When is there a better time to read such a book as The Wonderful Weekend Book than over a bank holiday? That is exactly what I did. I had hoped that I could read a little here and there and supplement it with other books, but that didn’t happen in the end. Instead, I read it from cover to cover in one greedy gulp. In The Wonderful Weekend Book, Thompson has created such a lovely concept for a piece of non-fiction. She aims to help her readers to reclaim their weekends back from the mundane tasks which seem to fill them – chores and supermarket shopping being top of her list.
Some of the ideas which Thompson has come up with to make the most of weekends are absolutely lovely. I personally loved the way in which the book was split up into the four seasons, which enables the reader to easily locate appropriate activites to fill hours or entire days. Thompson’s mini essays are very sweet, as are her introductions. The illustrations throughout are lovely, and I really like all of the different inclusions of recipes. I was given so many ideas for places to visit, all of which have been entered into my travel journal. I have picked up my hardback notebook which I began to fill with lovely quotes I came across a few years ago once more, and am now referring to it as my ‘anthology’, as Thompson does in her book.
Despite the general loveliness of this volume, there were a couple of definite drawbacks for me. The first was that although the lists work well, they are entered rather haphazardly into the main body of text and often split up paragraphs in consequence. Another downside was that much of the book felt like a plugging exercise for different brands and companies. Early on in the book, Thompson speaks about buying ‘good bath towels from John Lewis’. Rather than merely making this statement and moving on, she puts John Lewis’ phone number and website address in brackets right after it, which detracts a little from the text. Overall, The Wonderful Weekend Book is a wonderful addition to any bookshelf, and will be invaluable for anyone aiming to spend their weekends doing more worthwhile things. It is a volume which I will be dipping into a lot in future as the seasons change.
I have a real love of Scandinavia, which is why I attempted to read Lagom: The Swedish Secret of Living Well, but for me, it fell short. I was expecting something akin to the wonderful lifestyle books published about the Danish hygge, but that is not what I got at all. A lot of what Akerstrom writes is highly obvious, and can even be construed as patronising at times. It feels as though she is addressing the reader as though they are an incredibly petulant child, and she is an adult with vast reserves of patience to deal with them.
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