Thursday 10 October 2024
Autumn reading.
The library provides the books for their reading groups and this is good as it stops an accumulation of books that I shall never read again. The downside is that many of the library offerings are not what I would describe as literature! Once read they are instantly forgotten. I took a photo of the recent 'Hope to Die' that we have discussed but can't now recall the foggiest thing about it!
Today we are going to discuss, 'Old Baggage'. I like the cover and the story rolls along nicely enough.
The author clearly enjoys period detail. It is a gentle read with what I felt was a rather unlikely ending. I have seen a screen adaptation of one of her novels which I enjoyed, 'Their Finest' which is set in war time Britain. It will be interesting to find out what the other readers think of it.
While in Yorkshire I read a trio of Irish novels. The Dales group discussed 'Old God's Time' by Sebastian Barry. I found some of the signalling very heavy handed. When you are told that the main character is a skilled sniper and then learn that a shot gun is in place in the flat above him you know pretty well how it is going to turn out!
Up for discussion next is 'The Bee Sting' and it comes heaped with praise all over the cover.
No praise from me. I found it corny in the extreme with wildly over-drawn 'Oirish' characters. I re-read, to restore my faith in Irish writing, the sublime 'Brooklyn' by Colm Tóibín, whose characters you can believe in and care about. Now I'm waiting to sink into the follow-up of Ellis' life. I would love it to be happy but I fear not!
Earlier in the year our group read 'Siblings'.
I had great hopes for this novel, set in East Germany in 1960, a time when I was very alert to the world about me. I was expecting more insight than the novel provided and found the behaviour of the central character nothing more than that of an indulged adolescent.
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Don't you just wish they'd leave all the praise blurbs out when designing book covers? Honestly, they are getting on my nerves - I won't decide for or against buying or reading a book simply because someone writes "Utterly hilarious!" on the cover.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's funny how I have never heard of Cara Hunter although she is declared "one of the best crime writers we have" on the book cover.
Brigitte Reimann may have been "a celebrated author and a cult figure" in her time, but I am probably too young to have ever heard of her, in spite of being quite familiar with many German authors from both the western and the eastern part of my country.
Still, you had an interesting mix of recent reads. If I may recommend something that I would call the best work of fiction I have read this year: "Our Missing Hearts" by Celeste Ng.