Libby

I usually only have one fiction book on the go at any time, but I do swop about with non-fiction. I quite often have 2 which I am reading for the first time, plus a third which I read regularly (usually "Everyday Zen" by Charlotte Joko Beck). If I have more than 2 first-timers, it's usually a sign that I'm giving up on at least one of them. It's a bad habit, but I hate leaving books unfinished. I'm trying to develop the art of shutting them and putting them back on the shelf or - harder still - taking them back to the library, unread.

My guess is that Snape really is a traitor and that in the next book Harry will discover why Dumbledore trusted him - something to do with a so-called 'Unbreakabke Vow' is my guess. (In fact I think maybe I read that in an earlier book?). I guess it's possible that Dumbledore may resurrect, but I doubt it. But, of course, the big question now (for me, anyway) is - who got the pendant/horcrux?

This is an amazing book. I groaned when I first opened it because it's written in a kind of degraded English, but it's fairly easy to get most of it - easy enough not to spoil the reading and, in fact, I found that guessing some of the more difficult words and phrases was part of the fun. It's set in Britain post- (some kind of) nuclear apocalypse and it's the story of a teenage boy who's old enought ot be treated as an adult - life expectancy is short in this world and children grow up first. It sounds grim, I know, and parts of it are - but I actually found it tremendously cheering and uplifting. One of the puzzles is that what Riddley's contemporaries tell him about history as they know and understand may not be entirely accurate - yet the book avoids being irritatingly post-modernist. Available in various editions: incl. Bloomsbury 2002 and Picador 1982 (both paperbacks). And yes, it's by the same guy who wrote 'The Mouse and his Child' (which I haven't read) and the 'Frances the Badger' series (one of which I have read, and enjoyed) but, obviously, this is very different. Anyone else enjoyed this book - or know other adult works by Hoban? I want recommendations for what I should read next.