The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

I finished Snow Falling on Cedars last night and I was really caught up in it by the end. I could see then why the author had set things up in the detailed way he had. San Piedro Island had become a real place to me by the denouement, and when I looked up it was almost surprising not to be in the middle of a terrible snowstorm.

I still had time for The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, which is only 121 pages long. Bennett writes amusingly of the Queen taking up reading, and there were several laugh-out-loud moments. Things get a little more serious as the book goes on, with the author imagining how singular it must be to be the Queen, and there is an excellent conclusion.

So farewell then, beloved apostrophe?

I posted here about "correct", or probably I should have said "accepted", grammar and punctuation a while ago. Simply because accepted usages promote ease of communication, I felt that this was A Good Thing. I added a corollary though, here.

Back in September the Register (online IT newspaper) reported on John Wells, Emeritus Professor of Phonetics at University College London, who was proposing "freeing up" English spelling and doing away with the apostrophe. This was the response. It's rather frightening that people should get so hysterical and abusive (and also ironic that they should include so many errors themselves).* University professors SHOULD come up with radical ideas, not reinforce your cosy perceptions. I'm not keen on the phonetic spelling myself because I don't think it's really easier to read. I could say farewell to the apostrophe without much of a pang, though, because I don't think it's usually vital to comprehension. I suspect that SOME of these people (the nasty, aggressive ones) actually like feeling superior when somebody else gets the apostrophe wrong. Grammar as distinguishing between them and us? I shouldn't think it's a new idea ...

*Incidentally if you manage to read on you will also come across people who are talking perfect sense for and against the proposal in a balanced way. Thank goodness!

Snow falling on Cedars by David Guterson

This came highly recommended and is really involving. It's taken me a while to read, even though it's not particularly long. The descriptions really put you on San Piedro Island and you feel as though you know all the inhabitants ... although obviously I don't, because it's yet to be revealed just what happened when Carl died. I am a fan of the courtroom drama, and this has courtroom scenes, plus flashbacks to the war and to the experience of Japanese Americans in particular. I love the title, reminiscent of haiku writing. I will finish it tonight, and then I'd better read some shorter books to catch up with my book-a-day aim. I'll be pleased if I can get to the end of the year with 365 books read: even if some took a few days, I'll let myself off the hook if on other days I've read 2 shorter books!

More books!

Thanks to Lorraine for lending me Alan Bennett's Uncommon Reader, and to Somi for Albert Camus' Fall, Yasmin Crowther's Saffron Kitchen and Marilyn Manson's Long Road out of Hell.

Well, I said my tastes were eclectic!

Special delivery!

Thanks to my friend Jo I am now gloating over the following:

Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came by M C Beaton
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

So many books, so little time!

The Boy who Loved Anne Frank by Ellen Feldman

I put off reading this because if there's one thing I can't cope with, it's harrowing. However it has turned out to be a really interesting idea: what if Peter, the boy who also lived in Anne Frank's secret apartment, had survived? Peter manages to make his way to America and lives there, denying his Jewishness. What I wasn't prepared for was the amount of anti-Semitism prevalent in America after the war. That was shocking. I've got about a chapter to go, and wonder whether Peter will acknowledge his past and whether this will bring him peace.

Read Alexander McCall Smith every day for free

Every day, the Daily Telegraph is publishing another chapter of Alexander McCall Smith's online novel Corduroy Mansions. You can find it here. It started in September but links are provided to take you back to the start, so in fact you can read loads of chapters at once until you get up to date!

I'm afraid I haven't found out how to make links open in a new window, so A Book a Day will disappear *sob* but you can always open it up again, and if you know how to make a link in Blogger that opens up in another window then please let me know!

Just noticed that if you right click on the link, it gives you the option to open it in a new window. That's still not ideal, oh loyal readers, but it's getting there ...