Reading England 2016 - Recap
When I joined this challenge a year ago, I had every intention of branching out and reading books from multiple counties. As it turns out, I stayed in familiar territory and read London for all three books (Level 1). The Mint was a fitting sequel to Seven Pillars of Wisdom . For some reason I went into it expecting a novel, but it's actually a journal-like memoir of T. E. Lawrence's peacetime experiences in the military. After his campaigns as "Lawrence of Arabia" - and, as importantly, after his attempts to deal with politicians - T.E. was sick of being a leader and wanted to disappear from the public eye. He joined the service under an assumed name, and that is where he found a place of security and camaraderie, the R.A.F. The Mint is a coarse novel, written in a modern voice (for the times) and full of all the profanities and vulgarity that Lawrence encountered around him. I found myself unable to rate the book, because it came across as an hones...