The true story of a mother who was reunited with her daughter, 20 years after she gave her up for adoption, in the most incredible of circumstances.

One hot summer day in 1970, teenagee Julie dressed her 10 day old baby daughter for the last time. Then she placed her newborn into a nurse's arms and walked away.

Over the next 20 years the memory of her lost child continued to run, like thread, through the fabric of her life.......until the 5th November 1990.......when their two worlds would collide.

My Thoughts:

What a heart-warming and incredible story this is. There can't be many people who read Julie's story and not have a tear in their eye at the end of it.

Julie Wassmer is a born storyteller and she relays her life story in such an engrossing way that it is very difficult to put down. From her humble beginnings as an only child growing up in the East End of London; she didn't have her own bedroom until the family moved house (she slept on the sofa in the living room); when she was 16 and, unknown to her parents, pregnant with her daughter.

She always knew that one day she would meet her daughter but until then she led a varied and exciting life, travelling the world on a boat, falling in and out of love, never having a place to call her own.

It was an amazing chain of events that would lead to her daughter just walking into her life and I couldn't put this wonderful book down. If you're looking for a true story that's well-written and heart-warming then look no further.

Source: I borrowed this from my local library.

BOOK REVIEW: CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN' BY GAVIN BAIN

Genre: Fiction, True Story

Published by: Simon & Schuster (April 2010)

Pages: 274 (Paperback)

My Rating: 8/10

CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN' BY GAVIN BAIN

About the Book:

California Schemin' is the remarkable real life story of how two rappers from Dundee pretended to be two rappers from California and duped the record industry out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd - or Silibil N' Brains, as they became known - were two ordinary Scottish boys who shared an extraordinary dream: to become rap superstars. Creating new identities for themselves, they persuaded the music industry that they were the latest hot young talent from California. Silibil N' Brains then lived out that lie for more than two years, securing an enormous record deal with Sony and being catapulted into the industry high-life, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Madonna, Eminem and D12. But, ironically, they could never actually deliver and promote the album that they were paid so much money to put together. As soon as they became famous they would be recognised by anyone who had known them in their former lives in Scotland and the dream would evaporate. As the pressure mounted, there would be disastrous consequences......

My Thoughts:

My first thoughts on finishing this book is that it's a wonder how Gavin Bain managed to write a coherent book at all after the huge amounts of alcohol he had consumed after his wild partying lifestyle! In fact, the book starts with him being rushed to hospital (not for the first time!) having drunk so much alcohol and popped so many pills that it was presumed it was a suicide bid.

First Lines:

Afterwards they would call it a suicide attempt - and that's if they would call it anything at all. Mostly they chose never to speak about it, at least not in my company

.

This story is mostly about the build up to that night and how Scot Gavin -- a neurotic, obsessive, insomniac -- and his friend Billy Boyd -- handsome, confident, self-satisfied -- fooled everyone in this fascinating account of a crazy two years in the life of the rappers known as Silibil N' Brains. Their whole appeal was built on a lie, a scam.

Gavin's life in those days was full of highs (signed by Sony and given a huge advance) and lows (too many to mention) and we follow him through all these, knowing that he's heading for a fall. I did feel quite sorry for him several times, but he was his own worst enemy, he doesn't want our pity, he knows he was an idiot.

I enjoyed his writing style, it was simple, never dull or boring, he didn't try to sensationalise things - he just told it how it was - and I'm glad he did and I'm glad I read it.

Gavin Bain interviewed in the Scotsman.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster for sending me this book to review.

Book Review: BLUE JEAN BABY BY SALLY PARMER

Genre: Memoir

Publisher: Booksurge (April 2009)

Pages: 175 (Paperback)

My Rating: 8/10









BLUE JEAN BABY: ONE GIRL'S TRIP THROUGH THE 1960'S L.A. MUSIC SCENE BY SALLY PARMER

When Sally Parmer was growing up in the 60's in Southern California she didn't just want to be a fan of the music scene she wanted to be with the groups and was willing to take plenty of risks to ensure she was, such as stealing hotel room keys to be near the Beatles, climbing on stage via a balcony just to hug a member of a group, to losing her virginity to a member of the Rolling Stones. All that and more is told in fascinating detail in this engrossing and honest look at the 'swinging sixties'.

She had an uncanny likeness to Cher which opened some doors for her and her groupie friends, most of whom seemed to be sleeping with one pop star or another, while still being at school!

Brought up by an alcoholic, neurotic, controlling mother and a coward of a father, Sally had to use all her wits and guile to escape their clutches to follow the British pop groups, such as Herman's Hermits, Freddie and the Dreamers, etc. when they came to L.A. This was not all about the sexual exploits of Sally and her friends, they were growing up in a decade of change and there was mention of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy and the Vietnam War, though not in any great detail.

This was a book I really enjoyed and would recommend to anyone interested in this era.

There will never again be a decade so remarkably transitional, terrifying and beautiful as the sixties.

Book Review: TOPLESS PROPHET BY ALAN MARKOVITZ WITH THOMAS STEVENS

TOPLESS PROPHET BY ALAN MARKOVITZ WITH THOMAS STEVENS
The True Story of America's Most Successful Gentlemen's Club Entrepreneur

If you're male and reading this, I have a question for you - what would be your ideal fantasy life? How does having a string of 'Gentlemens Clubs' and being surrounded every night by beautiful near-naked dancing ladies, earning millions of pounds/dollars, driving fancy cars, owning your own private jet and racing car sound? If that life sounds too perfect and nobody could be that lucky, then think again and welcome to Alan Markovitz's world! His true story charts how he rose to become America's most successful Gentlemen's Club entrepreneur.

But, believe it or not there are drawbacks, like being shot at not once, but twice, and still having the bullet lodged in your neck between your carotid artery and your jugular vein as the surgeons considered it too risky to remove. Or maybe having your then business partner hiring two hitmen to murder you for your share of the nightclub. Or even having to testify against the Mob!

Early Life

Alan's father was a Holocaust survivor who was liberated from Auschwitz at 16 years and as he says "Maybe that's where I get it from - pluck, perseverance, determinations, balls, a little excess now and then. How else are you going to make it in this business?" His parents wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer, the typical young-Jewish-guy-does-well-for-himself success story but Alan had other ideas, he saw how his neighbour, Sol Milan, owned a bigger car than his parents and he owned a strip club, and from an early age Alan knew that that was what he wanted.

So, Alan went to Bartender School and, luckily for him, when Sol's regular bartender wanted weekends off he asked Alan to step in, obviously he jumped at the chance and so began his first foray into the world of the 'gentlemens clubs'. When he was just 20 something he bought a run-down strip joint and with Sol as his partner he opened his first club - The Booby Trap - it was a dream come true and he never looked back.

The Shootings

The first person to shoot him was one of his own dancers, a junkie by the name of Susie who he had just fired. She didn't take too kindly to this and came back later the same night and shot her .38 revolver at him, hitting him twice, once in his liver and the other collapsed his lung. She only received two and a half years for attempted murder!

Amazingly, the next bullets were from an off-duty policeman who was apparently not happy at being asked to leave one of Alan's Clubs one January evening in 1997, having consumed too much alcohol and starting an argument with one of the dancers. After leaving he came back and started shooting his .40 caliber Glock and, unfortunately, Alan was in the way of one of his stray bullets. His jaw was shattered in six places, losing several teeth in the process, he had to have six separate surgeries, plastic reconstruction and cost him almost a quarter of a million dollars!

The Hitmen

The FBI was already investigating two thugs for other crimes when they listened in to their phone calls and uncovered a plot to assassinate Alan. Unbeknown to Alan, his business partner, Freddy Giordano, had hired the two hitmen to kill him, and Alan only found out about this while watching the evening news one night when they were arrested. Luckily for Alan they were arrested before they could carry out the hit!

My Thoughts

The book takes us behind the scenes of how the business works, the girls who, Alan continually tells us, are not stupid but are doing something they enjoy and which can pay extremely well, his battles with officialdom, the vast sums of money that can be made, all the while saying that anyone with guts and determination can do anything if they want it badly enough.

Alan comes across as a likeable, decent guy, who has made mistakes in his life and admits them honestly, which is one of the things I liked about him. He wasn't flashy or pretentious, just an ordinary person living an extraordinary life. Even though I'm probably not the sort of person the book is aimed at ...... I'm a middle-aged female ....... I would guess the book is mainly aimed at males interested in 'gentlemens clubs' ........ but I really did enjoy it. I know I'll probably never find myself in one of these clubs, but that doesn't matter, I still found it a fascinating look at a different world.

The writing flowed quickly and easily and all the chapters were nicely divided into sections, eg. Tycoons are made not born and The Girls which is self-explanatory.

My Rating: 8/10

Published by Am Productions (Oct 2009)

Special Thanks to Tracee at pump Up Your Book Promotions and Alan Markovitz.