Since many had such nice things to say about TTMC , and I had been postponing buying this book for reasons that skip my mind now, when I came across this during a recent visit to a second hand book store, I immediately put it in my bag. Strangely, even after it spent 2 whole days in my house, I didn’t reach for the book. Even when I saw the words Agatha Christie lovers will enjoy this book, I wasn’t impressed. Agatha Christie is irreplaceable in my books. To be honest, that sentence kinda put me off.
And when I decided to finally pick this book and sat down to read, I was…did you expect me to say mind blown? If so, sorry to disappoint you. I wasn’t too enthralled. The initial few pages set the pace right and it was all in right proportion – the mystery, the murder, the suspects, red herrings and so on. It wasn’t a Christie mystery. After the mighty slow paced first half of the book, the second half followed the same rhythm. I didn’t enjoy solving the crime. Towards the end of the book, I knew who else was left, and it wasn’t a huge reveal of any sorts. It wasn’t a great mystery thriller.
But it was an enjoyable read. What I loved was seeing the world through older people’s eyes. The love that shines in all the elderly couples in the book – it was something warm. There were many beautiful moments, subtle, thoughtful emotions, the cute humor – they were all nice. Richard Osman’s writing was simple. There were some lines which stayed with me. Let me write about one such line in this post..
“In life you have to learn to count the good days. You have to tuck them in your pocket and carry them around with you. So I’m putting today in my pocket and I’m off to bed.” Isn’t that beautiful? It applies to everyone, be it whether they are in their 30s,40s or 60s. And this got me thinking. We tend to take everything for granted – the good days especially. We never know they are the good days until it ends. It’s only when the bad days arrive, we think about the good days. I guess we should learn to tick off a day as a good day and acknowledge that as it comes.
I hope this lesson stays with me till this week at least. I seem to forget things quite easily…Well, I have tucked today into my pocket, how about you?
Be First to Comment