Holiday Reads

I love browsing other people's bookshelves, so I was delighted to find that the apartment we had rented in San Francisco had a small library of books.

It was an eclectic selection, I presume comprising of books belonging to the owners and things left behind by previous holiday-makers.

It included the quintessential San Francisco book "Tales of the City" by Armistead Maupin which I'd been meaning to read so was pleased to discover here. I also read "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell, the poverty and misery providing a nice contrast with Californian sun. I started "A Short History of Nearly Everything " by Bill Bryson but it wasn't short enough and I abondoned it when I realised that I wouldn't be able to read 600 pages in the remaining time.

The collection had something for all tastes:

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Virago Woman's Guide to San Francisco
Treasury of Poetry
Its Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong
Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulk
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Complete Book of Horse Care
3 books by Anne Rice
Several Alexander McCall Smith books
Multiple books by Nick Bantock (who?)

and my absolute favourite "There and Back Again" by Sean Astin, which I did try to read aloud from once, but found so dull I couldn't continue.