Bright Side

Product Information

On the Brightside is the 2nd book in the Hendrik Groen Series. I have read the first one and I enjoyed it immensely, so I was looking forward to reading this one.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography

This book is so well written and although its subject is perhaps difficult to imaging being so entertaining and witty, the author brings it to life with charm.I will start by saying that I am not the biggest fan of biographies - of any kind. Yes there are numerous ones out there and no doubt covering off some of heroes and other fascinating people but at some point or other I feel they descend in to name dropping narcissistic demonstration of why they are famous and you are not.

On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen

Hendrik and his friends are still keen to have as much fun as they can manage given their advanced years and infirmity, and I found their camaraderie and exploits endearing. “Stop spending so much time studying life’s instruction manual. Just do it!! Yes, you may fall down a few times, but so long as you get up again, you’ll be ahead of where you were.” Hendrik writes with humour, insight and charm about often painful subjects - quite an achievement - and hints that his next project is to be a novel, I can’t wait for its publication. When chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble, give a whistle. And always look on the bright side of death. As Idle explains early on, there is an unending shelf of books, documentaries and products keeping the Monty Python myth alive. Always Look on the Bright Side of Life is certainly one of them. Immediately, there’s a chemistry that comes alive between them. Kate tries to suppress her intensifying feelings for him, but the more she gets to know him, the more she falls for everything about him. He’s smart, funny, caring, but also a bit of a mystery. The truth is, both Keller and Kate are keeping secrets. The kind of secrets that can change everything. “My life will not follow a fairy tale, and that’s okay. My life is reality. And in my reality people don’t fall in love and get married and live happily ever after, because life is complicated. And messy.” Der rüstige Rentner Hendrik Groen erzählte in seinem ersten Tagebuch „Eierlikörtage“ von seinem Dasein als Rentner in einem Amsterdamer Altersheim, seinen Freunden, und wie er gemeinsam mit ihnen den Alt-aber-nicht-tot-Club (Alanito) gründete. Hendrik und Co. sind nun etwas älter geworden, strahlen aber noch immer jede Menge Lebensfreude aus und so schildert Hendrik in „Tanztee“ die neusten Ereignisse und Veränderungen aus seinem Rentneralltag, erzählt von den Unternehmungen des Alanito Clubs und lässt ganz nebenbei seine Sicht auf die Welt einfließen.Idle loves adding adjectives before names. Everyone is amazing or wonderful, excellent or brilliant, fantastic or incomparable. The whole book is gossipy, teenage fandom style. A lot has changed for Hendrik in those 2 years. He still tells a good tale but this is not a comfortable and cosy read. The first book was quite bright and happy but this book although realistic is a shade depressing. Hendrik is clearly not enjoying his old age as much in 2015 as he did in 2013. Having said that, this isn’t a sad story. I knew very little about much of Idle’s fame. For me, the Pythons were a troupe and I didn’t know much about any of them individually. They always seemed funniest when together, a chemical reaction that brought lightness into a dark world. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, their earlier movie, has always been my favorite, but learning just how many famous people befriended Idle has a way of making an aspiring writer jealous. The world loves people who can make you laugh. His description of Graham Chapman’s death was heartfelt, as was his writing of non-Python’s George Harrison. Idle survives as people he knows die. Robin Williams, another fallen comrade. While reading this book new of Terry Jones’ death hit the news.