Bedtime Reading

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/bedside/

What books do you have next to your bed right now?
How about other places in the house? What are you reading?

Next to my bed right now I have Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith. It is the second novel in the 44 Scotland Street series, which were first published as serial novels in the Scottish national newspaper The Scotsman. (Previously, I have read his books about the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency - set in Botswana - and also some from his Scottish Sunday Philosophy Club series.) The 44 Scotland Street series is about the inhabitants of that address in Edinburgh (the street exists in reality, but not No 44). Originally written as a serial novel, I find it a good book for a bit of bedtime reading... The chapters are not too long and each one is sort of a story within the story. It's basically light-hearted and amusing, and not likely to cause nightmares! I have to say the character that fascinates me most is young Bertie, a little boy on an intellectual level far beyond his years - and with a very pushy mother, trying to make the most of that - while Bertie himself, most of the time, is really just longing to be allowed to be a normal kid. I can't say I find the neither him nor his mother very "believable" but I'm still amused. His name brings to mind Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster; and I would say McCall Smith's story has quite a bit of the same kind of spirit as Wodehouse's, even if set in another time and environment.

I also always have an audio book going and right now I'm re-listening to Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett; which is the 14th of his Discworld books, and part of the Witches-series. In it, he plays around with references to Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Stonehenge, Crop Circles and Elves, amongst other things...