Anyway, before I catch up on the Heaphy or any other adventures, I simply must tell you what I’ve been reading lately. My book addiction has flourished over winter, with all the extra time available for loitering in bookshops to keep warm. Plus I went to the Xmas fair at the American Church in Paris and made the mistake of starting in the book section. Oh dear god. So now I’m multi-streaming books more than ever in a desperate attempt to free up shelf space, by returning various books to their owners or foisting ones I own on unsuspecting friends. “Here, you must read this, you’ll really like it!”
Recent reading:
- Theatre *** - Eric Emmanuel Schmitt. Three plays, one set in a 19th century theatre, one set in a waiting room, and one set in an apartment – all about love and relationships, essentially. EES is most well-known here for writing “Oscar et La Dame Rose”. Brilliant writing, excellent characters and some very nice observations about men and women.
- Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi. I started reading this with a certain amount of foreboding. The flowery style was over the top and not to my taste, but I persevered because I thought it was an “important” book to read. And now I’m hooked. Nafisi relates her experience of living in Iran – the repression, the totalitarianism, the sheer paralysis – through her books, illuminating both the books and us in the process.
- Room – Emma Donoghue. I found this a bit disturbing, certainly, but above all so beautifully written, and the voice of five-year-old Jack is completely credible.
- The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Always beware any book sold with book club notes in the back. I found the magic realism less well executed than Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Louis de Bernieres, but it was still absorbing enough, and made me nostalgic for Barcelona.
- The Olive Sisters – Amanda Hampson. Escapist froth set on an olive farm in rural Australia. Lazy chick-lit.
- She Was Nice to Mice – Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy, aka Ally Sheedy. Yes that’s right, before acting, she dabbled in writing – this was published when she was 12! It’s a portrait of Elizabeth 1 seen through the eyes of a palace mouse. The target audience is children, unsurprisingly, but it’s charmingly written and illustrated.
- Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby
There are the books which are peaceful, soothing, and don’t need much concentration, so you can dip in and out of them at bedtime without losing too much sleep. And then there are the books which you know automatically will be so satisfying, so engrossing, that they either deserve a long plane ride, a day at the beach, or a whole Sunday afternoon set aside to read them without interruption. In this category I would put Neal Stephenson, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Brookmyre, and Nick Hornby.
I love Nick Hornby, possibly to the point of irrationality. But I don’t want to marry him and have his babies. No, I want to marry the music-addicted Rob, or possibly the football addicted Paul from Fever Pitch. I consider High Fidelity the definitive insight into the male psyche, although considering that I am nearly 36 and still single, this could be a rather naïve misconception.
I loved How To Be Good because it contained sublime, heartbreaking lines of beauty, perfect observations of the best and worst parts of the life of a couple. I now love Juliet, Naked. I fell in love with the opening line, which has to be one of the best opening lines of all time: “They had flown all the way from England to Minneapolis to look at a toilet”. I started the book this afternoon and I am forcing myself to blog about it so I don’t eat it all at once.
Reading the jacket blurb, I thought “ho-hum, what a coincidence that the woman gets involved with the reclusive musician with whom her boyfriend is obsessed.” But as the story unfolds, it is really surprisingly credible. I won’t spoil it for you, but for heaven’s sake go out and buy a copy. Or I’ll lend you mine, depending on which hemisphere you’re in. But first of all I have to finish it. So if you’ll excuse me…
