Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham one of the Chunksters I wrote about in this post. I bought this book in 2008 and I still haven’t read it – probably because it is such a big thick book of 700 pages that it is really unwieldy, hard to hold and so tightly bound I can hardly open it. And the print is quite small!

Book Beginning:

The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

And tonight he sank on his knees, buried his face in his hands, and prayed to God with all his might that He would make his clubfoot whole. It was a very small thing beside the moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it if he wished, and his own faith was complete. Next morning, finishing his prayers with the same request, he fixed a date for the miracle.

Description from Goodreads:

Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham’s masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor.

And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring Death is Now My Neighbour by Colin Dexter, one of the Inspector Morse novels. I’ve read this recently for my 20 Books of Summer Challenge.

Book Beginning:

From the Prolegomenon

‘What time do you call this, Lewis?’.

‘The missus’s fault. Not like her to be late with the breakfast.’

Chapter 1

It is perhaps unusual to begin a tale of murder with a reminder to the reader of the rules governing conditional sentences in a language that is incontrovertibly dead. In the present case, however, such a course appears not wholly inappropriate.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

In his earlier years Geoffrey Owens had been an owl, preferring to pursue whatever tasks lay before him into the late hours of the night, often through into the still, small hours. But now, in his mid-forties, he had metamorphosed into a lark, his brain seeming perceptibly clearer and fresher in the morning.

Description from Goodreads:

As he drove his chief down to Kidlington, Lewis returned the conversation to where it had begun.
‘You haven’t told me what you think about this fellow Owens – the dead woman’s next-door neighbour.’
‘Death is always the next-door neighbour,’ said Morse sombrely.

The murder of a young woman . . . A cryptic ‘seventeenth-century’ love poem . . . And a photograph of a mystery grey-haired man . . .

More than enough to set Chief Inspector E. Morse on the trail of a killer.

And it’s a trail that leads him to Lonsdale College, where the contest between Julian Storrs and Dr Denis Cornford for the coveted position of Master is hotting up.

But then Morse faces a greater, far more personal crisis . . .

~~~

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the penultimate book in the series and hope to write more about it in a separate post. Morse is nearing retirement and he is not a well man – his drinking is now causing him problems, enough to make him go to the doctor, who diagnoses diabetes. But does Morse follow his doctor’s advice?

This is the novel in which Morse’s first name is revealed – these days it’s not the revelation for the current readers as it was for its first readers.

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: The Go-Between by L P Hartley

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring The Go-Between by L P Hartley, one of the latest books I’ve bought. It’s a book I’ve wanted to read for ages.

Book Beginning:

From the Prologue

The past is a different country: they do things differently there.

Chapter 1

The eighth of July was a Sunday and on the following Monday I left West Hatch, the village where we lived near Salisbury, for Brandham Hall. My mother arranged that my Aunt Charlotte, a Londoner, should take me across London. Between bouts of stomach-turning trepidation I looked forward wildly to the visit.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

This morning, my first Sunday at Brandham Hall, Marcus did not come down with me. He said he didn’t feel well.

Description from Goodreads:

When one long, hot summer, young Leo is staying with a school-friend at Brandham Hall, he begins to act as a messenger between Ted, the farmer, and Marian, the beautiful young woman up at the hall. He becomes drawn deeper and deeper into their dangerous game of deceit and desire, until his role brings him to a shocking and premature revelation. The haunting story of a young boy’s awakening into the secrets of the adult world, The Go-Between is also an unforgettable evocation of the boundaries of Edwardian society. It was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: The Cut by Chris Brookmyre

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring The Cut by Chris Brookmyre, a book I’ve read recently and have yet to review.

Book Beginning – from the Prologue:

Jerry crouched alongside Millicent’s bed and checked again for a pulse. There was nothing.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

He kept his head down as the others filed past. He clocked a few eyes on his T-shirt, a Machine Head one today. Metal tees worked like an invisibility cloak: people had a cursory glance and then knew not to pay you any further attention. Phillipa seemed to hover longer than anyone else, but he kept his eyes to the carpet.

Description from Goodreads:

Millie Spark can kill anyone.

A special effects make-up artist, her talent is to create realistic scenes of bloody violence.

Then, one day, she wakes to find her lover dead in her bed.

Twenty-five years later, her sentence for murder served, Millicent is ready to give up on her broken life – until she meets troubled film student and reluctant petty thief Jerry.

Together, they begin to discover that all was not what it seemed on that fateful night . . . and someone doesn’t want them to find out why.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood this week. It’s the second in the Maccadam trilogy. According to Wikipedia this book focuses on a religious sect called the God’s Gardeners, a small community of survivors of the same biological catastrophe depicted in Atwood’s earlier novel Oryx and Crake, which I read soon after it was first published in 2003. 

In the early morning Toby climbs up to the top of the rooftop to watch the sunrise. She uses a mop handle for balance: the elevator stopped working some time ago and the back stairs are slick with damp, and if she slips and topples there won’t be anyone to pick her up.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

‘Get rid of that scalped look. We Gardener women all wear our hair long’. When Toby asked why, she was given to understand that the aesthetic preference was God’s.

Description from Goodreads:

The sun brightens in the east, reddening the blue-grey haze that marks the distant ocean. The vultures roosting on the hydro poles fan out their wings to dry them. The air smells faintly of burning. The waterless flood – a manmade plague – has ended the world.

But two young women have survived: Ren, a young dancer trapped where she worked, in an upmarket sex club (the cleanest dirty girls in town); and Toby, who watches and waits from her rooftop garden.

Is anyone else out there?

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?

Book Beginnings on Friday & The Friday 56: The Man With No Face by Peter May

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring another book by Peter May this week – The Man With No Face. This was first published in 1981. He made ‘some very minor changes’, before it was republished in 2018.

Kale watched the train through the rain-spattered glass and thought, this time will be the last. But even as the thought formed in his mind it clotted and he knew he would kill again.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

They took their first sips in silence before Bannerman said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’

‘There’s not much to tell.

‘Now why do people always say that?

‘Maybe because it’s true.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Everyone’s got a story to tell.’

Description from Goodreads:

A POWERFUL AND PRESCIENT THRILLER FROM THE MILLION-SELLING AUTHOR OF I’LL KEEP YOU SAFECOFFIN ROAD AND THE BLACKHOUSE.

A REPORTER WITH NO FEAR

Jaded Edinburgh journalist Neil Bannerman is sent to Brussels, intent on digging up dirt. Yet it is danger he discovers, when two British men are found murdered.

A CHILD WITH NO FATHER

One victim is a journalist, the other a Cabinet Minister: the double-assassination witnessed by the former’s autistic daughter. This girl recalls every detail about her father’s killer – except for one.

THE MAN WITH NO FACE

With the city rocked by the tragedy, Bannerman is compelled to follow his instincts. He is now fighting to expose a murderous conspiracy, protect a helpless child, and unmask a remorseless killer.

~~~

What do you think, does it appeal to you? What are you currently reading?