Ramsgate Visit, Michelham Priory And Jazz

Today I went to Ramsgate to do a visit at a British Heart Foundation charity shop. Picked up five books for a total of eight quid, as I had to do a return visit after thirty minutes to the same place. Time spent between in a pub nursing a pint of beer.

All the books look brand new as well - they are -

Braham Smith - Smuggling In The Bristol Channel 1700 - 1850 (Countryside Books)
The Bedside Guardian 2010 (Guardian Books)
Nick Kent - The Dark Stuff (Faber)
Arundhati Roy - The God \Of Small Things (Fourth Estate)
Dashell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon (Orion)



Also, in the post today was my book I ordered through Play.com -

The Big Bang Theory And Philosophy (John Wiley)

The weather turned out to be very sunny and welcoming for my journey which was a bonus.

Forgot to add , on Tuesday when GC and I went over to Langney we went via Upper Dicker to see the grounds at Michelham Priory

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Also, a big thanks to GC for getting me the cherry flavoured Borkum Riff pipe tobacco from her weekend in Lille.

This evening I have been listening to Jazz FM on the DAB radio.

Book 58 - Jiri Weil "Mendelssohn is on the Roof" (Daunt Books)

Jiri Weil "Mendelssohn is on the Roof" (Daunt Books)



I took this book on my Ramsgate visit as I had a few pages left to read.

While Primo Levi, Ann Frank, and Eli Weizel are well known contributors to Holocaust literature, Jiri Weil is not. It is a shame that Weil is not better known because his work is just as powerful. This novel, set in German occupied Prague, "The Protectorate" as it is known, faithfully and horrifically describes life outside of the concentration camp. The closest it gets is the Terezin ghetto. Life was equally bleak outside the extermination camps. The novel views the world through the eyes of various characters, some Jews but others Nazis or Czech workers. This pastiche dwells on the usual themes of evil, power, death, violence, and suffering. A less typical theme was the psychic pain experienced by those who chose to or were forced to be complicit with the Nazis. And, although almost everyone meets a poor ending, in the end life always affirms itself. This truly is a brilliant novel and classic literature at its best.