Last week I had to take my partner to her college in Ashington so she could hand in some work or get some work signed or something. It’s not the first time I’ve had to do so, but I don’t mind because I take a book with me. I went last week with The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. I hate being one of those people that doesn’t start reading an author until they’ve died but there I went. It was a birthday present though, but I do plan to read him further.

Anyway, she was in the college for about an hour and I ended up finishing the book. But she returned and stated that after we’d gone for something to eat we needed to come back as the tutors she’d been looking for were all on their dinner breaks. Well, that was no good. I couldn’t well sit in the car park for maybe another hour without a book. So, undeterred, we went to Asda and I perused the book section there, though I wasn’t exactly hopeful. It’s mostly chart books, and I don’t really read thrillers or chick lit or historical fiction, and with crime fiction I tend to avoid detective series, like Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole books. I’m sure they’re really good, it’s just not my kind of thing.

I settled on Tom a Rob Smith’s Child 44. It had Tom Hardy on the cover, and I’m a big Tom Hardy fan, though I’ve heard apparently the film adaptation ain’t great. Which is a shame, because so far I’m really enjoying the book. The history of Russia, Russian culture in general, has always interested me. I’m interested in all cultures, but Russia holds a special place for me due to the likes of Dostoevsky et al. Although it’s been written by an outsider (and has more than likely been banned in the country – I could look it up to see if it has been banned in Russia, I’ll check in a mo) from what I understand it’s very accurate of that period. The whole thing is incredibly Orwellian so far. Spies spying on spies, no one to trust, total paranoia etc. Where I’m up to he’s not even hunting the killer yet, which I assume is soon to come. Knowing about the film, I can’t help but picture Leo Demidov as Tom Hardy, and I know Gary Oldman is Major Kuzmin and Noomi Rapace is Raisa, but I don’t know who the other actors are playing. I picture Vincent Cassel as Vasili. I’m a big fan of Vincent Cassel, I mentioned La Haine a few blogs back. I’m a bigger fan of Tom Hardy.

I checked, and it seems the movie of Child 44 has been banned in Russia, but I can’t find anything that said whether the book had been or not. I didn’t look very hard. There are more important things in the world.