Stuff I've Been Reading- March 2020

The Art of Dying - Ambrose Parry
The Adulterants - Joe Dunthorne
Beloved - Toni Morison 

Coincidentally there seems to be a bit of a birth theme to this month. Entirely coincidental. All three books I had reserved from the library at different times, and they just happened to come in together. 

Let's skip over the second Ambrose Parry book, if you haven't read the first one, see last month's post. 

Not sure what I made of the Adulterants, I found the main character annoying, which I guess is the point, but didn't make me love the book. 

And then Beloved, one of those classics I've been meaning to read forever. Again, so many people have said so much about it that I'm really not going to add anything.

Anyway, talking of births, I suspect this might be my last reading (and probably blogging) for a while... 

Stuff I've been Reading - Feb 2020

The Republic of Thieves - Scott Lynch
The Way of All Flesh - Ambrose Parry
Fallen Angel - Chris Brookmyre
Sum - David Eagleman
Middle England - Jonathan Coe
No one is too small to make a difference - Greta Thunberg
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 - Cho Nam-Joo

Wait ages for a Christopher Brookmyre book and then you discover two at once. One proper bona fide Brookmyre and one where he and his wife write period drama together under a pseudonym. Both completely different, but both grabbed me like a Brookmyre should. 

Have you ever started reading a book and then realised that you're reading a sequel?  Yeah, me too. But this is the first time that I started accidentally reading a sequel,  only to find that I'd already read the first two installments. I really enjoyed the Rotters' Club when I read it two decades (!) ago, and was really disappointed when I found it ended half way through the story. I read the Closed Circle about a decade ago, and really can't remember anything about it. So reading Middle England it was weird having characters I recognised living very recent history. Enjoyed it a lot. 

Talking of threequels, I really enjoyed Republic of Thieves. And this is me going out on a limb, I think it has been my favourite of the series so far, having an equally conniving frenemy as the main adversary added an extra glacé cherry to the whole affair. 

Not sure what I made of Kim Jiyoung Born 1982. I feel like I know a lot more about South Korean women's lib than I did before I read it. So that's a thing. Whether I needed to is a whole other thing. 

Not sure if the Thunberg should be on the list. It's a book of speeches, rather than a "proper book" and I feel like a bandwagon jumper by adding it. Ooh look at me being woje and relevant. 

And finally, let's talk about Sum. I didn't finish it, so it definitely shouldn't be on the list. That said, I feel I read enough of it. Full of interesting ideas, but it felt too much like someone was firing them at you with one of those tennis ball machines that you get in American comedies. 

Deer Diary

Thetford Forest, there's a place I've not been since 2001 - September the tenth since you ask, funny how some dates you remember... 

This time was a little bit more grown up. That time we ended up there by the roll of the dice, after shoving a tent, a stove and some tins of beans in the boot. This time we had a log cabin with private woods.  Ooh errr, look at me with my fancy ways. Look how two decades has made me want a level of comfort. 

Anyway, private woods. Brilliant. Today I saw a hare and two species of deer before breakfast. We didn't get that in the tent twenty years ago. 

In other things, my last theatre trip for a while was Six. Have you heard of it? Probably not unless you are a teenage girl. It's the Tudors meets the Spice Girls and it is very silly and a lot of fun. 

Stuff I've been Reading- January

I've kept this up for a full year, that was unexpected. Making an even fifty, a shade under a book a week. Anyway...

Me - Elton John
Cilka's Journey- Heather Morris
The Hidden Half - Michael Blastland
Testaments - Margaret Atwood
Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin
Man vs Toddler- Matt Coyne

Where to start? 

The Hidden Half blew my mind. The opening chapter with the crayfish-as-metaphor put down a marker and the book built from there. Left me feeling a lot more ignorant than I did at the start of the book. Wowzers.

I went through a bit of an Ira Levin phase a couple of years back - Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby almost back to back. The trouble with both of those is that the twists are so well known now that they undermine the story. The fact that the whodunnit plot stayed a mystery meant that I enjoyed this one a whole heap more. 

And the Testaments. Probably the biggest book of last year. It was fun enough, but I don't understand why it joint-won the Booker. 

Talking of big books from last year, the Elton John book got a few plaudits in the year end charts, I read it and, aside from the constant name dropping, quite enjoyed it. I'm not going to say too much more about it as you will either read it or you won't and whatever I say won't change that. 

Cilka's journey is the sort if sequel to the Tattooist of Auschwitz. And again it is ridiculously easy reading for something that is very, very bleak. 

And let's finish with another sequel. Me reading the Matt Coyne book annoyed Carys as I kept on waking her up with my chuckling (and I thought I was being a giggle ninja). Any book that can consistently do that is a good thing. 

Three Tall Things

London, heh. I go a fair bit, but have barely scratched the surface. Time for some surface scratching:

Orbit - Anish Kapoor. Carsten Holler. Well art. I've never been high up in this part of London before, so that was a thing. I've also never been down such a long slide. Also a thing. 

The Monument - How have I never been up the Monument? Three hundred and eleven steps for a view of the City. Which means a view half way up...

SkyGarden - I've been failing to get tickets to the SkyGarden (up the top of the Walkie Talkie since you ask) for ages. Turns out the effort was probably worth it. 

And one less high thing - Brewdog AF. An actual bona fide alcohol free bar. I'm still not certain about alcohol free beer, still I had Lervig's No Worries and it smelt really good. Like a proper beer. 

Three Islands

Shameless box ticking ahoy. Let's squeeze in another country to make it up to a nice-ish round-ish number before a hiatus. 

Valletta is about the only thing I knew about Malta and even then it turns out I didn't know much. I knew about a beige (there's probably a better description), fortified waterfront, but didn't really appreciate it was a tiny nub in the middle of a harbour. 

We're staying in Mellieha, which is about as far from Valletta as it's possible to be without leaving the island (which let's be fair isn't that far). So we have ajad a bit of an explore of non-Valletta Malta. It appears to be a mix of small villages with big churches and towns filled with names that evoke the 5000 years of Maltese history, like Churchills and Diana's Bar. (Thanks Bugibba).

The other advantage of staying in the north of the island is that you are a hop and a skip away from the two other (major) islands in the archipelago. 

First stop Comino, an island where everyone is a tourist. And what a lot of tourists there are, all drawn in by the blue lagoon and its Caribbean waters (copyright everything written about Malta). The island is just about deserted and full of crags and lizards.  

Then Gozo, bigger, just as craggy and a lot less deserted than Comino. A bit more like the Malta that we had hoped for rather than the England on a rock of the mainland. 

Anyway, Malta, you craggy little monkey, welcome to the gang, you are country number 90. 

Christmas Mischief

I know I have said this before, but I don't understand why I find the things Mischief Theatre do so funny. 

I mean Magic Goes Wrong was, like Comedy about a Bank Robbery before it, probably more clever than funny. The magic itself was super slick, but still I laughed. But the Goes Wrong Show, that really tickled me. Tickled to an embarrassing level I'd say. 

Anyway, what have I read in December? 

Slade House - David Mitchell
The Tattooist of Auschwitz- Heather Wilson
The City of Brass - SA Chakraborty
Bearmouth - Liz Hyder
Twas the Nightshift before Christmas - Adam Day
Release - Partick Ness

After having another attempt at the Jacob de Zoet book I figured I should probably give up on that and switch to the David Mitchell (the other one) book that I hadn't read. I really enjoyed it, which only makes me wonder why I found Thousand Autumns so unexcitedly unreadable. Weird. 

Another book that took two attempts was Bearmouth. I was put off by the phonetic spelling, then saw it bubbling away in the end of year charts, so figured it was worth the perseverance. 

By any standards I should have quit City of Brass. The premise is brilliant (it's basically a Middle Eastern Daughter of Smoke and Bone) but the set up was frustrating and by the time the ending came I had stopped caring about any of the characters. 

I finally got round to reading the Tattooist of Auschwitz. Whilst it was absolutely brutal, it was a much easier read than the genie book, which I guess is why it's been in the best sellers chart for a couple of years. 

I suspect I'm not the only person who has read the Adam Kay book in the ladt couple of days. It had me chuckling. Not as much as Mischief, mind, but some good solid chuckles none the less. 

And Release, which embarrassingly I had read before. I don't remember reading it, but as soon as I started everything seemed familiar. Often on a re-read it is the other way round. I remember the act of reading but not the story (I've read both The Alchemist and the Great Gatsby twice, and have no idea what happens in either). Still, thoroughly enjoyed this the second time.