Reviews

The Nation's Favourite Poems: Book 1 by Griff Rhys Jones

bookswithboo's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing

4.5

louise_maia's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

3.5

janedallaway's review against another edition

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4.0

I first read this years ago, in fact both Mum and I had a copy, but it was hers that I’ve read. This time around I enjoyed it’s strange mixture of poetry, but I guess that’s what you get when you ask the public to name their favourite.

The poems I enjoyed enough to put a mark against are:

- The Daffodils by William Wordsworth
- He wishes for the cloths of heaven by W. B. Yeats
- Leisure by William Henry Davies
- Twelve Songs by W. H. Auden
- Jaberwocky by Lewis Carroll
- The owl and the pussy-cat by Edward Lear
- The glory of the garden by Rudyard Kipling
- Bloody men by Wendy Cope
- Diary of a church mouse by John Betjeman
- Let me die a youngman’s death by Roger McCough
- Chocolate cake by Michael Rosen
- Warming her pearls by Carol Ann Duffy

Some of these are because I remember them from school, or when I first read them. Some are because it’s interesting to revist a poem I thought I knew.

late_stranger's review against another edition

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2.0

While it was fun to occasionally come across a famous line i didn't realise was from the poem it was, there were only two that really jumped out at me and made me tab the page - Siegfried Sassoon's Everone Sang and Thomas Harry's The Ruined Maid. Otherwise, it was a mix of things I'd read for uni and well done but monotonous rhymes verse. Alas, I don't see to share the nation's taste in poetry.

katiedreads's review against another edition

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4.0

I found this book during a declutter and realised I purchased it more than 15 years ago and never read past the first 10 pages. I have never been a huge poetry reader, but I gave this a chance. Once I started reading it, I realised I actually knew about 30 out of the 100 poems well. This book is a good mixture of familiar poems and poets but with some interesting additions as well. I found some new favourites in Jenny Joseph Warning and Thomas Hood I Remember, but it did remind me of my love of Wordsworth, Keats, Dylan Thomas and Edgar Allan Poe.

littlefish's review

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adventurous funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

septimasnape's review

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challenging reflective relaxing medium-paced

3.0

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