Holiday reading
Off on holiday, and it’s a backpacking holiday, so every book taken really needs to earn its place. Taking the following books:
- A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton – half-read already, so not a good use of resources (see brown paper, below) but the trouble is, I can’t put it down and I don’t think I’ll have finished it in time.
- The Rainmaker by John Grisham – a bit of a doorstop but should, at least, be gripping and escapist. Have been meaning to read this for months.
- The King of Elfland’s Daughter – by Lord Dunsany. Practical, in that it’s a slim volume, but the content is a risk. Cover blurb says ‘a second Tolkien’. Just hope it lives up to this…
Included in the backpack are a couple of sheets of brown paper, a mini-roll of sticky tape and some stamps. Books read are going to be posted home…
I have also sworn to read Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince this month and have actually started it – but the great diplomat has been knocked to the floor by the lures of Grafton’s California-based PI and a gripping tale of murderous revenge, &c… This probably marks me out as a shocking intellectual lightweight but unfortunately Old Nick (and, according to the introduction to my edition, that really is one of the derivations of the term, so shocking was it on publication) is going to have to cool his heels at home…