Photo by Pancholp (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Some of you have asked for books you can read during this time of lockdown and the threat of pandemic. Nothing too grim, something that will make you laugh or that will help you escape. So here is a far from exhaustive list, mostly, though not entirely, from my …
Month: April 2020
The Quarry: Iain Banks
“Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”Dylan Thomas Guy is dying and has no intention of going gentle into the good night. He summons his best friends to his crumbling house by the quarry by telling them he has found a video that they had …
Mister Pip: Lloyd Jones
Set on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, this book tells the story of a young girl, Matilda, who is 13 when we first meet her. The story takes places mostly in the 1990s, during the civil war and is narrated by Matilda. Because of the civil war,[1] the school is closed. The …
A Book of Silence: Sara Maitland
“It is quite hard to remember which came first—the freedom of solitude or the energy of silence. … I became less driven, more reflective and great deal less frenetic. And into that space flowed silence: I would go out into the garden at night or in the early morning and just look and listen… . …
The Memory Police: Yoko Ogawa
Translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder “‘Things go on disappearing, one by one. … It doesn’t hurt, and you won’t even be particularly sad. One morning you’ll simply wake up and it will be over, before you’ve even realized. … People gather in little groups out in the street to talk about their memories of …
Talking About Books 