I was lucky enough to spend a week staying in the south of France with family. Here’s what I read while I was there:
The Search for the Dice Man by Luke Rhineheart – This has been on my list ever since I read The Dice Man. The Dice Man was really good: I liked the writing style, the plot was good and the characters were intriguing. The Search for the Dice Man, while retaining an enjoyable writing style, was otherwise not good: the plot didn’t seem to hang together and the characters (partly because of the terrible plot) didn’t seem meaningful or fixed in their attributes. This was an enjoyable book with a few good scenes in it (most notably at the very beginning and the very end) but if I were to choose again, I wouldn’t bother reading it.
Incompetence by Rob Grant – This is a ‘mystery’ but more of a comedy about a world where incompetence is no longer a barrier. Our hero, who is by turns Harry Salt, Harry Tequile and Cardrew Vascular, travels across Europe to follow the clues his friend has left him and struggles with pilots with vertigo, trains that don’t stop at stations and more. This book was hilarious – thoroughly recommended.
America Unchained by Dave Gorman – This is yet another travel book. In this one, Dave Gorman attempts to travel across America from coast to coast without giving any money to The Man (i.e. without shopping at any chain stores). For me, the key to this genre of book is the narrator, and Dave Gorman was brilliant. I’ll definitely be reading more by him.
God is Dead by Ron Currie – The premise of the book is in the title: having taken on the body of a young woman in the Sudan, God has died. This is a series of short stories about the world left behind, including an interview with one of the dogs who ate part of His body and the story of a man whose job is to stop people worshipping their own children because they have nothing to do on Sundays. The first few stories were good, but in general, I found the collection lacking and dull.
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