Books
ALGARVE BOOK WORMS
Jake Cleaver is continuing his quest to discover the book lovers of the Algarve. It’s proving difficult. Are any of you out there? Don’t be shy. If you love books write to us at simplyalgarvemag@gmail.com and let us know which ones and why, and we’ll be sure to pass it on!
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ere we are with the second edition of the book review club. I’m not going to lie, it hasn’t been easy. You book worms are quite elusive and hard to uncover. But hey, I’m hopeful. It’s Autumn now. It’s rained, the dust has settled and the ground is wet - some of you might very well start to come up to the surface. I’d like to thank everybody who has written in, it’s a great help and I truly appreciate it. If you like the idea of having a place where you can see what your fellow Algarvians have been reading lately - and recommend that you do too. Then consider helping us keep this going by simply writing in and letting us know a book (old or new) that you like. That’s the only criteria - you have to like it! In the meantime, now the long hot summer has finally come to a close. Here’s a few books your fellow Algarvians recommend that you curl up, with a hot cup of tea, and read while the rain comes down outside. (Which is exactly what’s happening at the time of writing - for the first time in months. How lovely.) After all, books are quite incredible things. This is what the extraordinary astronomer and author Carl Sagan, who even though he was more inclined to marvel at the cosmos, also found time to marvel at what has to be, indeed, one of the most marvellous things us human beings have done, had to say about them: “What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to
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you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” And even though Carl died in 1996, he can still share his message with us. Amazing isn’t it? In that way he does indeed live on forever. True magic. And here’s your opportunity to transcend space and time too. I’m not sure how fantastically durable the magazine in your hand is. However, if you do decide to write in with a book review, your words will at the very least give you a few months of ‘immortality’ on peoples living room tables. If you get put in a dentist waiting room just think how long you could go! Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts I could almost taste and smell and feel India as I read this incredible book. And, I could see the faces of the poor, their slums, their poverty. I’m rambling….right, back to the beginning. Shantaram is the story of a convicted Australian bank robber and heroin addict who flees to India after escaping from prison. That’s all I can tell you about the plot because there is so much to say but you need to read it to really experience the book which is so much more than just a story. The adjectives swimming around my head shouting out words seem inadequate and my desire to visit these places has morphed into a desperate need. The descriptions of life in Bombay, the people encountered and the stories each person has are all staggering in their depth and colour. Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition with my own life to that of the protagonist? Perhaps it’s the gulf between our cultures that compels me to experience India myself after reading this biographical insight into how diverse our lives are. Roberts is not altogether the type of chap one would automatically want
October 2020
