A few books to read...
I'm adding regular reading of books back into my life!
Hello!
It’s March! I can’t believe it! It seems to happen so fast sometimes, this whole living life thing. At the start of the year, I decided that I needed to read more. I have always loved reading - books have always been a part of my life, I just haven’t always had the time or headspace to read for pleasure.
There have been times in my life where I would read thousands of words - written by my students! On the topics we covered or texts we studied. During exam period at one school I taught at, I would mark 180 essays in two weeks!
Now that I don’t have that kind of reading and marking schedule, I have made a concerted effort to get reading for pleasure back into my life. It’s great!
In January I read seven novels - most of them pretty fabulous, and I wrote about it here.
This time I thought I would send my thoughts on my February reading feast directly to you - I’ve also written about them on Medium too (click here to read,).
February’s Reading Feast:
Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò: this was a great story! It tells of both sides of a marriage set against the backdrop of political upheaval in Nigeria. Both parties face family pressure, issues of infertility, polygamy, and how much should we sacrifice for family. It is a great read!
The Lives of Tudor Women by Elizabeth Norton: I admit, I started this last year and only just finished it now. It gives an interesting insight into a time period where I am glad to say, I was not living. Life was incredibly hard for Tudor women, particularly if you happened to catch the eye of Henry VIII! This book also focuses on ordinary women during the Tudor period — it’s a great balance of fact and fiction.
We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler: Handler is also known as Lemony Snickett. If you’ve read any of this series of books for children, you would know that they are fun, dark at times, engaging, and interesting. I read them with my children, although I didn’t make it to the end of the series. But I enjoyed them. I have to say that I didn’t really enjoy this. I finished it, but it took me a long time. It went in quite a strange direction and without any spoilers, it just doesn’t develop the characters enough. I was just left with too many questions — about characters, events, and motivations.
The Gathering by Anne Enright: Enright is an Irish author and this novel tells the tale of a large Irish family who gathers at the wake of one of their siblings. I was a little frustrated with this novel — as one person on Goodreads stated, “I feel like I should love it, but it’s like there is a barrier.” I felt the same. It is witty and, at times, insightful, but I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters. It does highlight how secrets can fester and warp memories, but the reveal in this wasn’t really surprising.
The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds: I really enjoyed this novel. Based on true events in Epping Forest outside London in 1840, we follow a moment in time in the lives of poets John Clare and a young Alfred Tennyson. It is really wonderfully written and I liked that it was based on true events, with all the little details brilliantly imagined by Foulds. It certainly explores mental illness, imagination, and life during this period.
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok: This was engaging and interesting…until the end chapter. It is a wonderful account of an immigrant family (well, mother and daughter) in the US, the struggles they encounter (poor housing, sweatshop labor, no English), and how the daughter copes with school and life in a strange country. The ending left me a little disappointed but I still think it’s worth reading — it certainly highlights the huge barriers many immigrants have to face, with little help from anyone (also the cultural barriers that prevent some people from asking for help.) Kwok herself was a Chinese immigrant to the US so many of her descriptions of life left you thinking they must have been true. Worth reading!
Hopefully, there is something here for you to try too. Otherwise, check out January’s (yes, plugging it again!) because I read one of the best novels I have ever read. Seriously!
Happy reading!
Lisa xx
*I’ve been doing a few creative things with repurposed books - I will write about that another time but here is a little taster…
