11 for 3

Using up 3 days holiday to get 11 days off thanks to Willy Wales turned out to be a welcome break without going near a motorway.  Financial prudence prevented last minute attempts to travel abroad and this turned out to be the right decision as the weather in Horsham was glorious.  After a week of sunshine I bought a sun lounger which I am hoping I will need to get out of the box before next winter.

Nevertheless I am not complaining because I did manage to engage in my favourite holiday pastime of a little light reading.  After a short while I abandoned The Lacuna (Barbara Kingsolver) at page 164.  I loved her previous book, The Poisonwood Bible, and on the strength of that I bought this one with my xmas book tokens but found the Mexican protagonists in this work a bit too wooden for my taste.  I will try again later in my life and will no doubt enjoy it then.

The Lacuna was just no competition (for me) for The Quiet American, a birthday gift from Marguerite.  I love Graham Greene's work and he does not disappoint here.  Spectacularly simple and extraordinarily dense at the same time.  It's impossible to resist reading it in a sitting and very hard to resist reading again as I pick it up to look at the cover now.

Next was Sister loaned by Alison.  Debut crime fiction novel about two sisters whose lives have taken very different directions.  The murder of one sister in Hyde Park brings the other back from New York.

Rosamund Lupton's second novel, Afterwards, is to be published on 9 June, I enjoyed Sister enough to try this one with a mother and daughter theme next.  I hope it doesn't disappoint.

And Then There Were None

This is an improbably good read.  It shouldn't work but it does.

10 strangers, coerced onto an island with no means of escape die one by one mirrored by the breakage, one by one, of a set of ceramic soldiers.  The plot is a truly ingenious and doesn't flag even though you know what to expect from page 57.  All loose ends tied up in the epilogue so you can stop reading and make up your own mind if you prefer.

Agatha Christie rocks!

What it is to be 50

Not very different from 49 actually.  I've felt a bit creaky in the limbs for some time but don't know if that's due to late onset running or early onset decrepitude.  Great party on 2 April thanks to everyone for dressing up and partying like there was no 3 April, especially Adrian who rather startlingly produced a delicious cake covered in snakes, lizards, handbags, sunglasses and shoes.  Sums me up perfectly.  Now where did I leave my drink........