Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Opening Sentence of the Day: Basil's Dream

"From the air, through the plastic porthole of a descending plane, Bermuda appears improbable." -- Basil's Dream by Christine Hale. Lucy Langston moves to Bermuda with her husband and 12-year-old son in 2001, when economic troubles and racial tension are threatening the idyllic serenity of the island paradise. I'm 50 pages into it and completely absorbed.

2 comments :

  1. Hi RCR, I just glanced at your TBR list and saw Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker" at the top. Great book -- one of my favorites. I had to write a story about puppetry the other day and was bummed I couldn't work in a reference to it. It's set in post-apocalypse England, when broken shards of the present are all over the place and the amateur anthropologists of the future misinterpret them in devastatingly funny ways. Like "Mad Max" but a lot smarter. A whole religion's been built up around a misunderstanding of the Punch and Judy show. Great stuff! (Hoban's also the author of some terrific kids' picture books.)

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  2. Bob -- thanks for the scoop on Riddley Walker. I found a copy at a library book sale and, recognizing it from the Anthony Burgess list, I grabbed it. But I had trepidations because of the Old English-style vernacular. You make a convincing case for giving it a go.

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