What I've been reading

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
by Mark Twain

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"This is the story of a boy's adventures growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi river. The cheerful, adventurous hero plays truant to form a pirate band and, together with his best friend, Huckleberry Finn, finds fun, excitement, and buried treasure along the shores of the great river."

I thought that B. J. Harrison would do a better job of a book by an American writer, rather than his previous patchy attempts at British and French pronunciation and place names. And he does. Although I'm sure to have read it on some previous occasion, there wasn't much that I remembered. And an easy read, unlike the one below...

The Audacity of Hope
by Barack Obama

"Barack Obama engages themes raised in his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, shares personal views on faith and values and offers a vision of the future that involves repairing a 'political process that is broken' and restoring a government that has fallen out of touch with the people."

A heavy book (in ideas rather than mass), and I think I would have got more out of it if I had better knowledge of United States politics and personalities. The book was written in 2006, when Obama was a Senator, just two years before being elected President. The US Senate comprises 2 Senators from each State (i.e. 100 Senators), and the most astonishing fact presented in the whole book is that in the US Senate at that time (just six years ago), there were three Latinos, two Asian members (both from Hawaii), and he was the only African American in the chamber. Unbelievable. I find from further research that Barack Obama was "the first male, black Democrat to serve in the Senate." I am in awe of the man.

Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog)
by Jerome K Jerome

"Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a 'T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks - not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J's small fox-terrier Montmorency."

I was looking for something bite-size and entertaining - my pile of books to be read contains little in the way of easy fiction. Having recently read the wonderful 'To Say Nothing of the Dog' by Connie Willis, I thought it was a good time to re-read the first half of the title. It's only a little book, and a good companion to the Mark Twain as they write in a very similar style. Most enjoyable.