BOOKS WE READ
In times of gloom, nothing comes to your rescue like a good book does. For those who make reading a part of the art of living, calmness of the mind is an automatic outcome. Here we posted titles of books which are easy to grasp and which you can enjoy, while also learning from them.
Whenever you are free, get hold of one of them and start going through a few pages, maybe we can share different impressions!
The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro, was initially suggested by stone to sunshine (but here it is now for everyone to enjoy).
Goodreads says: "In 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper. Ishiguro’s dazzling novel is a sad and humorous love story, a meditation on the condition of modern man, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change."
stone says: "There is nobody writing in Britain today who quite resembles him [Kazuo Ishiguro]. Well, a remarkable, strange and moving book...I have to say."
The Bell, by Iris Murdoch is suggested by sunshine.
Goodreads says: "A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved, whatever that may mean...Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel is about religion, the fight between good and evil, and the terrible accidents of human frailty."
sunshine says: "I wonder if there's any other post-war author who succeeded - in the same way as Iris Murdoch did - to create the kind of characters which continue to fascinate us even after we finish the book."