Mary Barton (currently reading)

Mary Barton has picked up pace as I'm reading it. It has become easier to read as we get an actual plot. The buildup to the actual story seemed to go on for about 250 pages. Now, we have an adventure and a murder mystery. And it is good to see the rivaly between Liverpool and Manchester goes so far back.

The Anubis Gates

Keith has lent me "The Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers, and it comes highly recommended. "time travel, knotty paradoxes, an adventure novel". Added to the to.be.read pile.

Mary Barton (currently reading)

The current book from the bookclub is a classic, Mary Barton. When I got the book, it looked a fairly slim read, but the pages are very thin, and at 393 pages of actual text (plus about 30 pages of notes) this is turning into a hard slog.

I've got to page 168 so far (with a week to go) and the majority of that read in the car on the way up to Cheshire. The previous day, I'd attempted to start and nearly fell asleep. It is quite hard to get into the prose, but once in tune with the patterns, it goes along fairly easily.

One thing to note so far is the tone is set as the writer having a conversation with the reader, unlike most books today where the writer is usually invisible.