Getting some serious reading done at last
Aug. 12th, 2003 08:46 amNormally I am an avid reader but recently I went through a spell when I wasn't reading anything new much at all, just rereading stuff I had already read umpteen times.
Now I am back to 'normal' thanks to my new library card and a splendid birthday gift from
the lovely lemur.
I have just finished Margaret MacMillan's Women of the Raj, an interesting and sympathetic study of a rather unsympathetic breed; British women in India. Now I have two on the go. The first is Every Man Will Do His Duty, an anthology of first hand accounts of life in the Royal Navy in Nelson's time. Its a good antidote to fictional versions of the O'Brian variety. I find the point of view of the lower deck very interesting too; much more the self confident expert in his trade than the down trodden wretch sometimes portrayed.
The best of the lot though is the prezzie; Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography. I worked in London on and off in the late 70's and early 80's and even lived there for a couple of years but I wouldn't say I knew the place well. Does anyone really know London? Ackroyd's book is a tour de force of thematic writing. He draws out the essential continuity of the place over the last 2000 plus years and somehow makes it more understandable, if not more lovable. I have always disliked the noise, dirt, lack of civility and persistent low level violence of London. To know it has been like that for 2000 years is oddly comforting though it doesn't really make me like the place anymore!
BTW, if you haven't read any of Ackroyd's other stuff run to the bookstore now. My favourites include The Plato Papers, English Music and The House of Dr. Dee (all novels) and his biography of Thomas More. I haven't read his biographies of Blake and Dickens yet but I shall. FWIW I didn't care for Milton in America.
Now I am back to 'normal' thanks to my new library card and a splendid birthday gift from

I have just finished Margaret MacMillan's Women of the Raj, an interesting and sympathetic study of a rather unsympathetic breed; British women in India. Now I have two on the go. The first is Every Man Will Do His Duty, an anthology of first hand accounts of life in the Royal Navy in Nelson's time. Its a good antidote to fictional versions of the O'Brian variety. I find the point of view of the lower deck very interesting too; much more the self confident expert in his trade than the down trodden wretch sometimes portrayed.
The best of the lot though is the prezzie; Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography. I worked in London on and off in the late 70's and early 80's and even lived there for a couple of years but I wouldn't say I knew the place well. Does anyone really know London? Ackroyd's book is a tour de force of thematic writing. He draws out the essential continuity of the place over the last 2000 plus years and somehow makes it more understandable, if not more lovable. I have always disliked the noise, dirt, lack of civility and persistent low level violence of London. To know it has been like that for 2000 years is oddly comforting though it doesn't really make me like the place anymore!
BTW, if you haven't read any of Ackroyd's other stuff run to the bookstore now. My favourites include The Plato Papers, English Music and The House of Dr. Dee (all novels) and his biography of Thomas More. I haven't read his biographies of Blake and Dickens yet but I shall. FWIW I didn't care for Milton in America.