New blog on my reading list

Scroll down on the left to find the hilarious Craftastrophe where people make things and you really wish they hadn't.

Wandering: Notes and Sketches by Hermann Hesse

Kind of slow and kind of boring, but also pleasantly soporific. However, don't rush out to buy it.

Day 303; Book 293

American Noir

Over the weekend I read 3 short books from 1930s America. They certainly were dark, but the authors managed to make you sympathise with the criminal main characters. The prose was very readable and modern, especially compared with a 1940s noir novel which I started but didn't make any progress with. It was just too self-consciously clever but these 3 I recommend:

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy
Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson

The last is the most political but is also an absorbing modern tragedy. They Shoot Horses is set in one of those Depression-era marathon dances.

I finished up by reading a science-fiction novel* (I know, I practically read it by accident). The original concept was very reminiscent of the start of the tv programme Lost, although this book predates by series by 30+ years. It really grabbed you at the start but then fizzled out a bit ...

*forgot to say that it was Seahorse in the Sky by Edmund Cooper
Day 302; Book 292

Furniture: Twentieth Century Design by Penny Sparke

This was a concise history of modern furniture design (although it only went up to 1986). Some snippets:

Teak furniture was very popular in the 1950s, apparently because the war in Indo-China meant that huges swathes of forest were cut down for military access. Who knew?

The Scandinavians have always had a socialist angle to their furniture production, designing it to fit in small flats and so that good design was available to all. The Italians, not so much.

Political control of furniture can only work up to a certain extent. After austerity furniture was abandoned in Britain after the war, so was the style. People chose exactly what they wanted to spend their money on and it wasn't the official style. Nanny states today, please note.

Day 298; Book 288

The Last G.I. Bride Wore Tartan by Fred Urquhart

Well, this is educational. I'm afraid I had never heard of Fred Urquhart and yet he was a prolific and well-received author in his day. Here's a link which includes his biographical details. This is a book of short stories which are at one time very definitely written just after the war, yet also surprisingly modern. Perhaps it is just that we are used to seeing this era depicted in films of the time, which of course were much more subject to censorship.

Urquhart knew the painters Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde. See how educational a book-a-day can be? I hadn't even realised they were real characters when I was reading the John Byrne play *blushes*

Day 297; book 287

In other news ...

I made grilled peaches last night. Yum and thrice yum. Halve the peaches and take out the stones. Dip the cut sides in icing sugar. Grill cut-sides up under a low heat (you can turn it up once the peaches are nicely warmed). Take out when the sugar has gone brown and crispy.

How strange ...

I added a post yesterday about the books I read at the weekend, and now it's disappeared. I can see the books on my list so I'm not imagining it ... Just a quick summary then of the vanished books: This Book Will Change Your Life by A M Homes (dark, funny, ultimately hopeful); The Accusers by Lindsey Davis (Roman legal goings-on); The Lovers by John Connolly (dark, dark, maybe ultimately hopeful).

Day 296; Book 286