Friday, October 03, 2008

MY FRIDAY 5

1. Who is your favorite author?
Right now - Christopher Brookmyre. Is a very clever chappie and I ADORE, seriously ADORE his books. Dealing with horrors of society he does so with a very very wry humour. There are times I sit sniggering helplessly to myself as I read thru the book, contemplating the research Mr Brookmyre has to have done in order to write so beautifully clearly. I mean, how do you imagine escaping thru
an air vent, and loosing your grasp on the side, so that you end up with someone's head in your delicate areas?

2. What is your favorite book/series?
My favourite book RIGHT now,(and I say right now in both the 1 and this question because I know I vary from year to year) - althought Sacred Art of Stealing, by Mr Brookmyre above has been my very favourite since I read it three or four years ago. I don't know how he does it, but every time I am in Glasgow now, I stop in Buchanan Street, the scene of the first theft in the book, and am transported there. I actually stand there and smile at the scene which is unfolding before me, and yet in my head.

THE SACRED ART OF STEALING

Let us prey ...

The press tend to talk about bank robberies as being daring, ingenious and audacious. They don't describe many as Dadaist, even the ones who know what 'Dadaist' means. But how else does one explain choreographed dancing gunmen in Buchanan Street, or the surreal methods they use to stay one step ahead of the cops?

Angelique de Xavia is no art critic, but she is a connoisseur of crooks, and she's sure that the heist she got caught up in wasn't the work of the usual sawn-offs-and-black-tights practitioners indigenous to the parish. She knows she's dealing with a unique species of thief, and it's her job to hunt him to extinction - though the fact that it's not just his m.o. that's cute might prove a distraction.

This thief, however, has greater concerns than his own safety, and a secret agenda more valuable than anything he might steal. He can afford to play cat and mouse with the female cop who's on his tail; it might even arguably be necessary. What he can't afford to do is to let her get too close; he could end up in jail, which holds terrors enough; but even more scary, he could end up in love.

Honesty is a virtue. Deceit is a talent. Theft is an art form.

The Sacred Art Of Stealing: prepare to be misled.

3. Who is a book hero you most wish to be like?
Jane Fleming, in All Fun and Games Until Someone Looses an Eye, by Mr Brookmyre - (ha ha - this is turning into We Love Mr Brookmyre).

Jane Fleming, forty-six and three years a grandmother, has always played by the rules, never hurt anybody, never lied, never even had a parking ticket. But she's about to put all that right in a very big way...

Intrigue. Espionage. Advanced technology. Clinical violence. Hoovering.

It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.

Jane Is a Mum like me - children are older, and she isn't as happily settled as me, - but I know women like her - She fights, often to the death for her children and boy is she good. The basis of the story could be fanciful, but Mr Brookmyre makes me (and who knows who else) be Jane. There are parts of the book where you have a lump in your throat and thats what makes this Spy /Thriller become human.



4. Who is a book character that you envy?
Hermione Granger. She's friends with Harry Potter, she has Muggle Parents who love her for what she is. She is Sooo Smart. And she gets to go to Potions with Alan Rickman.





5. Which book do you wished you lived in?
Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon. Fanciful and Historical. Clare falls thru Standing Stones from 1948 to be whisked back in time to 1740's Scotland. Big Strong Kilt-Clad Men and the bare necessities of harsh life. I spent hours hanging on to likely looking rocks, hoping that I'll fall thru. But It hasn't happened. Yet.


No comments:

Post a Comment