Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
Why I have it: Spotted in Katy’s #6Degrees chain.
Summary: Memory is in a maximum security prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, convicted of the murder of her adopted father. Her lawyer insists she writes down what happened – but was it all as she remembers?
I’m thinking: Yes.
Disaster Falls by Stéphane Gerson
Why I have it: I was intrigued by this NYT review.
Summary: On a rafting trip down Utah’s Green River, Stéphane Gerson’s eight-year-old son, Owen, drowned in a spot known as Disaster Falls. The book chronicles the aftermath of that day as the family come to terms with their post-Owen worlds.
“…losing a child is a hole without end, beyond the map of human experience.”
I’m thinking: Yes, but not now – I’ve read so much about grief lately and this would break me.
Mount! by Jilly Cooper
Why I have it: It’s Jilly…
Summary: Does it matter?
“Rupert Black had no income and fewer principles…”
I’m thinking: Yes. Because Jilly. And because any book that has a 20+ page character list, of which over half are ‘The Animals’, and of which sub-categories include ‘Rupert Campbell-Black’s Horses in Training’; ‘Horses in Rupert Campbell-Black’s Stud’; ‘Isa Lovell and Cosmo Rannaldini’s Horses in Training’; and ‘Other Horses Include’ deserves to be read because of the sheer ludicrousness.
I’ve never dipped into Jilly’s fictional waters (I hope that doesn’t read as a euphemism). Please do a review!
She’s the very best in trash. When everyone was carrying on about Fifty Shades (the worst book ever written…) and how original it was (not at all), I did wonder if any of these people had read the seminal ‘trashy’ authors – Jilly Cooper, Judith Krantz, Shirley Conran and Jackie Collins. Because as much as people would bag these books, they ARE WELL WRITTEN!
Ah, Jilly. She will always get my vote! The other 2 sound good too, but they’re not Jilly…
She certainly holds a special place on my shelf.
Hurray for The Book of Memory! I just bought a copy for my mum too; I WILL make everyone read that book.
Echoing Katy here…