Hah! It wasn't that long after I posted yesterday's blog that the emails came surging into my inbox,all needing a response of some kind or another!
Ah well, I'd had a very peaceful day until then. So I didn't do much any whinging or complaining and it didn't take long to deal with them all.
Today was another peaceful day, including friends for tea-in-the-garden-enjoying-the-sun in the afternoon. I invited them round earlyish in the morning, when it was lovely outside, and the skies promptly turned greyer and darker and even threatened rain. But as 3pm approached, why, hello 🌞 sun and we got out the parasol and arranged the chairs.
I've done a lot of reading recently; it's a bit eclectic.
I'm currently reading Jill Mansell 'The Wedding Of The Year'; 99p on kindle. It's one of those completely unbelievable rom-coms where the combined situations of all the characters are ridiculously convoluted that I'm looking forward to discovering how it all ends.
I've only read the sample of 'The Hard Way' by Susan h Walker. It's out in kindle and hardback and is a sort of walking journey by the author combined with the history of the countryside and the tracks, autobiography, history of women walkers, why women don't walk... I'm looking forward to it.
I'll be interested to hear what you think of the Harper Lee when you read it. Jill Mansell is a light read, but she does write with good grammar and so on. I quite like Milly Johnson too. Sometimes I start a book, and become so incensed with appalling grammar and spelling that i just want to give up. Think I'd like a new career as a proof reader.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid my blog posts are always in need of proof reading. I've just added a missing 's' to this one!
DeleteI heartily recommend NOT READING “Go Set A Watchman”. It was actually the first book she wrote and the publishing company thought the story that led up to it would be more interesting. The editor worked with her through several re-writes and “To Kill A Mockingbird” was the result. “Go Set A Watchman” gives a totally different character for Atticus Finch and I found it very unsatisfying. It wasn’t even a good story as far as I was concerned. It ruined “To Kill A Mockingbird “ for me. I wish I had heeded the advice in the reviews and not read it.
ReplyDeleteNow here's a conundrum for me. I guess if I do risk it, I'll have to try and read it with my eyes closed! I'll give it some thought and read some reviews. It was another 99p download...
DeleteThere are some very helpful reviews online now. Unfortunately, when the book first came out the reviews didn’t give away the details. They centred on “ If you liked “To Kill A Mockingbird” then you won’t like this book.” and said it wasn’t well written. If they had gone into more detail I never would have read it.
DeleteThese comments are all fascinating; I had a memory of reading that 'Go set a watchman ' was a different portrayal of we think of as the real Atticus. I'm wondering if it is possible for me to try reading 'Watchman' as though it was a completely separate book, whose characters just shared the same names and locations. Can I bend my thought processes into this new shape?
DeleteWhen Winnie the Pooh went into public domain somebody made a movie where he was a serial killer or something. Perhaps if you read this book in the same light - just someone reusing the same character names - you could make something of it. None of that gets over the part about it not being well written and not worth reading. None of the characters had any redeeming qualities to my mind and the narrative held no interest. It wasn’t just Atticus, I didn’t like Scout either. Considering that To Kill A Mockingbird is written as looking back on her childhood (she was 9 at the end of the book) and she is just 26 in Go Set A Watchman it can’t be very many years between the reminiscence and the new action. If the first book had been written as real time instead of as a reminiscence the character changes might have worked as a change of perspective after the passing of 15 years. To me it was just a depressing book with no real story.
DeleteMy finger is moving ever closer to the 'delete download ' button... has no one a good word to say for it?!?
DeleteI did read one review that gave it 4 out of 5. Perhaps if you read it as science fiction - an alternate universe sort of thing - it could work for you.. I suggest you read the review on Wordpress and then make up your mind.
DeleteAlso read the review by The Guardian.
DeleteI listened to an extract on the radio and decided this was not the Atticus/Gregory Peck character I'd been so fond of for over half a century. So i did not read it. Let me know how you get on!
ReplyDeleteAfter all these comments I think I ought to try reading it, but sort of cautiously, carefully, circling around the text as one would take care around a dangerous or unpredictable crowd of people!
DeleteForewarned is forearmed! I've been asking around the Book Club people too. For me I think is might be interesting to see how the hero father (as he appeared to be to young Scout) and the apparently tolerant townsfolk that Scout knew as a child are re-evaluared in the light of young adult Scout's experiences of New York life, where the population was richer and more diverse.
DeleteIf I were you I think I'd read Winnie the Pooh instead. In the original, of course.
ReplyDelete😀! But I've only just finished rereading the stories a month or so ago... actually, rereading them with the eyes and mind of a modern parent reveals some unexpectedly dark moments. The story of when Rabbit decides to un-bouce Tigger by deliberately losing him in the forest... hmm. But children like a bit of scariness in a way that parents don't, perhaps?
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