Books lately

I have spells when I read voraciously, and when every idle moment finds me with my nose in a book. The other model is spells when I don't read books for a month or so. Just lately, it has been unusual: I've become totally bogged down in Howard Jacobson's Kalooki Nights, and rather think it will find its way part-read to the charity shop. Since then I've picked up Graham Robb's The Discovery of France, which is altogether a better bet. I've learned a lot from it, but it's one of those rather dry texts that let the mind wander, so that you get to the foot of the page and realise that you haven't taken in a single word. Someone left a copy of Dan Brown's Deception Point either here or in Lagrasse - or maybe I bought it for a few pennies so as not to feel I was using the charity shop exclusively as a dumping ground. God, it's awful writing. Lousy with clichés: 'rugged good looks'; malapropisms: 'ephemeral' where he means 'ethereal'; 'mannerism' when he means 'manner'. Product plugs galore, eg a brand of hiking boots affected by a US president, and gobbledegook when he couldn't get a manufacturer to pay for a plug, eg 'Lockheed 345 engines', when Pratt & Whitney wouldn't come up with the ackers. So why is my bookmark currently at page 208 the day after I picked the wretched book up? Probably the same reason as I devoured the egregious Da Vinci Code: for all its dreadfulness. it's quite a compeeling read - and the alternative is to finish Kalooki Nights. I have a William Boyd lined up next - hope it's one of his better ones.