Reading matters

'A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance' by Marlena de Blasi

Nonfiction - paperback; Ballentine Books; 272 pages; 2002

I have just discovered that the medication I am currently taking for a chest infection is the same medication given to people with Anthrax, so this might partly explain the snarky review which is to follow. Then again it might not.

A Thousand Days in Venice is one of those lovely-looking personal travel memoirs that promises everything and delivers not very much at all.

There's no doubt that it is well written: the prose is clear, lucid and free from too much 'waffle' and de Blasi definitely knows how to write about food in a wonderfully evocative way.

But the story -- how can I say this without sounding too mean? -- is woefully sappy and overly sentimental, which is fine if you like those things, but terrible if you don't.

'Second Time Around' by Mary Higgins Clark

Fiction - paperback; Pocket Books; 352 pages; 2004

Quite frankly, unless you're a real Mary Higgins Clark fan or you like your thrillers a little on the dull side, then give this book a wide berth.

There's the bones of a good story there and the author certainly knows how to move the plot forward, but there's little flesh to keep even the most unsophisticated reader interested. I found it too formulaic, too staged and, because of that, too dry.

The best bit is the ending (and not just because I was glad to be rid of the blasted book), because it has a slight unexpected twist to it. But, on the whole, this novel reads more like a screenplay than an inspired piece of creative fiction. Disappointing.

'The Mammy' by Brendan O'Connell

Fiction - paperback; The O'Brien Press; 174 pages; 1994

The Mammy is Irish comedian Brendan O'Connell's first book. It's a very simple tale about a widow struggling to raise seven children on Dublin's north side in the late 1960s. Each chapter is essentially a short story centred on the individual characters that make up Agnes Browne's family. There are funny little episodes with not-so-funny punchlines, and the language, studded with 'Dublin-speak', is very stripped back to the point of being boring.

Aside from these faults, it is a lighthearted story — punctuated with pathos — about a family on the wrong side of the tracks, the strength of friendship in trying times, and the essential goodness of people in a more naive era. Apparently the book has been made into a film starring Angelica Houston, and while I haven't seen it, I think it would probably be more entertaining than the novel.