It is always interesting and worthwhile reading books one wouldn’t usually read. People talk blithely about bad writing when what they usually mean they didn’t “get” the book. Some people like a book with a fast pace others prefer a more leisurely stroll. Some like detailed discussion of military hardware and some joycean descriptions of thought processes done in real time.
I am currently reading for the Festival of Book Clubs held at Lord Wandsworth College in a few weeks time – authors that I probably wouldn’t have read but which I have enjoyed in different ways. Fergus McNeill’s Knife Edge about a serial killer was gripping and Fanny Blake’s entertaining The Secrets Women Keep was more than the floaty beach read that the cover suggests. Katherine Webb’s Misbegotten is a slow-burn historical mystery which accelerates into a frantic page turner. Next week I am planning something completely different – the new Martin Amis or David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks?