Peter Pinney Lawless and the Lotus Cover

Thanks to John Borthwick 's selection, this was the Peter Pinney book I really wanted to find. 

Thank you eBay!

This book covers Pinney's time in the Caribbean, across the Pacific via Tahiti and them back to his home in Sydney, Oz. 

Along the way, he gets stranded at sea, falls in and out of love, acts as a double for Brando in the movie Mutiny on the Bounty, offers an insight into white male attitudes to Polynesia and Polynesians (women in particular) in the 50s, and stows away on a cruise ship to get back to Sydney. 

I think I can remember the final line when he gets back to Sydney (having carefully forged his health certificate into being up-to-date):

"By all the gods that ever were, it was good to be home!"

Pulitzer Prize book cover

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. 

Lest I give the impression I only ever read 'light' or 'fluffy' books, this is a collection of short stories which offer snapshots of the human experience, through the lens of the Indian diaspora. 

Touching, heartbreaking, despairing and profoundly sweet in turns, the stories are told with a kind of clinical compassion. You can reach in and feel the helplessness, the ennui or the bleakness of the characters' lives. Or you can see the happiness of lives lived between the words. 

 I return to my favourites more than others. The final story in particular - of a life well-lived - is at once ordinary, uplifting and beautiful. 

A Steampunk Cover

Jonathan L. Howard, Johannes Cabal:The Detective. Headline. 

Not my normal choice. The only reason I picked it up at all only was because of the striking tri-colour scheme. I haven't always enjoyed steampunk and I picked it up in spite of the steampunk promise. 

And I'm very glad I did. 

Brilliantly written and viciously sharply observed, the pages are encrusted with caustic wit. You can find a deliciously dry piece of description on every single page. 

Page 85: "Cabal dislike him instinctively, having identified him as a man still prey to his hormones while his intellect puttered around in the background like an embarrassed parent". 

Another page at random: page 264: "Cabal was growing irritated, too. He had been planing his grand entrance for the past few hours, and people kept chattering instead of letting him get on with it".