What do you think?
Rate this book
Stop For Breakfast
Stop For Breakfast continues the story from Simon Temple-Bennett's award winning first book 'Undressed for Dinner', of a family trying to lead an ordinary life in an extraordinary place. With the loss of Simon's mum, two teenaged children vying for ever more attention, a financial climate gradually suffocating them and their dream French home back on the market the couple feel the draw of the southern sun strengthening by the day.
In desperation, they start a smallholding with near disastrous consequences, expand beyond their already exhausted means while their efforts to remain sane are thwarted by ridiculous bureaucracy and government jobsworths. It’s a gentle, humourous and self- deprecating take on mid-life, parenting of teenagers and self-employment and the ups and downs of having to deal with all of them at once.
In desperation, they start a smallholding with near disastrous consequences, expand beyond their already exhausted means while their efforts to remain sane are thwarted by ridiculous bureaucracy and government jobsworths. It’s a gentle, humourous and self- deprecating take on mid-life, parenting of teenagers and self-employment and the ups and downs of having to deal with all of them at once.
242 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
3 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 14, 2016
This is a strange sort of book in that it’s hard to define what it is trying to do. It is held together as a collection of ‘memoirs’ might be – a loose volume of stories, some very amusing and others not so, from a hotelier who runs his business from a castle. The author uses the stories as a channel through which to paint a picture of his life – both as a family man and as someone trying to run a small enterprise in an area of the country with which he is not familiar, through a difficult economic period.
The book is enjoyable and many of the tales recounted made me laugh. Others are very poignant, and there are those which portray with stark honesty the difficulties which successive governments have created for small businesses and enterprises who struggle for survival through times of economic uncertainty. The author employs an odd little feature whereby he holds conversations with his deceased mother, a technique used with sensitivity and amusement (but instead using his late father) in his first book but which I failed to find as good this time. The ending is also rather surreal, involving a family reunion with the deceased.
I would give the book 3.75 stars. Would I read it again? Unlikely.
The book is enjoyable and many of the tales recounted made me laugh. Others are very poignant, and there are those which portray with stark honesty the difficulties which successive governments have created for small businesses and enterprises who struggle for survival through times of economic uncertainty. The author employs an odd little feature whereby he holds conversations with his deceased mother, a technique used with sensitivity and amusement (but instead using his late father) in his first book but which I failed to find as good this time. The ending is also rather surreal, involving a family reunion with the deceased.
I would give the book 3.75 stars. Would I read it again? Unlikely.
Displaying 1 of 1 review