This has been a tough week in a year full of tough weeks. My guilty pleasure has been to devour Nasty Bits, the semi-new book by Anthony Bourdain. As I've said before, I like Bourdain, in a way, he reminds me of what I could be. Years ago a friend bought me a book about writing. It was called, If you can talk, you can write. Bless her, she thought I would be further encouraged because we all know, if talking were an Olympic sport, I'd be right up there with the gold medallists. Bourdain has one of the best scripts I've ever heard and his producer swears that's really him talking with a text that he writes. If that's so, this guy can really TALK.
A lot of my day is spent reading tedious documents, written in governmentese, a totally separate language from anything you will ever experience. An Australian friend introduced me to Terry Pratchett's books about eight years ago. His fantasy Discworld with it's clever caricature of government in a flat world is hilarious. When I have a crap day, Pratchett makes me laugh at myself and the officiousness of the world that I inhabit. I was crushed this week to see that he's been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. Why is it always the brilliant ones! I hope for his sake and mine and the millions of other readers worldwide that the doctors are wrong. Or that if they are right, that the drugs can stave off the inevitable fading for as long as possible. Terry, we love you.
So to the authors to numerous to mention, who save my sanity after those long, hard days, thank you!
2 comments:
Wow because you could be my literary twin. Not only do you like Bourdain but you love Pratchett who is my personal god, I've read all but four of the Discworld series but that will soon be rememdied and whose recent diagnosis I've written about in the other blaug I keep, I'm prattling on again aren't I..Oh well carry on
One time I was home ill and I spent the entire three days I was confined to bed reading Terry. It was like tonic and I'm crushed that he's ill.
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