The first book of the year
Jan. 12th, 2020 05:14 pmAmong all the ways in which I am urged to improve myself for the new year, I have been seeing exhortations to read books from outside my comfort zone. I don't suppose that what they have in mind is very successful comic novels, but that is what circumstances dropped into my lap. It happened like this: during our pre-Christmas visit, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
durham_rambler's brother recommended Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club, which was surprising mostly because this is not a conversation we usually have; he'd come across it, I think, because a grandson was reading it at school. Back home, a copy of it waved to me from the used book stall at the market, only a pound, explained the stallholder, because of its condition (it wasn't in terrible condition, but someone had clearly been reading it). While we were chatting, I mentioned that I'd been looking out for a copy of Michael Palin's Erebus, and would probably now buy the new paperback: surprised, he reached behind his seat and pulled out a nice shiny hardback copy, just in. So that was a two-coincidence purchase.
Coincidences never come singly: as I was nearing the end of The Rotters' Club, it was announced that Jonathan Coe had won the Costa Novel Award, for Middle England, which is a sequel to The Rotters Club, if only in the sense that it has the same central character. The judges have been praising Middle England as a Brexit novel, and the perfect fiction for these times - which makes it an odd sort of sequel for The Rotters' Club, which is, among ither things, a historical novel.
( Among other things... )
tl;dr version: I enjoyed it, I'm glad to have read it. And now I'm glad to be back in my comfort zone, reading Simon Morden's Bright Morning Star.
durham_rambler's brother recommended Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club, which was surprising mostly because this is not a conversation we usually have; he'd come across it, I think, because a grandson was reading it at school. Back home, a copy of it waved to me from the used book stall at the market, only a pound, explained the stallholder, because of its condition (it wasn't in terrible condition, but someone had clearly been reading it). While we were chatting, I mentioned that I'd been looking out for a copy of Michael Palin's Erebus, and would probably now buy the new paperback: surprised, he reached behind his seat and pulled out a nice shiny hardback copy, just in. So that was a two-coincidence purchase.Coincidences never come singly: as I was nearing the end of The Rotters' Club, it was announced that Jonathan Coe had won the Costa Novel Award, for Middle England, which is a sequel to The Rotters Club, if only in the sense that it has the same central character. The judges have been praising Middle England as a Brexit novel, and the perfect fiction for these times - which makes it an odd sort of sequel for The Rotters' Club, which is, among ither things, a historical novel.
( Among other things... )
tl;dr version: I enjoyed it, I'm glad to have read it. And now I'm glad to be back in my comfort zone, reading Simon Morden's Bright Morning Star.
