Siam Scarlett

I can't believe I forgot to mention this last week, but while in Thailand, I had a run-in with one of the list books. It wasn't until we were going through our photos last night that I remembered...

As I've mentioned many times before, I always enjoying perusing a bookshelf. It could be in somebody's home, at a hotel, in a library, or in a bookstore; it doesn't really matter, I just like walking my eyes over the spines of books. I suppose the fun is that you might come across something unique or something you've never heard of, and it just might take your reading in a new direction.

After having spent over five years reading through this list, I'm still little amazed how often I come across these titles. Of course it shouldn't really come as any surprise, after all they are 100 "all-time novels."

#79 - "A Handful of Dust" by Evelyn Waugh

I finished Evelyn Waugh's second book from the list, A Handful of Dust about two weeks ago, while still in Thailand. It was one I had been looking forward to for quite some time, having enjoyed his other list book, Brideshead Revisited, when I read it five years ago, at #2.

Written in 1934, A Handful of Dust follows Tony and Brenda Last, as they live out their happy, but mundane life at Hetton Abbey, Tony's beloved estate in the English countryside. The couple has one son, and lives very comfortably on their inherited wealth, sticking to old fashioned, aristocratic social norms.

Soon, life becomes too routine for Brenda and while at a party she becomes interested in John Beaver, a rather common man, who finds himself at these parties more as a novelty than a guest. Brenda is pulled toward him, finding him exciting and different, when in reality he is merely ordinary, if not mediocre. But she continues a relationship with him, even going so far as to rent a flat in London, for weekday rendezvous.

Non-List Reading in Thailand and Malaysia

I'm back in Canada now, after a fantastic trip to Thailand and Malaysia. Like most of my trips, I am never afforded as much time to read as I think, so most of my reading was confined to airplanes and trains. Fortunately for my reading habits, this trip included two flights over 12 hours and a 15 hour train ride, so I was able to get something done.

Reading over the
Gulf of Thailand

From the list, I read Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust (review to follow), and not from the list, I read The Great Train Robbery and American Psycho; two very different novels, to say the least!

I first read Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery over 15 years ago, and enjoyed it very much. I've also seen the 1979 movie with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland about 300 times, so it's one with which I am quite familiar.