the book choices - Sinister Errand

My book is called 'Sinister Errand' a novel by Peter Cheyney. I found the book at the local CWA hall market in a holiday town on the North East coast of Tas called Bridport. Bridport is where my family have a holiday house and I chose this book because its the kind of book that one finds in shacks, the kind of book I never read or never think I have the time to read because that would mean being on holidays with nothing other to do than be inside reading an aged 1946 detective novel. (Needless to say, I haven't read the book!)

The book is old and brown, when I picked it up it seemed like a very basic functional book, one whose purpose is to tell a jolly good story, not a flashily designed, illustrated or colourful book, it had a sort of direct honesty about it. Dipping into it, I could tell there was a strong narrative in it, any page has, characters, action and situations described, these elements I thought might be good starting points to respond to. I'm also interested in 'graphic novels' and am only just beginning to look at them and I thought this sort of story could be a way to look more at that genre. The fact that it has no images at all appealed as then there's the possibility to really respond to the text, individual words or strings. Being a 1946 publication it feels like it could be a time capsule for all sorts of assumptions and social messages belonging to that era, for example, I couldn't help notice the way women and men were characterised in it, and that interests me.

Anyway they are my thoughts on what was an instinctive choice towards a book I would not usually buy or read.

(Marg)