Changes

I finished the book with that glow you get when you read someone with the keenest of eyes, an enviable talent for the mot juste and the ability to make you laugh. I still didn't like the Halls very much but I was glad their various comeuppances were also the beginnings of their rejuvenations. ''A Spot Of Bother'' is the kind of affable read that's naughty but not too naughty and kindly in its criticisms. I'm not really sure I'm the better for reading it, or if it told me anything that wasn't blindingly obvious to everyone except said Hyacinth Bucket, or if the plot was actually substantial enough to repay the reading. Nevertheless, Mark Haddon is a man with an affinity for words that I can only dream of possessing. And frankly, that's good enough for me.

Alan Bennett's [[Three Stories]] looks at pretensions and snobberies in a slightly less genial but probably more funny way, while [[The Eyrie]] by Stevie Davies deconstructs close relationships with a similarly poetic and precise prose.