On Books:From Dickens to Golf,Science and Ending With East End Crime.....As You Do

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

When I finished my post on The Thirty Nine Steps so excited was I in throwing the theory forward that racist John Buchan is still remembered today because of sex harasser Alfred Hitchcock that I'd forgotten to mention what my next ebook on the Kindle was going to be.

Well in the spirit of the season it's Charles Dickens' A Christmas....no only kidding...been there done that....seen the movie (and the musical as it happens).

It was in fact Martin Chuzzlewit.

I did not unfortunately like it. For me it seemed a lot more meandering than other books of his I've read and yet unlike those other ones it didn't seem to easily to move back into the central plot. Consequently my mind meandered as well. There are books that you persevere with because you feel as a reader you should but the only thing you're looking forward to is the end.

The only interesting thing to me about the novel were those scenes set in America. It made me wonder whether Dickens was the first writer (or the earliest still remembered today) to think that he could get greater American sales by setting part of the story there. Just a thought.

The next ebook turned out to be Arnold Palmer: Reflections On The Game by the aforementioned Arnold and Thomas Hauser. This I bought for free. Now I know why. It was just a few pages. A glorified magazine/newspaper article. Obviously Arnold Palmer had the right to chat about golf more than most people, but none of what I read held any surprise. It was a waste of the nothing I paid for it.

So the ebook I'm now reading is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. Gentleman by Lawrence Sterne. It's a classic of British literature and am looking forward to it.

Have also read two library books. This was the first.

The Accidental Scientist - Graeme Donald

As the cover explains it's about the great accidental discoveries in science. In this case it's a book that scientists would buy their non scientist friends ("See? Science can be fun")

The trouble with this and similar type books is that you realise as you're reading it that each chapter would have made a better complete book in it's own right. So what you're reading may not be awful, but it is unsatisfying.

This was the other library book.

David Meikle - Kate Beal Blyth - The Krays The Prison Years

I'm not old enough to remember The Krays in their gangster prime. But growing up in the East End of London (I was born in Forest Gate) I do remember that even in prison for the rest of their lives they still seemed to have this myth surrounding them. Indeed for longevity in the collective East End memory the only other icon I can immediately think of is Bobby Moore.

So a detailed book (based on a TV documentary - not revealed until the end) about this rarely documented period in their lives banged up in prison is a worthwhile addition to the library of stuff written about the Krays. It's also the best book of the four I've chatted about today (yes it was more interesting than Martin Chuzzlewit) but perhaps that's my East End background talking

It's not without problems. For me the biggest was the surprising little time spent to their early prison years. It also made me feel a little sympathetic towards Ronnie Kray, given that he was a diagnosed with severe mental problems including schizophrenia. You wondered what would have happened to them if he hadn't been plagued with these illnesses

Still I "enjoyed" reading it and it's recommended. Won't be able to get new library books until Tuesday so we'll see what they are then.

Until the next time.