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| Packing priorities |
Heading home from a week's worth of rambling on the Pembrokeshire Coast of Wales with a couple of days in London at the end of the trip, I had a chance to swing by a favorite spot, Cadenhead's Whisky Shop, Scotland's oldest independent bottler. If you are a fan of single malt, you won't find a more appealing shopfront, with unique single cask bottlings from all your favorite distilleries listed in chalk on big blackboard along with pertinent details. Though I had to sacrifice some travel clothes and check my bag, I've managed to squirrel away couple of fun bottles for the flight home. Reason enough to make the next Book Group meeting even if you don't particularly enjoy Tinker, Tailor!
By the way, while in London, we had the good luck to pick up a couple of returned tickets for the sold out production of Shakespeare's Richard III starring Martin Freeman of Sherlock fame. The play is set and staged in 1979 Britain (The Winter of Discontent) in a version of Churchill's War Rooms. Interestingly, the program notes cite the dictatorship of Kim Jong-Il and Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in the same paragraph as inspirations for the production format. The relevancy of the Book Group discussions is a gift that never stops giving!
While up in Vt mountain biking I picked up Lexicon by Max Barry. I think it fits nicely with our current book genre. A very clever book that will appeal to those in the group that like a good thriller.
ReplyDeleteI just came back from 8 days in Ireland, got a bottle of Kilbeggan Greenore small batch, single grain 8 yr whiskey at duty free for 18 Euros. Would love to share, but there won't be any left by book club night. Not as smooth at 12 year old Jameson, but quite interesting. I read a book too. "The Overlook" by Michael Connolly -- an old Detective Bosch series (Paperback) that I had not read before.
ReplyDeleteAlso, have just started "Silkworm" by Galbraith/Rowling. ( I liked the first in the series "Cuckoos Calling." )
Dennis Noonan
Regarding Scotch, I read somewhere that had Scotland left the UK, the price of Scotch would have soared due to various price supports the oiskebraugh receives from the EU and UK. Similarly timely, I'm reading "Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World" by Stephen O'Shea, who lives in Providence. Superb telling of the interchange between the two religious zones; great battle detail enhanced by O'Shea's having visited the battlefields no matter how out-of-the-way; and insights that constantly illuminated this history for me. Considering the rise of a new Caliphate (they popped up regularly back then which could provide some historical perspective to ISIL); that Sunni and Shi'ite were at each other's throats; that the western crusaders committed countless atrocities on all sides, one might wonder whether the only thing that's changed is the size of the weapons. On the other hand, O'Shea talks a lot about "convivencia", a spirit of cooperative coexistence that brought the three faiths together and that often resulted in an outburst of stunning cultural activities. Unfortunately, convivencia seems in short supply these days. But the book is around and is a great read.
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