The Man Who Saw Everything (Deborah Levy)

Deborah Levy

The Man Who Saw Everything

A book I read in a day on Easter Saturday during Coronavirus Lock Down. It's interesting with quirky themes and good descriptive writing which makes you concentrate on what's going on. But sometimes a little too artificial putting in unlikely situations just to make a point. There's a lot of flash backs and forwards and what seems real turns out not to be or maybe not. There are a few things that don't quite make sense to me at the end but to be honest the story itself and the characters don't make me care that much so I don't bother to re-read sections that may give a little light to my questions. Good while it lasted forget and move onto a classic.

Broken Greek (Pete Paphides)

Pete Paphides
Broken Greek, A story of chip shops and pop songs

A very readable and entertaining coming of age (well, nearly) story focussing around this music critic's Greek heritage and how he breaks away from that heritage as a boy growing up in Birmingham. Of course music is the big theme throughout focussed very much on pop songs and the Top 40. There's the rub. To be fair Pete is very young throughout the story and I guess you can forgive a 9 year old thinking that the Barron Knights are gods (well, possibly) but he seems to have invested so much into bands who are really there to make money that the underground seems to have missed him. Even his older brother's and friends less poppy tastes are within the context of whether they're on TOTP. Nevertheless a very entertaining book taking you back to your childhood and indeed some of the sights and sounds of Birmingham where I lived in the early to mid 80s when Pete was at senior school. Memories of Reddingtons Rare Records (long since gone with new retail developments) and the circular bus route that takes 2 hours to go round Birmingham. I'd like to read the next installment and see how his musical tastes develop...