Charrierre, Henri – Papillon
I tried reading it in French but, the French he uses is not the French I know.
This is the story of a man who just would not give up.
All the best
Archive for June, 2006
Follett, Ken – Pillars of the Earth
Ideal holiday reading (so I read it on my hols).
About the fourth time I’ve read it – and just as enjoyable as the first.
A tale of a stone mason who gets the chance to build a cathedral.
Pack it for the summer holidays – you might learn a bit of history as well.
All the best
Graham, Louise – Future Homemakers of America
Lovely holiday reading!
The story of 4 American women, living on an American air-force base in Norfolk, just after the second world war.
They befriend a local woman and the story traces their trials and successes over the next 30 years.
The reader gets a real feeling of the mundane souless lives of the post-war generation of Americans.
One for the beach bag!
All the best
Hemingway, Ernest – Islands in the Stream
I read Islands in the Stream once a year.
It is definately not the best Hemingway but is my favourite.
In a way it is an apology for his life.
The first book describes Tom Hudson, a painter of some fame, living on an island in the gulf stream; content, at last, with his life.
A summer visit of Hudson’s sons shows him happy, in control of the deamons that had troubled his earlier life (in Paris in the ’20s).
The second book, after Hudson’s sons have been killed is darker, concentrating on drinking & deceipt.
Too autobiographical for me.
The novel finishes with an almost pastiche of To have and to have not.
In the end, Hudson dies.
It is the first book that I like.
The film of it was made down to a budget, was tacky in places and I love it.
Interestingly, one of the books in the sequence was published on it’s own as a novella - The Old Man and the Sea.
All the best
Hoeg, Peter – Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow
Strange to be sitting in the garden in my shorts, getting sunburnt whilst reading about snow in Denmark & Greenland.
I did struggle to keep up a bit – might have been due to the beer.
A detective story where new characters are introduced at a relentless speed.
Somehow I ignored it when it first came out – having read it now, I’m not sure why.
All the best
King, Stephen – Misery
I read this sat in the garden, drinking beer and getting sunburnt.
Obviously, I’ve read it before but it was worth re-reading.
King was addicted to drink and drugs when he wrote this and, knowing this, aids to the feeling of entrapment by a psychotic fan.
Poor man but good book.
All the best
Parker, Dorothy – The Penguin Collected Dorothy Parker
Obviously very much of her time but, everything in this collection is good; the short stories, the poems and the reviews.
I would not have liked to have got on the wrong side of this woman.
Her reviews are the bitchiest I have ever read.
See… This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
Totally confident - I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.
And hopeless with money… Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
All the best
Steinbeck, John – Grapes of Wrath
A harrowing tale, beautifully told, of one of America’s greatest disasters.
There can be few Americans who can feel anything other than shame of America’s Year Zero.
The end of the book is, quite simply, the best ending of any book I have ever read.
It made me cry.
All the best
