Books I haven't read

A fellow dog walker was delighted when she found a copy of Schindler's List at the Lions' book fair last month. She had recently visited Krakow and seen the factory and had also seen the film, so she wanted to read the book. But this morning she told me she was finding it hard going and I suggested that as she was, I assumed, reading it for pleasure, she might as well give up on it. I always do that with books that I find I am not enjoying. I don't belong to a book club (or group or whatever it is they are called) so I have no need to read a book from cover to cover just so that I can take part in dissecting it at the next meeting. I read solely for my own pleasure so I feel no compunction in putting aside a book I am not liking after reading the first fifty pages or couple of chapters or so. Two authors who have suffered this ignominious fate recently are Peter May and David Baldacci. Both were recommended to me by friends who have an idea of my reading tastes, although I was warned that Peter May is a bit like Patricia Cornwell, who is another author I don't read. In fact, it was the over-abundance of Chinese characters (and therefore names) that put me off the May book. As for Baldacci, I found it all just a bit too far-fetched and James-Bond-like. On the other hand, I read a couple of Dorothy Simpson books while in France and quite enjoyed them, and at the library I found a McCall Smith title in the 1st Ladies' Detective Agency series that I had not read so I have been able to enjoy some reading.