Wednesday 29 August 2012

Book Swap St. Antonin, Monday 3rd Sept

That time has come round again, the book swap is Monday 10.30 am at the Gazpacho in St. Antonin Noble Val. It costs nothing to come and exchange books and everyone is welcome. I am taking back some interesting reading, a newish  Andrea Camilleri called  ' The Track of Sand', as always Malc and I both enjoyed it.  Henning Mankell ' Sidetracked'  A Kurt Wallander novel, really good.
One Malc would not enjoy but I did , Elizabeth Jane Howard's   'Falling.' It  now makes me think of paralles  with the murder at Vabre Tizac, although the main character was not murdered she could have been, by having a relationship with the wrong person.  Best book was Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, it was shortlisted for  the 2007 Man Booker Prize. It did not take long to read as I could not put it down. The blurb says it is poetic, breathtaking and surprising and it was certainly all of those things. I would have made it the winner that year. Malc has yet to read it and he really must, so it may or may not come back this time. The last one to mention is called ' Lust' by Elfriede Jelinek, who is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature . The blurb says ' an extraordinary, violent book, and it was, but not in the way one would traditionally expect. The main character Herr  Direktor thinks as he is married, he is able to debase and defile his wife in any way he wishes, and he certainly thinks of some disgusting ways. I was not surprised when the poor woman went off and took her own life. I did end up flicking through it to see what happened, but I think it probably deserved more thought than I gave. I would be interested to see what a ladies book group thought of it