Friday 25 September 2009

My calculations are out!

Turns out I have only 14 days to finish 27 books! Looks like those books will be very short. Here's what I read last night:

The Frightful First World War by Terry Deary. Funny and horrifying in equal measures, but poor old Rupert Brooke gets it in the neck again. Posho Rupe seems like an easy target. He's criticised for glorifying war (although most people at that stage of the war thought similarly), and then at the same time he's criticised for not dying a hero's death himself (he died from an infected insect bite). He still wrote some wonderful poetry though and just because it doesn't fit in with today's interpretation of the war, which has the benefit of hindsight, doesn't mean that his poetry cannot stand alongside the anti-war poets like Wilfred Owen.

I also read George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. I quite liked it, but I think a lot of its appeal to children must be the wish-fulfillment element of admitting that some relatives, even our nearest and dearest, can be quite horrible. Even better is the inflicting of horrible deaths on them!

Day 351 (new calculation); book 338 = 14 days to read 27 books!