Very quickly as I’m packing and trying to finish my conference papers.
Quick treat mystery: Harlan Coben’s Hold Tight. Pater had started it but couldn’t get into it for whatever reasons. I picked it up, then, with reservations, but found it quite satisfactory for ferry-reading diversion.
Finished Kathleen Flinn’s The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry, and both Pater and I enjoyed it. In fact, we’re going to try to work through the recipes when we get back from our holiday. They appear challenging enough to be interesting but also quite practical and manageable — and they look delicious! This was a great book for me to read aloud to Pater while he’s driving or cooking — two situations we’ve found well-suited to this practice. Do any of you read aloud to your partners? Or are you read aloud to? Under what conditions? A friend of mine reads to her husband while he paints (pictures, not walls) . . .
And I’d left my novel behind this weekend so had to pick up something else (of course, can’t be without a good book!). Grabbed the hardcover of Amitav Ghosh’s The Sea of Poppies. When I have a minute, I’ll photograph it for you — the above, taken from Ghosh’s own website, doesn’t really do it justice. I’m about 120 pages in and wondering whether I’ll be able to finish it before leaving at the end of the week. I won’t take it with me as it’s too heavy and I wouldn’t be willing to abandon it anywhere along the way. Wonderfully written with attention paid to words, the formation of English from all its colonial borrowings/thefts. The writing style — descriptions especially and their dependence on metaphor and a certain commitment and nimbleness of mind on the part of the reader — is really making me think about what I expect of my students and what training they do and do not bring to the task.
Sorry, got to go. Out of time. Papers must be polished!
Do comment, though. I’d love to hear from you.
