Holiday Reads.

Bummer. I'm in bed with dry toast for dinner as I can't hold anything in (sorry - over share). All I want to be doing is sorting out our room, pottering around the house and garden & instead I feel completely incapable of doing anything remotely constructive.

However, enough about my woes. You know whats great about a holiday (apart from the obvious - it's a HOLIDAY!)? Catching up on reading that's what.

 Whilst away I read:
*The day of the Triffards, John Wyndham - exciting and scary realist sci-fi, end of the world novel. Written in the era when everyone was terrified about the cold war.
*Love in The time of cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez - beautiful, moving, magical. I find his depiction of ageing haunting, beautiful and a little bit frightening.
*Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad - to be honest I wasn't that into, not even that gripped and kinda dissapointed with the ending. But it's a classic so I think for it's time and style it probably was groundbreaking. If anyone can enlighten me more on the book I'd love to hear.
*Tick Bite Fever, David Bennun - a great African yarn, I actually laughed so hard in this one bit I had tears rolling down my eyes and I drove Tim to distraction, as he was in the middle of a serious book!
*Dark green, Bright Red, Gore Vidal - compelling and political. Brilliantly intelligent writer.
*Don't Tell Mum, Simon Hoggart & Emily Monk - a compilation of emails written back to parents from kids on gap years. Very funny!
*Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell - I highly recommend this one. Brilliant use of narrative devices and six gripping stories all intertwined with an important message at it's core.
*Also a detective novel but I have totally forgotten it's name and the author! Bah!

What have you read over the summer/winter?


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