the read and the to-read

Mondays have, blissfully, become my days off. Snatched time between panicked essay writing and opening up my reading list to start the next week of work. I do actually have a tutorial and a meeting today, but the rest of the day is for myself. The empty time spent at home is so different to that in Oxford, neither better nor worse. Here it is spent on my own, reading or watching Normal People or calling my friends or walking. At Oxford its almost always filled with the jobs I didn't have time to do (Tesco, washing, post-office) and then probably the pub. I'm trying to see this new slower pace as a chance to catch up with myself.
There's been a lot more time to read, and because my screen time on my laptop has been exponential, I've been trying to make myself do it more. I've read quite a lot of good stuff, and there are a few books I'm looking forward to buying or borrowing when I get a chance. I've also started writing in my books a lot, I think perhaps its fallout from my degree, but its nice to look back and see what I found pertinent at the time. On another note, this post from Eleanor is excellent to find non-Amazon places to buy your books in the time of Corona.

(Brideshead Revisited was sent to a friend to remind her of Oxford, the Go-Between made its way to Italy for my friends birthday, along with a list of things to 'look out for')

Read:
Atonement, Ian McEwan – okay, I didn't really like Atonement. I don't even remember it that well. To me, it felt like a diluted version of The Go-Between, with the same almost claustrophobic rising  pressure, culminating in a pivotal and destructive event that will change the whole course of the book. But, I didn't much like the characters and didn't really live up to the reviews ('smoulders with slow-burning menace', 'brilliantly explores the currents of guilt, shame and anger...utterly satisfyingly complete'). In terms of McEwan, I thought The Children's Act was far more powerful and the character development much more evocative.

Girl, Woman, Other, Bernadine Evaristo– oh, I loved this. I'd been wanting to read it ever since my tutor mentioned it and treated myself after my last essay. It follows 12 different (kind of intertwined) black women and their experience of racism and feminism in Britain. It seems to cover every kind of life experience you could imagine, and I love the way they are all subtly connected. I did find some of the characters more compelling than others, but they were all deep and powerful and wildly eye opening. Its one of those clever books that manages to tackle the heavy realities in a readable and page-turning way. Would highly recommend.

Late in the Day, Tessa Hadley - this was another post-essay treat. If I'm honest, I just liked the cover, but it turned out to be so good. Much of the plot happens in the first few pages, but its the intricacies of their relationship that are so powerful. The way she builds jealousy and contempt and complicated spiky connections between people feels so real. As with so much fiction at the moment, it doesn't use speech marks – as a concept, I am apathetic  but I think it kind of works in this? It means you focus on the characters and the sentiment of what is being said so much more than the words.
"...guileless and voluble, transparent in this moods, sometimes he sank deep into himself and needed to be alone for a few hours" 
"...for who would care about their passion in three hundred years?"
"...if I try to imagine eternity, I think it might feel like an English pub on a Saturday afternoon" 

The Veiled Woman, Anaïs Nin - this was sort of hilarious to read, and sort of amazingly transgressive. Its 4 different pieces of quasi-erotica (?). They were written in the '40s (and published in the '70s) which feels madly radical considering their content, and surely marks some kind of feminist victory. Some are weird and uncomfortable, but others are uncharacteristically liberal and free. I love it for the radicalism of a woman writing so openly about transgressive sex in the 1940s, and the language and description is beautiful. Maybe not one to recommend to your mum though lol.

The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri - Oh, man I loved this! My mum picked it up for me in Sainsbury's (yeh, I was immediately sceptical), but not only is it sensationally written but its also so sobering. You realise how easy this pandemic is for so many of us. How we're safe at home with our books and our furlough schemes and how endlessly destructive life is for those in Syria and other war zones. I love how it alternates between past and present. Its wonderfully easy to read but the language is beautiful and would totally recommend it, especially right now.
"...when she was sad my world was dark. I didn't have a choice about this. She was more powerful than I. She cried like a child, laughed like bells ringing, and her smile was the most beautiful I've ever seen. She could argue for hours without ever pausing. Afra loved, she hated, and she inhaled the world like it was a rose. All this was why I loved her more than life"
"But what I loved most was her laugh. She laughed like we would never die"
"...it makes my sadness feel like something palpable, like a pulse, but it makes me afraid too, afraid of fate and chance, and hurt and harm, of the randomness of pain, how life can take everything from you all at once"
"If only we had known what life would bring. But if we had known, what would we have done? We would have been too afraid too live, too afraid to be free and to make plans"

To-read:
The Flatshare, Beth O'Leary – this is another Sainsbury's buy, but I wanted something trashy – apparently its similar to Normal People. If I'm honest, any kind of page-turning romance will do, but I just want something deliciously addictive and mindless.

Sweet Sorrow, David Nicholls – ever since I heard him talking about this on the High Low last summer, this has been on my list. It's a summer love story of two 16 year olds, an exploration of first love and heartbreak. It doesn't come out in paperback until the summer, which perhaps is a good thing because I'm not sure my brain has the space of a Nicholl's young love story whilst I'm stuck inside, but either way – I love his writing and him in general, so I know it'll be good.

Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race, Renni Eddo-Lodge – i've been wanting to read this for years, but after my tutor recommended it last week in our feminism tute I know I need to get my hands on it. I think it'll be the next socially distant exchange with my friend.

And now I am left with a few empty hours on my hands, and a chai latte to drink. I might knit, my jumper halted a few weeks back when I made a catastrophic mistake, and now I'm not sure I even like the colour any more. Or maybe I'll crochet, I'm trying to teach myself to do something more useful than just make squares, but it'll never compete with Eleanor's, that's for sure.

Let me know what you've been reading, and any recommendations you have!