In Which I Realise I Know More About Chess Than Criminology and Other Book Stuff

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

A bit of housekeeping (or is that housestillkeeping?) first. The sale of the house I mentioned a few posts ago has fallen through, The potential buyers could not raise the required amount. So we're now back on the square of one.

Though neutral to the idea of a move I must admit to a certain irritation, if only because I'd spent a large portion of the week looking around Penarth properly for the first time since we'd put the house up for sale, getting details of all relevant houses and arranging viewings for this forthcoming week. All now cancelled.

And in case you're wondering yes I am going to borrow books from Porthcawl (and other libraries in the Bridgend borough) again. No reason why not at this present time.

Have finished the ebook of the three lectures Enrico Ferri gave to the University of Naples on Criminolgy. They were for me a mixture of my ignorance about the subject and the moments that he seemed to be chatting along about the bleeding obvious. Still I've never been afraid to broadcast my ignorance to the universe and so I think it's best to give Enrico the benefit of the doubt.

Amougst the great e unread the book that replaces it is An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman. To go off at a tangent here I had discovered through Twitter a podcast about books which had somehow been forgotten called Backlisted. Going through the episodes it has quickly become my favourite book podcast. Their latest podcast concerns Georgette Heyer, a writer who I wasn't interested in until last year when I'd read False Colours (which was a Penguin paperback). I'd avoided her since I was a teenager in the seventies/eighties as was put off by the Mills and Boon like covers.

(Another writer who I reacted to in exactly the same way but who I have a vintage Penguin paperback in the great unread is Norah Lofts)

Now before they discuss the specific book/author that fortnight, The presenters tell an expectant world what they had been reading during this period. In the very first podcast Andy Miller (whose book on crazy golf I chatted about sometime back) mentioned he'd read (and recommended Grossman's epic novel Life and Fate. Come Christmas, armed with an Amazon £15 gift voucher , I decided to buy the ebook. But knowing I'd some money to spare decided to buy An Armenian Sketchbook as well.

So through the random way of picking the next book it's that one I'm going to read next.

I know how to play chess. Not well you understand. Normally play on a chess app on my tablet for fear of my fragile male ego being torn to shreds by a hothoused seven year old. Still I know the rules. And as long as you do that's enough to fully appreciate Bobby Fischer Goes To War by David Edmunds and John Eidinow. Their account of the legendary chess battle in Iceland to be world champion between the aforementioned Fischer and Boris Spassky.

This book works on so many levels. From the personalities involved in this struggle to the geopolitical cold war backdrop to an analysis of the games involved there is no part of this work that the authors haven't explained to the reader with infinite skill. If you consider chess a sport (and I do) then it's one of the best sports books I've ever read.

And apart from the analysis of the games if you don't play chess I still think you'd enjoy it.

The next book I'm going to read is the twenty page pocket sized book The Bookshop Fights Back By Anne Patchett which I bought at a nearby bookshop after saying a belated goodbye to West Ham's old Boelyn Ground in September.

The book on the right

It's the story of how she set up a bookshop as a reaction to the closure of one in her town. It'll be an interesting read.

Until the next time.

The Man Who Knew Too Much Was by G K Chesterton. The Reader Who Lost The Plot Was Me

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

There are moments (thankfully few) as a reader when I'm reading a novel and then find myself stopping. Metaphorically looking around the fictional place that I'm in only to realise....that I've lost the plot.

When that happens you have as a reader three options. Option one is to put the book down and go for another one. That I'd never do.

Option Two is to start again. But personally unless I have some idea as to where I need to reread (assuming it's my fault) it's not for me.

And so it leaves option three. Plough on and hope that there comes a moment that you grab onto something tenuous and think to yourself. "Yes I'm back. I know what this is about". Trouble is it rarely works.

The other thing is that you, the reader, do not know whether the fault lies with you or the writer. Though if the writer doesn't allow you any possibility of catching up with the plot you'd like to think it's the scribe to blame....if only to sooth your ego.

Must admit I did not expect this to happen to me reading The Man Who Knew Too Much by G K Chesterton but there you are. Was reading it on my Kindle when it dawned on me that I'd no idea what was going on.

Certainly things seem to move at speed. There are chases, deaths but also characters that receive a prominence in a chapter only to be left from then on. A schoolboy, an Italian prince, the only female that seemed to warrant a mention of more than a page. All appeared, then tossed away. The same with locale. All moving at a pace but no idea as to why.

There is at the end an explanation of sorts that made no sense to me whatsoever. Politically it seemed to have something to do with "the Irish question" though exactly why I just do not know.

Think I should have renamed this post "Spoiler alert.....If Only".

So the next book out of the pile of the great ebook unread is. The Positive School of Criminology. Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples Italy by Enrico Ferri. An unusual choice you might think. Until I explain that this was at the time when I was first given the Kindle as a present and with the frenzy of a child given carte blanche at a sweet shop downloaded loads of books with the key connection that they cost nothing at all.

That included The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Until the next time.