...go see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's almost three hours long but it feels like ten minutes. At least it did for me. I wouldn't say I was totally engrossed as the film pretty much does what it says on the tin: a boy is born old and lives his life backwards but the magic is in the storytelling. You really don't have to do much work for this slice of entertainment except to sit quietly on your bum for well...a long time. Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton are excellent. It's no epic like say, oh I don't know, Lord of the Rings but it is incredibly watchable. The aging, de-aging prosthetics are unbelievably good. You can tell but you have to look very very carefully. Anyhoo. If you have a throw-away afternoon, this film is three hours better spent than cleaning or watching TV.
If you prefer a more mind engaging time eraser you could start reading Shantaram by Gregory Roberts. Based on a true story it will completely seduce you. Add a couple of zeros onto the three hours you might throw at a movie and you have an idea of the book's proportions but the end will come too soon - you'll see.
This isn't just a page turner, it will consume your every waking moment. I read it in just over two weeks and I have a demanding two year old but I found myself doing something I haven't been able to do since I was a teenager - stay up reading into the early hours. I would snatch a page whenever the opportunity arose. I would read making breakfast, walking to the shop, on the loo...everywhere. Couldn't read it fast enough and yet I didn't want it to end. The book became an extension of my arm. It was my first and last thought of the day. The only other time in recent memory a book has turned me into such a freak was the Philip Pullman trilogy. And maybe the Da Vinci Code but they took a fraction of the time to complete and to be fair I was nowhere near as obsessed. This book makes you work for it and you will do it happily.
It's an amazing story of crime, punishment, escape, love (requited and un), friendship, betrayal, human endurance, kindness and frailty, war, peace and loss. Set in Mumbai for the most part, 'the city of lights' I defy anyone who doesn't want to visit Cafe Leopold after reading.
Accounts of time spent in a lice-infested indian jail will repulse you; jail breaks will send your pulse galloping until you can't bear to read another word; the power of love and human endurance will melt the blackest of hearts and it will feel like saying goodbye to a lover you've just spend the whole night talking to on the phone when you turn the last page.
Do yourself a favour read it in February - the month of boring. Winter will never feel so good.
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