This challenge I set myself of reading books with one word titles has been interesting.
They’ve come from friends, op shops (charity), cruise ships (drop & swap), book clubs, a box in the garage and of course the library.
There’s been some newish releases…..others oldish as in middle of last century. Because it was the title that mattered I’ve read some previously unknown authors.
The content has been very different – like I said I’ve looked at the title not the back of the book
Recent ones have included……
- Heaven – Victoria (V.C.) Andrews ……about a young girl who’s mother died, her stepmother died, then her father sold her and the other children, there’s her ‘first love’, life with her ‘new family’ and the quest to find her sisters and brothers as well.
- Promise – Tony Cavanaugh…… has a retired Victorian homocide cop solving what seem like young ‘runaway’ murders but are actually ‘snatches’ up in Noosa. Lots of detailed descriptions of the crimes also the thinking and planning by the murderer.
- Yesternight – Cat Winters….. set in 1920s, a child psychologist employed by an education dept comes to ‘test’ children in a very small one room school. She actually there under false pretences to interview one of the students who ‘has episodes where she believes she lived a previous life’. As well as the main storyline about the child and reincarnation, it covers social issues such as attitudes to women’s sexuality, feminism, job discrimination, problems of returned servicemen.
All the previous books have been set in modern days and written in language I could understand….no grabbing a dictionary or looking up online needed.
‘The long awaited box’ from the library arrived the other day with another one to go towards the challenge. I’d taken to looking in the catalogue for books beginning with xxxxx and came up with this one for V…….Voss by Patrick White written in 1957, set in 1840s Sydney about a ‘secret passion’ between an explorer and a young women.
Now I don’t shy from a challenge but I think it’s going to be a ‘long’ read, the language is ‘set to the time period’, filled with old fashioned rarely used words and phrases. This is what confronted me on page 1
It was now the young woman’s duty to give some order. In the end she would perform that duty with authority and distinction, but she did always hesitate at first. She would seldom come out of herself for choice, for she was happiest shut with her own thoughts, and such was the texture of her marble, few people ever guessed at these.
It took me a little while to understand what was meant by the texture of her marble.
First ‘never heard of it before’ phrase I came across was hugger-mugger. Confused- jumbled – muddled.
Which is obviously not that unknown because blow me down if Helen doesn’t use it in her latest post at The Venomous Bead
Yes I’m thinking this book will be read in short bursts in between others 😊.
Still Waters 