Wow, I've been slack recently. In all sorts of ways; not least on here...

I finally started reading A Tale of Two Cities the weekend before this one just gone, on the way to Paris (thank you Rosie and Andy respectively). What an incredible book. I'm definitely a Dickens convert. Verbose he may be but he certainly knew how to plot, and how to tackle some rather huge themes. Are all of his books about redemption, or is that just me? Nice to look back and see that The Frozen Deep led me to such interesting books; next up, No Name.

Finally got over my allergy and read The Da Vinci Code, in a day, in bed, last week. That was Andy's fault too. Not as badly written as I was expecting, but a thriller that doesn't really deliver isn't much of a thriller, is it? What annoyed me most about it is how wet/postmodern it ended up being; the bit where someone or other says that it doesn't really matter what you believe - either version of the story is true - just rendered the whole book/conspiracy rather pointless/toothless. If it doesn't matter or not whether Jesus married and had kids, the secret's hardly explosive.

Anyway, now at least I feel slightly less cloistered, and I'm on to Russell Hoban's frankly extraordinary Riddley Walker, which Dad's been going on at me to read since I was a teenager. Hooked from the first page, with the post-apocalyptic setting, the mythic account of the little shining man being split apart, Riddley's language, the Eusa/Punch show... extraordinary is really the only word. And the cover of the edition I have (from Estelle, who's sadly leaving us soon) is brilliant. Read it, please.