Recently Read: Tears and Laughter

I tripped up a bit during March, with the whole no-buying-more-books thing.

First there was a dragon book – The Flight of Dragons by Peter Dickinson – then there was The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell (but I’m only counting it as one book because it’s an all-in-one copy). M and I tried ITV’s The Durrells on Netflix, you see, and we don’t think we’ve seen anything funnier. So I had to get the books.

I did, though, insist to myself that I had to read the one from the TBR pile that I’ve been failing to get to each month so far: Claire North’s 84K. It was a struggle to get through, and not because I had My Family and Other Animals (the first of The Corfu Trilogy) beckoning me.

84K was tedious and depressing and reminded me why I don’t normally bother with dystopian novels. And it has all sorts of Literary Formatting with half sentences and broken paragraphs and tediousness of that nature. I don’t care how atmospheric or whatever such formatting is supposed to be, or how reflective of the content. It distracts me, I don’t like it, and I therefore probably skimmed too much to really Understand The Story.

It was with relief that I closed the back cover of 84K and turned to My Family and Other Animals, which did not let me down. Too, too funny. I only read it a chapter or two in a sitting because I enjoyed it so much and it made me laugh so much. I probably annoyed M a bit by insisting that I simply MUST read this passage or that passage to him, through such guffaws of laughter I could barely speak to read. I expect this will continue with Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods. I hope it will, anyway.

I can see them joining all my Heyers on the Comfort Read Shelf, and being reread many, many times. And I want to run away to Corfu.