There was, of course, no other option than to devour The Full Cupboard of Life the moment one got hold of it (at a Waterstone’s in London). It is quite simply perfect, and if it’s supposed to be the last in the series about Mma Ramotswe, I am not going to complain (though I would like more), that is how perfect it is.
More rereading, this time Richard Russo gets the benefit (or, perhaps I ought to say that I get the benefit of Richard Russo? Anyway:) Mohawk is a tale of small-town USA which grabs you and stays with you. Russo makes the people of Mohawk come alive in a way that makes their lives and actions instantly recognisable on a human level. Reading Russo is always very pleasant and quite unpleasant at the same time. The story ambles along, making for a pleasant read, but once you stop to think you have absorbed something about humankind and society which is not entirely pleasant to consider – there is something about being trapped and of destiny being predetermined, but there is also a sense of goodwill towards people in general, even the most pathetic are portrayed in a not entirely unsympatetic manner.
In which we enjoy old friendship.
I find I always reread books when I’m a bit under the weather, which may explain why I suddenly got the urge to reread Davita’s Harp. It’s my least favourite of Chaim Potok’s novels (excepting I am the Clay, which for some reason I can’t get through at all), but as he’s one of my all-time favourite authors, that really isn’t saying much. As with the majority of Potok’s work, the main theme of the book is the finding a balance in life between religion and your other convictions, but for once we get the story from a female point of view.
In which we read – and write – in Norwegian.
Jeg har flere Dea Trier Mørch bøker stående på hyllen som jeg skulle ha lest, og her om dagen passet det liksom å begynne på en. Jeg tenkte jeg skulle starte mykt med Kastanjealléen, men det ble nesten i overkant mykt. Det er en veldig koselig bok, kan man vel si, om sommer på landet hos mormor og morfar. Det er slett ingen dårlig bok, men et stykke uti begynte jeg å ønske meg mer konflikt og, vel, jeg vet ikke helt, men noe mer i hvert fall. Jaja, den er da i hver fall lest. Jeg får se om jeg ikke kan få prøvd meg på en av de andre etterhvert.
In which time – and pretty much everything else, too – is out of joint.
Thanks to Tinka I discovered Friday that a new Jasper Fforde had hit the shelves. After a short (but frantic) search in town I could get on the bus home and start reading. Something Rotten is every bit as good as one could expect having devoured the previous three books. Thursday is back in reality having spent two and a half years inside fiction, but reality is a somewhat dodgy concept, and something is definitely rotten in the state of, uhm, England. This made me very happy, which seems callous, but really, unless something is rotten, how are you going to get a good story?
In fact, the only thing that didn’t make me happy about Something Rotten was the quote from The Guardian they’ve opted to use on the cover. «Jasper Fforde has gone where no other fictioneer has gone before. Millions of readers now follow.» Well, what’s the problem with that then? Well, the problem with that is that in Thursday’s universe a «fictioneer» is a renegade fictional character, a «page-runner» who has not only left his own plot, but has left fiction entirely and tries to pass for a real person. Did the reviewer in The Guardian really mean to suggest that that is what Fforde is? And what about the publicity department? Has Fforde ok’ed the quote? In which case, why? What have I missed?
Anyway, go read The Eyre Affair and go on from there…
Well. What can I say. With The Murder Room P.D. James has done it again, and if you still haven’t read any of her books, shame on you!
In which Robin is annoyed yet again.
After an unintentionally expensive trip to one of the kiosks selling paperbacks at the central station, Nick Webb’s Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams came home with me. It pleased me somewhat more than the last biography of Adams that I read – however, Webb annoyed me by spending a lot of time referring to either Simpson or Gaiman, leaving the reader with a feeling that Webb’s own book was something of a waste of time and that he/she would have been better off with just the other two.
I’d still rather read Gaiman if I were you.
While ill, I was looking for something to read that wouldn’t be to taxing and found Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country to fit the bill exactly. I’ve read it before, of course, so I knew it would. The nice thing, you see, about Bill Bryson, is that his writing is lightweight while at the same time he seldom makes the glaring mistakes (either gramatically or factually) that makes me fume at the edges when reading other authors’ works. Notes from a Big Country is highly entertaining and was a nice counterpoint (though sometimes making exactly the same arguments) as some of the other books on the USA I’ve been reading lately. It also has a nice echo of my own (increasingly problematic) homesickness for Britain, which can only help the comforting feeling of relating well to the author’s point of view – crucial for this sort of book, methinks.
I snuck a reread of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in between here, so don’t go thinking I’ve come over all serious and such and have vowed to never read fiction again. Actually, come to think of it, the whole of HP, and especially OotP, is scaringly appropriate in relation to current world politics.
Dude, Where’s My Country? confirmed my opinion on several issues, the least significant of which is that I really don’t think Michael Moore is particularly funny. The only things in Dude that made me laugh were quotes from right-wing nuts and then mostly in a «can you hear yourself at all?» sort of way. Other opinions I had confirmed were more along the lines of «Please, dear God, do not let Bush get ‘elected’ this time around».
Moore talks a lot of sense. Even his idea to get Oprah elected president is not as far fetched as I originally thought. I mean, I’m somewhat sick of Oprah myself, but at least she seems to be interested in making money by helping people and getting them to read books and stuff rather than by blowing them up or polluting their drinking water and so on. And that has to be an improvement. But I suppose it’s getting a little close to the election now?
Anyway. Not the best read ever, but certainly not the worst. And quite definitely not the most worthless of reads. Go buy (then read, obviously). Then go vote – whereever you are (Canada, for example, we could really do without Canada following the example of the US and voting in a Bush-clone) – and follow Moore’s suggestion and persuade other sensible (if lazy) people to come with you to vote. Thank you.
I bought Lies (and the lying liars who tell them) – A fair and balanced look at the right mainly on the basis of its title. So I suppose Frankes does one thing right. Actually, it’s a very readable book. As opposed to Michael Moore, whom I failed to laugh much at, Frankes does make me laugh at his «victims» – though mostly in a incredulous, «how-can-anyone-get-away-with-this» (victims’ actions, not Franken’s) kind of way.
Now, this might not be the most useful book ever. It didn’t make me change my world view in any way (except, perhaps, to think «Please do not let Bush fix the election again!» a little more fervently than I did before). Most of the general ideas Franken presents aren’t news to me, however, getting more details is not a bad thing. For example: It’s pretty obvious to the rest of the world that US media does not have the «liberal bias» that the right claims, but it’s nice to get some numbers. The number of negative stories about Bush vs. the number of negative stories about Gore during the 2000 campaign, for example – with a «liberal bias» you’d think there were more of the former, wouldn’t you? Well, happy searching. And if you can have useful details and such presented in such a way that it makes you laugh, then so much the better.