The 100 Book Mission™: Book 6

Queen of the Tambourine; Jane Gardam; Abacus 1991

Sorry for this one; I read it a while ago, and by consequence forgot most of the plot.

It's about a certain Eliza Peabody, who starts writing letters to her imaginary neighbour about the latter's imaginary family's comings and goings; a very good illustration of manic delusions.

It ends nicely, much unlike this post.

The 100 Book Mission™: Book 5

The Kite Runner; Khaled Hosseini; Bloomsbury 2003

The Kite Runner- I bought it off Amazon because it came recommended along with A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian. As per the latter, both extremities of this book were covered in snippets of glowing reviews the book had received.

I must admit it, I'm often too lazy to check out new material for myself, rather, I let other people do it for me, and will keep on doing so until the day I run out of good, pre-reviewed, ideally multi-awarded books, films, albums and guitars. Then I'll be rummaging around bookstores and actually reading bits of the text to see if I like them or not.

Or possibly I might try to pool in myself, if inspiration strikes.

Anyway, back to the Kite Runner. This is a bloody good book, and when I say bloody I mean it. It is a tale of friendship, honour, sacrifice, and ultimately, love - not the Valentine's Day variety, sultry, sugary and sexy; rather it's the kind of love that is so unnatural to our selfish nature, sacrificial and undemanding.

Excellently written, it is basically the journey of Amir, the narrator, in trying to make up for his betrayal of Hassan, his dear friend and servant who had loved him selflessly, trying to exorcise demons which had tormented him since he was 12 years old.

The result is a book which almost left me in tears (but didn't, as usual), and which I made a point to finish within 2 days, rather like A Child Called It, by Dave Pelzer, which is similarly poignant. Indeed the emotions evoked are very similar, hearkening back to the strong bond children usually have with their parents and siblings. But I can't stress enough how good this book is without boring myself to a premature death, so I'll stop here.


Please do read it though.

The 100 Book Mission™: Book 4

Nausea; Jean Paul Sartre, Robert Baldick; Penguin 2000

My Christmas present. Nausea- a diary of a certain Monsieur Roquentin, who seems to realise that he exists, finds no point in it and tries to deal with it. My summary is overly simplistic, however, that's the general spirit of the book. Ironically quite a good book, especially seeing it's philosophy, which can lose the reader at quite an early stage.

I might read it again, in the distant future, unless I find it doesn't appease the reason for our mutual existence, in that case it will languish on my bookshelf, which just has been augmented by a lovely 9 book box set which was bought at the princely sum of Lm 6 (€ 13.98).

The 100 Book Mission™: Book 3

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian; Marina Lewycka; Penguin 2006





Can't be bothered to write a summary of this one. There are plenty of those online. All I can say is, it's a good read, one of those you can't let down. The narration is very personal, and I suspect there is a lot of the authoress in both of the sisters' characters, Nadia and Vera. These two have to prevent their father, a widower, from marrying a Ukrainian tart around 35 years his junior, who is evidently in it for British citizenship, and in return she lets her new found love fondle her breasts.

Can't be bothered to erase that first sentence.

The 100 Book Mission™: Book 2

Scenes from the life of a Best-Selling Author; Michael Krüger, Vintage 2003
A book ridden with short, bizarre stories of writers moving to a gym to tend for a beast, poets drinking copious amounts of liquor, uncles ransacking libraries etc. A good BB (Bathroom Book) if you'd ask me, and for Lm 1 I really can't complain.