Currently reading
A London Family, 1870-1900: A Trilogy
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
All the Names
A History of the World in 100 Objects
Down the Garden Path
Virtue Betray'd, Or, Anna Bullen
Year of Wonders
Swallows and Amazons
Illusion in java
I read the Paddington books when I was a kid in the 70's and I remember hearing my mom at night in the next room, giggling while she read them. I'm re-reading them now with my son and I had forgotten just how funny they are. It's rare for me that a book makes me laugh out loud, but these do. We have also been listening to the excellent recordings of Stephen Fry reading this, More About Paddington, and Paddington Here and Now, which are so well done that I don't mind listening to them over and over in the car. Paddington is a great combination of naive, adventurous, and persistent. He has a strong sense of right and wrong and is filled with righteous indignation when he encounters wrong. In every chapter, Paddington gets himself into some sort of difficulty, but he always manages to come out smelling like roses. As the Brown's housekeeper says, "Bears always fall on their feet." Some of the physical slapstick in the stories is quite funny, like when Paddington has tea and buns at the train station and somehow ends up standing on the table with one foot in his teacup, covered with jam and cream. "Things are always happening to me," says Paddington. In reality, Paddington is always happening to the world!