Skip to main content

Book a day weekend

So Saturday and Sundays topics were ‘An Old Favourite’ and ‘Favourite Fictional Father’

One did jump out immediately as an old favourite but I’m saving it for one of the ones later in the month. I have therefore decided to go for The Last Juror by John Grisham.

Grisham was a real change in direction of my reading. Up until then my back catalogue would have fit very comfortably in a retirement home given that they were all gentile Binchy type choices. My mum at the time was a member of one of those book clubs where they send you a catalogue every month you order say 6 books over 12 months then get a free one. The free one in this case was John Grisham – The Brethren. It was about law, something that I was developing an interest in at the time so I thought I would give it a go.

BAM I have never looked back.

I loved the fast paced world of the American legal system and quickly devoured everything he had ever written. Like Binchy, he too became quiet formulaic after a time (young rookie lawyer with no money takes on big firm) but I didn’t mind, Grisham still took me along for the ride. To be honest it’s over 15 years since I read most of them and they do tend to have blurred into one another but the one that stands out still to this day is The Last Juror. It was a slightly different take to his previous ones (only ever so slightly) and had me virtually in tears by the end something that no other Grisham book has done.

I tend to not read so many Grisham books now, I think I overindulged and made myself sick of them for a while. We did read Skipping Christmas for Book Club though which was good and a big departure from his previous work. I think it’s been long enough for me now to go and read one of his newer ones and really enjoy it as I do still love crime thrillers, something which I owe massively to Grisham. Do read his early ones if you haven’t they are really good just not all at once back to back

I confessed I hit Google for Favourite Fiction Father. I just couldn’t think of any. Sure enough up came a list of 100 possibles for me to choose from. Don’t you just love Google! One jumped from the page immediately, more so because we have recently read Death comes to Pemberley. Can you guess who? Mr Bennett. I love how he handles living in a house with so many women including the infamous Mrs Bennett. He seems to dearly love Lizzie and really in a society where it’s all about money and security allows his daughters freehand to love whom they choose (good job they turned out to be Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy huh?)

This category is one though where really memory is the biggest test. I am sure there are loads of father figures out there that I love but just can’t remember at the time of writing. Please jog my memory!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mount by Jilly Cooper #inbetweeny

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o...

Stitch Up (A Best Defence Mystery) by William McIntyre #BlogTour

OK hold on everybody for MY FIRST EVER BLOG TOUR!!!!!!!!! Did I like it? Did I manage to read it in time? Did I forget to post my review when I should have done? Yes, yes and (thankfully) no! Stitch Up is the ninth in the Best Defence Series featuring Scottish defence lawyer Robbie Munro. As a solicitor not a policeman who successfully runs his own law firm, is recently married and has a daughter the book immediately set itself apart from your standard crime thriller. The book begins with Robbie's ex girlfriend asking him to investigate the apparent suicide of her new boyfriend (awkward!). At the same time a convicted child-murderer is attempting to have his conviction quashed (if I remember the term correctly Mr McIntyre?) claiming Robbie's dad ex sergeant Alex Munro planted key evidence at the scene of the crime (double awkward!). I liked the two stories running along side each other which kept the pace of the book moving swiftly forwards. In real life McIntyre is ...

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray and a 30 a day habit.

Nothing like challenging oneself in the New Year and rather than giving up alcohol and only eating steamed kale the Book Club decided on reading the 900 odd page doorstop that is Vanity Fair . I ordered it at once and (using something vaguely like maths) worked out I needed to read 30 pages a day to have it read in time for the meeting. I was surprisingly undeterred by this and thought if nothing else I could use the book as a dumbbell when working off the chocolate orange.   I found I actually liked hitting my 30 a day target (much like all the other New Years' resolutioners like hitting their ten thousand steps) and it motivated me to just squeeze a few more pages in here and there so I was ahead of target. I haven’t really approached a book this way before but then it is longer than my copy of War and Peace and there are over 50 books on my bookshelf waiting to be read (now in 'to read' order due to much prating about over Christmas).        I didn’t kno...