Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Summer holiday reading

Writers for The Spectator on their summer holiday reading. In articles like these I almost always find someone with whom I am in enthusiastic agreement:
Tishomingo Blues
by Elmore Leonard is so absorbing there is only one problem: you might get so absorbed in it that you forget where you are and then your expensive holiday is somewhat wasted. I always take a stash of crime fiction and thrillers to read in bed at night on holiday as I’m not a big socialiser. This one had me absolutely transfixed in a gîte in the Lot. I have been reading everything I can find by Leonard ever since. If you like books which give you a window into another world, and where the characters become your best friends, try also Maximum Bob and Stick – glorious summer reads.
LOTR, of course. I haven't read Lee Child but I enjoyed the online series based on one of the Reacher books.
Ignore the snoots about J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: it’s the best adventure ever written, and helpfully lugs around a pile of massive themes – good and evil, love and death, loyalty and courage, and of course talking trees. I first read it on holiday in a villa on Poros and it was so immersive I failed to notice our most glamorous friend had embarked on a passionate affair with the coach of the Greek Navy’s rowing team who lived next door. Tolkien is that good. Lee Child’s Killing Floor is the first of the Jack Reacher books – and the best. Like a lot of once good things, the Reacher franchise has got too big and gone on too long (Pizza Express anyone?), but this is thrilling and unputdownable.
"What Spectator writers read on their summer holidays," The Spectator, August 3, 2022.

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