Reading - July 2023

The Full English by Stuart Maconie (2023)

Another travelogue from young master Maconie, this time following in the footsteps of J.B. Priestley and his famous (it says here, I'd never heard of it) book from almost 100 years ago, English Journey. It's entertaining and informed by a similar spirit to Priestley of wishing to shine a light into corners of the country that perhaps need it most. Maconie is scathing about the current Tory government - rightly so, they're a complete shower - and if the political opinions are surprising in a ostensibly light-hearted travel book, they don't jar (but then I share them).

The Rough Guide To The Titanic by Greg Ward (2012)

This is a bit embarrassing - my (at least) sixth time of reading this. I'm still not quite sure why; it's not that I find anything to do with Titanic fascinating, and this the only book I have about it. It's just interesting enough to warrant revisiting every couple of years. This book is probably pretty definitive, so there's not much else I'd need to read. What struck me this time is the description of how badly the reporters and amateur radio operators of the day behaved - basically, the same as today, if you consider amateur radio enthusiasts the equivalent of people on Twitter/Facebook these days.

Country of the Blind by Christopher Brookmyre (1997)

Just a really satisfying plot, with all the bad guys locked up and the good guys victorious - all in a bracing noir-ish style, with some nice side-helpings of political commentary. Absolutely bears multiple re-reads (I'm probably close to double figures by now).

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan (2012)

Occasionally I enjoy a bit of angsty YA and I really enjoyed Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. This uses exactly the same format of alternating viewpoints - written by each author? - and if it doesn't quite capture the same feeling of being seduced by life as much as by that special one, then it's not for want of trying. Dash and Lily are both 16 going on 32, unfeasibly articulate but realistically self-conscious, and nice people to spend time with. Preditable but sweet and obviously crying out for being filmed - although possibly not a four hour Netflix series.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig (2017)

I found this quite compelling but not particularly enjoyable to read, for some reason. So I finished it, because I wanted to know how it ended. The story of a man who has a mysterious medical condition that means he lives for hundreds of years, this feels like a metaphor for something, or maybe it's just a way to explore the human condition, in common with other Matt Haig books. It's similar in that way to Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife and, similarly, it tells us that love is the real truth and meaning to life. (side note: in a news item about a forthcoming TV adaptation of this book, it's rather bizarrely described as a "high-stakes superhero thriller" - which it absolutely is not. Another classic case of an individual plot being shoe-horned into an unimaginative Hollywood template, I fear)