The Reader's Climb Up The Mountain Of A Big Novel

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Firstly let's a quick bit of housekeeping...literally. Barring any unforeseen disasters we'll be leaving Bridgend on Friday. Spending a couple of weeks with a friend who has kindly offered to put us up in a town called Barry until we've found a place to rent in Penarth/surrounding areas before going onward to buy.

Things are a bit tense for wife/daughter at the moment. For one of the few conditions I set out (which let me stress that wife did not object to) regarding the move was that in the extremely unlikely event of this falling through then we would have to stay in Bridgend for at least two years because the next school year would be the beginning of daughter's exam period. We are expecting this to be completed by Monday though (as I'm writing this on Saturday) and that scenario is very much worse case.

The second bit of housekeeping is, shall we well say literaturelly, as it's regarding books. The correspondence between Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson was finished very quickly. It's alright, but it's one of those books where you've got to be in the right mindset before reading. The fact that it was relatively short though helped.

Unlike the next book I'm reading.

For in another show that my Kindle has a sense of humour in my random way of picking the next ebook to read it's thrown up Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Yes,zut alors! another work by a French writer. How unpatriotic, treasonable am I? (That's for those Hard Brexiteers reading. Saves you the bother of responding).

Now this a big read. Apparently (already started reading it) I've over twenty one hours left to go before completion and it's going to be quite a while given the probable lack of spare time I'm going to have next week before I finish it. So I've picked the wrong novel really in the wrong moment and yet stubborn that I occasionally am just moving on with it.

Not all big novels are a reader's mountain. If a book is clearly written and to be read as a bestseller then though it might seem daunting the terrain is actually quite simple. Your brain can read it in first gear. There are no hidden crevices or sudden avalanches. Nothing will make you want to turn back, even slightly. But for Les Miserables (I refuse to call it Les Mis) that's not possible.

Perhaps alternate with slimmer books as I've done with normal sized books in the past (and will do so again in the future)? For me no. A book like this demands that for what it can give you must devote your whole reading time to it.

Even giving it more time to read would be a mistake. Because unless you're completely gripped ploughing into a book would eventually make it seem as if you're wading into treacle.

No the best way to read a big important book is not to change your reading habits at all. Just be patient and accept that climbing the mountain will take a bit longer. The feeling you get when you've finished though will be far more exhilarating.

So I'd better continue reading then.....

Until the next time.

An Amazonian Mystery And Sects In The City

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

One of the things you have to accept, and I do, is that when you buy a Kindle Amazon are going to send you emails enticing you to buy further ebooks. Most of these are either based on their various offers for that particular month, or on books you've recently purchased which is perfectly fine.

However recently I received an email from them which stated that as I've shown an interest in The Panda Trap by Pascal Garnier here are some other works of his as well as similar writers for your consideration.

Now regular readers to this blog will remember that I read this book a few weeks back and did recommend it (Buy it soon. The way Britain is going reading a work by a French author, even in English, will be considered an act of treachery). Thing is though I actually downloaded it in January 2013.

I think that email was the first of its kind Amazon sent to me. So the question is how did they know I had after four and a bit years got round to reading it?

There are three explanations. Firstly it was just coincidence and I was just being paranoid. Well that's possible. After all I feel this in a queue of Tesco Express ("Express"? Choose the wrong moment and its more like a Tesco Donkey Cart for the time you have to wait).

Secondly that someone from Amazon is reading this blog. Oh I hope so. Fame at last and all that. Mind you the email address I use in this blog is different to the one I use for the Amazon Kindle.

The final possibility is that if you have the wifi on whilst you're reading an ebook Amazon can somehow know this. I think that, from now on, when I'm reading an ebook I'll be certain that it's on aeroplane mode.

No matter how well read you think you are every reader knows that there are gaps their knowledge. Well known writers that they have merely glanced at, are aware of but haven't actually taken the plunge into. This is mainly due to the other distractions of life as well as the fact that there are so many books but so little time.

Until this year I'd obviously heard of Emile Zola but hadn't read anything by him. However now I've read a book about his exile in London, a short story and now a novel Lourdes, the first part of a "Three Cities" trilogy written in 1984.

It is a good read, I did feel I was reading the French Dickens (I'm sure there's a French blogger describing Dickens now as the "English Zola") as there are various stories with one particular one that carries it through.

For commercial reasons or not Zola does not appear to give a view as to whether he believes in the healing power that the Lourdes legend has to give. It's fair to say though that he does not approve of the Catholic church as an institution.

What he conveys well is how people fuelled with a mixture of religious fervour and illnesses come to the city as a pilgrimage, almost like a Christian Mecca in that regard .Lourdes that emerges as the central character.

I'm looking forward to reading the remainder of the trilogy. For now though the next book is The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson 1834-1872. Volume One. Well it was free.

Until the next time.