Have you ever struck up a long and intimate conversation with a stranger on a train? No really, I am asking. I have met people who have ended up going out with people they have met on the train and I am always utterly bemused and fascinated by this. What if they were an axe-murderer? What if they are crazy? I don't know, I have always been totally and utterly cautious when it comes to relationships. Unless I have known them in a friend-capacity or in a social context such as an orchestra, therefore giving them legitimacy, I couldn't even contemplate it. And yet for others, this has formed part of their life, e.g. meeting someone in a pub and marrying them. Or online.
Anyway, this is all a long preamble leading up to this current post.
Trains and lovers is a wonderful newish book by my absolute darling favourite author, Alexander McCall Smith. (received as a Christmas present from the darling J!) It begins, as you may now have guessed with conversations striking up between 4 people on a train from Scotland to London. The talk is all about relationships, though that's not what the conversations were originally struck up about. The four characters have led really interesting, disparate lives. David, art-history graduate is in love with Hermione, fellow art-historian. He's working at a gallery. He's shy and comes from a small Scottish town which he feels is insignificant. He also believes he doesn't know anyone. Hermione's Dad thinks similarly about him.
Then there's Hugh- somehow falling for a boy who moves near him, totally unexpected.
Kay- a wonderful dialogue about Kay's parents and how they met. An extraordinary account that really put me in the Australian outback.
Andrew met his girlfriend at a train station after getting off the wrong train. But then all is not what it seems about her. Or is it?
A really interesting story, gripping and I really liked the characters. Really felt for their situations, wanted things to work out. And do you know what. I quite like the ending! Short and sweet and definitely enjoyable.
Anyway, this is all a long preamble leading up to this current post.
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Trains and lovers is a wonderful newish book by my absolute darling favourite author, Alexander McCall Smith. (received as a Christmas present from the darling J!) It begins, as you may now have guessed with conversations striking up between 4 people on a train from Scotland to London. The talk is all about relationships, though that's not what the conversations were originally struck up about. The four characters have led really interesting, disparate lives. David, art-history graduate is in love with Hermione, fellow art-historian. He's working at a gallery. He's shy and comes from a small Scottish town which he feels is insignificant. He also believes he doesn't know anyone. Hermione's Dad thinks similarly about him.
Then there's Hugh- somehow falling for a boy who moves near him, totally unexpected.
Kay- a wonderful dialogue about Kay's parents and how they met. An extraordinary account that really put me in the Australian outback.
Andrew met his girlfriend at a train station after getting off the wrong train. But then all is not what it seems about her. Or is it?
A really interesting story, gripping and I really liked the characters. Really felt for their situations, wanted things to work out. And do you know what. I quite like the ending! Short and sweet and definitely enjoyable.
