^Stax
Thanks for the recommendation.
Funnily enough I read the first book earlier in the year.
It was a gift from my daughter who saw Jazz in the title and thought I'd be tempted.
I really enjoyed it and for the life of me can't remember why I didn't get the others.
There's also a fourth volume now.

'Eleanor Oliphant is completely free' by Gail Honeyman. Book of the year 2018. A book recommended by a mate that writes. An easy read, which is what I look for these days, when I've only just started to read novels again.

'The double Comfort Safari Club' by Alexander McCall Smith.
A book I first read about 20 years ago. Another lightweight read set in Botswana. The main character drinks Redbush tea all the time (a bit like me).

Stax- I remember Peters & Lee and I can do a good rendition of 'Welcome Home' . Back then we thought he lost his eyesight because of a run in with an East End gangster. Must have been an urban myth.

Last edited by RobbieB (2022-12-31 07:09:04)

Not Ivy at all, but reflective of my preference for historical or autobiographical material.

Autobiography of the British Soldier - ‘from Agincourt to Basra in his own words’. Letters and descriptions from the battlefield provided by the men (and occasionally women dressed as men) of the British Army. The early accounts are interesting but often written in very old fashioned language that is difficult to understand. Most of this written by noblemen as ordinary soldiers were almost invariably illiterate. The later stuff from the American War of Independence onwards is written by grunts and is more descriptive and hard hitting. When you look at the news and see some of the stuff people are moaning about presently, the stories of what people have gone through in wars tend put it all into perspective. A good book for dipping in and out of.

A Christmas present, yet to be tackled, is The Last Days of T.E. Lawrence - ‘A Leaf in the Wind’. This covers the period from when Lawrence of Arabia retired from the R.A.F., in which he had enlisted some years before as an ordinary airman in order to escape constant press harassment, to the moment a few weeks later when he was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 46.