The quietest and most constant of friends

Looking for a book to read?
Here are the last three I’ve devoured (Mills & Boon’s excluded).

Women, food and God
Geneen Roth

Firstly, no, not God as in Christian God – just God as in that’s as good a name for the source of the universe as anything.

I was a bit skeptical about it, so I ordered it from the library rather than buying it. At first glance, it looked a bit blah and trite and same-old. But then it wasn't. I sat down for a quick squiz one night as I was heading to bed (exhausted) and read the first 70 pages. I had to stop when my eyes just wouldn't stay open any more.

It mainly focuses on overeaters (I guess they're the market) but also looks at all women who have any kind of difficult relationships with food (practically every woman I’ve ever met). It shows how our eating reflects and perpetuates our attitudes to our world/spirituality/self/place in space/relationships - everything.

It’s an easy read with lots of anecdotes that work - but BIG concepts. MEGA, in fact. (It's not really about food at all - but, on the other hand, it kind of is.) It changed my life as I read it. And when I finished it, I started it all over again - slower. I love it.

61 hours
Lee Child

I am never sure whether I want to be Jack Reacher or sleep with him. He’s a sexy, menacing giant drifter with a moral code more impenetrable than Saddam's bunker and with more unacknowledged dysfuctions that even Dr Phil would know what to do with.

Reacher appears for the 14th time in 61 Hours. After the slightly disappointing (but still read-worthy) Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child is back on top of his game with this latest offering.

In this tome, Reacher’s passing through Nebraska, when he encounters some twitchy people who want him to leave pronto. He’s driven to find out why. And, of course, in due course, gets in all kinds of life-threatening and spectacular strife that will leave you holding your breath until you turn blue for lack of oxygen.

The best bit? Book 15 is due out at the end of this month. Yay!

The life of Pi
Yann Martel

This is a strange little book that seems to be a slow starter – but by the time you think about complaining, you realise you’re well and truly sucked in.

When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals.

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger.

At its simplest, this is an adventure story about a boy trying to survive a shipwreck. It could be called a zoo parable. Or it could be seen as a quirky metatext about faith, food and fiction.

Read this to relieve your literary cynicism – and be entertained.



On the way to the library or the bookstore, keep in mind the wise words of Groucho Marx: 'Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.'

Image: Francesco Marino