The Joy of Books

When the news is so unremittingly gloomy, it’s a relief to slid into an alternative world, to lose yourself among people or stories that writers have cunningly devised. Just at the moment, I’m doing that twice over, in incredibly different ways.

Downstairs, with a cup of tea before breakfast, and then at various points through the day, I’m working through the massive “The Covenant of Water”, by Abraham Verghese. It’s an Indian family saga, like Rushdie and many others, tracing the development of a range of characters over years. It’s lovingly, carefully told, totally convincing and enthralling, a real pleasure to read.

But when I go to bed I’m in an utterly contemporary America, inhabited by smart middle aged people who know what they think but aren’t quite sure how they feel. “Romantic Comedy”, by Curtis Sittenfield, is exactly what it says on the tin, a witty and affectionate study of a relationship, between a comedy writer and a singer. It features conversations and e-mail exchanges and is utterly contemporary but also driven by the same “will they? won’t they?” suspense that drives Jane Austen’s novels. I’m so lucky, and I’m dreading finishing them both.