"Very quiet round here? Are we all busy reading?" So wondered Getoverit99 at the end of last week. Well yes, on the evidence of this touching flickr picture from kebabette, of herself deep in Dan Rhodes's Marry Me, in a temporary library in the earthquake-struck city of Christchurch, New Zealand. Welcome kebabette, if you are reading this column.
Getoverit99's own reading had been of some Sherlock Holmes short stories, which he had heard were better than the more familiar longer works. But his desire for a TLS pow-wow got the better of his sense that they probably were:
And now for some controversy … I did enjoy reading these and I will read more, but I do feel a little underwhelmed. I think the television series, both BBC and Granada are much more enjoyable. I understand the exceptional plotting comes from the book and this is a main ingredient to the brilliance but I just think it really shines on screen. As I am typing this I keep thinking, yes but it all comes from book, and it does. But the production in the latest BBC series really is exceptional and takes it to a new level. Please feel free to disagree with me!
We love a bit of disagreement on this thread, and there was a flutter of it earlier in the week over Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, when conedison lamented: "I wanted to like The Art of Fielding, but sadly, I connected to no one presented."
In general, though, a spirit of shared enthusiasm prevailed. Danholloway reported: "I'm reading My Phantom Husband by Marie Darrieussecq - many thanks to Paul Bowes for the recommendation. It's a wonderfully thoughtful meditation that has all the qualities I loved in Breathing Underwater."
Mexican2 picked up on BeeAsBigAsABiscuit discovery of Stephen Milhauser's collection Dangerous Laughter, writing:
He's a wonderful writer! I've never understood why he's not better known: his best short stories are among the finest literary fantasies of the last century.
Finally, the last fortnight would not have been complete without some consideration of the late, great Chinua Achebe - and it came from AggieH, who wrote:
Achebe's novels always felt like stories that I am listening to, not reading. I have no doubt that effect will be even more intense next time I read him, now that I have his measured pace and melodious tone in my mind's ear.
Hannah will be back from hols next week to give a proper welcome to all the newcomers to this thread, but in the meantime here are some of the books we are reviewing this week:
Non-fiction:
Levels of Life by Julian Barnes
On Glasgow and Edinburgh by Robert Crawford
The Undivided Past by David Cannadine
The Last Sane Man: Michael Cardew - Modern Pots, Colonialism, and Counterculture by Tanya Harrod
Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church by Lauren Drain
Saul Bellow's Heart: A Son's Memoir by Greg Bellow
Fiction:
A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Wall by William Sutcliffe
Idiopathy by Sam Byers
The View on the Way Down by Rebecca Wait
Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake
Children's:
Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made by Stephan Pastis
Poetry:
Dear World and Everyone In It: New Poetry in the UK, edited by Nathan Hamilton
