David Sedaris is a very funny man.
Someone (AfC, I think) lent me one of his books. They are ordinary stories of him and his family but always funny.
Anyway, you can enjoy some of these short stories here.
But the bit that had me really laughing was:
A week after putting her to sleep, I received Neil’s ashes in a forest-green can. She’d never expressed any great interest in the outdoors, so I scattered her remains on the carpet and then vacuumed them up.
Enjoy.
“It’s too hot,” they say, or “Isn’t it hot?” they ask.
It has been quite hot for some time now. I was reading (book 7) and it had something like “we can’t complain because it never normally lasted more than a few days” – about the English weather.
And, I suppose that’s true. Yes, I know it to be true.
Whereas, here, it is hot and sunny for weeks at a time,. Or months, even.
F came back yesterday, early evening. It is so nice to have him back. We were out with his friends last night, friends from college. Almost everything was Italian with few people speaking English. One guy had me confused with S. Apparently, so F said, S was really pesante (heavy/hard work), implying I was not. Which I’m not.
Today we had an appointment with the vet. I was getting worried that Dino had a form of arthritis or rheumatism. And as the days wore on, worried more and more. I have always accepted that dogs are dogs and that they have short lives but the idea that Dino might have something wrong with him was different. I know he won’t live forever but, still ………
Anyway, after checking we were told he was perfect, which came as a great relief.
Now, as we near the end of our time here, I wish it wouldn’t end. But such is life.
20 – 22/8
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
Books, to me, are like films. Films that last a few days rather than a couple of hours.
With both films and books, I “lose” myself whilst I become involved, encapsulated into the story. I love both but, with exception of some films, books provide a greater satisfaction. Except, I do like a more “open” ending.
I really don’t want a book to “finish”. And they lived happy ever after is not for me. I want a book that is like a dream or a nightmare where the end is left hanging so that I can decide, based on my mood, what should happen next.
So, I start this latest book and find it is (at the moment) about reading. About the joys of reading. About the smells and the requirements for good books.
And I wonder why I was never really involved in “books” at some level.
The book was good but, given the ending, I think that, probably, I am in the minority when it comes to ending. It seems most people like to have the ends tied up with a neat bow.
Although the ending to this one (with one small exception) was not really ‘happy ever after’ and so it scraped through into the reasonable catalogue, in my brain.
Now I have started Visibility by Boris Starling.
So that’ll be book 6 then. In fact, as F is not here, I took book 5 home and finished it last night. After all, I wasn’t going anywhere and, after dinner, it’s nice to read with a glass of wine. The only problem is, now, that dusk falls too early and I had to finish reading indoors – even if it was really to hot to be inside!
Interestingly because here, in Italy, it seems twins are everywhere (I have NEVER seen so many twins as here), both books 5 and 6 include twins.
Maybe more on that later.
Holidays are for relaxing, unwinding and doing what you want. I’m doing a lot of reading this holiday. It’s one of those pleasures I have with not being near a computer. I have the phone, sure, but it’s not the same.
This year, however, I have not read my usual book – Blind Assassin but a few books from my bookcase that I never got round to reading or that were recentish presents..
One of the books that I finished a few days ago was The Beach. I didn’t really want to read it, having seen the film and thought it was a bit pretentious. But I’ve read it now anyway. I got it given to me from someone leaving Milan, I think.
As usual, the book was far superior to the film and it all makes much more sense now.
The other book I really wasn’t crazy about reading was Vernon God Little. It’s a bit like 50 Shades of Grey or The Da Vinci Code – I don’t mean the story nor, God forbid, the atrocious writing, I mean as in one of those that everyone has read. In this case, however, apart from the end, which, to me, really spoilt the whole story, the book was, well, interesting. I doubt if I would re-read either of them but they turned out OK in the end.
I have also read “Old Age and How to Survive it” – an amusing book given to me by Best Mate. And I can now say – old age, bring it on 
I am currently reading “the Various Haunts of Men” – a complete change from the others as it is a thriller. It’s very good and hard to put down.
Luckily, I have another 4 books to go and, although I probably won’t read them all, as F goes back to Milan on Sunday, I may get through a couple.
And I have found it so nice to be able to read. To have the time for reading. Damned computers that take up (and waste) so much time!
I have been reading a lot this holiday. And it always means that I find words that aren’t used so often and, because I live here, I never use now.
One of these was charabanc (pronounced shar – uh – bang), meaning coach or bus, usually for tourists and often used for day trips. An old, English word, little used nowadays. A rather splendid word, I think.
The second was a Scottish word, dreich (pronounced dreek) meaning dreary and dark, applied to the weather (we wouldn’t really use it so much here anyway). It does, in my mind summon up a rather damp and miserable day.
“….it was the multicultural aspects of the developed [countries] that fostered this mutual distancing [state from state]. By creating a culture in which the international media and entertainment industry had more influence than the national political class of any state, the states of the twenty-first century had also created a powerful weapon that destabilised other societies and, even in their own societies, brought forth violent reactions that sought to restore the cultural values that were apparently being cast away. International communications at first made famines in faraway countries moving and tragic; eventually, these events seemed tiresome and inevitable. International communications initially made the prosperity and liberty of the developed states alluring; eventually these qualities came to seem vulgar and addictive. The national political class was powerless to either lead a state’s people toward compassion or insulate a state from cultural invasion. The fragmentation that then occurred in these developed states was only an inner reflection of the alienation their peoples felt toward the outer, foreign world; the contact with other cultures had reinforced the intractability of cultural differences and the felt need to avoid the frustration and danger of such encounters. ”
This book is great but just so heavy. It’s taken me a year to read and, if I’m honest, I couldn’t really tell you the salient points. Sometimes I had to re-read pages over two or three times as I found I was reading it without actually taking anything in! It’s not a light read. However, it is interesting. As a speaker, the guy is fantastic and his lectures must be some of the most interesting.