Paying Guests by E F Benson

This is very much in the style of Benson's Lucia books and was equally funny. The editor writes in the introduction of Benson's "biting satire", but I would have to say I don't really agree with that interpretation of his work. It implies that Benson has no sympathy with his creations, yet he does. Part of the enjoyment is in recognising the faults of characters, yet coming to sympathise with at least some of them. We end up hoping they will get out of the scrapes for which they have only themselves to blame. There's more of these, so back to the shelves for me.

Day 196 ; Book 194

Calum Colvin exhibition in St Andrews

It's at the Gateway. Here are the details.

Life After God by Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland is a Canadian artist and post-modernist writer. I've written "post-modernist" there because that's how he is described, but I have to confess that it is one of these slippery terms I have never managed to grasp. It also tends to put me off, but I was given Coupland's Life After God and I have to say I did enjoy reading it. It is written as a collection of short stories which seem biographical but are not (although who can tell how much of the author is in there?) He raises many difficult points about life, and its meaning or lack of meaning. He made several points I felt were true (and which I had never seen expressed before). One is about how you can never experience anything as intensely as you did when you were younger. Another is about his liking for rain and how he feels safe in it (I like rain too). There was also a scary passage where he is lost in the desert at night - and hears footsteps behind him. I must try to read his book Generation X.

Day 196; Book 193

Small but perfectly formed

I read Muriel Spark's children's book The Very Fine Clock. This is a very sweet little book with detailed illustrations which I think imaginative little children would love. Not very much happens at all, yet Spark creates a whole world occupied by Ticky the clock and his owner the professor.

Then I read the script of The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer. This is an earlier work by the author of Equus. Here is a review of a recent revival, directed by Trevor Nunn. The plot concerns Pizarro's conquest of the Inca empire, and it raises many questions about colonialism, religion, life and death ... all the important themes! I preferred Equus though which was more about the individual.

Day 195; Book 192

In which I get down with the kids

Last night I read a book for teenagers, Knocked out by My Nunga-Nungas by Louise Rennison. I'm pretty sure I would have found this hilarious when I was at school and in fact it did give me a few laughs. It was funny though, because I kept sympathising with her supposedly-awful parents and thinking they weren't that bad! I did relate to the way she spoke, inserting French and German words where possible into ordinary conversation (at school we would always ask what other people had to "manger"). Thirteen-year-old girls would probably love this; parents can be reassured that it was actually quite moral.

Day 194; Book 190

The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson

This was an excellent book which I didn't want to put down until I had finished. I can't tell you too much about it, because Mr F is in the middle of reading it just now. One of the good points, though, which won't give too much away, is that it's set on the east coast of Scotland with many references to places I know. The ambivalence is reminiscent of The Turn of the Screw, although it is not as accomplished. Should you read it? Yes.

I also read another Falco mystery, Ode to a Banker, in which Falco's extended family continues to cause him problems at the same time as he has to solve a murder set in a scriptorium. Of course I got distracted thinking about how they would shelve the scrolls in a library - pigeonholes apparently. But you would either to have to have a pigeonhole for each scroll (uneconomical) or you would need several scrolls in each pigeonhole (messy). Thank goodness for books and shelves! Perhaps that will look as odd to e-book readers in the future.

Day 193; Book 189

The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre

Brookmyre worked his magic again when I read on to the second part of this novel. There was a hilariously filthy scene in a museum and the various strands were woven together in a most satisfactory manner. I would say that Mr F was right again but I don't want to encourage him.

I've read a lot of books but there seems to be no end to the classics which have escaped me up until now. One of these was 1066 and All That by W C Sellar and R J Yeatman. This is a humorous take on British history as it is taught and (mis)remembered. If you like schoolboy errors you will love this, although the joke is rather thin for a whole book, even a short one. As it was written in 1930, the authors can refer to Britain as "top nation" (which of course it still is). One of the best jokes is about Richard the Lionheart, who "whenever he returned to England ... always set out again immediately for the Mediterranean, and was therefore known as Richard Gare de Lyon".

Day 190; Book 187