Recently I’ve rediscovered reading. That is not to say that I ever really lost it to begin with; more that I lost the enjoyment of it. Most of the reading I’ve done over the last two years has been purely academic, as part of research for the Ph.D., and anyone who’s read anything academic will attest to those materials lacking nearly any kind of excitement or wonder.
Over the last six months, though, I’ve slowly and steadily returned to reading for pleasure, with the help of a few simple and entertaining books, namely John Baxter’s Cooking for Claudine and Richard Hammond’s Or Is That Just Me? - the latter of which I finished this morning.
Baxter’s book is a simple tale of love in Europe. He is an Australian film critic, who fell in love with a French girl and moved to Paris to marry her – living the dream, one might say. But the catch was that in order to marry the girl, he had to cook Christmas dinner for her extensive – and very French – family. What follows is an often hilarious, but very touching, story of travels about France and the world, collecting ingredients for the various dinners he’s crafted over the years. Most entertaining are his attempts to break tradition: serving Cajun pork, for example, or a traditional Aussie pavlova. For anyone who’s a fan of Baxter’s writing (he’s penned some brilliant film reviews over the years), food, France, women, or simply a good yarn, the book is well worth a flip-through.
I’ve read Richard Hammond before (his earlier book As You Do), and I just really, really enjoy his stuff. He writes like I imagines he chats over a pint, and that’s quite endearing, when he seems like a genuinely cool and nice bloke. In Or Is That Just Me? he tells the stories behind some of his Top Gear experiences, but also those behind his other works, including one of my favourite TV shows, Engineering Connections. Whether attempting to be manly firing arrows from horseback, or falling off a horse to near-permanent spinal injury, every tale is told with humility, humour, and the kind of self-deprecating larrikinism that is very rare in the entertainment industry. What always staggers me, though, is that all the Top Gear blokes get on so very well, and are obviously the best of mates. Again – rare. Anyway, I enjoyed Or Is That Just Me? quite a lot.
I’m not sure what to move on to now, though. I recently bought The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson, and Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco is on its way. But both of these seem quite dense, and dense is something I can’t do whilst researching or writing thesis stuff. I’d rather get this first draft out of the way before I embark on a complex thriller – all the more to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll give the next Skulduggery Pleasant a go… or Jasper Fforde. Huuuuuurrrmmmm…
Until next time…



