Various By: Various
Year: Various
Genre: Various
After finishing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I didn't want to immediately start the next in the series. I felt I needed to digest the book, and I was about to go on holiday, so I didn't want to take something that is undoubtedly full of rape and murder on a jolly holiday. So, I took two travelogues that I've read a THOUSAND times before.
First, Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson, a valedictory tour of Britain. I find myself irritated faintly by Bryson these days, at least by his older works. His newer stuff is still fresh and awesome. Maybe I've read him too many times, maybe I've become jaded by travel books after reading about two hundred of them. I don't know. This particular book irritated me because he failed to visit my part of Britain - i.e. the WHOLE of East Anglia. Fail, on his part. Fail.
Second, The Happy Isles Of Oceania by Paul Theroux. I am a monstrous Theroux fan, I'm reading his latest travel book right now. This is my favourite of his books though. He's so jaded by the western world, just separated from his wife (he doesn't tell us why, but their marriage had been in trouble for almost 20 years), and kayaking around the Pacific islands on his own, in a massive SULK. I love how sulky Theroux is, love the way he seems to loathe what he's doing at the same time as love it. Love his massive ego, love his student-rebellion streak that he never loses, even in his fifties, sixties...
Coming soon: Ghost Train to The Eastern Star, Paul Theroux. A Short History Of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson. The Girl Who Played With Fire, Stieg Larsson. The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum.
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