Thursday, February 08, 2007

Hospital Reading

I've just spent a couple of days in hospital; nothing serious, more embarassing for men of a certain age. To while away the hours, I took Arthur & George by Julian Barnes and found it to be an absolutely brilliant book. Barnes has taken the stories of two men, Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji - the former the famous writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes, the latter, a little known midlands solicitor - and created a work that examines spirituality, identity, nationality and race. Although concerned with events that occurred between 1893 and 1906, the work is intensely relevant for our own times when issues such as materialism and multiculturialism mean that Barnes' themes are never far from the headlines. Read this book as soon as you possibly can.

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