Midwife On Call by Agnes Light

From the back cover:Agnes Light trained as a nurse in the 1960s and went on to become a midwife - helping to bring new lives into the world for over thirty years.

After fainting from shock at the first birth she attended as a student, Agnes eventually grew to adore her job and the lifelong friends that worked with her on the maternity ward. In her enchanting memoir, she recalls how she struggled at first with the strict rules of hospital etiquette, and the expectation that she would always know the right thing to do - from dealing with hysterical fathers to miracle multiple births - Agnes quickly learnt she had to keep a cool head whatever the circumstances.

This is a heartwarming portrait of a thoughtful and compassionate midwife. Funny poignant and rich with period detail Midwife on Call traces Agnes's touching journey from squemish pupil to assured professional.

My thoughts: This is a really interesting memoir about the author's time as a midwife, from the start of her training and through her career as a nurse and as a community midwife. Before reading this book I didn't know much about what midwives did, or even very much about childbirth in general. This book certainly taught me a few things that I didn't know. I was even quite shocked by some of the attitudes of medical professionals mentioned in this book.

The book is written in quite a laid back style and reading it feels like having a chat with an old friend as the author shares interesting and funny anecdotes about births she has attended.

I'd definitely recommend this book for anyone interested in a career in nursing or midwifery. But even if you're not interested in those careers you'll still enjoy this book.

Endal by Allen and Sandra Parton

Allen Parton suffered a serious head injury while serving in the Gulf War and returned home unable to walk, talk or remember most of his life. He couldn't even remember his wife, Sandra, and their two children. After five years of rehabilitation, he was still severely disabled.

Sandra was a nurse so thought she would be able to help her husband, but the Allen who had returned didn't remember her, and couldn't cope with what life had dealt him. Determined to be strong, Sandra would have to fight to keep her family together.
Endal was a Labrador puppy with problems of his own until he 'adopted' Allen and Sandra. He was to change their world, and give them back their family.

My thoughts: A truly amazing story, this book completely blew me away. Have the tissues ready!

Allen was serving in the Gulf when he was involved in a car accident which left him suffering a serious brain injury. He couldn't remember anything about his life other than his naval career.

The first half of the book explores Allen and Sandra's life before and after the accident. It made for really intense reading. All that Allen wants to do is get better and get back to work, but his short term memory loss is so bad that sometimes he'll stop speaking halfway through a sentence and forget he was even talking. Sandra was incredible in the way she dealt with everything. She has to put up with the navy closing ranks on her when she tries to find out the truth about Allen's accident, then she has to cope with money worries and possible eviction from their home. All this while trying to care for a man who doesn't even recognise her as his wife.
Endal the dog isn't introduced until much later on in the book, which is good because you really do need to know the full story to fully appreciate how much Endal changed Allen and Sandra's lives.

The book is told in alternating chapters between Allen and Sandra. This is slightly repetitive in places, but it's good because you get to see both sides of the story.

Endal is an amazing dog and it was lovely to read about all the things he could do and the way he brought people out of themselves. But I have to say that my hero of the story was Sandra. There's not many people who could (or would) stand by their spouse for so long when he didn't even know who she was. The way she coped with everything was amazing and she's a true inspiration to me.

East End Tales by Gilda O'Neill

Gilda O'Neill was born in London's East End. Her nan had a pie and mash shop and her grandfather was a tug skipper. You might think Gilda's childhood was one of pub knees-ups and legendary criminals - but that is just half the story.

Inside East End Tales, Gilda reveals what the true East End was like - not the place of myth and legend. Stories of hardship and upheaval rub shoulders with those of kindness, pride, courage and humour.

The author has combined her own memories with those of other people who lived in the same area of London in the 1950s. I loved that the memories told in the book are about lives of ordinary people, and it really made me think about how much things have changed, and what we take for granted these days.
The book was really interesting and fun to read, also because the book is less than 100 pages long, I read it in one sitting. Reading this book reminded me of listening to my grandparents telling me stories of their youth. It has that nostalgic feel to it.
The only thing that did grate on me a bit is the way the author would write her own memories and then say something like "here is what a man said about that" followed by a quote. It just seemed a bit odd and I think she could have integrated the other people's stories a bit better.

Serial Killers by Brian Innes

Synopsis: They are probably the most notorious and infamous of all multiple murders, yet these are the very same criminals that continue to fascinate us more than any other. Sometimes it is the sheer callous deliberation that seems to capture the public's attention; other times, the macabre double-life led by many such slaughterers. Although the phenomenon has probably existed throughout human history, it is only the advancement of modern police detection methods and psychological profiling, as explained throughout this book, that have identified the deadly category now known as serial killers.

From Jack the Ripper, Erszabet Batory, the countess vampire, and Big and Little Harpe to Ted Bundy, the Son of Sam and Jeffrey Dahmer, the whole era of the serial killer is unveiled here. These killers transfix us with an image of an apparently civilized society within which extremely intelligent and rational individuals can commit seemingly random, utterly savage acts of cruelty and depravity. It may well be the darkest side of human activity, but there can be little doubt that the killers listed and described in these pages remain horribly fascinating - sometimes enigmatic and inexplicable - but always terrifyingly gripping.

My thoughts: Remind me not to read books like this just before I go to bed. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night after having nightmares about murderers!

Some of the crimes made for very uncomfortable reading as there is quite a lot of grisly details. But I think it was the photos in this book that creeped me out the most, there is a photo of each serial killer, sometimes ordinary looking family snapshots. Just makes you realise how good some criminals are at acting 'normal'.

This was a good introductory book about serial killers. It contains details of their crimes and victims, how they were caught and what their punishment was. I already knew a lot of the facts about the most famous serial killers, having read books about them before, but this book also contains some less well-known murderers. After reading this there are now a few more murderers that I'd like to read more about.

One thing about this book that really annoyed me was that there were grey boxes scattered on the pages containing extra information, which wouldn't normally bother me, but they were always in really odd places and I found myself having to flick pages backwards and forwards to read things in a sensible order.

This book is a good starting point for learning about serial killers, but there are plenty of other books out there with more in-depth information.

The World's Greatest Unsolved Crimes by Roger Boar and Nigel Blundell

Synopsis from back cover: From theft and fraud to murder, The World's Greatest Unsolved Crimes examines the facts behind the most intriguing crimes of all - those that remain unsolved. Such cases are the stuff of whodunnits. But this book is based on real life and not fiction. It reveals the astonishing, known facts about real acts of villainy... and it probes the fascinating, missing facts that confound the law and are kept in a file marked 'Unsolved'.

My thoughts: Very interesting book, although perhaps a little dated now, as it was written in the early 1980s. It contains case details of lots of unsolved crimes, including infamous crimes such as Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia murder, Nazi war crimes, and the Hindenberg disaster. It also contains details of lesser known crimes that I hadn't heard of before. Also has a few black and white photos scattered throughout the book which were interesting to see.

I enjoyed reading this book as I am very interested in crime-solving techniques. I was quite shocked to read about some unsolved crimes that should have been solved, but weren't because obvious evidence was overlooked, or because police went for the easy route of investigation even though it led them to the wrong suspect.

Cold Cases by Charlotte Greig

Synopsis from the back cover: There's nothing more chilling than an unsolved crime, particularly one involving direct harm to human life; be it murder or rape, these are the crimes whose effects extend furthest and cause most pain to humanity: how much worse when they go unsolved and, as such, unpunished?

Such crimes, so-called 'cold cases', are all too common, especially in big cities where hundreds, if not thousands of such incidents remain on file. But there is hope. With the development of science, and the continuing improvements in detection techniques, the re-examination of old, unsolved cases is yielding positive results, often decades after the case originally went 'cold'. This book documents the most fascinating of these cases, and includes:

The murdered heiress, Helen Brach
Albert Fish, child killer
The Green River Killer, Gary Leon Ridgway
Gerald Parker, the 'Bedroom Basher'
The woman in a box
The bone breaker, Joe Clark
Frank Bender, forensic sculptor
Dennis Rader, the 'Bind, Torture, Kill' killer

My thoughts: This book was interesting and informative. In contains information about many different ‘Cold Cases’ (crimes that have been re-investigated years after the crime occurred).

The book is split into five chapters:
In Cold Blood - Murders that were especially shocking.
Cold Comfort - Crimes which made the front page of the newspapers and raised controversial issues.
Cold-steel Killers - Serial killers.
Cool Heads - Crimes solved with a variety of detection methods.
Cold Sweat - Crimes solved with DNA technology.

Each chapter contains details of several cases. For each case we learn about the crime, the detection, how it was solved, and how the criminal was finally brought to justice. There are also several black and white pictures for each case.

This book was very easy to read and understand, as all of the technical terms are clearly described. A good introductory book for anyone interested in crime solving methods.