There are times when altruism pays off.
I was searching through the bookshops of Castelldefels for an Ellis Peters novel, which I had recommended to Carlos and which I thought would make a suitable present for his birthday.
I had been to the one shop that I knew sold a range of books with a concerned if ineffectual bookseller: his fluent Spanish commentary on my request for any Peters’ novel was incomprehensible but I recognised failure when I heard it, even if I didn’t fully understand the words. My request (in fractured Spanish for other shops in the area which might sell the novel) was greeted with a despairing shrug.
It took a couple of days (and a certain amount of buying substitute presents because I couldn’t find the precise author) before I found in a bookshop in a side street which actually sold a variety of novels by Ellis Peters and, staring me in the face, lying on the counter, was the latest Harry Potter novel. In English.
I decided that Carlos was not the only one who was going to get a present!
I spent the rest of the morning reading the novel then I had to go to Terrassa and the birthday party. After which I resumed my reading and eventually went to bed at some unearthly hour of the morning. I mean really unearthly. I mean just about getting up time.
Once again the compulsive nature of Rowling’s writing was obvious and, like the other novels, it was a real page turner.
It is very easy to dismiss the literary quality of Rowling’s writing: she enjoys cliché and is a shameless ‘padder’ when it suits her. Her plots are like Gaudi cathedrals: full of bits and pieces; looking as though they’ve been made up as they were being created, but essentially interesting.
The set pieces are more than competently handled and the series comes to a satisfying conclusion; including an ‘epilogue’ for all those people who want to know what happened next. If I’m being cynical, the epilogue does give the opportunity for the author to expand the series by doing a ‘Next Generation’ twist on the well tried characters.
As most people will not have read the novel yet I will not give any ‘spoilers’; I will merely say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to the inevitable film.
We now have a date for the rest of our property to be delivered to Castelldefels: the third of August. As we will not be back from Majorca before the first of August this does not give me much time to make arrangements for the realistic accommodation of the Books. This is a problem which is going to cause chaos, but I will think tranquil thoughts and hope, with Mr Micawber, that something will turn up.
Apart from my books!
I was searching through the bookshops of Castelldefels for an Ellis Peters novel, which I had recommended to Carlos and which I thought would make a suitable present for his birthday.
I had been to the one shop that I knew sold a range of books with a concerned if ineffectual bookseller: his fluent Spanish commentary on my request for any Peters’ novel was incomprehensible but I recognised failure when I heard it, even if I didn’t fully understand the words. My request (in fractured Spanish for other shops in the area which might sell the novel) was greeted with a despairing shrug.
It took a couple of days (and a certain amount of buying substitute presents because I couldn’t find the precise author) before I found in a bookshop in a side street which actually sold a variety of novels by Ellis Peters and, staring me in the face, lying on the counter, was the latest Harry Potter novel. In English.
I decided that Carlos was not the only one who was going to get a present!
I spent the rest of the morning reading the novel then I had to go to Terrassa and the birthday party. After which I resumed my reading and eventually went to bed at some unearthly hour of the morning. I mean really unearthly. I mean just about getting up time.
Once again the compulsive nature of Rowling’s writing was obvious and, like the other novels, it was a real page turner.
It is very easy to dismiss the literary quality of Rowling’s writing: she enjoys cliché and is a shameless ‘padder’ when it suits her. Her plots are like Gaudi cathedrals: full of bits and pieces; looking as though they’ve been made up as they were being created, but essentially interesting.
The set pieces are more than competently handled and the series comes to a satisfying conclusion; including an ‘epilogue’ for all those people who want to know what happened next. If I’m being cynical, the epilogue does give the opportunity for the author to expand the series by doing a ‘Next Generation’ twist on the well tried characters.
As most people will not have read the novel yet I will not give any ‘spoilers’; I will merely say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to the inevitable film.
We now have a date for the rest of our property to be delivered to Castelldefels: the third of August. As we will not be back from Majorca before the first of August this does not give me much time to make arrangements for the realistic accommodation of the Books. This is a problem which is going to cause chaos, but I will think tranquil thoughts and hope, with Mr Micawber, that something will turn up.
Apart from my books!
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