Scribblings

Bad Weather and Bad Books

This cold weather is kicking my butt and all my joints. This morning all my joints were inflamed and the ibuprofen didn't work. I've become spoiled by the mild weather and I sure will be happy to see it return! I slept for a couple of hours this morning (my one escape when the ibuprofen doesn't work) and I feel a little bit better.

It seems like a good time to talk about As The Crow Flies by Jeffery Archer. Boy, what a disappointment! I picked it up for a quarter at the library thinking that it was a book on my wishlist. It sat around with a ton of other books while I bought and traded other books over the last 6 months or so. Finally, I decided NO MORE new-used books until I started going through the pile I already had.

This book is a rag-to-riches story about a young man growing up in the East End of London, becomes a self-made "honest trader" by the time he's 16, goes off to fight in World War I, comes back, gets married to his "childhood sweetheart" and then builds a department store empire while fending off a bitter enemy. It was the male version of A Woman Of Substance which was a much better book.

The synopsis I just gave is just about the way the book was written too. This happened then that and so on and so forth. The story was told by about 5 or 6 different characters which made it even more annoying because these characters would go back to repeat their versions of the same story--which wasn't all that engaging to begin with. Worse, these characters were all flat, there was no depth to them. There was plenty of tragedy in the book but the characters just seemed to breeze through each crisis unruffled.

Eh.

It's an okay book to read if you don't want to think or become emotionally involved. Otherwise, I would not recommend it to anyone.

Ten on Tuesday