This week’s ‘bus book’ has been a collection of Graham Greene’s short stories.

For anyone who’s not encountered the concept of a ‘Bus Book’ I refer you here…

I like Graham Greene. I particularly like his short stories and his novel ‘The Human Factor’, which I’ve always regarded as one of the two or three best espionage novels of the 20th Century. I like him so much that one of my own short stories is called ‘The man who liked Greene’.

Anyway – the edition I chose was his collected short stories – it encompasses stuff from the 1930s onwards, and has some lovely stuff in there. ‘Cheap in August’ is a wonderful, down beat, sort of love-story. ‘The hint of an explanation’ – an excursion in to a child’s formative years and spiritual birth, and ‘Two Gentle People’ – one of my all time favourites.

Greene can sometimes be a bit depressing – some of his earlier stuff I find a little too world-weary and cynical, but even in that mood he’s always thought provoking.  Take a look at ‘Men at work’ – a story set in the Battle of Britain.

In his ‘Please may we borrow your husband’ I have to say I found myself wanting to slap numerous characters around the head with a wet haddock for a number of reasons, but still an excellent read!