Turns out the version I purchased of  The Peregrine also contains another writing, 'Hills of Summer', so I was much nearer to the end than I thought in my previous post. I'm now finished, and it ends just as it began, with prose of the highest order. This is the kind of book that can …
A slow burning fuse
I'm still reading  The Peregrine , and it is taking me a while. It is such beautiful writing but with no conflict, it is easy to set it down. But I always come back eventually, for the beautiful writing. It's like an expensive box of rare chocolate, you have one now and then and savor …
Exploring
Writing a story based in a city I've never been in is interesting, and fun. I wonder how writers did it before the age of the internet. I can drop down into the streets and virtually walk them to get a feel for the city. I can look up bars and restaurants and read reviews …
Great humor
I've started listening to Great Expectations  and am finding it very entertaining. He is quite adept at painting his characters in very memorable and overblown ways, while still keeping them from being caricatures or ridiculous. I've been laughing out loud a lot with this one so far. I wonder why all these classic novels …
The Looking Glass War, by John le Carre
The Looking Glass War , the second le Carre novel I've read, was much different from  The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It was about a completely other department, in fact, called 'the department.' The department doesn't usually send spies out into action, but they think, hey, why shouldn't we do that too? …
Jonas David 