Of Reading

Inspired wholly by T's post of the same name I thought I'd tell you the current state of the RD literary world. It's a bit like this:

The "Currently Reading" collection in my Kindle has got four items. The hottest one is a book called "William Walker's First Year of Marriage" and is a pretty hilarious diary of a fellow's first year of wedded bliss. Said fellow is a well intentioned but not so well performing chap. It's not often I get hold of a book that makes me laugh out loud, this is one of them. It's a bloke's book, any man will laugh and sympathise with the events, any woman will just not understand.

On the non fiction side, again in the Kindle, there's Edward De Bono's "How to have a beautiful mind". It's about thinking, being interesting, listening well, being creative and generally how to cultivate a fascinating mind. I don't think it will turn me into Mr Sparkly conversation overnight but it does seem to be giving me a few pointers in the right direction. You know how I love all this self help stuff.

Also there's Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" in the Kindle. I started it a while ago but really need to get back into it and dig my teeth in properly. So far it's been mildly captivating, like a not very skilled tribe of cannibals.

Lastly in the Kindle is Bill Bryson's "Notes from a small Island". It's my first Bryson book and I came to it looking for a good and funny adventure. My jury's out, though things aren't looking good. I find the esteemed Mr B side splittingly funny on occasion but more often than not he just makes me emit a gentle chuckle, the kind of chuckle old men utter when they're sitting by the fireside with a cup of hot chocolate and a bedtime read.

On the "real" book front, that is to say books that exist on paper, there's "Running in the family" by a certain Michale Ondaatje.

I'm reading it as the opening title for the great SL2G book club, whose inaugural meeting is next week. I first read it about ten or more years ago and thought I better read it again as I had no recollection of it at all. I'm not sure what I think about it so far, but it feels as though it doesn't belong to today. I know it's about people in the past anyhow, but what I mean is that it feels as if it was meant to be read at a time when its readers would be more touched by nostalgic tales of Sri Lanka.

To be honest with you, if it wasn't for the book club I'd probably have abandoned it by now, though I am enjoying the stories about people who we're just about all related to!

That's it really, thank you to T for the inspiration for this post.

What are you reading?