Spending Saturday

 

 

What can be more pleasant than spending Saturday with your daughter? Not a lot except that I would probably be better off financially. I am usually so good about looking in “proper” bookshops but not buying. My philosophy is that if I am “meant” to read a book it will find its way into a charity shop and throw itself at me as I cast my eye along the shelves. But this Saturday I was led astray. Being seventeen my little darling doesn’t share my taste in books. These days her reading matter is likely to be found in the self-help or psychology sections of Borders, our most convenient Book Bazaar. At her age I had a penchant for John Wyndham so maybe all teenagers gravitate to towards tales of “nasty” things.

 

So what tempted me? Please see above. I fell for a book cover and the promise of a nun. The cover of the book has a graphic quality and a bit of a pre-war feel to it. “Pelagia & The White Bulldog” by Boris Akunin is actually translated from Russian and the first page has a list of Dramatis Personae so I wonder if reading it is going to be as confusing as when I tried to tackle “War and Peace” and fell foul of everyone having at least three names. I really thought this looked promising but it had bad reviews but I don’t care because at least it will enable me to tag another book with the words “nun” and “convent” and anyway the book looks good, feels good and smells good.

 

Another of my favourite tags for books is “spinster” and that is how I will be tagging “Miss Webster and Cherif” by Patricia Duncker, along with the word “friendship”. This work of fiction was much better received by the critics. I only hope it will live up to my initial expectations. Oh, and in case you are wondering, my little darling bought “My Friend Leonard” by James Frey. It’s the sequel to a book all about someone in a drug rehab centre and is as equally deserving of the tag “friendship” as is my book.