Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, including a sprawling historical novel, wonderful Wodehouse and a tip for how to strategically leave a book in a public place for others to enjoy.
paulburns had a good reading experience, thanks to a recommendation on TLS:
Yesterday I finished Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. In a word, magnificent, and, as I suspected, just that little edge better than Crytptomonicon. Its a novel in three parts. The first part tells the story of the early years of the Royal Society... Part two takes us to Vienna under siege by the Turks, mercantile Amsterdam and the Court of Louis XIV. Part three considers the protagonists’ adventures up to 1688 or so concurrently, bringing them all together and tearing them apart, with tales of science, espionage and derring-do.
Oddment enjoyed a classic – and came up with a wonderful metaphor for reading Wodehouse:
Finished re-reading Leave It to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse - the usual amiable nincompoops, plucky heroines, stern aunts, false identities, jewellery theft and pigs are all present, correct and accounted for, but it was a forceful reminder that no one can turn those ingredients into an art form quite the way Wodehouse does.
To me, a good Wodehouse has always been somewhere between comfort food and a sublimely performed ballet (to thoroughly mix my metaphors) - you may know what you’re getting and what’s going to happen, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful.
nina1414 found a good read while on holiday:
Some previous guest had left behind a David Lodge book: A Man of Parts. A gripping read about the life of H.G. Wells. I never realised he was such a bed-hopper. An eye-opener. I shall now look up more about his life and works.
... which began a conversation about the wonderful books you have found in public spaces. MissBurgundy had this recommendation:
There’s a website devoted to leaving books for others to find -www.bookcrossing.com... You do have to consider what book to leave where, though. And definitely none where they would be binned by the cleaners.
And thanks to judgeDAmNationAgain for posting fresh after their wedding last week – what commitment to TLS! We all hope you’re having a great honeymoon in France. They have packed:
Holiday reading will consist of the last two-hundred odd pages of The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson, Sherston’s Progress by Siegfried Sassoon (a lot shorter than I was expecting it to be), and probably We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Interesting links about books and reading
- Annie Proulx: by the book – the iconic American author shares what books she is reading and which writers she admires; special shout out to the Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery. From The New York Times.
- On the Enduring Legacy of the Baby-Sitters Club Books – every tween and teen in the 80s and 90s, read at least one Baby-Sitters Club book. An ode to one of the world’s most popular serialised series, on Lenny.
- The Game of Thrones Graveyard - The Slate has started a virtual graveyard for dead Game of Thrones characters. You can even leave a flower for your favourite character. Obvious spoilers for the books and the TV show - you have been warned.
- Michael Herr, the Author Whose Words Shaped How We Saw Our Wars – an appreciation of the great writer behind the book Dispatches, regarded as one of the best books about life in conflict ever written. Herr died aged 76, on Friday. From the Daily Beast.
If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.
If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading, “shelfies” or all kinds of still lifes with books as protagonists. Now, you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!
