Ordinarily Lynda has led such a busy life she hasn’t had much time for reading but now she has passed the milestone of her 70th birthday she has decided to change that. To mark her big birthday Robert took her to Florence for week and during that time she got through more books than she had managed in the previous six months.
Whether it’s during a quiet moment at Grey Gables’ reception or in her garden at Ambridge Hall, now you will more often than now find Lynda with a book in her hand. And with that comes her concise reviews of some classic reads.
When Robert mentioned he thought Catch-22 was “cracking stuff”, Lynda replied that Joseph Heller’s book was a “searing indictment of the futility and absurdity or war”, which left Robert rather stumped!
Lynda found Crime and Punishment “very stimulating” as well as “harrowing but very powerful”. Coincidentally, while she was reading Dostoyevsky’s tomb, Jill got arrested. Roy joked that the book should be subtitled “the Jill Archer story”.
Lynda’s reading has also unveiled some of the other literary preferences in Ambridge. Roy is a Stephen King fan while Moby-Dick is one of Justin’s all-time favourite books. For Lynda, Moby-Dick has proved to be a struggle. Reading Herman Melville is “like wading through treacle” for her “and that’s when it’s good”. Though she is managing to keep an open mind on whether the shortcoming lies in the book or the reader.
For Lynda’s latest literary reviews and for more information on the books she is reading click here.
