I give you: the last 3 books of the week. In abbreviated form.

Man, I'm behind.

I'm lucky I have some short books saved up. And I can't even muster the energy to review them properly. I like them all a lot. That's less interesting than talking about books I don't like anyhow, which is good, otherwise I might feel guilty.

Three Men In a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

I said pretty much everything I wanted to say about JKJ when reviewing Three Men On The Bummel last week.



Ditto with the review of Griffin & Sabine by Bantock. In the two below their correspondence, and odd love affair, continues. I felt the introduction of an odd menacing figure in the concluding Mean weakened the story; it just wasn't pulled together into the mythology of the pairs' relationship well enough. But that's a quibble, really.

Sabine's Notebook


The Golden Mean



The only interesting thing I have left to say about the above three books is that I own them all. Since I get 90% of my reading from the Seattle Public Library and I buy books about once in a blue moon, you know that means something. Moreover, these three have survived the culing process of four moves, two of them cross-country.

I can re-read Three Men In A Boat a hundred times and it will never stop being amusing and relaxing. I can take Bantock's books down from the shelf and leaf through them for a few seconds and get something new out of it each time I do, whether it's because I notice a new detail or because it just reads differently on a rainy spring day than it did on a crisp fall one.

They are well-beloved.