So what’s happening on the first of this month??
I wish I could say that my run of superb books (Barbara Pym’s Quartet in Autumn and My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout) was continuing but sadly I’m not enjoying my current book Devoted Ladies by M.J Farrell (otherwise known as Molly Keane). I’d heard so much about her but had never read any of her books but this one was in a charity shop sale and the plot seemed good so I went for it. This is her fifth novel and shocked readers when it was published because it deals frankly with a relationship between a lesbian couple. This one is set in fashionable, chic London rather than her usual world in Ireland. It shocked readers at the time because it dealt with a stormy relationship between a lesbian couple. I just wish she had stuck with that relationship but instead far too much of the book is devoted to another – and really rather tedious – couple who live in a run down estate house in Ireland. I think its meant to be funny but I’m yet to find much to even make me smile. I might even give it up. There are plenty of other books that should be more rewarding. For my next read I’m thinking of The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan or The Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally.
Our library system has just made it easier to download audiobooks. They’ve had this service for about five years now but the mechanism for uploading the files to ITunes was very cumbersome and didnt always work. The new one does the file transfer in seconds. Bad news is that the range is limited and practically everything that appeals seems checked out by other users…. I did manage to get a copy of Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. It’s an odd psychological thriller with a central character who suffers Asperger’s Syndroym. Patrick Fort is beginning his anatomy studies at university in Cardiff. He’s not interested in becoming a doctor or in helping people to live; he just wants to find the answer to why people die. His determination to get to the cause of death of the cadaver he and his fellow students are asked to dissect, takes him down a path which might or might not lead to murder. In parallel there is a narrative of a middle-aged man who had been in a coma after a car accident, and is trying to recover the use of his body. He witnesses what he believes is the murder of a fellow patient but can’t get anyone to listen to him because the accident has robbed him of his speech. It’s a slow paced novel and at times frustrating – I don’t need need to hear the hospital patient practicing his vocal exercises in almost every episode – but oddly compelling…
So that’s the early part of the month taken care of. Technically I have now finished with the Triple Dog TBR challenge but its worked so well I might give it another month. It’s fun to discover what’s at the back of the cupboard….