Oratio Obliqua

Am scratching about for something interesting to take my fancy. I finished Robin Wasserman's Skinned, and although it was tolerably good, it didn't really live up to the promise of the initial few chapters. The characters' behaviour became increasingly stereotypical, and the excesses of angst betrayed its teen-fiction standing. My twelve-year old daughter liked it, though whether well enough to purchase the upcoming sequel remains to be seen.

Daughter #2, ransacking the Sunday car-boot-sale stalls, happened upon a 2-volume edition of F.W.Farrar's The Life and Work of St Paul (1879), which she bought for a mere £3. I was delighted, as I am a fan of his quasi-whimsical, late-Victorian (but very scholarly and insightful), immensely readable ponderings. It was in fairly good condition, but sadly someone had seen fit to plunder it for its coloured maps. Shame, but the prose is as enthralling as ever, if somewhat fanciful.

'It is clear, from the education provided for Paul by his parents, that they could little indeed have conjectured how absolutely their son would be reduced to depend on a toil so miserable and so unremunerative. But though we see how much he felt the burden of the wretched labour....while he plaited the black, strong-scented goat's hair, he might be soaring in thought to the inmost heaven, or holding high converse with Apollos or Aquila, with Luke or Timothy, on the loftiest themes which can engage the mind of man.'

This week she arrived home with two rather attractive 1895 volumes of Demosthenes Orations - the orators are not really currently my cup of tea, but there's no denying the shabby handsomeness of the books (although, sadly, Volume 1 is missing). The Husband is still engrossed in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere: it's lasted him for quite some time, having started it on the outward plane journey of our holiday some 3 weeks ago. For someone who spent many a year NOT reading, he's certainly getting some good stuff under his belt now, although he does tend to get what I borrow/buy for him (I'm his personal book-shopper) so it's not really a balanced reading programme at all. I noted not long ago that the books I choose for him tend to be a bit predictable - all in the same vein: NG's Anansi Boys, American Purgatorio by John Haskell, Dogwalking by Arthur Bradford, You Shall know Our Velocity by Dave Eggars, Steven Sherrill's The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break, Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.....all a bit weird and with a hint of sadness/madness. We were both, however, reduced to wonder by the amazing tales in David Eagleman's Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlife.

Perhaps it's time to diversify more....