This book does an excellent job of conveying the feeling and atmosphere of the times and places it describes – Paris and London in WW1, Kenya in early colonial days. In fact the descriptions of the Kenyan landscape and early colonial farms are captivating to the extreme – it is one of only a few books that have aroused in me an interest in actually seeing Africa.

A highly recommended read from me, and if you’re a Nancy Mitford or Evelyn Waugh fan a MUST-read!

1. I found out there is a new Kazuo Ishiguro book in paperback – Nocturnes : Five Stories of Music and Nightfall. This makes me so excited I can’t begin to tell you! Every Ishiguro book is like this jewel inside a treasure box that I don’t want to open, because I know it will be so perfectly beautiful that I will cry and the world will be a totally different place. Yes, I like him THAT much.

2. I have acquired a copy of Marcus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger. I am so, so, SO hoping that this will be as good as The Book Thief, which was brilliant. Or even a little bit as good, which would still be very, very good.

3. I have also acquired a copy of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, which I am also very excited about. Mainly because I think the phrase “The Bolter” is fantastic and the whole London Jazz Age era visions it conjures up are just fun with a capital F(lapper).

Kazuo Ishiguro

So it was a good weekend for me! I have done what I do with all new books, and that is put them to one side and look at them longingly a lot, whilst choosing to read other books that I am not as interested in and that I know won’t be as good. Why do I do this? I don’t know, but I think it’s an attempt to draw out the process – once I start reading I know I will read fast and then it will be over too soon. As an extreme example, I haven’t even bought the Ishiguro! I just know it’s sitting, waiting for me in the bookshop…