Ooof, more power to you if you manage that. I had a conversation with a friend the other day where I said anything over 350 pages, and the author had better earn it. Although maybe 400 is a better marker, there are plenty that get into the 370s and 380s that feel appropriate in length. Also, shorter books gets my yearly total up, but let’s not talk about that!
It’s the wrong way to approach reading but I normally spam short books in January so that I don’t feel behind my reading challenge target for the rest of the year. Thanks, Goodreads.
I have neglected my reading this summer but the beach was… busy. But since I have 100 days ahead of me of semi-lockdown lifestyle, I’m sure I can recover the lost time and catch up on those 13 books I’m supposed to be behind jdjfjfj
Finished Tomb of Atuan yesterday and loved it! I also finished Dune the day before which I adored. It kept me gripped from start to finish and I’m hyped to dive into the next one when I return from holiday! I have the first The Wheel of Time novel to start next but I’m kinda unsure whether to start. It’s so big and there’s so many in the series that I’m really daunted by it. I feel like some the posters in here have read them, anu thoughts? I also need to read Foundation before the Apple TV series starts later this month!
Yesterdayy I was at the library looking for Alias Grace by Atwood, but they didn't have it. Instead, I got Oryx and Crake, which I had never heard of. I started reading it last night and it seems pretty good!
I LOVED Life After Life (A God In Ruins, its companion piece, is also a must) and Cloud Atlas. Wolf Hall is pretty dense but I found Bringing Up The Bodies a bit easier to get through. The Mirror And The Light, which is a whopping 875 pages, is still in my stack. I'll get to it someday!
I’ve had a bit of a struggle reading this year, starting some books but not finishing them before I move onto the next. Turns out a pandemic doesn’t do any favours to my concentration. I did read Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue over just a couple of days. She sets out her arguments in a way that should be convincing for the GP, and it’s good to have a trans writer having this space rather than letting the terfs dominate. I also finally finished off Klara and the Sun this week. It’s probably one of my least favourite books of his (not that he’s ever released a bad book, but When We Were Orphans is bottom for me). Klara is an icon but there seemed a lack of depth in most of the other characters. I feel Ish could have leant further into the fairytale style. I’m aiming to finish Sula next. I’ve read the first few chapters and, as always, Morrison’s writing is gorgeous.
100 pages in and new Sally Rooney is giving me Ali Smith vibes. That’s a good thing. It’s more socially conscious (or more concerned with *seeming* socially conscious) than her previous books and less tightly wound. It’s not exactly a sprawling narrative but it is more prone to meandering flights of fancy than SR1 & 2.
So I finished The Farthest Shore yesterday and I think that’s my favourite of the 3 Earthsea novels I’ve read so far? Maybe it’s because it really spoke to my own anxiety and fear of death. I also found Arren to be a bit more compelling than Tenar was and it certainly helped that Ged was present for greater parts of the story. Started Foundation today and I’m hooked already. The way I’ve got back into reading for pleasure this last month has been so lovely, it’s nice to take the time to just immerse myself in different worlds and stories for a bit.
I also decided to prioritise new Rooney, and I’m loving it. Her prose is so enviably precise. The characters, as ever, are carefully drawn, and thankfully not as irritating as the cast of Conversations With Friends. I am enjoying the emails a lot more than I expected, too — there are a lot of interesting ideas and anxieties packed in there which I think are a heck of a lot more successful than, say, Patricia Lockwood’s novel. They can feel a bit like Guardian Opinion articles that she has decided to put in a character’s mouth rather than her own, but I often like Guardian Opinion articles so I’m cool with it.
Booker shortlist: I have A Passage North and Great Circle, so that's my two next reads... after Foundation. Detransition, Baby will have to keep waiting ñññ
Shortlist A Passage North - Anuk Arudpragasam The Promise - Damon Galgut No One Is Talking About This - Patricia Lockwood The Fortune Men - Nadifa Mohamed Bewilderment - Richard Powers Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead
Kinda okay with Ishiguro missing out. He doesn’t need it and it was just fine. Surprised China Room didn’t make it. The Lockwood book is awful, Arudpragasam’s is exhausting and ultimately not worth it, and Galgut’s is, for me, the standout. Excited for Bewilderment! I just wish I could get the Canadian edition because it’s beautiful.
My problem with ‘No One Is Talking About This’ is how you have to swim against the tide of the first half, with it constantly winking at you even when Lockwood’s making a respectable point, but then it becomes something else entirely in the second half and I thought, dramatically better. The stylistic switch is deliberate, but its second, grounded, more humane, emotionally-invested half almost renders the first half irrelevant and definitely more obvious and trite than it already is. I read Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts almost immediately after, and couldn’t help but feel it captures the interwoven nature of living online and reality (for lack of a better word) so much better. Galgut’s The Promise has only grown in status in my head since I finished a few weeks ago, but there’s nothing contemporary about it, so it would surprise me to win a major prize.
Award season continues. National Book Award longlist for fiction: Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers Matrix, by Lauren Groff Abundance, by Jakob Guanzon Zorrie, by Laird Hunt The Prophets, by Robert Jones, Jr. Intimacies, by Katie Kitamura The Souvenir Museum: Stories, by Elizabeth McCracken Hell of a Book, by Jason Mott Bewilderment, Richard Powers Loos like Bewilderment is the it book this season?
Today, the National Book Foundation announced its 5 Under 35 honorees: five fiction writers under the age of 35 “whose debut work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape.” Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water Lee Lai, Stone Fruit Claire Luchette, Agatha of Little Neon Dantiel W. Moniz, Milk Blood Heat All in my evergrowing TBR, of course!
I'm reading Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo and so far it's really good. The first story *ucked me up, can't wait to read the second one tonight. Spoiler After watching the legendary Selena Gomez in Only Murders In The Building.
My final thoughts on new Sally Rooney? I kinda wish she had just released a book of essays. She has alot to say on the subject of fame (in particular), modernity, sexuality and faith (amongst other topics) and while it was interesting to read these thoughts - her writing is characteristically clear and intelligent and without pretension - it didn’t quite meld successfully with the “plot” of the book. In fact said plot felt more like a hastily sketched in version of what we’ve come to expect from a Sally Rooney book to facilitate all of the other things she wanted to discuss. I don’t know. There was some great writing here but the book doesn’t work.
