A charming romcom of a book. I understand the wide star ratings it's got as I varied from thinkings it's a bit cheesy and flakey to thinking it's got a good, substantial historical backdrop and the glue metaphor works well. So I went for three stars. ( )

After enjoying 'Tractors', and disliking 'Caravans', I wondered what I would make of 'Glue'. Actually, it turned out to be my favourite of the three.

Georgie Sinclair lives in London, after moving there with her family from Leeds. Her husband, Rip, is a lawyer working for a worthy cause but, after an incident involving a toothbrush holder, Georgie throws a wobbly and Rip ends up moving out. She throws his precious records on a skip, along with most of his other valued possessions, and one night she looks out of the window to see a figure rummaging in the skip. This is Mrs Naomi Shapiro, a batty old Jewish lady, who lives in a ramshackle, but highly sought after house, with a range of randy and mangy cats.

There follows a chaotic set of events involving hospitals, nursing homes, Arab handymen, wolfish estate agents, crooked social workers and Georgie's son Ben's religious ravings.

This is a dry, funny book and Marina Lewycka really excels at this type of humour in her writing. The story is told by Georgie in a first person narrative, and this works very well in this book. The characters are bizarre and unusual and the story is brought together very well. My only criticism is that, for me, it was a little bit too long, but still an excellent piece of writing. ( )

A good read and thoroughly enjoyable. Georgia finds Naomi filching old records from her skip and a friendship develops. Not as good as Two Caravans and a tendency to tell the history of Jews & Palestinians through Georgias discussions with other characters which felt a bit "teachy". But nevertheless, a good book I will recommend to friends. ( )

Reading this became a chore towards the end as it was so long and didn't hold my attention. By the time I came towards the very final few chapters of the book i gave up as I had no real interest in how it finished. The book started off humorously and I was willing to let myself enjoy it but it was too close to chick-lit for me to get anything out of it. I would definately recommend for readers who do like that kind of literature as it stands out form the crowd by portraying interactions between ethnically and socially diverse characters and highlights some important historical events in relation to the conflicts in Israel, but it just wasn't for me. I thought 'A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine' was great but the novelty of Lewycka's style has grown thin now. ( )

An excellent book, charting the relationship between a middle-aged mother from N. England and an old Jewish lady from London. Very funny in parts, but with a serious commentary on the Arab - Israeli issue. Authors best book so far - and the others were good! ( )