Sunday, May 11

Gentle books ...

... I appear to have developed a taste for them.
I adore Alexander McCall Smith's books. They are a delight, slow moving, not much action, but beautifully observed. You get the feeling the man really loves places and people, Botswana and Scotland the most obvious examples.
Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, cool, calm reading, restful but entertaining, quietly entertaining. Most recently I found Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim and I've loved it and will be hunting out more.
I don't know if it's because the world outside my front door is loud, busy, crowed, but these wonderful gentle books are more than just reading, they are the literary equivalent of meditation, of a wee sleep under a tree, of a warm kitten in your lap, of morning sunshine through an open window, of the smell of baking bread or lemon blossom on the breeze. Things that make life more than just living.

5 comments:

e said...

Mmmh, how lovely.

Anonymous said...

E - they really are, just lovely.

Ilva said...

haven't read a Barbara Pym for ages....i want more lovely books, you are so right

Zoomie said...

Thank you for these recommendations - I will put them on my wish list!

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Ilva, Ms Pym's books are just so wonderful - I think charming is the word, I am charmed by them.
Zoomie, do, they aren't hard work books, they are sit down in a sunny patch on a sunday books, lovely one and all.