while you're ahead…

Two more books for you.

And yes that is my bookcase.  I can say mine because comfortably 90% of the books are mine, Mr M reads every night too but is very slow.  Very.  V.E.R.Y.  In fact I learnt early on in our marriage not to give him as a present I book I also wanted to read because the wait almost killed me.

He also has this weird thing…  the more he enjoys a book the faster he falls asleep so the longer it takes him to read it.  That’s just plain weird, right?

Anyway, the first book I have for you is about Martin Luther.  Odd choice, I don’t normally read history books or non-fiction and I find biography thoroughly uninteresting so don’t ask me why I picked this up.  I guess it all had to do with the talk I attended at the Festival of Literature a few weeks ago.  Very interesting and it made me realise that not knowing anything about Martin Luther was as good a reason to read it as the opposite  ‘I’m very interested in Martin Luther’.  Me thinks.

So know I can’t claim to be an expert but i might pick up a few points when Mr M and I play along to University Challenge if some obscure Reformation question comes up and that can only be good.

It’s an interesting, illuminating, easy read and I’m glad I dipped my toe in the bucket of religious history.  All history, I’ve come to realise, is actually really fascinating… I’ve always been much more of a Classicist… ancient Rome and Greece, with a sprinkle of modern history, the two great wars and all that.  The middle ages seemed impenetrable and complicated and totally bonkers frankly;  I still think that but they have their own appeal…

Anyway, read it if it catches your fancy.  It’s not boring at all.  The dude did change the world, it would have been pretty different without him.  Better? Worse? who knows, different for certain.

4 out of 5.

Next up is the latest book by Rachel Joyce, another Festival of literature purchase;  I needed something light and a little frivolous and this certainly fit the bill.  I enjoyed it, it was a fast, cute read… but I didn’t think it was a patch to ‘The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry’, or even to ‘Perfect’ which are the only other two I’ve read of hers.

Nothing wrong with it, I wasn’t probably not the in the right frame of mind… but it felt… a little hurried and although it had the potential to be great… it just wasn’t… almost but not quite.  The characters were great… but I wanted to know more about them, I felt they were just sketches  and so much more could have been said to make me really like them.

I give it a 3 out of 5.

First up, my friend Alexander McCall Smith.

This is the first one in the long 44 Scotland Street series and it introduces all the characters and their quirkiness.  It’s a lovely lovely read.  Light hearted, entertaining, lough out loud funny in places and I’m not a laugh out loud person,  in fact I hate funny books written with the sole purpose of making you laugh… they normally don’t and feel forced.  This one made me chuckle on many an occasion.

Would be the perfect beach read and the good thing there’s plenty of more ‘episodes’ if I feel like it.

The next one is a ‘tad’ (lot) more serious:  Walden by Thoreau…

I understand many people would have read/studied at school but I didn’t and really knew nothing about it at all.  I have to confess that, yes I’d heard of it… but I mainly bought it for the cover.

Call me shallow, I don’t care.

Well… Mr Thoreau doesn’t pull any punches… a lot of what it says is still daringly and scaringly relevant… his ranting about consumerism, about having too much, about the race for more and more…. yup still going… he can be considered the father of slow living, of recycling, of the handmade…

I enjoyed the book, of course the language is a bit redundant at times and old fashioned, but it’s beautifully poetic too (not the loooooooong pages about bean cultivation though… ugh..) and it does make you want to find a cabin by a pond for a while.

The next book is AMAZING.  I’d make it compulsory reading for everybody.

I don’t even know where to begin.  I don’t want to spoil it for you so I won’t talk about the story (which in the interest of fairness gets a little lost in the middle… me thinks…) but the concept of our world being completely turned upside down and gender differences are not what we know… because when the power swap hands…?  what is gender?  what does it mean to be powerful?  Who is powerful? who is wrong? who is better?  Are men really more aggressive ?  Are women really more caring and nurturing?

So many questions in my head when I finished it…  I highly recommend it.

I’ve got so many books by my bedside table it’s not even funny… I’ll never get to the bottom of the pile… sigh.