Sunday 26th March - Book Reviews 2

Ink - Alice Broadway

Hmm. Not sure. Can't think what prompted me to get this - must have been a review I read somewhere.

Imagine a society where every event. from your birth onwards is tattooed on your skin. Then, when you die, your skin is removed (the word "flayed" is used too often for my comfort), preserved, and made into a book which your descendants keep at home, and read from time to time for comfort and to remember you by. That is, if your life has not been found to be unworthy and your book is flung into the fire and you become one of the "forgotten".

Imagine this society being at odds, if not quite at war, with the "blanks" - people who do not get tattoos to publicly display their lives. And there you have the starting scenario for the book.

Once you get past all the references to "flaying" and "marking" and "embracing the pain" of the tattooing, you can get on with the plot, which is about family secrets and what happens when secrets come out into the open.

Passing of the Third Floor Back - Jerome K Jerome

I downloaded this short story as a free pdf from somewhere or other, and promptly forgot that it was by Jerome K Jerome and became certain that it was by E F Benson. So, when I read it, I was a bit disappointed - there was none of the sharpness that I love in the "Mapp and Lucia" books. But when I was trying to find where I had downloaded it from, I "rediscovered" that it was by Jerome K Jerome. Aha! If you are not expecting E F Benson, then it is much better!

You can read up about the plot, and its varied history as a play and a silent film back in 1918 on wikipedia. An a bit of googling should lead you to somewhere you can download your own free pdf copy of the story.

Which leads me back to Jerome K Jerome - it's ages since I read "Three Men In A Boat". That might have to go onto the pending list, if only to revisit some favourite quotes...

This could be me;

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” 
― Jerome K. Jerome

Here's someone else;

“I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it.” 
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

And another person;

“I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.” 
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat