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William Sieghart – The Poetry Pharmacy | Review

Title: The Poetry Pharmacy

Author: William Sieghart

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 156

Rating: 4*/5

William Sieghart – The Poetry Pharmacy

This was a cute little collection, although it did also start to feel a little repetitive after a while. In it, Sieghart basically takes a bunch of different circumstances in which someone might need a poem and then he makes a diagnosis and writes out a prescription in the form of a famous poem. Sieghart has made a name for himself as the proprietor of the Poetry Pharmacy, and he goes to events and listens to people’s troubles and then suggests a poem that might help them.

It’s a pretty cool idea, and the poems in this collection are plenty of fun and come from a wide variety of sources. It’s also presented in a stunning red hardback that quite honestly will make a great addition to your collection even if you don’t read it.

William Sieghart

Click here to buy The Poetry Pharmacy.

Erin Morgenstern – The Night Circus | Review

Title: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 506

Rating: 4*/5

Erin Morgenstern – Night Circus

This is going to be a difficult review for me to write because there was a lot I liked here and a lot that I didn’t like. The problem is that the two are intertwined in many ways and so by the end of the book, while I was glad that it was over, I was also glad that I’d read it.

The best parts of the book are undoubtedly Morgenstern’s writing style and her world-building skills. The characters might be one-dimensional and unmemorable (I constantly forgot who was who and now, twelve hours after finishing it, I already can’t remember any of their names), but the actual setting of the story – the night circus – is unforgettable. It’s just a shame that the author didn’t spend more time describing the environment and investigating the different acts and the different tents, because that was what I found interesting – as opposed to the actual story line, which didn’t really exist.

The big problem is that the narrative, such as it is, jumps backwards and forwards through time, and I don’t think there was any need for it. I guess Morgenstern was attempting to write literary fiction, but I feel that a story like this would have been better – and more enjoyable – as more of a linear plot but one which spanned generations. I get that the point here is more to show different snapshots of the story but it didn’t feel deliberate – it felt like it all came together accidentally. Then there were the occasional sections in which the manuscript used second person, which I hate. But a lot of this is personal taste, and so I can’t complain too much.

Erin Morgenstern

And yet despite all of this, I did still enjoy it. I liked the way it made me think, and I thought that little bits of it – like the splashes of red worn by the rêveurs – were fantastic. But no amount of beautifully constructed sentences and stunning imagery can make up for the fact that it felt like nothing much happened. It could have been a third of the length and still done the job, and I’d argue that that’s what it needs. Imagine an illustrated version with all of the crap cut out so that you’re left with a condensed copy that packs a more powerful punch. It might even have earned a five.

Still, I can’t give this a three or below purely because it is a good book – it’s just not as good as I was expecting. People go on and on about it – or at least they did when it was released – and it’s not something I’d recommend going out of your way for. I picked it up in a charity shop and left it on my shelf for a year before reading it. In hindsight, I feel like that was appropriate. And at last, I can move on from the circus.