Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I am having only started it less than 2 weeks ago 3/4 way through the pirates daughter, fantastic read can hardly put it down

Thanks for the recommendation, Amy. I bought it last week as one of 'two books for £7' from Tesco......might read that next! I'm currently reading 'The Oystercatcher' by Susan Fleming (another Tesco purchase, and a Richard and Judy Summer Read). Disturbing, but a brilliant characterisation of a spoilt person who was packed off to boarding school at a vulnerable point in her life....and ended up deeply damaged.

yes it was one of my 2 for £7 and its fantastic, i finished it this afternoon and really really enjoyed it. A fantastic story set against the back drop of chainging Jamaica

'The Complete Dangerous Davies' by Leslie Thomas.

Absolutely hilarious. Far better than the TV series starring Peter Davidson based on these books.

Been reading "The Story Of Glue" by RL Dyte. Impossible to put down

Very Funny!!!! Better than Over the Cliff by Hugo Furst.

I've just finished The Pirate's Daughter (thanks for the recommendation, Amy!) and am now launching into Engleby by Sebastian Faulks. Looks promising.

What I'm really reading is "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer, includes chapters on Holocaust deniers, Creationists, alien abductees etc. Marvellous

Read Gordon Ramsey's autobiography cover to cover on Friday - OK, so I'm a sad, sad person with no social life, and I was being paid to do other things at the time, but .......

It is far from being a literary classic, but I really enjoyed it. He writes as he speaks, so it was very like having a one sided conversation - as most conversations with Gordon are?

Then got started on Breathe by Tim Winton. Very Australian, but well written IMO, and I'm enjoying it enormously.

xx

Just finished The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh.

Next task is to find a copy of The Glass Palace.

"Forgotton Voices From The Holocaust."

Harrowing diary extracts from survivors of the above.

"La Chambre du fou" by Paul Halter. Lazed outside in the last direct sun of the afternoon reading for a bit and then last night got as far as p171 before turning the light out. So far, I don't think it's one of his best - but I'll have to see whether the twist, when it comes, justifies the comparatively plodding build-up.

I am reading Engleby by Sebastian Faulks too. I am particularly enjoying the description of Cambridge in 1973, which seems spot-on to me.

Vièr Bliu wrote:I'll have to see whether the twist, when it comes, justifies the comparatively plodding build-up.

Well, having finished the La Chambre du fou, I'd characterise it as a rather cool exercise in post-modern pastiche. The post-modernism shook its gory locks at me when after reading most of the book and thinking that the sequence of events weren't really gelling as a narrative, I arrived at a passage in which two of the characters sit down and have a discussion about how the sequence of events aren't really gelling as a narrative. But once Paul Halter had forced me to jump through the last of his post-modern hoops, I ended up on my head having to reinterpret the whole narrative from a new viewpoint. Ingenious, but less involving than some of his others.

Next up (I'm reading through Vol.2 of the omnibus edition) is Halter's La Septième hypothèse.

Yes, La Septième hypothèse was much more satisfying. More twists than a twisty thing, as the saying goes, and Paul Halter's games with the reliability of narrative powered the plot nicely. Recommended.

I've finished Engleby now (wonder if you enjoyed it, Mary?). I found it quite disturbing, but challenging. I wanted to finish it, though, not discard it. Certainly thought provoking and although the reviewers said it marked a new departure for him, I think that this was only because there was a 'thriller' element. His last book, Human Traces, was written around the theme of disorders of the mind, and I found that equally disturbing. (I'm assuming his 'James Bond' venture is a totally different genre!).
I've moved on to JG Ballard's autobiography Miracles of Life : Shanghai to Shepperton which I think I will enjoy despite the depiction of the chasm between his privileged life as a European in China in the 30's/40's and the reality of the obscene squalour, poverty and cruelty suffered by most of the indigenous Chinese. I've just got to the bit where his family is interred by Japanese soldiers.