Reading stuff

Ste Larissa

During our enforced exile from the virtual world, we've been reading several books and tonight I'll be going to our local bookshop group to comment on just one of them. 'On The Road' by Jack Kerouac (kindly lent to me by my sister). It's a semi-autobiographical account of a couple of young men travelling across the USA in the mid 1940s. I thought it sounded an interesting read, the book inspired many young men in the 1960s, Bob Dylan and the Beatles included but I personally didn't find it the 'classic' it has been labelled.

I thought that the characters in the book were some that I would dread running into in real life and was extremely irritated with their thoughtless, drunken antics.

And then I read the article on Wikipedia and looked for further links. Now I feel that I understand why the book was written and how and it has revised my opinion. Not totally, but enough for me to appreciate it more. So I hope I can speak intelligently about it tonight!

For our other book group we read 'The Leopard' by Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampadusa written around the same time as the Kerouac book. I found this one a challenging read too but could at least sympathise with some of the characters and, although I felt the book moves very slowly, at times I wondered why Lampadusa had bothered himself writing it, it has a certain charm to it.

We've dipped into other books too for groups or not; John Le Carre's 'The Mission Song' which I found a little disappointing after 'The Constant Gardener', but it has inspired me to go backwards and read more Le Carre (or re-read), Alan Titchmarsh's autobiography 'Trowel and Error' which is a very charming read (rather like the man himself), you can hear his voice in his writing, Diane Setterfield's 'The Thirteenth Tale' which I loved and a little book by Alan Bennett 'The Uncommon Reader' (Thanks to Mum for that one) which I won't spoil by explaining but do recommend for a fun, undemanding read.

I hope that little lot has given you something to think about reading.