Weekend

[altariel]

The friends planning to visit us had to cancel at the last minute, which left us with a clean house and an unanticipated empty evening. We used it semi-profitably watching The Bourne Identity and then the end of the Sly remake of Get Carter which ends with Sly killing Michael Caine, saying a fond farewell to the daughter, and driving off into the sunset. Abominably wrong.

In town on Saturday I had book binged, picking up (on 3 for 2) Life of Pi (my reading group's next choice; anticipating ambivalently), The Lovely Bones (recced by kathyh; anticipating greatly), and Eats, Shoots and Leaves (quick read, enjoyable enough). Also Le Guin's new book about planes, and Guy Kay's Sailing to Sarantium. Welcome to the pile. At the moment I'm reading a bunch of crime books by David Peace, set in Yorkshire during the 1970s - pretty bloody brutal and depressing, to be honest; Get Carter is invoked in one of the reviews on the blurb.

Comments

[kathyh]

I plan to start it tonight, although I gather it's something of a page-turner.

I certainly thought so. I think I read it almost *too* quickly.

these books are brutal, violent, and absolutely not for the squeamish or the faint at heart.

Thanks for the warning. They sound more the DH's sort of thing than mine, though not much like Reginald Hill.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I think I read it almost *too* quickly.

I'm a shocking skim-reader, I must try to slow down on this one a bit.

[catalyst42.livejournal.com]

I'm a shocking skim-reader too, but I found the style of writing used in "The Lovely Bones" lends itself very well even to skim reading (I only once had to go "huh?" and turn back 2 pages). I think it's written in a very inclusive way, which can be rather uncomfortable given the story itself, but it's completely mesmerising. Un-put-downable! Enjoy.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly hurrying through it (although I had to put it aside in Pret a Manger earlier because it was making me want to cry - the bit with her father and his ships in bottles).