Containing his four Richard Hannay books: The Thirty Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast and The Three Hostages, this omnibus has appeal to any late-maturing former fans of Biggles. I'd love to feel too serious and grown up to still be enjoying these roaring tales of colonial era adventures, but then when I look about me on the train each day and see that the other passengers are either (1) playing games on their phones, (2) reading Harry Potter, or (3) reading "Passion" or similar tales of sassy London business girls struggling to balance spending their vast bonuses on frippery with finding lasting commitment from similarly shallow accountants and bankers, then I feel less bad about reading Buchan.
A cold rainy day when the masses are commuting back and forth, engaged in honest toil and tilling the earth outside, in offices or on trains. Bless 'em. That's a good day to spend some time warming the pot, getting down the favourite Spode cup and s., and settling back into some Richard Hannay. With the best will in the world, end as much as a fan of Capt. W. E. Johns as I am, the Thirty Nine Steps is quite poor. It would require being snowbound in a tent on Cader Idris, happily to be able to accept some of the coincidental meetings on moorland that Hannay experiences. I have been on many walking trips in Britain and overseas, on moors and mountains but I have yet to meet in quick succession: a member of parliament, two of the chaps from prep school, a kindly blacksmith, a hook nosed pirate with a surprising weakness for toffees. Individually yes, of course. On seperate trips, yes. But one after the other within five hours of leaving Kinshasa on foot. Never. Assuming you can come to terms with the outrageous levels of convenient meetings, and some of the more colonial expressions used, then the Thirty Nine Steps is for you. Mind you, it only took a few hours to read, so assuming you are on a train, have forgotten your adult-covered Harry Potter (so everyone else assumes you're reading Thucydides presumably) and you're not requiring more entertainment than, say Birmingham New Street to York, then this is for you. If you're off to Papua New Guinea for three months, this will not fit the bill. You'll have finished all four books before you're being strip searched by Australians in Sydney airport, let alone hanging out with the wontoks on the Highlands highway.
On real adventures, always take books dealing with the mundane or the pastoral. Take my word for this. Little Dorrit is what you want to be reading when the fourteen year olds outside your hut with the automatic weapons are keeping you awake on the wrong side of the Sepik. That said, I'm enjoying Greenmantle.
At home, on a rainy day in Oxfordshire, make do with John Buchan.
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