I came across this brilliant book yesterday by accident. I'm afraid I had never heard of it before but apparently it is a cult comic novel, first published in 1924. Augustus Carp is smug and self-satisfied, horrible but hilarious. Unlike Mr Pooter you don't sympathise with him at all and in fact you are full of glee anytime something goes wrong for the awful man.
It's a funny thing about cult books or films. You want to talk about them with other people, but on the other hand you don't want too many people to get to know about them ...
Day 139; Book 137
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Monday, 23 February 2009
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Actually it was Friday night to Sunday morning, but that wasn't a book title.
I finished The Poisonwood Bible and can really recommend it. If you like the dense, literary style of Snow Falling on Cedars, you will probably like this one. My only complaint is that I think the book is too long - and not just because it took me three days to read! I would like to have seen the story concluded after the family has to leave Kingala. Instead it continues for several decades as the girls grow up - material which would have been more suited to a sequel, I felt.
Mr F had kindly bought me a book which he spotted in the village shop, Panic by Jeff Abbott (which had a rave review from Harlan Coben). It plunges right into the non-stop action, gradually reveals secrets from the past and has a surprising ending - but too much of it was about espionage to suit me.
I went back to crime with Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky. This is the first of the V I Warshawski detective series. The story was good with the mystery gradually revealed but it seemed a little dated to me. It was written in 1982 and the poor woman had to do her detecting without even a mobile phone or a computer, but it was more the self-consciously feminist style which seemed from another age. A woman private eye wouldn't be such a big deal these days (which of course shows how much things must have moved on) but V I Warshawski seems to have to act deliberately macho to keep her foothold in a man's world.
Day 138; Book 136
I finished The Poisonwood Bible and can really recommend it. If you like the dense, literary style of Snow Falling on Cedars, you will probably like this one. My only complaint is that I think the book is too long - and not just because it took me three days to read! I would like to have seen the story concluded after the family has to leave Kingala. Instead it continues for several decades as the girls grow up - material which would have been more suited to a sequel, I felt.
Mr F had kindly bought me a book which he spotted in the village shop, Panic by Jeff Abbott (which had a rave review from Harlan Coben). It plunges right into the non-stop action, gradually reveals secrets from the past and has a surprising ending - but too much of it was about espionage to suit me.
I went back to crime with Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky. This is the first of the V I Warshawski detective series. The story was good with the mystery gradually revealed but it seemed a little dated to me. It was written in 1982 and the poor woman had to do her detecting without even a mobile phone or a computer, but it was more the self-consciously feminist style which seemed from another age. A woman private eye wouldn't be such a big deal these days (which of course shows how much things must have moved on) but V I Warshawski seems to have to act deliberately macho to keep her foothold in a man's world.
Day 138; Book 136
Tee-Shirt Texts
Over on The Genteel Arsenal, children's librarian Book Pusher has had the great idea of "dedicating her chest to literacy!" The idea is to wear appropriately-adorned tee-shirts to fit in with the library's current reading theme. I feel a literary tee-shirt hunt coming on, or perhaps with a badge I could just timidly dedicate my lapel.
Friday, 20 February 2009
A Book a Night, or the Year of Sleeping Dangerously
I couldn't sleep again last night so I made lots of progress with The Poisonwood Bible and should finish it tonight. It's excellent! The language is poetic yet accessible with some unusual and clever use of words, and it has humour, history, politics, relationships, characters who develop and tragedy too. Thank you to Catriona who lent this book to me. Here is a link to the book on the author's website.
Thursday, 19 February 2009
1000 Novels Everyone Must Read
... as chosen by the Guardian. Click here to see their list. I'm going to print it to see how many I can tick off! I was encouraged to see I had read the very first book, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, but sadly there was a very long gap after that. Lists, checking things off, what's not to like for a cataloguer and book fan?
Clowns!
Does ANYONE like them and find them funny? Apart from other clowns?
I've just read in Foyle's Further Philavery that the word coulrophia means a morbid fear of clowns, and Foyle points out that research research shows visits by clowns to children in hospital has a detrimental rather than a cheering effect! Eek!
I've just read in Foyle's Further Philavery that the word coulrophia means a morbid fear of clowns, and Foyle points out that research research shows visits by clowns to children in hospital has a detrimental rather than a cheering effect! Eek!
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
In progress! It's 600-odd pages so as I didn't start it until 9.00 last night I won't be able to report on this for another 2 or 3 days. So far, so good though: it starts in a very dense, lyrical style, but then the style varies depending on which character is speaking. It's set in 1959 and a minister and his wife and 4 daughters have gone to the Belgian Congo for a year ... what will happen and how will they all get on?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
