A couple of readers have asked what has happened to my book reviews. The truth is I have been a bit lacksadaisical with my reading. Sometimes I’m just not in the mood. I did get very caught up in the podcast S-Town. I was going to write about it but
realised I had a moral problem with it which I couldn’t talk about without saying too much about the podcast if the reader had not heard it. So I decided against writing my thoughts on it. I don’t know if I can recommend it despite the fact I was barely able to stop listening to it, I was so in its thrall. Tricky one.
I got half way through listening to the audio version of Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, and then I sort of drifted away from it. I didn’t dislike it. I found it very funny but it didn’t grab me. Having said that I did hear one reviewer saying they enjoyed the second half of it most so maybe I should have persevered. I have been meaning to read something by Chabon for years and this was my first go. I may go back to it or read another book. Maybe it’s better in print. Sometimes my mood is not right for the book I have chosen.
I then started listening to the audio version of a book I read in print last year, and indeed which is my best read of last year: Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone. Rarely have I been so overwhelmed by a book. It is so painful, both terrible utterly beautiful. I rarely read books more than once but this book captivated me so much I wanted to hear the audio reading which is excellent.
However that was interrupted when I found out the second book in Sarah Dunant’s novels about the Borgia’s has just been published: In The Name Of The Family. All her Renaissance Italy-set novels are superb and this is the continuation from her last one Blood And Beauty, so when I’ve finished it I’ll be back with a review. I’m also reading (slowly) Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories written by Thomas Grant. Hutchinson (now 100 years old) is an outstanding criminal barristers who took part in an extraordinary set of cases. To be reviewed.
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