Didsbury book group

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Erik Davidsen is, in no particular order, divorced, a psychiatrist, Norwegian American, childless and a very lonely man. (continue reading…)

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Brilliant.

Actually, I’m tempted to just leave it as that. There is a certain elegance in brevity.

I suppose I should probably expand upon that.
(continue reading…)

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All right, I’ve been very lax this month. I really should have had these reviews up much sooner. In my defence, I’m really very lazy.

The first of two books this month, Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All quiet on the western front is generally held as one of the greatest war novels of all time. Not having read any other war novels, I can’t really comment on that, but I can tell you that this is a very good book.
The story centres on a group of German soldier in World War I and on one named Paul Bäumer in particular. It covers their training and convalescence as well as fighting in the trenches and details with a very neutral tone what they were put through during the course of the story. (continue reading…)

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“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.”

While all this may be true (and who am I to argue with Mr Steinbeck), it’s also a rather good book written in 1945, as well as a film released in 1982.
(continue reading…)