What I've been reading

Holes
by Louis Sachar

narrated by Kerry Beyer

"Stanley Yelnats has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake in Texas, where the Warden makes the boys 'build character' by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep."

It's a book for young adults but I enjoyed it hugely. I think I've been subjecting myself to works of quality for too long, so an easy read with a great story, good writing and plausible plot is unexpectedly pleasurable. All my reading should be fun; I have let it become too worthy.

The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe
by Arther Koestler

"A thought-provoking account of the scientific achievements and lives of cosmologists from the Babylonians to Newton."

I thought this would be an interesting history of astronomy from the viewpoint of someone writing in 1959, and I also remember finding it interesting when I read it in my teens. It is, however, dense, academic and enormous, covering the lives as well as the work of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler and Galileo in immense detail but giving Newton not much more than a couple of paragraphs. I had a marathon journey home from Italy which gave me the chance to do some prolonged reading, otherwise I'm not sure I could have finished it.

The Assassin's Prayer
by Ariana Franklin

"The King of England has ordered his Mistress of the Art of Death - anatomist and doctor Adelia Aguilar - to accompany 10-year-old Princess Joanna on her thousand-mile journey to marry the King of Sicily. They must take with them the legendary sword Excalibur."

The fourth and last book of this series - last because the author died after writing this one. It's pretty good, but not as good as the previous ones, and there's much less of the anatomy and forensics which contributed a lot to the appeal of the first books.


Not much reading in two months, but my current audio book is an epic tome lasting more than 48 hours and I'm only half way through. Spending a week on holiday puts me in arrears with my podcast listening too, so books take second place until I've caught up!