Things To Make Me Smile (and a few things that annoy me)
This morning, on the bus going to work, I decided to put my mind to a very important decision.
What books will I bring on holidays?
This will dictate the mood of the holiday.
I’m thinking Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and a Poirot.
& 
We’re only away on a city break for a week – I doubt I’ll even get half of one read!
This is the autobiography of Alan Cumming. It was read by himself on BBC radio 4 recently as the book at bedtime. For me it was a little bit past my bedtime so I got the audiobook from the library.
Can I just say WOW!
I remember watching his episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” and thinking that’s tragic but isn’t it lovely that his grandfather was held in such high esteem…
Nobody would have guessed the turmoil he was going through while the filming of that episode. That episode is used as the framework for the book – for him to tell us who he is – where he came from. On twitter I said it swung from harrowing to happy – reading it, it interchanges between the Then of childhood to the Now of filming the programme.
Speaking of remembering seeing Alan on television – I saw him on The Late Late Show (RTÉ) talking about his relationship with his dad and I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say it wasn’t a happy go lucky childhood. However listening to his lilting accent, his voice somehow protects us from his words. You really are routing for the “Then” & “Now” Alan to come through, despite the fact that you kind of know that he has, you are so wrapped up in the story.
This story is very redemptive – by the end of it I would have loved to say to Mary Darling (his Mam) – you did a great job! to Grant – please keep looking after him, he’s mad about you. To Alan, Thank You! Thank you for The HighLife, the photos, and your honesty.
If you don’t read (auto)biographies then listen to this one!
Last week we were at a book launch – it was a friend of ours that was having the launch.
A book by a friend is always a dodgy thing. It could be great but it might not.
Well today I finished The Organised Criminal.
Generally I’m not a great one for florid writing but in this time I lapped it up. In this instance the sentences were short and sharp, maintaining a steady pace.
The voice of the book is that of Jay O’Reilly who is also the main protagonist.
On the opening page we find out that he’s heading home for a family funeral, home being Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland. He’s not overly happy about being back – no that’s not right – he’s not comfortable being back but it’s good to see some old friendly faces.
I don’t want to say anything else about the story as that would give the story away. A good sign for me is that as I come to the end I just don’t want to put it down – I have to find out how does it all work out and in this particular instance I couldn’t put it down. Now all I want to is to read more by Jarlath.
I did it!
I bought a copy of A Scream In Soho from the British Library during the summer last year and started to read it shortly after Christmas but found it very slow going.
It took me a while to get used to the style of writing. Words are spelled out using accent phonetics – if there is such a thing – you knew if you had a Cockney, Italian, Irish or upper class British character. The other thing I found was that for the first 50 pages or so it was mainly scene setting and hypothesising and theories – it felt a bit turgid – like wading through tar. On the other hand, once the first corpse is located, it takes off at a gallop. It took me 3wk to read the first few pages and the other 200 pages took 3 days.
I must add that I was under a cloud for the first while got a confidence shot last week, which might also have boosted my reading concentration…
(Click on Image to be taken to the British Library Shop – better still go to the actual shop it’s heavenly)
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