To The Last Page

The first few chapters of Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It  are quite confusing and you are not really sure what kind of book you are reading or where exactly it is going. It is not exactly a travel book, although Dyer takes us to a different location in each chapter - Amsterdam, Cambodia, Rome, Libya. While the surroundings are important, the real journey is going on inside the author’s head as Dyer unselfconsciously looks inward, looking for meaning in his life. Like a dislocated road movie, there appears to be no progression, development or destination in sight, the book as fragmented as the mind of the author himself as it jumps from location to location. Relationships are a prominent theme, although the book doesn’t have a cast of characters that stray beyond each individual chapter, each chapter in a different place and a different exploration of ideas. It appears fragmentary and aimlessly drifting, but it is not without a plot. It clearly has a central theme ru...

Florence, Italy, late 15th century.  Alessandra has a passion for art and drawing - two interests that are not becoming of a young woman of the period, who should be preparing herself for marriage and managing a household. Until she is married she cannot enjoy the freedoms afforded to her married older sister and her wild brothers who take full advantage of the prostitutes, wine and revelry of a rapidly expanding and prosperous city, hailed as the new Athens. But the party is about to come to an end. Bodies of pimps, prostitutes and their customers are being found mutilated in the streets - victims of a Ripper-like killer - plagues are on the increase and a local Friar, Savonarola has vowed to purge the city of its iniquities and vices and rules the city from the pulpit with austere authority. Alessandra desires instruction in drawing, but is not allowed to speak to an artist who has been employed by her father, a mysterious character who goes out secretly at night and returns with...