Currently Reading.....

I love to read and almost always have a book on the go.  It might take me an age to read it, but I always have one on my bedside in case I have a spare half hour at the beginning or end of the day to read it.

For a while now I've been more drawn to books that I would consider to be a lighter read, in that they tend to be humorous and easy to pick up and put down.  The book I'm currently reading falls into this category.  It's called The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella.



I think I probably picked this book up at a car boot sale or charity shop and it is the second book written by this author that I've read to date, the last one being the Secret Dream World of a Shopaholic.  In fact I watched the film version of this latter book on TV the other night, which was quite amusing, but the film seemed to have been altered somewhat from the original book, which often seems to be the case these days, for dramatic effect I suppose.

Anyway, I digress.  This book by Kinsella is in her usual comic style, with a somewhat hapless if highly intelligent heroine whose life spirals out of control.  In this instance, the heroine is a lawyer, working all hours in London, with no personal life and who is completely undomesticated and cannot cook, sew, wash clothes, do housework, etc.  I'm not sure how realistic this character is, but I can imagine that it might be possible to be so work orientated that most of one's daily domestic duties are carried out by other people, paid by you to do them.

The plot centres around a mistake made at work by the central character, which she discovers on the morning that she is expecting to be made a partner of the law firm for which she works.  On discovering her error and realising that she has cost a client 50 million pounds, she does a runner from her job and life and jumps on a train to anywhere.  When the train stops, she stumbles up the drive of a large country house and as a result of a misunderstanding finds herself in possession of a new job as a housekeeper.

Obviously there follows lots of farcical situations where she attempts to hide her incompetence, a love interest, help from unexpected sources, and things begin to come good again.  Just as she is starting to enjoy her new life, it is thrown into disarray by a visitor, a discovery and an important decision to be made about her future.

I'm currently more halfway through this book and am finding it an enjoyable and amusing read.  It is well written and entertaining.  I am compelled to continue reading to find out how it all pans out in the end, although some of my early suspicions as to how the plot might unfurl have been realised, but in a completely unexpected way.  So far, I can definitely recommend this as a funny, intelligent and entertaining read.

I've already lined up my next Sophie Kinsella read which is a book called 'I've Got Your Number', which I picked up in a charity shop yesterday.  (Yes, I did fall off the wagon so to speak, but only spent £2.60 for two t-shirts, a book, three pieces of lace and four reels of cotton).