... Yesterday I went to 3 bookshops at lunchtime, looking for the last 2 of the Mary Russell books I mentioned a day or so ago. Four if you count the second-hand book shop I’d visited the night before on the way home (always the first stop). Turns out they haven’t come out in Australia yet. This makes me very angry – why do we have to wait for books, sometimes a year or more after they’ve been brought out in the UK or USA? Why are Australian book fans treated in this shabby way? Bastards.
Fuck it, I thought, if they won’t sell me one in Australia they don’t deserve my custom and I’ll Amazon them. So I did. I expect a nice parcel in a week or so.
However, I’m pretty weak willed, so while I was in one of those book shops I bought Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution, I’m so glad I did it’s brilliant.
Mr Brown was being a corpulent corporate bastard, dining out on business expenses last night so when I got home I put on a little Dead can Dance, covered myself in cats and read it to the end. It’s a thin, beautifully written little novella so it wasn’t an effort. A jewel of a story about an old man (clearly Sherlock Holmes though that name is never actually mentioned) and his final case, the theft of a young Jewish refugee’s pet Grey Parrot. The parrot, at times, recites a series of numbers in German. The ending, while not totally unexpected, just broke my heart. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever read, but in a good way. A book that makes you feel real emotions, that can make you cry (or laugh) is a thing to be treasured. I highly recommend it.
Fuck it, I thought, if they won’t sell me one in Australia they don’t deserve my custom and I’ll Amazon them. So I did. I expect a nice parcel in a week or so.
However, I’m pretty weak willed, so while I was in one of those book shops I bought Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution, I’m so glad I did it’s brilliant.
Mr Brown was being a corpulent corporate bastard, dining out on business expenses last night so when I got home I put on a little Dead can Dance, covered myself in cats and read it to the end. It’s a thin, beautifully written little novella so it wasn’t an effort. A jewel of a story about an old man (clearly Sherlock Holmes though that name is never actually mentioned) and his final case, the theft of a young Jewish refugee’s pet Grey Parrot. The parrot, at times, recites a series of numbers in German. The ending, while not totally unexpected, just broke my heart. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever read, but in a good way. A book that makes you feel real emotions, that can make you cry (or laugh) is a thing to be treasured. I highly recommend it.
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