When my 82-year-old mother visits Sea Venture, she comes laden with a stash of books that she passes on to me. I remember How Starbucks Saved My Life from last year. It wasn’t brilliant, but it did amuse.
This year I discovered a new-to-me author, John Galsworthy, and his One More River. British literature of a certain era delights me. I love the fluid prose, the humor sneaking up from the words, the delightful sense of the ridiculous: comedy of manners that makes you want to read more, not so much to find out what happens next, but just because the reading itself is a pleasure: the juxtaposition of words well crafted; the sparseness of detail that yet develops character. And, oh, the sense of right and wrong that still prevailed in the 30s: the absolutes perhaps not always absolute, but with a sense of idealism that wars against reality.
