Recent Reading (and Zombies)

I've went a bit vintage with my reading last week.

Spurred on by the repeat of the TV series featuring Rowan Atkinson as a rather slimline Inspector Maigret, I read My Friend Maigret, one of the Simenon books I've picked up recently.  The Maigret series is one I've always thought I'd want to read but never got around to.  I was surprised by how slight My Friend was*, but I enjoyed it.  And I wasn't at all put off by The Wife saying "I remember reading that at school in French"!

*Perhaps explained by the fact that Simenon wrote 75 Maigret novels and 28 short stories!

I was struck by the fact that although the book was written in 1949 it didn't mention the war, even  when discussing suspects' backgrounds.  These days any thriller set in the 1940s or '50s isn't considered complete if it doesn't have an ex-POW or a bevy of former SOE or Bletchley types.   In recent TV adaptations of Agatha Christie and the like, the plot is changed to shoe-horn them in.  A reflection of changing perspectives on the period, I suppose.

After that, I've gone even further in time to read M R James' Thirteen Ghost Stories in a rather nice German edition* from the '30s.  James** is another author that I've thought I should read and would probably enjoy; and I am finding that to be the case.  Certainly, some of the TV adaptations have scared the willies out of me in the past!

*Don't get me wrong - it's an English-language edition!
**A medievalist and the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story" - you can see the appeal!

And so on to Zombies...

For some reason I often find myself thinking of the Zombie Apocalypse when walking No 2 Dog.  This is possibly because I try to do it when the streets and paths are deserted* or because of the number of beat-up camper vans we pass**.  Perhaps it because Moley has the right attitude to survive the apocalypse - he'd have no problem decapitating a little old lady (or preferably a zombie labrador).

*No 1 Dog on the other hand prefers to walk during or just after the school run - all the better to find half-eaten slices of toast or chocolate crepes, which are his latest favorite.

** I have this half-intention to post some photos on the blog of vehicles for a British Post-Apocalyse (given the lack of US-style school buses outside Suffolk).

Moley ready to devour something or other

So I've acquired these