10 Characters, 10 books, 10 problems
The first thing you’ll notice about this post is that there are in fact three of everything rather than the promised ten. After this it all goes downhill.
New Ways to Read Books
There are two new ways to read books. First of all, there’s Google Book Search, which allows readers to find and read public domain books on-screen. As an author, you may also provide digital .pdf versions of your own works or sample/preview chapters and tables of contents. Books that are out of copyright like Peter Pan can be found in the book search’s ever growing library.
A Spot Of Bother – Mark Haddon
After thoroughly enjoying Haddon’s extraordinary Curious Incident I was very interested to read this, partly to see how he would write when not through the eyes of an autistic boy. His style remains, but points of view drift between several well-written members of a modern family and their respective spots of bother. Each character is meticulously crafted (like Jamie and Katie, brother and sister whose traits and relationship woes come alive on the page), while their problems are both familiar and fresh (lost loves, who to marry, whether to let on about your mother’s affair). Some parts are cringeworthy (in a good way), like George (a 57 year-old who is constantly worried about death) and his scissor incident and the story manages great humour through character interactions and their thoughts – culminating in a very memorable scene where all the characters and loose ends come together to satisfy.
