Surreal🦣, Bookish 📚and Historic👑🇬🇧

 

    Describing a Jasper Fforde book is difficult because his plots and characters are as surreal as a Dali painting. That's why I like them. Here is an indescribable Dali painting:

    Now, I will describe Jasper Fforde's book, Early Riser. It is a humorous sci-fi novel about good versus evil, but it is difficult to tell who or what is good and/or evil. The winter is so harsh, and few can survive it without hibernating. People are shamed for not being fat enough to survive the long sleep. When someone oversleeps, it could be by weeks, not hours. Charlie is a novice facing his first awake winter as a Winter Consul--someone who watches over sleepers, keeping them safe from evil villains and the cold. He can't protect them from a viral dream that leaves them as brain-dead entities that feed on anything and anyone. It gets only gets weird from there. As an extra bonus to me, I get to use the Wooly Mammoth emoji for the first time. Win!

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    I found The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt in a Books About Books list. This is the first thing I've ever read by deWitt. Bob Comet is a bookish, solitary person. It opens with his retirement from the library at seventy-two, and he is at loose ends. He starts volunteering at a senior center he discovers when he helps an elderly woman with dementia who has escaped. He finds a diverse community where he almost fits in. The book is a blend of melancholy, comfort, and contentment. I thought it would be about Bob's twilight years, but it recounts how hebecameo the quiet solitary man he is. It asks the question, can a small life be a good life? Spoiler Alert: yes, it can. It made me want to read more by deWitt. 

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    Well, I thought I was getting a book by David Mitchell, who wrote Cloud Atlas. This is different from David Mitchell, but I already had Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England Kidns and Queens, so I went ahead and read it. It is a humorous look at England's monarchy. There is a lot of killing and marrying of cousins. Frequently, English kings declared themselves kings of France, but it never worked out. Sorry if that's news to you. I am glad I read this enjoyable book because I feel virtuous when I read non-fiction, and it was a snort-laughingly fun read.

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