A book is a garden carried in the pocket.

And I've been through a few in the last couple of weeks.Let me review the ones that I've finished so far.
The first one was John Grisham's "The Broker". While it is a thrilling page turner and certainly better than the ones that the author has written in the recent past( "The Painted House and "The Street Lawyer " come to mind),it lacks the class of his earlier works like "The Client" or "The Rainmaker". Besides, as a spy story ,it provokes inevitable comparisons with the Master, Frederick Fosythe, and then, the book is found lacking.
Another book I read recently was Jeffrey Archer's "Prison Diary III-Heaven".The first two, "Hell" and "Purgatory" respectively were excellent insights into the British prison system and into the drug trafficking that destroys so many innocent lives. The third one, written on similar lines was pretty good,exept Archer came across occasionally as rather whiny-OK We get! The system has been totally unfair to him ;in trying to make sure he got no preferential treatment, they went to the other extreme. But reading about it in every entry makes it tedious;repetition leads to irritation.! Aside from that this series is right up there with Archer's best("Kane and Abel" and "As the Crow Flies") and I eagerly anticipate the set of short stories that he says he is working on.
Then I read the much talked about series "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.I assure you, the books are as good as everyone says they are.Actually, they're Bloody Brilliant! Its written with a wonderfully irrevernt sense of humour,which makes an insanely improbable plot seem utterly natural,as we follow the adventures of Arthur Dent.
The movie however proved disappointing. I didn't expect it to be as good as the book-no movie has ever been as good as the book that inspired it-from "Gone With the Wind" to " The Lord of the Rings" and this series isn't the kind that can be brought to life by a bunch of special effects. Marvin the robot was he only redeeming point of the movie.
Right now I'm reading(in an effort to improve my mind) "My Experiments With Truth". I have "Mourning becomes Elektra" to go next,and I'm trying to find"The Catcher in the Rye"