I have been reading...

... several books, not all of them working for me but such is life. First of all Spring has sprung here in the UK and we have primroses!

 

 

So, I reread The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.

I think this is my third time of reading this joyous little book. Chasing after one of the corgis one day The Queen comes across the mobile library. It stops at Buckingham Palace really so that the numerous staff can use it but the only one who does is one of the kitchen staff, Norman. Feeling as though she should, The Queen borrows a book, enjoys it, goes back for more and rescues Norman from the kitchen. He becomes her mentor in reading, helping her to choose books and discussing them with her. It changes her in the manner in which it changes all of us who read. I can't remember who it was who said something like, 'I am the sum of all the books I have read', but it's true for readers. The Queen's 'higher up' staff don't particularly care for the changes, so what's to be done? Alan Bennett's gentle humour shines in this book, not laugh out loud funny but I giggled my way through it and it cheered me no end. I thought he got The Duke of Edinburgh particularly spot-on... absolutely hilarious. In a few years I suspect I will read this one for the fourth time.

Next, a non fiction, The Almost Nearly Perfect People by Michael Booth.

This is a study of the various countries that make up Scandinavia: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland. For anyone knowing nothing about those countries this would be a good place to start. Sadly for me, I have read books about several of them and what I found was that this author pretty much had the same observations to make as the others. All five countries have come at the top of happiness polls for years, but are they the perfect places to live that we're always being told they are? Yes.... and 'not necessarily' is the answer. There were things this book had to teach me. I wasn't aware of exactly how close the Swedish government was to Nazi Germany in WW2, that was a bit of an eye-opener. I didn't realise how rich Norway became after oil was discovered under The North Sea and how they may have diddled the Danes out of their share. Finland was the author's favourite country but they have huge problems with alcohol and guns and suicide rates. While interesting in parts, I found this book dragged a bit for me, I took 5 weeks to get through it and didn't touch it at all for days at a time. But it is very well written and a good place to start if you know nothing about Scandinavia.

Lastly, another non-fiction, The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray.

'In July 2015 a pair of extraordinarily large bloomers were auctioned in Wiltshire', is a pretty good starting sentence for any book, don'tcha think? Apparently they went for £12,900 and I'm pretty sure I remember it on the news... oh for the days when the news had time for that kind of article, we had no idea. Anyway, Queen Victoria loved her food, I think that's a truth universally acknowledged, and this book charts her relationship with it, pretty much chronologically but not pedantically so. She was quite the party animal when she was young, I didn't know that, thinking nothing of staying up all night eating and drinking but then she was a teenager when she came to the throne and, when it comes to teenagers, not much changes it seems. Albert tried to change her when they got married but it was bearing 9 children that did the trick and his death of course. It's thought that food was her way of coping with the grief but really, well-off Victorians 'did' eat a lot. It was interesting the way Annie Gray compared the guargatuan meals consumed at the palace with what the majority of The Queen's subjects were barely subsisting on. That's not to say she wasn't without sympathy and this book does, I think, get to the nitty-gritty of the woman. I enjoyed it, didn't love it, rather too many facts and figures and minute details of menus for my liking but not at all a bad read. I think this is a book to read if you already know a fair bit about Queen Victoria.

Happy Spring and I hope you're all finding some good books to read.