In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…
I am reading:
Slow Horses by Mick Herron- A lot of character set-up to this point, much of it consisting of the fu*k-ups that got the characters into Slough House in the first place.
Interesting enough to maintain my attention but I’m ready to get into the action. Fortunately, the last line I read is an indication that the book is ready to do just that.
There was a phrase: the slippery slope. Slippery implied speed and blurriness and the ever-present threat of losing your feet. You’d end up flat on your back, breathing splinters. But Catherine’s journey had been more moving staircase than slippery slope; a slow downwards progression; a bore rather than a shock. Looking across at the people heading upwards, and wondering if that was a better idea. But somehow knowing she’d have to reach the bottom before she could change direction.
...How could you know when something was worse than words was meant, when you all you had to go on were the words? And when the words were always the same: angry, vicious, murderous?...Maybe all the potential terrorists she ever identified were as ghostly as herself; other spooks in other offices, who were sending her own web name upstream even as she was sending theirs. It wouldn’t be the only aspect of the War on Terror that turned out to be a circle jerk.
Journey of the Mind: A Life in History by Peter Brown- This is one of the more remarkable autobiographies that I have read in a long time.
Didn’t read too much this week but I did get through the Second World War and Brown’s schooling. I’m impressed at the amount of research Brown conducted about his eccentric grade school teachers. But what I really love about this beginning of Journey of the Mind book is that Brown isn’t simply telling his intellectual biography; he also telling the story of his ancestors and, ultimately, his people.