My reading week: 6/52

Currently Reading

I’m listening to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, which has been chosen for my March book club.

I’m reading Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David because who doesn’t need to do this?

Recently Completed

I finished three novels this week. The first was No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms “the portal,” where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats–from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness–begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal’s void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. “Are we in hell?” the people of the portal ask themselves. “Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?”

Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: “Something has gone wrong,” and “How soon can you get here?” As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

This novel is divided into two parts, the first of which focuses on the world of the ‘portal’, which is simultaneously humorous, absurd and hits disturbingly home. It made me question my relationship to an online life and how far I want to delve into this parallel reality. I felt slightly ambivalent to this section, recognising it contains important messages but not particularly gripped.

In stark contrast, the second part shifts to a very real event in the very real world and is hard-hitting and incredibly moving. My response to the first half was knocked sideways and this novel became a great work, in my opinion. At one point, I had tears in my eyes and I am grateful I stuck with it.

I listened to this novel but I feel it is one that I should have read.

I will use it for prompt 31 of the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge: Technology-themed.

I also read The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.

Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where he is going. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved owner Satoru in the front seat of his silver van.

Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why and Satoru won’t say. Set against the backdrop of Japan’s changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and striking humour, Nana’s story explores the wonder and thrill of life’s unexpected detours.

This easy-to-read novel explores the importance of friendship, both human and feline, and the impact that we have on the lives of others. I sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the pleasant, comfortable journey, until I neared the end when it became incredibly moving and emotional.

This fits prompt 34 of the Challenge: Author’s photo on the back cover.

My final completion was Three Sisters by Heather Morris.

When they are little girls, Cibi, Magda and Livia make a promise to their father – that they will stay together, no matter what. Years later, at just 15, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. Cibi, only 19 herself, remembers their promise and follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her. Together, they fight to survive through unimaginable cruelty and hardship.

Magda, only 17, stays with her mother and grandfather, hiding out in a neighbour’s attic or in the forest when the Nazi militia come to round up friends, neighbours and family. She escapes for a time, but eventually she too is captured and transported to the death camp. In Auschwitz-Birkenau the three sisters are reunited and, remembering their father, they make a new promise, this time to each other: That they will survive.

This is a fictional account of a remarkable true story by the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which I haven’t read. I found I wanted to pick this up and follow the sisters on their heartbreaking and horrific journey. The account of their time in Auschwitz-Birkenau is a harrowing portrayal of the evil inflicted during this dark period in history.

I therefore feel unjust in the criticism that is to follow but for me it was about 100+ pages too long and I think it would have been better to stop writing at a certain point, omit the final part, and tell the remainder of the story as a biographical summary. I also felt that at times it slipped through the gap between fiction and biography. Having said that, it is well worth reading.

This will suit several prompts but I’m going to choose number 10: A book based on a real person.

Reading Next

This will probably be another Japanese novel, At the End of the Matinee by Keiichiro Hirano.

My thought-provoking quotation this week comes from Three Sisters:

Is that it? she thinks. They went through all that horror, and now they’re just being sent home, on a bus, as if nothing had happened? Rage spikes her body. Who is going to say sorry? Who is going to atone for their suffering, the senseless deaths?

My reading week: 5/52

Currently Reading

I’m reading The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa for the Japanese Literature book club.

I’ve recommenced listening to No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. I ended up restarting this from the beginning.

Recently Completed

I finally finished The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard.

Caro, gallant and adventurous, is one of two Australian sisters who have come to post-war England to seek their fortunes. Courted long and hopelessly by young scientist, Ted Tice, she is to find that love brings passion, sorrow, betrayal and finally hope. The milder Grace seeks fulfilment in an apparently happy marriage. But as the decades pass and the characters weave in and out of each other’s lives, love, death and two slow-burning secrets wait in ambush for them.

I have mixed feelings about this novel: at times I was gripped by what I was reading; at others, I wondered what the purpose was. It was also a very slow read, although I can’t determine why but possibly because it is written in a very literary style.

I’m going to use it for prompt 36 of the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge: Recommended by a favourite author. Anne Tyler says it is: ‘A wonderfully mysterious book…Both plot and characters are many layered. Unforgettably rich.’ I think this is a fair assessment of the novel.

I also finished listening to The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman.

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.

But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?

This novel appears to be incredibly popular so I had very high hopes. Unfortunately, as often happens in these cases, my expectations were unrealistically elevated and I found it a disappointment. I was less interested in the murder and far more interested in the individual characters. There were, however, moments of delightful humour and I particularly enjoyed the sections narrated by Joyce in the form of her diary.

This is an obvious choice for prompt 13 of the reading challenge: Includes a club.

Reading Next

I’ll definitely have to read Three Sisters by Heather Morris as it’s the February pick for my book club and time is running out.

My quotation this week comes from The Transit of Venus:

If you live essentially within society there are times when you’d prefer to depend on the social formula – and you discover you’ve somewhat spoiled that possibility. You’ve disqualified yourself from judging others by those rules.

Shirley Hazzard

My reading week: 52/52

Photo by Mat Brown on Pexels.com

Currently Reading

I’m still reading The Clock Winder by Anne Tyler, which is part of my intention to re/reread all of Tyler’s novels in chronological order.

I’m putting on hold No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood as I need to listen to The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan for my January bookclub.

My longer term read is The Art of Ayurvedic Nutrition: Ancient Wisdom for Health, Balance, and Dietary Freedom by Susie Colles, which I’m finding very interesting so far.

Recently Completed

For some inexplicable reason, I haven’t finished any books this week.

Reading Next

I think it will be The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, as it’s a while since I read a Middle Eastern novel.

So a quiet end to a very busy reading year, in which I read a total of 105 books or 26,815 pages, the average length of which was 255 pages.

My reading week: 51/52

Photo by Rahul Shah on Pexels.com

Currently Reading

I have just started reading Anne Tyler‘s fourth novel, The Clock Winder.

I’m also listening to No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

I often have a book on the go that I dip into on a regular basis and my current one is The Art of Ayurvedic Nutrition: Ancient Wisdom for Health, Balance, and Dietary Freedom by Susie Colles.

Recently Completed

I’ve finished reading A Slipping Down Life by Anne Tyler. From the blurb:

Evie Decker is a shy, slightly plump teenager with a distant father and hours and hours of silence to fill. Then one night she hears local rock singer Drumstrings Casey on the radio and is instantly enchanted by his cool emotionless voice. Evie learns that Drumstrings frequently plays at a dingy roadhouse called the Unicorn. So she goes there and, with an uncharacteristically bold gesture, bursts out of her lonely shell – and into the attentive gaze of an intangible man who becomes all too real.

I’m currently (re)reading Tyler’s novels in order, this being her third. I felt this novel is different from her others although I can’t quite pinpoint why, other than the fact that there is an unusual incident which directs the plot whereas generally Tyler uses the commonplace. I enjoyed it more than her second novel, The Tin Can Tree, but less than her first, If Morning Ever Comes. At times, I struggled to understand the motivation and behaviour of the characters but notwithstanding this, it was still a quirky, interesting story.

I also read Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To Elgie Branch, a Microsoft wunderkind, she’s his talented, volatile, troubled wife. To fellow mothers at the school gate, she’s a menace. To design experts, she a legendary architect. But to 15-year-old Bee, she is quite simply Mum.

Then Bernadette disappears. And Bee’s search for her mother reveals an extraordinary woman trying to find her place in an absurd world.

What can I say? I wasn’t sure I was going to like this but it turned out to be one of my rare 5-star reads. It’s quirky, interesting and unique, heartbreaking and humorous, and I don’t know how Semple came up with the ideas or the plot – it’s so original. It’s told through emails, letters, faxes, interviews, anything other than straightforward narration, and involves breakdown, disappearance, adultery, identify theft, abandonment, and a trip to Antartica. The characters are likeable, even at their worst, and the story is unpredictable. It’s a gem of a novel.

I’ve now finished a year-long project by working my way through A Year to Clear by Stephanie Bennett Vogt. From the publisher:

Stephanie Bennett Vogt takes you on a journey of self-discovery, letting go, and transformation. Each of the 365 lessons—organised into 52 weeklong themes—offers daily inspiration designed to release stress and stuff in ways that lighten, enlighten, and last.

I enjoyed working through this although I didn’t always follow through on the suggestions. I did, however, write journal responses to the daily questions even when they didn’t feel relevant, and found doing so a useful exercise. The past couple of years have been difficult for me and if times had been normal, I may have got more out of it. Having said that, I think it has made a subtle difference to my life and at some point in the future I may work through it again as I did look forward to my morning exploration.

My final completion was Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill.

They used to be young, brave and giddy with hopes for their future. They married had a child, and skated through the small calamities of family life. But then, slowly, quietly, something changed.

This is told through a series of short paragraphs from which the reader pieces together the trajectory of a relationship. It’s quick and easy to read whilst being profound, and the author gives a deep insight into the mind of the narrator despite the sparse prose. This was another very enjoyable read.

Reading Next

My next read might be The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, as it’s a while since I read a Middle Eastern novel.

My quotation this week comes from Where’d You Go, Bernadette and explains the idea of the brain being a ‘discounting mechanism’:

Let’s say you get a crack in your windshield and you’re really upset. Oh no, my windshield, it’s ruined, I can hardly see out of it, this is a tragedy! But you don’t have enough money to fix it, so you drive with it. In a month, someone asks you what happened to your windshield, and you say, What do you mean? Because your brain has discounted it…It’s for survival.

My reading week: 50/52

Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

Currently Reading

At the moment, I’m reading A Slipping Down Life, which is Anne Tyler‘s third novel.

I’m listening to No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, which I got on special offer from Audible.

Recently Completed

I’ve just finished Wintering by Katherine May. From the blurb:

Wintering is a poignant and comforting meditation on the fallow periods of life, times when we must retreat to care for and repair ourselves. Katherine May thoughtfully shows us how to come through these times with the wisdom of knowing that, like the seasons, our winters and summers are the ebb and flow of life.

I’m never quite sure what to expect with these kinds of books; often they end up disappointing me in that they don’t quite do what they suggest they will. It seems to me that not only does this ‘memoir’ guide the reader through winter, highlighting the adaptations we need to make to thrive during this season, but also applies this hibernation and self-care period to times in our lives when we are going through challenges or generally feel low and out-of-sorts. For the most part, I found this an interesting, enjoyable and thought-provoking read, and particularly relevant to this time of year.

Reading Next

My next read might be Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple.

My quotation this week comes from Wintering and is one that resonates with me as we approach the Christmas holiday season, a time when I retreat from the mundane and reflect and prepare for the next year.

More than any other season, winter requires a kind of metronome that ticks away its darkest beats, giving us a melody to follow into spring. The year will move on either way, but by paying attention to it, feeling its beat, and noticing the moments of transition – perhaps even taking time to think about what we want from the next phase in the year – we can get the measure of it.

Katherine May