Themed chapters, with a strong emphasis on the people involved – the captain and crew; the pirates and those who police them; the ports, the passage; flags of convenience and the consequences.
Superb writing on language, landscape and living on the land.
Lots of new words to use (well, to try and remember); lots of new books to read…
Looking forward to fuddling next time at Forty Acres, and to the accuracy of describing my Dolpo Expedition river crossing photos as “Crunching across the frozen mud and skim-ice to wade through the waters of the upper Barbung Khola”.
“Other places” isn’t really the right category/genre for this but it’s the closest I’ve got (other than “Too tricky to categorise” – so I’m going to tick that too….)
I turned off the ability for people to add Comments in 2011 by which time Reading had accumulated 124 comments. The entry that received most comments was The Riders – Tim Winton (32), closely followed by Cloudstreet – Tim Winton (30). No reflection on the quality of my reviews, simply a side effect of the Australian English Curriculum!
The numbers for the past five years are a bit “same same but different” – still lots of speedy crime reads (mainly in a foreign setting) and historical novels, but with a few new names, and Science fiction / Fantasy making an appearance*:
American Wife – Curtis Sittenfeld: Almost bought from one of Frinton’s charity bookshops, but found in Barbican Library and borrowed instead.
The Wolf Border – Sarah Hall: Another Barbican Library loan. On my To Read list courtesy of one of the “Best Reads” round-ups, probably in The Guardian.
* More accurately a reappearance: I devoured SF&F as a teenager – Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey. Historical novels were a firm favourite then too – Anya Seton, Jean Plaidy (I’d no idea that was a pen name!).
Maria Coffey was Joe Tasker‘s girlfriend of 2 years when he and Pete Boardman died on Everest in 1982.
In a way, a good book to read on the way to Uncle John’s funeral, Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow explores absence and loss, with interviews and autobiography about the impact of mountain climbing on the other people in a high altitude climber’s life – partners, parents and children.
Quite a weighty tome – over 400 pages in paperback – looking at music’s love of the past; revering, recycling, repurposing musical styles and genres across the decades. Particularly fascinating when you get to chapters about times and tunes you remember.
