bookrblog

Old Readers Digest Books

Sunday, March 21st, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I picked up a couple of old hard-backed Readers Digest condensed books the other day. What a variety of stories they contained. There was an interesting non-fic about heart transplants, written in 1969 just as they were starting the entire process. There was an enjoyable Rumer Godden novel about a nunnery. And there were a lot of pretty unreadable, forgotten books. They were probably the top reads of the year back when, to be condensed into Readers Digest format. And now they seem dated and silly - including the one set during a nuclear accident somewhere in small town America. But very entertaining to dip into, as an idea of what was seen as great writing thirty plus years ago.

Nevil Shute

Saturday, March 6th, 2010 | British Literature | No Comments

I’ve been reading a number of books by Nevil Shute which I  found in the local library. Of course, “A Town Like Alice” and “On the Beach” are his most famous - and best. But he wrote a large number of other books over the years, some set in Australia, some in the UK, all starring a working man of some sort, including Landfall, No Highway, Pilotage and An Old Captivity. He even wrote a WW2 escape story called Pied Piper.

 Nevil Shute was an engineer who worked on airships, and who emigrated to Australia after the war, partly because he didn’t like the socialism government in the UK. Most of his books star a character who is a success because they worked hard. They are well-crafted books rather than well-written books, and tend to focus on small details rather than move the plot along. I enjoy them as historical novels, as a picture of the times in which they were written, and a picture of the man who wrote them, too.

Perfume

Saturday, March 6th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I really did not enjoy this book by Patrick Suskind. And yet it’s internationally lauded. Why, I can’t tell. It had a “hero” who was thoroughly selfish and unlikeable, a world which was cartoonishly caricatured, and a really disgusting plot, where the main character boils people down to gain their scent. It was gross, graphic, and utterly distasteful. Not for me.