Books Blog
Weekend Reads
Wednesday 2 November 2011
Two absolutely different books to read this weekend are The Time of My Life and The Rum Diary. Donal O'Donoghue has the stories for the 4 on Friday Specsavers specials
The Time of My Life by Cecelia Ahern (Harper Collins)
Cecelia Ahern is a wonder. At the age of 21 she wrote her first novel, PS, I Love You. Eight novels, a stage play, a TV series (Samantha Who?) and one short story collection, the 30-year-old is a publishing phenomenon.
Her latest is The Time of My Life, yet another best-seller.
I read this book carefully. By this I mean when in public places, I removed the dust cover in case someone saw that I was reading a book by Cecelia Ahern. However this story, my first Cecelia Ahern, proved to be a pleasant surprise.
Meet Lucy Silchester whose life is a mess. Her boyfriend has dumped her, she lives alone in a grotty apartment with her cat, Mr Pan and she drives a clapped out car she calls Sebastian.
Not only that but she works in a dead-end job translating manuals for domestic appliances. In short Lucy is the Irish version of Bridget Jones and with her thirtieth birthday on the horizon, she's feeling rather desperate.
Then one day she receives a letter to arrange a meeting with Life.
And that's when her life changes but not how she might imagine.
Cecelia Ahern's trick is penning romantic fiction that plays with the notion of otherworldly influence. It has proved a winning formula and her latest is no exception. This time the novel narrative is this: instead of meeting the man of your life what if you actually met your life itself?
So when Lucy gets a letter from the Life Agency - as you do - she decides to answer. And so begins a series of encounters involving serendipity, fate and a bloke who dials the wrong number. Lucy still hankers after her old flame but there's more fish in this sea.
It is all minor-key Bridget Jones until page 100 or so when Lucy is called upon to use her command of Spanish at work (she's as fluent as a Union Jack-wearing tourist in Playa des Ingles) all hell breaks loose. After that I was engaged, not just in Lucy but especially her workmates - who seemed to have strayed out of an episode of The Office.
There is quite a bit of humour in here - almost slapstick in places - as Ahern delivers a number of comic set-pieces: the gun-play in the office, a visit from a carpet cleaner and Lucy's attempts to reignite with her old flame.
The moral of the story is simple and age-old: before you can love anybody else you have to love yourself, your life. I was pleasantly surprised and Cecelia Ahern fans will sleep happily after putting this one to bed.
The Rum Diary by Hunter S Thompson (Bloomsbury Classics)
The Rum Diary was first written in 1959 by the father of gonzo journalism, Hunter S Thompson. The reason it's in the news at the moment is that the movie, which stars Johnny Depp, a close friend and confidant of the late Hunter S, opens here on November 11.
I first read The Rum Diary some years back when I got it free with a magazine. I had never heard of it before and when I started reading it I couldn't stop - just over two hundred pages of adventure, romance and madness. What more could you want? It's also a much more straightforward story than you might expect from Thompson, the man most famous for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
The Rum Diary tells the story of a shambolic journalist, our narrator Paul Kemp, who hightails it out of New York for a hack job in the wild and boozy boomtown of San Juan in Puerto Rico at the beginning of the Sixties. For Kemp it's out of the frying pan and into the fire. San Juan is a town of boozed up ex-pats, corrupt politicians and seemingly endless and crazy parties. In the course of Kemp falls for a beguiling beauty and gets caught up in a crazy vortex of drink, love and death.
This is a story about the fear of growing old, or living a life that was a lost cause. In a way it's a rage against dying and giving up and all that. The narrative style is intoxicating, the dialogue is punchy and pacy and it is a yarn about journalism that is every bit as compelling as the satirical classic, Scoop.
The Rum Diary has elements of Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald (writers that Hunter S idolised) but it uniquely Thompson and a riveting read. You will be able to rip thought this in a weekend.
Hunter S Thompson wrote the original manuscript when he was just 22 but it would be nearly another four decades years before The Rum Diary saw the light of day. It was eventually published in 1998 and critically hailed. If you haven't read a single word by Thompson this is the ideal introduction. And after you dip your beak into The Rum Diary I'll guarantee that you'll be hooked.
Depp incidentally was a good friend of Thompson - he played his alter ego in the film version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He financed his funeral and launched the great man's ashes from a cannon after he died in 2005.
Last weekend the movie tanked in the US, garnering just $5 million at the box-office: a disaster by Depp's standards. But don't let that put you off the book.
Donal O'Donoghue
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