Reviewer Rita Wong says in Kinesis, "The trilogy of Bellydancer stories presents us with tough-talking, gritty women and men, who know poverty, tragedy and survival first hand. Women who, as one character states, 'are not supposed to live long enough to tell our stories.' The trilogy converges around the mesmerizing figure of Seni, and leads us to revisit 'Pompeii,' a story told by a woman named Dance of the Eternal Spirit. She states, 'I alone, it seems, have chosen not to live in the atrium of my master's house. I don't know if this makes them afraid for me, or afraid of me.' Read together, the bellydancing stories call forth the imperative of our legendary foremothers."

I bought this book because I was interested in the Spanish Civil war. You get three books in one, which is great. I'd read Cider with Rosie when I was at school, but not since, and I was disappointed when I read it again - I remembered it being so much better! Laurie Lee is heavy on description, which makes for slow reading, and basically very little happened during his childhood years.

As I walked out one midsummer morning is Lee's account of a trip he made to Spain just before the start of the civil war. It's very bizarre in places - he goes to Spain with £5 in his pocket, his passport and his violin. A lot of the rest of the story is about food, since he was usually stony broke and starving! It seems to be a romantised account though - either that or he really did meet every eccentric, unusual or downright mad person in Spain.

A moment of war takes over where the previous book left off. Lee returns to Spain to join the International Brigade and help fight the fascists (as Hemmingway did). I found this story quite disturbing, because it showed just how easy it was for an untrained, very young English boy to become part of a badly equipped and ultimately hopeless struggle.

Overall, this is not a book that I would consider enjoyable - a lot of it is just too bleak. But it does give you a good insight into what life was like in Spain just before and during the Civil War, and you get a classic read in Cider with Rosie to boot.