Books

Moby beside his favorite Mouse.

Just read Precious Bane by Mary Webb. Having been enchanted by the BBC/PBS filmed version of the book two decades ago, I snatched it up when I saw it in the library, on a staff recommended shelf. I don't think I'd realized, when I saw the series, that a book lay behind it. (That year was a very low point in my life.)

It's a romance, no doubt there, but one lacking in pretension or sugary sentiment. No castles or riches, and our love's hero is literate more than brawny, and Prue Sarn is both strong from plowing, and "Hare-shotten" instead of some ideal Snow White. It's set in a different time, but the smart people have common sense, and people act like people without any need for modern psychobabble. Perhaps 1924 was the last time this could happen.

I would not recommend this one universally, it's odd, quiet, very internal, harsh and uncompromising as any I've ever read. But it held me tight until I got to the end, and the pressure of this story will stay with me, I know. As does The Seven Ages by Eva Figes - a book that no one I know has ever read, not liking it enough to finish if they started it.

D has been reading Ken Hollings Welcome To Mars, which he had to order from British publishers, because it's never been printed here. Came with a CD of the radio series from Project Thrust, a podcast of some sort. I read the review of it in the Fortean Times, and knew it was right up D's proverbial alley, which it is. Fantasies of science in the American century, LSD, UFOs, the suburbs, government conspiracy, atomic bombs, Walt Disney and Sci Fi movies.

Yes, I have begun again my love of books.