Some reading ideas

I started reading "Life and Fate" while I was in Lima but have had to change my reading habits here in Cusco for logistical reasons. It's a rather large volume indeed, I forget how many pages but as big as if not bigger than War & Peace. So it's way too heavy for me to carry around with me, as well as my Spanish books and notebooks and stuff for keeping the kids at La Policia entertained, such as drawing paper, pencils and books, of which there are none available on site. As well as which I carry a light weight waterproof. Mind you I don't actually carry all this all of the time as I'm able to leave the bits I don't need in Maximo along with my laptop.

So anyway Life & Fate is back on the shelf until I get back to edinburgh. From what I've read so far it's a stunning piece of work. A bit complex and complicated but the BBC provided a kind of family tree for all the main characters which I printed out before I left and which does help.

So instead I'm reading Peter Carey's book "Parrot and Olivier in America" which I'm thoroughly enjoying. I think I've recommended one of his books before, The True History of the Kelly Gang. He's one of my favourite authors of the modern variety, up there with Roth etc. His research is as usual phenomenal so it's a history lesson combined with a great read. Set at time of French Revolution and moves from there to USA with trips to UK as well.

I think I will finish with a quote from it which fairly made me squirm with delight. They don't do sex like this anymore and God knows where he gets his descriptive powers from but they are "amazing" and there's lots more besides. So here it is and I hope he doesn't demand any fees:

" I ate her, drank her, boiled her, stroked her till she was like a lovely flapping fish and her hair was drenched and our eyes held and our skins slid off each other and we smelled like farm animals, seaweed, the tanneries upriver. She lay in my arms, exhausted, slippery, weeping with relief, and after what we had been through, ............. It was meet and right that we should cry. "

Brings back memories?? Does it not? Enough sex for tonight.

I see Kilmarnock did well today too so more rejoicing in Kentucky if not elsewhere. Thank you to Liverpool for a little help today. And RIP Gary Speed.