What I've been reading

Death in Holy Orders
by P. D. James

"At St. Anselm's - an embattled, isolated theological college on England's windswept East Anglian coast - when the body of seminarian Ronald Treeves is literally unearthed from a suffocating pile of sand, a coroner's jury turns in a verdict of accidental death. Arms manufacturer Sir Alred Treeves, Ronald's adoptive father, questions the verdict and arranges to have Dalgliesh reinvestigate the boy's death."

Pretty good holiday reading. A short review today.

Clarity for Lawyers
by Mark Adler and Daphne Perry

"This unique book debunks the myth that legalese is precise. Using many before-and-after examples, this book explains how you can increase your efficiency, profits and client approval while making your documents more readable and reliable."

I have to declare an interest - this edition was co-written by Sister D. Despite this, or more likely because of it, I thought it was excellent. Of course it would be a great disappointment if a book about clear language was not well written, but I learned a few things even though I'm not a lawyer and know hardly anything about the law. The things I learned include how astonishingly convoluted legal language can be even when it is written clearly, but also the five (five!) different meanings of the simple phrase 'Time flies like an arrow'. Highly recommended to all, although probably most interesting to lawyers and sisters.

The Honorary Consul
by Graham Greene

"In a provincial Argentinian town a group of revolutionaries kidnap the wrong man. Their victim - Charley Fortnum, the 'Honorary Consul' - is sixty-one years old, living on whisky and his disputed status as British consul."

He is very earnest, old Graham Greene. You can feel the pain of his conflict with the Catholic Church in this novel, and the penultimate chapter is very fine indeed. But I'm still giving myself worthy books to read and I really should go for something more entertaining for a change.

Love Among the Chickens
by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"The irrepressible scrounger Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge and his jolly new wife Molly have identified Dorset as an ideal place to set up a chicken farm. They take with them the author Jeremy Garnet, who plans to swim and play golf alongside his writing, but finds life more complicated than he expected."

An early book in the author's career, but pretty successful as far as I'm concerned. I downloaded it in six weekly podcast instalments, and first it amused me that the American narrator pronounced 'Featherstonehaugh' as 'feather stone huff. Why on earth should he know about this ridiculous and archaic quirk of the English language? Then it amused me that by episode 6 he was correctly saying 'fan shaw'. How did he find out? Will he now go back and correct the early episodes too?

Writing for Pleasure and Profit
by Michael Legat

"Brimming with useful advice and tips, this guide to writing warns against common pitfalls and teaches you how to adopt a professional attitude towards your work."

Written in 1986, which is when I first thought about writing for a living. How times have changed! No need to pay a typist, or wait for a publisher's reply to come in the post, or hope that your bundle of paper will be returned so you don't have to type it again from the carbon in order to submit it to another publisher. No need to write to the BBC to ask for a copy of their guide 'Writing for the BBC' to be sent in the post. It would be interesting to discover how authors approach publishers and submit their work for scrutiny these days.