Sunday, January 24, 2016

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault

I finished The Persian Boy a couple of week ago, and a very annoying book it was. It didn't start too badly and then deteriorated, which is the worst way round because by that stage it's too late to ditch it and I was forced to plough through the last 200 pages with no enjoyment or interest.



The Persian Boy is a historical novel set in the time of Alexander the Great and told from the perspective of a eunuch who attaches himself (no pun intended) to Alexander. They go on lots of campaigns and endless wars. There are lots of characters with names I could never recall and stopped trying to remember who they all were. Eventually Alexander dies, sort of mid-campaign, and it ends. His eunuch is a pathetic creature who adores Alexander and doesn't regard his life as worth living without him.

Next up is a work of psychology in the style of The Road Less Travelled (I presume) called The Happiness Hypothesis



I am guessing this is one on those vaguely inspirational self-help books which really make you question your life and then promptly forget. I did like The Road Less Travelled and even read it twice, but it no longer has any sort of role in my existence.

I'm taking the Library Challenge a bit slower this year as I have a few other books to catch up on, some also from the library, but they are books I want to read rather than ones I stumble across. Once I have got them all out the way it will be full steam ahead again, but at the moment I am reading about six different books.