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| Shire Hell | 
 enlarge | Author: Rachel Johnson
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy Used: £0.75
You Save: £6.24 (89%)
New (25) from £2.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 3509
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141035692
EAN: 9780141035697
ASIN: 0141035692
Publication Date: May 15, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Good reading copy only. Will dispatch within 24 hours.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Maybe I missed something... July 22, 2008
I'd never read any of Rachel's books, but fancied something easy to read that would conjure up lovely countryside images - the concept of a blanket and cup of cocoa in a book. I don't know if I missed something, but I really didn't get that from this book. I found it confusing to switch between Mimi and Rose from chapter to chapter, I honestly didn't see much of a story emerging.....it was a teensy bit dull really!
 A Slice of the Good Life July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having raced through Notting Hell & loved every juicy minute of it, I was really chuffed to discover Shire Hell in WhSmiths, Waterloo.I had no idea it was out & what a luscious paperback to devour on the train back to Sherborne...Dorset.It was ace to be reunited with Mimi's quirky, eclectic wardrobe & to discover how she was coping with Latte withdrawal having moved from Notting Hill to Honeybourne.I love the "unsaids" that simmer beneath the highly competetive surface-the ongoing commentaries on how people fit into the county food chain.
Lots of things resonated with me on a personal level.From the designer sausages sold in the uber chic farm shop to the mega fierce pony club committee types - it was all proving majorly familar. My husband, Matt & I moved from glossy Guidford to deepest darkest Dorset 5 yeas ago. I can clearly remember the panic on learning that the nearest Caffe Nero was 20 miles away...gumpf! I can also remember being told we'd have to swap our car- only a moderatley flashy black sporty number, for a mud splattered "Disco" (Some kind of landy- rovey thing) if we wanted to fit in.Naturally, we asked ourselves if we did actually want to fit in, or would it be wiser to leg it back to Surrey?
Shire Hell, as well as being a witty & fabulously engaging romp also works as a "Rough (and posh) Guide" to Dorset.
We had great fun wondering if the "eco villagers" described were based in any way on an alternative tribe of Tinkers living in Somerset ( or Domerset- ie right on the border).
My ego was also stroked when early into the novel our little bakery, "Honeybuns" was given a name check! How exciterous! Rachel Johnson has obviously observed Dorset's quirks & foibles at close quarters & had a great laugh puting it all to paper. It's all here- from the dusty aristos to the designer foodies and Boden clad equine "Hauhty haws".(Difficult to phonetically capture howthey do speak).
A highly recommended read. My only fear is that the hidden gem that Dorset is will now become more popular & morph into a wannabe Cirencester. Thank God we haven't got Jack Wills in Sherborne...yet!
Shire giggles June 19, 2008
I adore Rachel Johnson -she is a witty and intelligent writer. The characters are spot on and as a West London and Dorset home owner they made me weep and wince at times. This is the sort of book you want to read in a Diptyque candle lit bath or snuggle up under White Company fresh linen with a bar of Green and Blacks. A gorgeous girly indulgence. But I think the story loses the thread at times- expect brilliant characters but not an edge of your seat plot.
Everyone in my dorm has read it June 19, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am not usually very good at reading anything other than Harry Potter but my mother bought Notting Hell, the prequel to this, and I read it and enjoyed it so much. This has just the same sort of momentum with things happening in every paragraph all keeping the story going so you can't put it down. It is really funny and is about the sort of people who have come from London to live in the country and are carrying on with their status-checks and trying to be greener and cooler than each other but never relaxing and just enjoying being in nature. Some of them completely miss the point of the countryside.Some of the characters are really funny. There is a love story about someone near my own age as well as a good love story about someone in her late thirties but everyone in the cast is very witty/glamorous or interesting in some other way and Rachel Johnson manages to be rude in a very subtle way about the snobbery. Her writing is a kind of non cruel teasing about people's weaknesses but it is full of really up to the moment jokes about fashions in furniture, clothes, lifestyles, food and people who want to be green. EVeryone in my dorm has read it.
good fun, dreadful people June 18, 2008
The town and country set have long needed a send-up, and Johnson is the ideal writer to take over from Jilly Cooper in this field. Mimi, the former chronicler of Notting Hell has sold up for a mere 2 million and moved to Home Farm, a chaotic Dorsetshire farmhouse which does not bear comparison with her friend Rose's immaculate one. Her children are not pleased (I especially enjoyed her daughter's complaints on "gurl" about the dreariness of it all, which greatly resemble my own petal's moans)and the contrast between visiting fairs with knitted yoghurt and city slicker pursuits is wittily described.
But what appalling people! The lazy, hypochondriac Pierre, who carries a log around in order not to be asked to do anything by his enrage wife is one thing; the multimillionaire who describes himself as a "Jewray Henry" another. If these are the kind of snobs who set up their own literary festival and who smugly pat themselves on the back for having wind-farms then the guillotine can't come here too soon. I'm sorry the Johnson didn't turn her pen to the contrast between the real poverty in such areas and the kind of idiots who fret over the choice between Boden and Barbour. Less name-checks and more of the genuine venom of Notting Hell would have made it a stronger sequel.
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