I like to read and have as long as I can remember. I tend to read light fiction, crime novels, historical fiction but I am always open to try something a little different. Recently I have taken off on a couple of book tangents. I have never been a big fan of biographies or memoires or essay collections and especially short stories. When it comes to reading off the job, keep it simple, strictly entertaining. Recently a number of books that I probably never would have chosen for myself have fallen in my lap and I must confess that I have enjoyed them all.
One Sunday before Christmas I was listening to Michael Enright on CBC and he interviewed a Swedish author, Henning Mankell. I had never heard of him but by the end of the interview I had made up my mind to give him a try. It seems that he writes mainly mysteries featuring a detective named Kurt Wallander. I mentioned his name to Val and got two of his books for Christmas. They turned out to be very good and since then we have bought one more. Wallander is an introspective Swedish detective who lives and works in a small town in southern Sweden and solves murders. He spends far more time thinking than he does confronting bad guys. Not nearly the level of violence you would find something by Joseph Wambaugh for instance.
For Christmas Hugh and Clara sent me two books, the latest collection from Arthur Black and a newly published piece of non- fiction, by Barbara Kingsolver Animal Vegetable Miracle. She and her family (husband and 2 daughters) moved from Arizona back to a family homestead in Virginia and spent the first year trying to eat only what they could grow and buy from local farmers and gardeners. The story of their efforts is interspersed with recipes using the fresh or preserved produce and essays on agri-industries and their impact on the environment and the crops (both vegetable and animal) that they produce. All in all a very well written book I thought. I finished it just before we headed out west to visit the afore-mentioned Hugh and Clara. While we were there I scored two more books. The first is called The Accidental Airline, The Story of Spilsbury’s QCA. It is a memoir of a BC native who in the 30’s started a business along the coast of British Columbia repairing and selling radios. Through a series of almost serendipitous events the business morphed into one of the early air services on the west coast. Lots of anecdotes about the characters and the aircraft that the author hired and flew. This is not prize winning literature but having spent much of my working life in and around bush planes and bush pilots I did enjoy the story.
Now for the third book and this one wins the prize for the least likely book that I would pick up. It was handed to me by my son Hugh after I noticed it on their bookshelf and remarked on the subject. Hugh has been a voracious reader since he learned how to read and his tastes are incredibly diverse and wide ranging. It didn’t surprise me to see the book on his shelf but I was more than a little dubious when he handed it to me and told me that it “was fascinating”. It is a 900 page tome entitled Peter The Great His Life and World by Robert Massie. Since my suitcase was 10 kg underweight for the trip home I decided to try it. Well colour me surprised, this book IS fascinating. I must admit that my knowledge of Tsar Peter the Great did not extend much past his name. I knew about as much about Russia in the late 17th Century. I had no idea what profound changes Peter made in his country. I had no idea what his world was like but I am learning. Don’t get me wrong I’m not finished this book yet and won’t be for some time. This is a minimum several week project but in spite of my initial trepidation I am really enjoying it! On the cover it says that this book won a Pulitzer Prize. I can believe it. It is very detailed and the descriptions of the people and places that Peter met and visited are colourful and appear thoroughly researched.
All of the above to say that I have once again proven the old adage “Never Judge A Book By Its Cover”. So thanks Val, thanks Clara and thanks Hugh. I may even have to go back and try that collection of short stories by Mavis Gallant that has been gathering dust for a number of years. You never know I just might learn to like it.