What I'm reading ...

I have started Thunderclap by Laura Cumming. Having recently read the fictional work The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, about the painting of the same name, when I stumbled across this book, it was a must read. Here’s the blurb:

On the morning of 12 October 1654, a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft. Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius, dead at thirty-two, leaving behind his haunting masterpiece The Goldfinch.

Thunderclap explores what happened to Fabritius before and after the disaster whilst interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming, her painter father and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age. It takes the reader from seventeenth-century Delft to twentieth-century Scottish islands, from Rembrandt’s studio to wartime America and contemporary London. This is a book about what a picture may come to mean, how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap.

I Follow You - by Peter James

This author has a distinctive writing style: he draws you in by setting up a series of story lines, which gradually come together; the pace of the book gradually increases and by the last 100 pages or so, it is very hard to put down. This book was no exception. His other trademark is meticulous research. I am used to detailed Police precedures set in Brighton; in this book it is all medical stuff taking place on Jersey.

I really enjoyed the story, seeing events from multiple viewpoints, feeling that one is observing the whole picture, but with a few red herrings thrown in. I continue to feel that any book with Peter James’ name on the cover deserves my attention.

What I'm reading ...

I have started I Follow You by Peter James. I have read and enjoyed many of the author’s books about his character Roy Grace, so I thought it would be interesting to have a look at something else that he’d written. Here’s the blurb:

To the outside world, suave, charming and confident doctor Marcus Valentine has it all. A loving wife, three kids, a great job. But there’s something missing, there always has been. . . . or rather, someone . . .

Driving to work one morning, his mind elsewhere and not on the road, he almost mows down a female jogger on a crossing. As she runs on, Marcus is transfixed. Infatuated. She is the spitting image of a girl he was crazy about in his teens. A girl he has never been able to get out of his mind.

Lynette had dumped him harshly. For years he has fantasized about seeing her again and rekindling their flame. Might that jogger possibly be her all these years later? Could this be the most incredible coincidence?

Despite all his attempts to resist, he is consumed by cravings for this woman. And when events take a tragically unexpected turn, his obsession threatens to destroy both their worlds. But still he won’t stop. Can’t stop.

Erebus: The Story of a Ship - by Michael Palin

Having enjoyed a previous book by Palin, I was looking forward to this one and I wasn’t disappointed. His writing brings history to life. He focusses on people and stories instead of dry facts. His research seems to be thorough and his enthusiasm boundless. This is much more than the story of a ship, it is an education in many aspects of life in the first part of the 16th century.