I can’t think why I don’t write more blogs about books given that I probably spend more time reading than any other retirement activity. As many of my retirement activities – walking the dogs, travel, dining out, working in the vineyard, even writing this blog have grown more restricted, books and reading have stuck with me.
Not only do I read but I read several books at the same time. Some people (Mrs Summerhouse among them) say they don’t know how I can do this. Don’t I get confused etc? The trick, if there is one, is that I read different kinds of books. For starters I only read non-fiction in the morning and fiction (almost always crime fiction, don’t ask me why the appeal of this genre but whatever it is many people have the same attraction) afternoon and evening including bedtime.
Let’s take right now as an example. Thanks to my Christmas books I am reading 4 non-fiction books simultaneously. In no particular order these are 3 Shades Of Blue by James Kaplan (see above) a book about or so it said about making the record by the same name actually much more than this. For anybody with an interest in jazz, it’s a fascinating read. I won’t bore you with any of the musical detail, I’ll leave the boring bits for later. All I would say is that I might not be the best jazz player in the world – far from it but I’m a good reader about it.
The second and third are Discovery of Britain by Graham Robb and Fractured France by Andrew Hussey. The first of these two feeds into my historical leaning. I think I wanted to be a historian when I was at school but school made me give up history before O Level because my mother told them I wanted to be an architect (which I didn’t).I haven’t really got going on this one so I’ll say no more about it for now.
The third one is, so far, excellent. Always nice to read a book about another country in the shit (maybe even a bit more so) other than your own. And boy is it scary, it couldn’t happen to us, could it? What’s that you say, it already is. Oh dear.
The last of the four Christmas, non-fiction books is titled Songs of Seven Dials by Matt Holbrook. Back to the history again in this case the history of the area of London (around Soho) of the same name in the 1920s and 30s. No annual trip to London this year or last year come to that, too knackered. But once again I can certainly read about same place. And maybe time to ask myself why my attraction to historical matters? No answer as yet.
Finally we come to the fiction section of my life in books. At the moment both Mrs S and I are into Alex Cross books by James Patterson. Kiss the girls at the moment. Tales of a black policeman / psychologist in Washington DC. I have connections with two of these aspects. No, not being black, but yes to being a psychologist (although not a criminal one) and yes to living, on our American exchange, in (nearly) Washington DC. They’re a little bit gruesome for fans (that’s me) of cosy crime, but distracting non the less.
And, in last place, a crime book entitled Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler, which I’m re-reading ( I do that quite a bit, that is go back to books I have enjoyed but read long enough ago for me to have forgotten whodunit). I’ll leave you with another question – why would I do that when I have so many unread books in the house? Safety / comfort in the familiar perhaps?