A Motley Selection

Fiction first: in a triumph of hope over experience, I read another Jeff Abbott book. Jeff Abbott writes well, and he writes mystery/suspense novels but I just can't warm to his characters. He also writes about espionage and organised crime rather than "ordinary" people. I'll stick to Harlan Coben but I'll need to wait for his new book to come out (next month, and it's a new Myron Bolitar book!)

Next was Garrison Keillor, a new author to me but one I'd heard mentioned in glowing terms. Again he writes well, but again I just didn't take to him. I think it's possibly because he writes as if we should know all about Lutherans. It's funny because often you read a book about a completely different environment and it's one of the benefits of reading that you come to feel as if you know about that environment. I just didn't feel that here. I did laugh out loud a couple of times but that was the exception. There seemed to be an underlying sadness to the book too (which does give it extra depth).

Men and Sheds is an amusing book about men and their fondness for sheds ... with pictures of the men in their sheds of course. There is one woman but mostly the shed is a male environment. None of these sheds are beautiful but their owners obviously love them and the opportunities they offer for peace and seclusion and frankly, obsessions!

Finally I came across in a charity shop a book I had when I was about seven. I loved this book! It's called Something to Do and the author was Septima (a pseudonym for a group of mums who wrote the book). I still liked this book and all the information and activities it suggested, but it was also amusing and thought-provoking to see that in those days (the 1960s) children were expected to be able to have penknives, make fires, boil kettles etc. What freedom!

Day 159; Book 159