"These were Rob J.'s last safe and secure moments of blessed innocence, but in his ignorance he considered it hardship to be forced to remain near his father's house with his brothers and his sister."I'm ready to start reading this novel, having decided the one I'm slogging through now is so annoyingly awful that I'm rating it DNF (Did Not Finish) and tossing it aside. This one sounds more interesting.
An orphan leaves Dark Ages London, taking a dangerous journey and posing as a Jew to study medicine in Persia. A child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon, Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine. But as he matures, his strange gift — an acute sensitivity to impending death — never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer. Arab madrassas are the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a Jew, he studies under the world’s most renowned physician, Avicenna. The Physician is the first book in Noah Gordon’s Dr. Robert Cole trilogy, which continues with Shaman and concludes with Matters of Choice.
Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays. Click here for today's Mister Linky.
Of course, enquiring minds want to know which book you are rating DNF....
ReplyDeleteThe book I gave up on was Before Ever After ~ by Samantha Sotto, 2011, fiction, DNF. The first 44% of this book is random and over-written like these random examples, so I DNF'd it (Did Not Finish), even through I struggled to keep going and should have stopped long before I did.
ReplyDelete~~~ "Mustard-slathered bratwurst. The thought popped into her head randomly and Shelley grabbed on to it like a life-line" (p. 121).
~~~ "The floor glittered with the jagged pieces of a broken dawn" (p. 49).
~~~ "Her years creased at the sides of her green eyes..." (p. 63).
~~~ "Max, she decided, was like a golden full-fat mozzarella stick fried in butter, irrestible, unapologetic, and off-limits" (p. 47).
Helen, you can always see what I've read and my ratings by clicking on the dates under the blog heading. Here's what I've read in 2017, and this book follows #66, which is (obviously) in July: http://bonniesbooks.blogspot.com/p/2017.html