Thursday, March 17, 2011

Best And Then I Read This

I've got a few big, threatening books sitting around my room that I'm not quite ready to mess with.  I was feeling like reading something benevolent and I had Mr. Dahl's name buzzing around in my head, so I took  my first trip to the children's section of the library in quite a while and emerged with this:


Going Solo is the real life true story of Dahl's time as a young man working in colonial Africa and as a World War II fighter pilot.  While not always as breezy and clever as I had hoped and while definitely containing much more cold-blooded murder than I had expected, it was a good little read . . . and listen, it isn't exactly a children's book, there's also editions with covers for grown ups.  I've never read World War II fighter pilot stories before, what the British Air Force was up against in Northern Africa was pretty incredible.  We were definitely lucky Roald made it back, it's too bad about so many of those other guys.

Going Solo is also the continuation of another Dahl memoir called "Boy."  I haven't read that.

6 comments:

Tannertrue said...

I see nothing wrong with that cover. It's perfectly "grown up". Besides the "grown up" edition is black, white and red and made to look like a twilight book.

Tannertrue said...

Probably... it probably is.

Kimberly said...

You should read "Boy". I read it a long time ago, but it is a wonderful read, too. Some of his childhood memories are the inspiration for many of his books.

Side of Jeffrey said...

I also read boy...but I don't remember a thing about it. It was like a million billion trillion years ago. (maybe gazillion)

Anonymous said...

"Boy" is worth your time. The image of how he nearly lost his nose in a car accident still sticks in my mind many, many years later.

-Ryan

Mitch said...

If you do read "Boy" then why don't you come over and visit us and do a "Boy" tour? Roald Dahl grew up in Cardiff and his school is around the corner from our house in Llandaff.