Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Reading List

Seven books I intend to read soon. I don't own any of them so if you have them and are in Japan please lend them to me!

The Laurie Lee Trilogy
"Cider With Rosie", "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" and "A Moment Of War"
I always think of Laurie Lee as being someone you read at school for GCSE/O-Level English Literature. Cider With Rosie is also a favourite of English Language schools, in fact, I first heard of it when a Spanish home-stay student living with my family was reading it as part of her summer English course. Having said that, My friend Damon Coulter sungypsy.wordpress.com/ swears by Lee so I think I'll probably like his stuff a lot. Lee seems to have lived quite an incredible life, although not quite as incredible as my own.

"The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom"
by T. E. Lawrence
Laurence Of Arabia's autobiography. This is probably the book I am most looking forward to reading at the moment. I'm also looking forward to dragging my family into the desert in a few years time to ride on camels, navigate by the stars, look at mirages and generally pretend we are in a Tintin story.

"A Murder Of Quality" by John le Carré
This is le Carré's second novel. I've recently re-read his first: "Call For The Dead". His early stuff is simply amazing. It's a pity his recent novels are junk.

"The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp" by William Henry Davies
I remember hearing extracts of this being read on the Mark And Lard Show on BBC Radio One in the late 1990's. One extract I remember very clearly is when the author got his foot crushed while jumping onto the back of a freight train in the USA.

The Human Cougar by Lloyd Morain
Morain's hard-to-find book on drifters, hobos and wanderers. I've heard it's a real gem.

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