A few years ago I was working in another department and the office was situated very close to the British Library. My boss, who happened to be a cop, had a membership there. Another colleague was also a member. The enjoyable part was that though I was not a member I could go into the library and browse to my heart’s content, and also borrow books. It was in the British Library that I found my first Paul Theroux book- ‘Dark Star Safari.’ I also happened to come across Dirk Bogarde’s ‘For the Time Being: Collected Journalism’ which had a selection of his book reviews.
I borrowed the book on my boss’ card and read it. I liked the way he wrote and enjoyed his reviews of some good books. I found his other books over the years such as ‘An Orderly Man,’ A Postillion Struck by Lightning’, ‘Backcloth’ and ‘Snakes and Ladders’ that I found at a second hand store in, of all places, Goa. I was looking for ‘For the Time Being’ for a long time and at last on Thursday I chanced upon it in a second hand book store in Secunderabad. I also found another book by one of my favorite writer, Elmore Leonard’s ‘Switch’.
Leafing through ‘For the Time Being’ I was surprised to find there were reviews of some books I too had read. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ was Bogarde’s choice as Book of the Year in the year 1988. About Marquez’s book he says ‘He has written the most gloriously heart-wrenching story of love that I have, perhaps, ever read…It haunts, lingers in the mind and in the mind’s eye, long after the covers have been reluctantly closed.’ I must say Bogarde got it exactly right.
The book that was Bogarde’s choice the following year was another book I have, Bruce Chatwin’s ‘What Am I Doing Here.’ This is what he says about the book : ‘It gave me intense pleasure in the very spareness and beauty of its prose, its astonishing, and deceptive, simplicity and the detailed pictures which it set before my eyes.’
There were two more books, in the several books he has reviewed, that I have also read. One is Peter Mayle’s ‘Toujours Provence’ and the other, by a writer who was here in India not so long , and hailed for his writing. Here’s what Bogarde says about Jeffrey Archer’s ‘A Twist in the Tale’- ‘This is no Maugham, no Dahl, no Saki…not even a Capote. A bundle of little stories with all the bite and crispness of tinned asparagus. I fear that I guessed the so-called twists in the tale pretty quickly.’
Dirk Bogarde was a famous British movie actor who also happened to be a good writer as well. He was struck down by a stroke and was confined to a wheel chair but that did not stop him from writing. Out of his seven volumes of autobiography I have yet to find ‘A Short Walk from Harrods’, ‘Great Meadow’ and ‘Cleared for Take Off’.
The other book I found on Thursday was by an author whose books get made into movies. ‘Switch’ happens to be my latest Elmore Leonard find not so long after getting ‘Hombre’ as a welcome gift, and finding ‘Stick’ just a couple of weeks ago. There’s a long list of his books that I have to read. I got ‘Switch’ and ‘For the Time Being’ for a hundred rupees which isn’t much for a midweek’s find.
I borrowed the book on my boss’ card and read it. I liked the way he wrote and enjoyed his reviews of some good books. I found his other books over the years such as ‘An Orderly Man,’ A Postillion Struck by Lightning’, ‘Backcloth’ and ‘Snakes and Ladders’ that I found at a second hand store in, of all places, Goa. I was looking for ‘For the Time Being’ for a long time and at last on Thursday I chanced upon it in a second hand book store in Secunderabad. I also found another book by one of my favorite writer, Elmore Leonard’s ‘Switch’.
Leafing through ‘For the Time Being’ I was surprised to find there were reviews of some books I too had read. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ was Bogarde’s choice as Book of the Year in the year 1988. About Marquez’s book he says ‘He has written the most gloriously heart-wrenching story of love that I have, perhaps, ever read…It haunts, lingers in the mind and in the mind’s eye, long after the covers have been reluctantly closed.’ I must say Bogarde got it exactly right.
The book that was Bogarde’s choice the following year was another book I have, Bruce Chatwin’s ‘What Am I Doing Here.’ This is what he says about the book : ‘It gave me intense pleasure in the very spareness and beauty of its prose, its astonishing, and deceptive, simplicity and the detailed pictures which it set before my eyes.’
There were two more books, in the several books he has reviewed, that I have also read. One is Peter Mayle’s ‘Toujours Provence’ and the other, by a writer who was here in India not so long , and hailed for his writing. Here’s what Bogarde says about Jeffrey Archer’s ‘A Twist in the Tale’- ‘This is no Maugham, no Dahl, no Saki…not even a Capote. A bundle of little stories with all the bite and crispness of tinned asparagus. I fear that I guessed the so-called twists in the tale pretty quickly.’
Dirk Bogarde was a famous British movie actor who also happened to be a good writer as well. He was struck down by a stroke and was confined to a wheel chair but that did not stop him from writing. Out of his seven volumes of autobiography I have yet to find ‘A Short Walk from Harrods’, ‘Great Meadow’ and ‘Cleared for Take Off’.
The other book I found on Thursday was by an author whose books get made into movies. ‘Switch’ happens to be my latest Elmore Leonard find not so long after getting ‘Hombre’ as a welcome gift, and finding ‘Stick’ just a couple of weeks ago. There’s a long list of his books that I have to read. I got ‘Switch’ and ‘For the Time Being’ for a hundred rupees which isn’t much for a midweek’s find.
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