A response to Mary Tod's winter reading list on www.awriterofhistory.com
"Old habits of a figure’s engineer
die hard. I keep a SS for all my reading to chart different genres and split
between my fiction and nonfiction reading. 2014 is an interesting reading year
so far. The Railwayman by Eric Lomax led to five other books about the Burma
Railway and war with Japan
including The Prisoners List. This book an excellent factual background written
by a son Reuben supported by quotations from his father, Ben who was a prisoner
of Japan . On all the recent film awards the awful
events still remain part of a forgotten war, although I see the Railwayman Book
has topped UK
non fiction best seller charts in January 2014. Also related fiction Gift of
Rain by Tan Twan Eng and J G Ballard’s biography and Kingdom Come his dystopian
book. The latter has poor reviews, but I liked the theme of the story all very
memorable and frightening.
Robert Wilson’s A Small Death in Lisbon as well as being a
good read gave me help in structuring ideas for books over two timeframes. Kiss
me first by Lottie Moggach a great idea, but too long and I found hard to read.
Tom Cain Assassin probably a better book than I found it to read. The Yellow
Birds by Kevin Power a disturbing book about modern warfare, almost a
biography. Abomination Jonathan Holt – yawn.
Various books about self and e
book publishing and how to write also started, but they are hardly page
turners.
Current delightful reading -
Little Aloud and a wonderful read - Michael Morpurgo’s biography structured
nicely with a Maggie Fergusson telling his life story and Michael contributes
seven stories. Even he had some awful rejection letters as a writer and apart
from marriage cash did not benefit from Penguin from writing as I thought he
did.
Books by Bernard Cornwall, Hanif
Kureishi and Diana Gabaldon and book The Sky Wept Fire started but put down.
Most books I find too long … a
bit like this post you will no doubt say!"
Alexander
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