Worlds Apart: Stories about love, language and cultures – David Newby

„We’re concerned with literary fiction, not with our own personal reality.’ ’I don’t see how you can separate them,’ says Joy.” (Original quotation page 173, 174)

Content

This book contains six short novels: The Bird’s Trilogy, Culture Lovers, Carol’s Christmas, Joy of Man’s Desiring, Framing, The Reading Circle. Each story has different main characters, men and women in a relationship, but definitely focuses on the female protagonists. One of the stories is very amusing and special.

Themes

All stories are about love, relationships and the British way of life, seen from different point of views and as adopted by different cultures and they all contain unexpected turns and twists.

Language is important, not only connected to the content, but used in a splendid way, playing with idioms, giving words and phrases amusing new contexts, which makes the book a real pleasure to read and makes the reader not only smile but laugh out loud.

Conclusion

Everyday life and marriage, including misunderstandings, humorously analyzed and described and told in a sensitive way, with subtle wit and irony.