So, here are the two more memorable books I read while recovering this week –
1) Never hit a jellyfish with a spade and
2) Latitude zero: tales of the equator
I checked out four books and dipped into all of them .. these are the two that I fully read, the two that actually caught and captured my attention.
First book, Never hit a Jellyfish with a Spade. I read this before the surgery, and it was perfect for it. I would call it Dave Barry, British flavor. Small book of little essays on ‘surviving life’s smaller challenges’ (that’s the subtitle of the book). Each essay was 2-3 pages long (small pages) – like a newspaper column length. Each one was very dry, very funny in that peculiar dry british way, and it was very good for laughing and displacing the stress that I had before going in.
Amazon – Never hit a Jellyfish with a Spade
Second book, Latitude zero : tales of the Equator, was an interesting book to read later in the recovery process, before I was ready to go back to work but after I was awake enough to be tired of the TV. It was a good book for that purpose, and I enjoyed it, but I feel like it missed the mark the authors set in the introduction. I have a feeling the intro described the book they wanted to write, but it didn’t quite materialize into the book they came up with.
According to the intro, this was supposed to be a view of history from the equatorial viewpoint. However, it was much more what the title suggests; a collection of historical vignettes which took place around the equator. Perhaps the authors were aiming for something different .. or perhaps they tried too hard with the intro and made it sound like they were after something they hadn’t intended. But other than that disconnect, it was a good collection of stories.
In four parts covering Asia, South American, Africa, and India, arrayed in rough chronological order, with 3-5 small stories in each section, it was a very interesting set of short stories, most of which I was completely unfamiliar with. So it was interesting and educational. Writing was good, presentation was good; it was a nice recovery book.
According to Amazon, the Sunday Times, London said of the jellyfsh book:
“A brilliant one-off in which everyday matters are skewered with deadpan style and deadly accuracy. ”
Sounds like a book i would like to read.
Amazon has the ‘look inside the book’ feature for the jellyfish book – you can read the little essay on exercise, which is pretty representative of the rest of the essays in length, tone, humor (humour), etc.
Actually, the back flyleaf says he is a regular columnist for a London paper, so this might be a collection of columns. Or something like that.
He is compared to Dave Barry.