Other writers

I like thrillers mainly but in the past I have read books of many different genres. Spy novels, I never quite understood; the plots were beyond my tiny brain. I also tried reading some of the modern classics from the likes of John Steinbeck but they weren't really for me.

I read Lord of the Rings twice. On a third attempt I got half-way through and gave up. Why read the same book three times? I read Conrad's Lord Jim and forced myself to finish it. Not my cup of tea, it did contain one line which stuck with me. Describing the manner in which one of the character's spoke, Conrad wrote that he had learned English by reading a dictionary compiled by a lunatic. Brilliant.

Spike Milligan's war memoirs I have read over and over again. In describing a long NAAFI queue in Italy he says that the people at the front of the queue were from WW1. Again, a brilliant line but one of many in his case.

Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra is the only book that I have given up on. I think he might have been the person described by Conrad...

The Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe were a disappointment. I am on hiatus with that one - four years to date.

Tomorrow, if I remember, I will talk more about the books I do like.