also reading….. oh dear
It’s awful but I have a thousand books on the go all at once, a true reflection of an undecided mind as well as one that is tired one minute, needs feeding the next. One that is desperate for some intellectual stimulus and one that desires something a little fantastical, ergo a thousand (mild exaggeration) books all at once. The Husband has been showering me with books! He’s been buying me all the Joan Didions’ I’ve desired including Play It As It Lays which came through the post today! I’ve been enjoying her White Album too which is a collection
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review The Lighthouse by Alison Moore It’s a small book in stature with an image of a lighthouse engulfing the cover which is fitting for the novel’s content. According to Moore, the birth of this novel was borne out of a vision of a man sitting alone in a kitchen which wasn’t his own and this man was Futh, the novel’s protagonist. What can one say about Futh other than the fact that he is a highly unlikable character. Of course, it is ok to not like a character; this doesn’t mean the whole novel is going
Slowly does it.
I’ve been at the desk today, desperately trying to focus on a review at hand whilst being physically propelled further away from it each week by a growing bump. The fact that I’m unable to sit comfortably for long spells as baby still insists on headbutting me in the ribs- bleeeessss-ouch! Please flip the other way baby, doesn’t help. But it’s so good to be at the desk. It’s freezing cold and yet I have the window in front of me ever so slightly open so I can inhale and feel the breeze (I’m wearing multiple layers of course). I like to hear the
Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver Climate change, no, it’s not a dirty word; it’s a very real and obvious plight. It’s that ‘thing’ that makes our winters wetter and milder, forcing trees to rot and fruit to blacken; it’s that thing that causes freak snow flurries in April and thirty degree heat -waves in October. We only have to look at our fruit to know that something is not quite right. Did you notice this summer how blackberries didn’t make an appearance until almost August and were short-lived? Or how fruit doesn’t seem to ripen in the
Black Sky, Black Sea by Izzet Celasin
Literature | Review Black Sky, Black Sea by Izzet Celasin Black Sky, Black Sea by Izzet Celasin could have truly sung if its poetry found towards the end, had been present throughout. The book opens with the Mayday Demonstrations on Labour Day in 1977 in Turkey in which we find our protagonist leaving school secretly to attend to with his friends. It doesn’t take long for “Oak” which is his nickname, as we don’t find out his real name till the end in a somewhat dramatic revelation, is swept along in the crowd as violence breaks out. What captures Oak’s
Autumn…even in winter
On Friday night, I happened across this beautiful Baudelaire poem whilst hunting for the right one for a friend who had a beautiful baby boy! Congratulations Alison! I hope you manage to get some shuteye! Winter has swept through in a sudden swooshing swipe of a motion, crushing autumn like the leaves beneath our feet, so here is a lament for summer and a dread of the darkness to come. Tell me if you feel its magic too. Autumn Song by Charles Baudelaire (Penguin classics Selected Poems) i Soon we shall plunge into shadows colds; Farewell, the
Returning to Sussex, in September
It seems a thousand years ago (September) when the husband and I broke away from the confines of the city (wearisome London) and made our way to our holiday idyll (Sussex) . Our skins reddened and blistered from the sun (we’re of a pale grey hue now from winter) and our thighs toughened from 6 hour walks along the river Ouse and the green rolling hills. The lovely locals were surprised that was able to do so much walking (hours and hours) at 4 months (a whole 2 months ago) but tiring days were counteracted by quieter ones at the lodge where
Seeing through fog
Today, we (doggy , a friend & I ) plunged into the fog. It’s atmospheric presence enveloped me like a thick, moist blanket as my wellies slipped, slopped and slid in thick mud. Beyond bent trees, on the forest ground lay the glowing orange and red of fallen leaves as the sky and ground blurred into one. Sometimes you need to be immersed in fog, to really see your way.
Good Offices by Evelio Rosero (published in Avrupa)
Literature | Review Good Offices by Evelio Rosero The setting is a small Columbian church where the poor are fed daily and everything appears peachy, isn’t that always the case? Our protagonist is a hunchback called Tancredo who works as a priest’s acolyte in the hope of one day going to university but Father Almeida who rules all beneath him, has a firm grip on everyone and is unlikely to let go any time soon. We don’t learn a good deal about the protagonist as there is never much time to do so in a novella but what we
Writing- or not writing- or trying to write
I seem to be passing through all three of the title’s stages! It’s dizzying, perplexing, and all over the place! And I don’t blame the baby which is not here yet, but is absolutely here, all the time and whom I love to absolute smithereens! Even writing in the diary doesn’t go uninterrupted- ‘ooh what was that?!’ A distraction is what it was- a leaf blowing in the wind, a flock of parakeets shooting across the reddening sky, the young ‘clubber’ postman passing by who carelessly lets his mail cart go and nearly swings into a parked car. My writing task at
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