In Which I Strayed With Cheryl And Chat About A Few Russians (Only Books I'm Afraid)

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Now that I'm a member of the local library I decided to go back to the ebook I electronically put to one side for a while Wild by Cheryl Strayed. In it she tells the story of how she undertook the Pacific Crest Trail (which starts in a desert) as a sort redemptive process after having gone off the rails emotionally following her mother's death.

Well it was finished and well it was a good read. Not a great read you understand. This notion of redemption is very American and the mere thought of walking a long way involving a desert is not my idea of fun (after all hot weather in South Wales makes me go into hives).

There is apparently a film of Wild starring Reese Witherspoon. This surprised me given that it's a rather slim tome. Perhaps it's a marketing ploy for those of us who've read the book to be tempted to watch it ready to mock should the movie be different in anyway. Well it's worked for me.....when it's on TV.....or Netflix anyway.

Next book randomly selected was The Seven Who Were Hanged by Leonid Andreyev. It's about people facing the death penalty and how they react I'd never heard of him before. But apparently he was a contemporary of Tolstoy and could be compared with Dostoevsky. Having read this book (the first of his I've ever read)....possibly.

This is not a whodunnit. All of those condemned to hang committed the crime. What the novel shows is their various and changeable reactions to their impending fate. It was compelling reading.

One of the points Andreyev does show is that you might not think you're Napoleon but being just this side of sanity doesn't mean that you should be hanged if you commit a murder (as opposed to life imprisonment you understand). Really this is an equally slim time as Wild but affected me much more.

So now the next book on the eBook pile turns out to be The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Again the kindle is revealing a sense of humour. And for the moment so far so good.

Until the next time.