Books

I thought I should take five minutes and write about the books I have been reading recently. What I have enjoyed and...well I was going to say what I haven't. But the truth is I am really sort of past the days when I plow onto the bitter end of a book I am not enjoying any longer.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale

I am going to immediately break the rule I just set myself immediately. I didn't really enjoy this book. It came with some really good recommendations from people who I respect. But I just felt it never really got going. It involves the horrible murder of a toddler and looks at the work of the new breed of detectives and the social mileu in which they operated.

It was one of those books which made me feel a little bit of an intellectual weakling. Because there was clearly something in it which I was missing. I just wanted to know who killed the kid and if the author could shove a good twist in there all the better. It just left me unsatisfied.

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones - Alexander McAll  Smith

This is the fourth ofr fifth book in Alexander McAll Smith's book about the residents and former residents of 44 Scotland Street. These books are enjoyable and undemanding. I mean that entirely as a compliment. I was rather pleased that in this book he has dropped Pat, who I thought the dullest of the characters and that the narcissist Bruce is finally havig some personal growth as a human and is becoming likeable. Even if it means I now have to miss the most enjoyble chapters on him being delusional about his place in the world.

My only gripe is that with each book Mr. Smith is complaining a bot more about the thuggery of basic day to day life. the courseness and how people are with one another. I think there is truth to what he says. I could just do without being reminded of it every fifth chapter. But I think with all the pleasure he has given me with the residents of Scotland Street, Mma Ramotswe and Isabel Dalhouse he has earned the right to his gripes.

Meltdown - Ben Elton

Now this was a book I really enjoyed. I used to love Ben Elton. I got his first book autographed at Hudsons in Birmingham. However since then there was a parting of the ways as I realised that his first books were not that well written. then there were the musicals and I rather began to dislike him.

However throughout this time my mom continued to buy his books for me at birthdays. I did little with them. Then while at a loose end for a book to read I read High Society and really enjoyed it. Then I slowly went through his back catalogue and realised how much better he had become at writing. He had ditched the long extensions of his stand up routine and concentarted more on telling a story. And he is quite the storyteller.

Meltdown is the story of a group of peopl who caught the wave of money that appeared from nowhere, and went back there eventually. They are by and large a pretty dislikeable bunch. And there is a certain ammount of schadenfreude when it all goes tits up in the collapse. Except that is for the main character Jimmy who is clearly a man who knows he has been very lucky and excepts his downfall with humility. Its a very prescient book which captures the jolt to that generation of go-getters perfectly. But most of all it is a rollicking good story.

Engleby - Sebastien Faulks

I loved this book. Its about a psychopath and how he is made by his experiences. It chronicles his life in first person narration. How he is plucked from Comprehensive school and shoved into a private school where he is systematically bullied for several years until it is his turn to become the bully in his final year. I won't state what he goes on to do.

What is fantastic about the book is in the final chapters (once he is caught) and we get to hear him talk about his crimes. It perfectly captures the mind of a psychopath. Or at least it captures what I imagine to be the lack of empathy and narcissism that you would find in such a person. Anyway it is just brilliant.