My reading this month has been scattered, divided between these three books. I haven’t finished any of them, but I’m making decent ground, and I think that’s a pretty good recommendation. (Truth be told, other months when I’ve written these recounts, I haven’t gotten nearly as far through some titles.)
I’ll begin with The Door That Led To Where, our first acquisition – for Riley, from Shakespeare & Company in Paris. Ooh la la! They stamp purchases for proof. See?
I took over from Riley when he lost momentum after the first few pages, and I think it’s still a little beyond his abilities. The time-travelling in from present to gritty Victorian London has parallels to Ruth Park’s Sydney in Playing Beattie Bow. At the halfway point, I’m still waiting to be truly hooked by the intrigue of the plot, but I’ll persist.
My Kindle* tells me I’m already 26% of the way through The Secret Chord – and that’s gone fast. So either it’s a short novel, or I’m tearing through at a rapid pace.
* Advance proof. Lucky me!
The novel is an assemblage of character evaluations and stories about its central biblical character, David, who, as Leonard Cohen sang, played the secret chord that pleased the Lord. My own knowledge of his legend is limited (Catholics are more New Testament-centric), so it’s been interesting to learn more of the legendary feats, like conquering a giant, and so on. This multi-view device is used well in the movies – the majority of Citizen Kane is told this way, for example – but I haven’t seen it used in novels (as much) and I look forward to seeing where Brooks will take the reader.
Gut by Giulia Enders is an international bestseller, indicative of the current interest in health and wellbeing that is tied around food/digestion, thanks to the rise of auto-immune conditions and GI problems – the latter is something I’m familiar with. When I’ve mentioned the book to some people, I’ve seen scrunching of noses and heard the line, “The book about poo? Why would you want to read that?” Because it’s so much more than that, and with my own history, I’m absolutely convinced of the gut/brain connection, and how the health (or disease) of one can affect the other. Apart from that, there’s some really interesting information about the role of our tonsils and appendix. If you needed more convincing as to why you should pay attention – 80% of our immune system is located in our gut. So it makes sense to take care of it.
What are you reading this month?
