Monday, May 12, 2014

Book of the month club: Sharpe's Christmas

This week's charity shop find, along with Orbital's second album, Star Trek Into Darkness for two quid, and heap of Frankie Goes to Hollywood vinyl is a Bernard Cornwell "Sharpe" book that I never knew existed. This one, in fact, complete with your author's leg still in shot:
 

Half of me dying to know how much it was on eBay (bugger all, it turns out), I splashed out 50p to help out a local charity that gives out weapons to under-privileged muggers.

Assuming (quite wrongly, as it happens) Sharpe's Christmas to be the most tremendous tosh, I was delighted to find it is just six lines of verse. To whit:

"Sharpe's Christmas
I gave you my lance
And the very next day
You ran it through a Frenchman
This year to save me from tears
I ran amok with a sword at the Battle of Talavera"

Most people know Sharpe from the ITV dramatisation of the book series. Strangely unfulfilling, mainly because as each episode ends, the viewer is left confused as to why Sean Bean - Hollywood's best-looking corpse - is still alive.

And for those of you wanting to know if the book obeys Cornwell's Law Of Finishing The Book With The Title:
It was Sharpe's Christmas.
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4 comments:

  1. Steve8:23 am

    Just ordered my copy off Amazon and the shipping cost more than the actual book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alistair Coleman9:04 am

    The shipping cost is the only way most Amazon sellers turn a profit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:47 pm

    "......Sean Bean - Hollywood's best-looking corpse - is still alive......"

    Quite wrong, I'm afraid. Hollywood's best-looking corpse is that carrion which Catherine Zeta Jones hauls about with her out of some archaic obligation for having married the c

    ReplyDelete
  4. CrossRoss3:03 pm

    I too found my copy of Sharpe's Christmas; 3 christmas' ago! I read whilst I done a poo ... not a very long read but it means the collection of Cornwall books was and remains complete! That is it's only purpose!

    ReplyDelete