What I've been reading

The Wire
by Rafael Alvarez

"Over the five seasons of this critically acclaimed drama series, a rich and layered portrait of Baltimore was created: its hardened police force, its corner boys, its dock workers and its politicians. This book brings the reader inside this world."

I have all five seasons of this show on DVD, and started re-watching them a while ago. I saw this book on a remaindered shelf and thought it would be an interesting accompaniment to the series, but I reached about three episodes into season 2 and discovered that my tolerance for violent drama is way down compared with what it must have been when I first watched this. It's still a very fine piece of screenwriting, but I can't watch it. I did continue to read the book and was reminded of some of the key moments, and I'm thinking of trying to sell the DVDs and the book together.

The Bull from the Sea
by Mary Renault

"Having freed the city of Athens from the onerous tribute demanded by the ruler of Knossos – the sacrifice of noble youths and maidens to the appetite of the Labyrinth’s monster – Theseus has returned home to find his father dead and himself the new king."

I have little knowledge of essential Athenian history, but this story of Theseus's rule of Atticus (Athens?) is very readable indeed. I've read so many books recently that seem to use language to obscure the plot, and it's refreshing just to have the story told, one step after another, no time shifts or long-winded philosophising. He fought a bull! made friends with a pirate! loved an Amazon woman and they had a son! married a Cretan woman and they had another son! other things happened! and then he died.

Demon Copperhead
by Barbara Kingsolver

narrated by Charlie Thurston

"Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival."

A long, long book to listen to but really good, based very loosely on David Copperfield but set very much in the present era. Some parts of it were so difficult to listen to (e.g. when all the money he had earned and saved was stolen from him) that I found it almost physically painful, and there were many graphic deaths described, but there was always humanity very close by to reassure me again.

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
by Julian Barnes

"Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other climes - by a Victorian spinster mourning her father, and by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission."

I suppose the Ark was a weak thread holding this book together, but it really wasn't much more than a collection of short stories that ultimately I didn't find very interesting.