Recommendations of books old and new
Laurent Letellier is a bookseller. He runs a bookshop called Le Cahier Rouge, which could be loosely translated as, The Red Notebook. He has a daughter, an ex-wife, a girlfriend, a best friend that he isn’t quite sure deserves that status anymore, and a life that, while not humdrum, is routine and somewhat boring. He …
This is an unassuming, but charming book. It’s about a middle-aged man, Tim Gandy, with grown children who’s just retired and is finding life rather flat. He and his wife have grown apart over the years. He finds that he has somehow, become a spectator in his own life, and now that he no longer …
This is the story of a couple, a Mr and Mrs Ransome, who find their rather sedate and predictable lives disrupted by a completely unexpected event. They go to the opera one evening, and they come back home to find that they have been robbed, or so Mrs Ransome says. "Burgled," Mr Ransome says, because …
Continue reading "The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett"
This is one of those books that I find myself wanting to recommend to everyone. It’s an unusual book, and it’s full of the charm and gentle humour that is so characteristic of the English. This is a book about books, but unlike most books of this genre which tend to be non-fiction, it is …
This is a book about books. It's about the joys of reading, and the perhaps even greater joy of selling books and introducing people to the world of literature. The Parnassus in the title is a mobile bookshop, owned by a Mr Roger Mifflin, who's been driving his wagon along the quiet country lanes of …
Continue reading "Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley"
Three words come to mind when I think of Antoine Laurain’s books: charming, whimsical, and delightful. Vintage 1954 is no exception. As it says in the blurb, this is a story about time travel, and it is set in the now almost forgotten Paris of the 1950s. Laurain indulges himself and his readers by writing …
“I came here eight years ago as a renter of this farm, of which I soon afterward, become the owner. The time before that, I like to forget. The chief impression it left upon my memory, now happily growing indistinct, is of being hurried faster than I could well travel…” So begins this account of …
Continue reading "Adventures in Contentment by David Grayson"
This is a brilliant book. It is so good that I can’t help but gush about it to everyone I know and tell them to do themselves a favour and read it. Of course, not everyone is interested in science-fiction, but if you are, this is the book of the year. It is hard science …
This is a charming book, original and unusual. It has wonderful characters, all very different from each other. They’re all grappling with something or the other in their lives. Everything from a problematic boss to a loss of inspiration to an identity crisis to relationship issues. Each of them is living a life that is …
good books are everywhere 