This week I’ve been reading Little Tales of Misogyny by Patricia Highsmith, a collection of vignettes, about the type of person it’s easy to dislike. These little fables, often very brief, take on a different character study e.g. The Victim, The Evangelist, The Mobile Bed-Object, The Prude, The Middle-Class Housewife etc. and each in turn is subjected to Highsmith’s unique, acerbic and archly wicked eye. A lot has been written about Highsmith’s misanthropic nature, even her friends seem to have found her difficult and spiky a lot of the time, but I couldn’t honestly comment on whether these tales in any way reflect her own (reputed) hatred of her own sex; personally, I think Highsmith is simply having a lot of fun with this collection. The tales almost invariably end badly, are often a little bit sneaky, unkind, unpleasant or downright nasty - they are also (at all times), hugely entertaining and great fun. I suspect Highsmith wrote these stories, as the title itself suggests to me, with her tongue very firmly fixed on the inside of her cheek. I read them, as I believe they were written - to be enjoyed. And so I did.
Next week, starting tomorrow, I am very pleased to say it’s Buddy Reading time again! It’s an untitled, non-exclusive club that is open to anyone. We read no more than two books a year together, which makes the exercise a pleasure rather than a pain. No genre is excluded, and so far the only plan appears to be taking on a book one of us suggests that hasn’t been read by anyone else. This time we are reading an Australian classic, The Harp in the South by Ruth Park. It’s the second book in a trilogy of the same title, however, it was the book she actually wrote first. Park completed the first part of the trilogy, Missus, almost forty years later. Some of us have taken the time to read Missus first and others, like myself, plan to read the books in the order they were written. I am really looking forward to discovering a writer (slightly ashamed to admit this) that I had previously never heard of; in fact, it’s my intention to rectify my woefully poor knowledge of Antipodean writers.
Pick up a copy of Harp in the South, send me a message and when you’ve completed the book leave any comments you have either on Amazon or Goodreads or on your blog (if you have one) and send us the link, or, better still, join us on Twitter - myself and the other Buddy Readers will very much enjoy hearing your views. Believe me, it’s a surprisingly painless way of finding good reading.
Next week, starting tomorrow, I am very pleased to say it’s Buddy Reading time again! It’s an untitled, non-exclusive club that is open to anyone. We read no more than two books a year together, which makes the exercise a pleasure rather than a pain. No genre is excluded, and so far the only plan appears to be taking on a book one of us suggests that hasn’t been read by anyone else. This time we are reading an Australian classic, The Harp in the South by Ruth Park. It’s the second book in a trilogy of the same title, however, it was the book she actually wrote first. Park completed the first part of the trilogy, Missus, almost forty years later. Some of us have taken the time to read Missus first and others, like myself, plan to read the books in the order they were written. I am really looking forward to discovering a writer (slightly ashamed to admit this) that I had previously never heard of; in fact, it’s my intention to rectify my woefully poor knowledge of Antipodean writers.
Pick up a copy of Harp in the South, send me a message and when you’ve completed the book leave any comments you have either on Amazon or Goodreads or on your blog (if you have one) and send us the link, or, better still, join us on Twitter - myself and the other Buddy Readers will very much enjoy hearing your views. Believe me, it’s a surprisingly painless way of finding good reading.
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