Theatons Blog

Book review of ”Ronnie - The Autobiography of Ronnie O’Sullivan ” by Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Overview
This book is wrote by Ronnie and details his life from a young child, right through to about 2003 and the challanges and drama’s he has faced coming from parents with nothing, through to a snooker world champioin.

Read Duration
This book took me approx 3 days of mixed 1-2 hour sessions. Very easy read with big font, big line spacing, and short lines.

My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book.
Being a passiontate fan of snooker, especially Ronnie, i really enjoyed reading this and getting to know more about one of the players i like to watch. The book provided me with a completly new light and understanding of Ronnie and the challanges he has faced growing up, combatting what seems to be, a constant state of serious depression.

Rating
8/10 - Very easy going read, written in a very colloqual mannor. A must read for any Ronnie or snooker fan.

Book review of ” Cocky - The rise and fall of Curtis Warren - Britains biggest drug barron ” by Tony Barnes, Richard Elias and Peter Walsh.

Overview
…Where to begin with this book.
This is not so much a ’story’ or ‘book’ but more of an outlook of the drug scene wrote by police and customs offerices, specifically noting detail about Curtis Warren from Liverpool.

The book starts of with the opening chapters setting the Scene… The history behind the City of liver pool, the crimincals, violenece and how liverpool came to be the way it is portrayed in the book.

Next section is the book detailing Curtis’ childhood, growing up and background information as to who he is, and his character. This section also details lots of Cocky’s mates and how the drug scene was evolving and changing in liverpool and how Cock got in there and established himself as a prime dealer / supplier.

The book covers failed court cases, and then Cocky takes a run over to Holland to manage his empire from there, where phone taps are admissable as evidence in court. This is where the UK and Dutch authorities accumilate the evidence to convict Cocky.

The final chapter / section is obviously just detailign the court proceedings, how the trial went and what happens.

Read duration

I read this one spaced over 2 months of daily 10 min toilet sessions, followed by a few 1 hour sessions when i had time.

My Thoughts:
I feel like this book makes Cock out to be a nice caring guy who was just trying to run a business. The way the book is written it makes me feel like the author(s) don’t have any kind of grudge against Cocky.
I thought the liverpool history stuff was a bit drawn out, but then again I did learn somthing new I suppose and it helped set the scene.
The story is a good onee, and how much of it is true no one will ever know apart from Cocky.
Everything in this book has to be taken with a pinch of salt as its obviously not a Howard Marks Autobiography, but an account of one’s actions wrote by those people who were tryign to get him charged with everything under the sun.

Rating:
8/10 - Good and worth a read but it be nice to read somthing Cocky has contributed to himself aswell.

Book review of: The Operators by James Rennie

Overview:
The operators is a book detailing one mans journey through the armed forces to join the elite special ops unit operating in northern ireland called ‘14 intelligence company’.
The book spends probably 1/3 detailing how he got into the situation and, ie: growing up, and then his special forces selection process (Always a good read). the other 2/3 of the book is about his jobs / operations in northern ireland.

Read duration:
I will be completly honest here, This book is one of my favrouites, i’ve read it twice and can easily finish of in 2 - 3 days relaxed reading on holiday

My Thoughts:
This is one of my top books in the ‘SAS / Special Forces / Police’ books genre.
I absoloutely love this book. Everything about this book I found has been covered in the perfect amount of detail. Not too much so as to bore you, but enough to let your imagination take hold while following the story. This is a real page turner. Every page just makes you want to continue reading.

I mentally divide the book into 3 sections: Growing up, Selection / Training and finally Work in the Field.
Each one of these is covered brilliantly and if your at all interested in SAS, Police, Special Forces or anything like that, i highly recommend this book.

Rating:
10/10 - No suprises here then, absoloute top quality book, not too long, not too short, really excellent stuff. Highly recommended.

Book review of: Day by Day - by Carlo Lucarelli (Fiction)

Overview:
Set in italy, this is the story of a man who is a hitman / killer who is on the run and turns into a kidnap story towards the end.

Read duration:
Approx 2 days, totallig 10-14 hours - quite short

My Thoughts:
With it being only a short book, it was nice and quick to read. This is one of only a handful of pieces of fiction i’ve read as i’m not much of a fictional book kind of person.
The story started off dramatically and then went into really long winded elaborate descriptive writing about situations and scenes in the book which I thought was over the top. The story also seemed to take on a whole new shift.. sold to me as a story about an assain / hitman, and it started this way, it morphed into a book about a mans way of life, then a police hunt, then a kidnap story.

Rating:
4/10 - While I enjoyed the book, I have definatly read alot better and won’t be badgering any of my friends to pick this one up.

Book review of: Eye of the Storm - Twenty fiver years in action with the SAS - Peter Ratcliffe

Overview:
This book is the story of Peter Ratcliffs carrer in the SAS, covering everything from when he was a boy and first joined, Northern Ireland, Dhofar, Prison outbreak in scotland, Falklands, and finally in the Gulf

Read duration:
Somtimes 1 hour per day, somtimes 2, took 1.5 - 2 weeks 434 pages in my copy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Book review of: The Infiltrators - Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard

Overview:
This book is the story of 2 undercover police officers and their experiences / stories during the years they worked for SO₁₀

Read duration:
I read about 1-2 hours a day and had it gone within a week

Read the rest of this entry »

Book review of: John Geddes - Highway to hell

Overview:
Book is a collection of John’s experiences during his time as a PMC (private military contractor) working in iraq

Read duration:
I read about 1-2 hours a day and had it gone within a week

Read the rest of this entry »

Liquorice Allsorts..

Hello, not updated for a few days. What have Chloe and I been up to ? Not alot, and it feels great.

Just been doing nothing but giving our minds a rest from the UK rat race and done nothing again but work hard at the gym, then relax infront of the pool swimming and reading our books all afternoon.
Read the rest of this entry »