Gain Access To The Fifteen Streets Published By Catherine Cookson Disseminated As Pamphlet
reading for fun. This is not a book club read, It was a quick read, It was written in. I really liked John, Katie, Mary, Christine, and Mary Ellen, They were good characters and you really had to feel for them, Talk about dirt poor wow, And working so hard for so little and under extreme conditions, No clothes, no running water, little food to none, doing laundry by hand, washing up in a bucket, It makes you appreciate what you have, You also have two brothers that hate each other, A mother who gets pregnantortimes no birth control back then and onlymake it through birth, Also, religion is throughout the book, I did like the book because I liked many of the characters, There was really a lot to this book and I don't want to give it away, Love of siblings, caring about people, religion, and lost and true love and giving it up for true love, I'm glad I read the book, I have to admit i saw the film whilst on holiday, and i loved it! So there was no doubt in my mind i would love the book! And i did it had me in tears even though i knew what was going to happen.
It's alot darker than the film and i think that makes the ending more triumphant, The characters are described in perfect detail that you really can picture them, It is a little far fetched and in the reality of things i doubt that the ending would be so merry, but i love this book and the story is as old as time.
Well done Catherine Cookson i would recommend it to all who love a happy ending and struggle for it, I used to watch the itv adaptation of this story with my mum when I was younger, I noticed my mums old copy up in the loft and asked my dad if I could take it, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, The adaptation was very true to the source material and I could hear the words been spoken in the north eastern accents throughout, A fab story of class, with rich characters and lots of ups and downs, This is a doozy. I wasn't familiar with this "topic" and found it very interesting and slightly sad, but in a good way, It is very much worth a person's time, I just find CC amazing for how she can get a story out and a good one and a real one, That's what I loveshe was real! Amazing!
Just finished this book, my first Catherine Cookson novel, I couldn't put it down, loved it from beginning to end.
Easy to read but very hard to put down, Storytelling at it's best. A friend in England, an avid reader I could never keep up with, recommended Catherine Cookson and I jumped right in, To say the cover on this edition is misleading is an understatement! Right off the bat I felt as if I'd fallen into a Charles Dickens novel poverty, social injustice, POVERTY, cruel POVERTY in unbelievable proportions, yet historically true.
Sadly. Or should I say horrifyingly,
I cringed through this book, My heart sunk as the characters struggled to exist, Judging by the cover I was sure things would start to look up, and the people living in tatters would soon rise above their despair and POVERTY, Page after page, it did not happen, The brutal realities of life on the fifteen streets gripped the characters held hostage to their miseries, Yet, they managed. They knew their place, they accepted their lot,
How on earth was this book going to live up to its cover Somehow a love story takes root out of the muck of life, The possibility of it is impossible, The cover deceived me into thinking there'd be a happilyeverafter ending to this wrenching story, Page after page after page relentless struggle, The injustice of that era in history is dumbfounding, Les Misérables meet Little Dorrit, Victor Hugo/Charles Dickens.
My friend in England most definitely handed me something to think about, I've been counting my blessings every day since reading this book, That said, I fully understand why she recommended Catherine Cookson, She writes with painstaking detail, weaving a story that defies reason, Three because it's a painful read five for a book cover that kept me reading right through to the end, It was well worth it, This book is brilliant. I love this book. My favourite Catherine Cookson book by far, I love the characters, the story telling and how the hardship and reality of life back then cames out of the pages, A fantastic book.
The TV movie ofis EXACTLY like the novel so well worth a watch, Another Cookson classic, you can't go wrong, Life in The Fifteen Streets was a continual struggle for survival, Some families gave up hope and descended into a state of perpetual despair, Others, like the O'Briens, maintained a fierce determination to transcend the bitter poverty into which they had been born,
For Mary Ellen O'Brien, hope lay in the widsom and strenghtr of her children, There was gentle Katie, whose bright beauty and quick mind led her to a new world of learning Dominic, fasttempered and strongwilled and there was John the most determined to escape the cruel poverty of the Fifteen Streets, the most passionate, courageous and loving of all the O'Briens.
. . My favourite of all of Cookson's books, Will write a long love letter to this book, one day, Don't waste your time with this depressing book, Nothing good happens in it, Oh I'm sure you can find deeper meaning in the family who is wealthy and moves into the district to help the people and I agree that that is the epitome of Christian living, other than that, nothing worth wasting your time on if you like to read for a lovely escape.
If you like depressing books, go for it! You should love this one,
I have read a good twenty Cookson books at this point and all except one have warranted at least three till now, I had a hard time with this one, The subject matter did not really interest me as much as Cookson's usual choices, Besides being about a very poor, struggling family on Fifteen Streets, it focuses on the lates/ earlys religious tensions between Catholics and Pentecostals,
It has the usual dramatic twists that Cookson is famed for, but in this case they were predictable, There is the "upstart" struggling to better himself, good sibling versus bad, and a woman attempting to saddle a poor fellow with a bairn that isn't his,
Unlike most Cookson stories, I never felt any rapport or kinship with any of the characters, However, in the end, one can read a bit of a moral in the story.
Be careful what you wish for, It can often come true, but with strings attached, Another fantastic book from the north east, Gripped from start to finish, A lovely read set in northern England about, It's a love story between a poor man and a moderately wealthy schoolteacher, He lives in 'The Fifteen Streets' the ghetto of that time and she lives with her parents her father owns the shipyard where 'he' works, This is the first time in a long time that i've finished a book all in one go, The bittersweet ending put the soapiness of the book into better perspective, which I do respect it for, My most favourite Catherine Cookson book the Kindle Edition has a different cover, Plain purple with the head and shoulders of Catherine Cookson pictured on it,
Poor mean streets nicknamed "The Fifteen Streets",
A family with two older sons one good and one a baddie with a sick father and a mother who was the centre of the family and younger siblings.
The goodie falls in love with the school teacher daughter of a wealthy man of his younger sister, The baddie chasing everything in skirts,
The goodie brother longs to marry and despite promotion is tied back by his responsibility of being the main bread winner,
A family of Spiritualists move in next door and the father of that family assists the mother next door with a difficult childbirth, The daughter of the Spiritualist is chased by the baddie son from next door so the family next door encourage their daughter to stay with her when her own older brother is around.
The young daughters of the two neighbours go to play in a small boat which is caught by the tide and are both lost, drowned, The baddie brother had had a hand in this,
The mother prays for her daughter in church and says she will give anything to know her daughter is alright, She hears her daughter's voice,
In the mean time the baddie brother played by Sean Bean in the TV film we find has seduced a girl who lives on their street, a girl with what we call learning difficulties now.
The girl is pregnant and lies so every one believes the goodie brother is the guilty one,
I am not saying anymore only that the plot becomes exciting and even if you are not a Catherine Cookson fan I don't like all her books this is a
really good story.
The film of the book is a favourite of mine too, same title. I have it in a box set of Cookson dvd films and a freebie dvd kept in case one is damaged, Though this was a simple story, Ms, Cooksons worldbuilding, her main characters traits and the utter poverty of sitelinkThe Fifteen Streets engulfed me,
It was an honest romance between two people separated by money and class, And one falsehood that was meant to be used as a wedge, It was about two brothers during the Victorian era in the images of Cain and Abel with an emotional intensity of seemingly impossible dreams, The story also included religious conflict with gritty realism,
By the time I finished this narrative, I found myself happy to live in the present moment, And I promised to do my best not to take things for granted,
.stars Another great book from Catherine Cookson
John OBrian lives in the Fifteen Streets he meets a teacher but he he is accused of getting a young girl pregnant
This is gritty about poverty the have and have nots told in the great way Catherine Cookson does An excellent short novel from Cooksons earlys period.
This one has drama, tragedy and romance, The setting is one with which the author was familiar: a povertystricken strifetorn family in Englands Newcastle area at the turn of the century, It is mostly somber fare but is illuminated by ardent loveatfirstsight infatuation, Cookson explores the deep divide between the rising middle class and the underprivileged, Surprisingly, supernatural spiritualistic mindovermatter beliefs and healing practices are woven into the narrative and contrasted with prescribed Catholic dogma, Two strong female characters who help to overcome societal antipathies are crucial to the books success, I recently discovered Catherine Cookson's prolific works, Last week I read sitelinkThe Dwelling Placeand I LOVED it, I did not like The Fifteen Streetsnearly as well, I'm not sure if I did myself a disservice by picking one up at random to read and then trying to go back, On the other hand, if I read this one first, it might have been the first AND last of Cookson's books I attempted to read, so who knows.
It might be unfair to compare these two works, but I can't help it, The Dwelling Place has a more involved plot and more detailed character development, The Dwelling Place was sad, butStreets was just over the top depressing, Streets also had the religious conflict which I mostly just skimmed over, I will give Cookson another try, There's certainly no shortage of options!,