What I'm reading ...

I have started Dead Tomorrow by Peter James. Time for some escapist fiction and this author’s work is just the job. Here’s the blurb:

The body of a missing teenager is dredged from the seabed off the Sussex coast, missing vital organs. Soon after, a further two more bodies are found . . .
Caitlin Beckett, a fifteen-year-old in Brighton will die if she does not receive an urgent transplant. When the health system threatens to let her down her mother takes drastic action and goes to an online broker in black-market organs. The broker can provide what she wants, but it will come at a price.
As Detective Superintendent Roy Grace investigates the recovered bodies, he unearths the trail of a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a young street kid, while a desperate mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter's life . . .

The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District - by James Rebanks

My interest in sheep, to be frank, is very limited and mainly focussed on their role in providing Sunday roast. However, I am always interested in other people’s lives, how they live them and what perspective they have on the world. This book delivered. The content is an interesting mixture of general discussion of life on a Lake District farm and stories from the author’s and his family’s life. It is well written and has a genuine feel to it - I can hear the author’s voice. A few philosophical points are slightly laboured, but I feel that can be forgiven, as they are the expression of some deep seated emotions and beliefs. I expected to say that the book made me want to visit the area and to some extent it does, however, I am left wondering whether tourism is really a benefit to the people there.

What I'm reading ...

I have started The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District by James Rebanks, my next book club book. Looks to be something different. Here’s the blurb:

Some people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, he and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years. A Viking would understand the work they do: sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay; the autumn fairs where the flocks are replenished; the gruelling toil of winter when the sheep must be kept alive, and the light-headedness that comes with spring, as the lambs are born and the sheep get ready to return to the fells.
These modern dispatches from an ancient landscape tell the story of a deep-rooted attachment to place, describing a way of life that is little noticed and yet has profoundly shaped this landscape. In evocative and lucid prose, James Rebanks takes us through a shepherd's year, offering a unique account of rural life and a fundamental connection with the land that most of us have lost. It is a story of working lives, the people around him, his childhood, his parents and grandparents, a people who exist and endure even as the world changes around them. Many stories are of people working desperately hard to leave a place. This is the story of someone trying desperately hard to stay.

How to Be a Husband - by Tim Dowling

I went straight on to this book, as I wanted some light holiday reading. Here’s the blurb:

The much-loved Guardian columnist asks what it takes to make a husband, and looks to his own married life to provide the answer.*
*Anything resembling advice should be taken at reader’s own risk.
You’ll never get divorced if you never get married. Not even your granny minds if you live in sin anymore. And if you’re single you can choose curtains without somebody else butting in. So why bother with marriage? It can’t just be an easy way round having to buy your own deodorant.
Guardian columnist Tim Dowling is a husband of some twenty years. His marriage is resounding proof that even the most impossible partnership can work out for the best. Some of the time.
So while this book is called ‘How To be a Husband’, it’s not really a how-to guide at all. Nor is it a compendium of petty remarks and brinkmanship – although it contains plenty of both. You may pick up a few DIY hints. You might learn that while marriage is founded on love, it endures through bloody hard work. Most likely it will make you whimper with the laughter of painful recognition.

I am a regular reader of the author’s newspaper column and expected more of the same - sharp observations that make me smile. I was not disappointed. The book investigates numerous aspects of 21st Century life and how a marriage - or, in particular, a husband - fits into it. I found myself highlighting various turns of phrase that I enjoyed and learned some new, useful words [like “uxorious”]. I will continue to look out for the author’s work - both his writing and musical performances.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - by Gail Honeyman

I enjoyed this book, as I felt it was well written, humorous without being trivial and well paced. Someone told me it was “heart warming”; I think that is a nice summary.

When I started the book, I quickly assumed that Eleanor was autistic - or, at least, had a tendency that way. By the end of the book, I concluded that she was the product of nurture - her traumatic experiences - and not nature.

I particularly enjoyed the twist concerning her mother at the end. It was nicely done and took me by surprise.

I will be interested to see what the author comes up with in future.