Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Person of the books

I'm about halfway through reading A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash by Alexander Masters. Following Masters' discovery of a group of abandoned journals, it's an odd and fascinating kind of detective story: Masters is actively trying not to discover who his subject is, because he wants to keep her universal. It's looking like he might not be able to avoid finding out, though.

Also I've learned a new bit of British English: "skip" for "dumpster." Not sure where it came from, but it sounds expressive.

2 comments:

semiconscious said...

i thought this book'd appeal to you. my only problem with it is masters' apparent inability to stop himself from constantly putting himself in the spotlight - for me, more excerpts from the journals (which are mesmerizing), & less of masters' chatty ramblings would've been preferable :) ...

Ben said...

Well, I think it was unavoidable that Masters would jump in front at certain points in the book, because the whole thing is tied up with his friend Dido dying as well. It does have an effect, though. If he didn't already have two bestsellers under his belt - or at least critically acclaimed books - his descriptions of Laura would be very different.