Ninth Sunday Salon 12.15

I am having a few days of doing nothing. Nothing, that is except reading books, eating and going for a few walks. I am feeling a bit jaded and I think it will do me good to have a change. Yesterday I finished of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE by Mary Lawson which was truly excellent - one of those books you are sad after they've ended because you enjoyed being in their land so much. It was a very accessible read, especially for a Booker longlisted book, and quite sad. I thought the structure clever: alternate chapters dealt with Arthur as a young man (an inarticulate not-very-sharp-but-good-natured farmer) in the 1930s and then Arthur as seen through the eyes of Ian about twenty years later. The themes, I think, were sibling rivalry and guilt - and also, to some extent, the concept of 'coming of age'.


At the moment I am reading HURTING DISTANCE by Sophie Hannah - another book I started a couple of Sunday Salons ago. This is another thoroughly enjoyable read - interesting and intriguing in equal measure. Strangely, this too has an alternate chapter style. The 'victim' tells her tale in first person - addressing the man who has disappeared who is her lover; while activities of the investigating officers are described in the third person. It's a really good idea and works well.