March and April Books

Oh it has been a rather busy two months, I am nearing the end of my second year of university and the pressure is mounting up. I feel like Atlas crumpled under the weight of the world, oh what i would do just to release the tension for a short while. Alas I only have until the second week of June and then I am free for the rest of summer! I can do this!!

here are my March and April reads

Conversations With Friends - Sally Rooney

I made it my mission to finish the last chunk of this book off as soon as possible, which I achieved which then gave me some time to read a million and one poems for uni (I exaggerate, which should be no surprise, a million and one…no university could be that cruel). I enjoyed the book but I think it wasn’t as good as Normal People, which is to be expected really as in anything people get better as they gain experience, and seeing as Conversations with Friends was Rooney’s debut novel, it would be weird if it was better than Normal People.

The Strange Library - Haruki Murakami

Murakami is my ride or die author, when I want to read something I know I’ll love it always has to be one of his books, and because I was feeling rather bored with all the texts I was having to read for uni I took a short respite in the pages of a Murakami. The Strange Library is a very short book (can’t be spending too much time away from studies now can we!) and the edition I have is beautifully designed with a plethora images that make this book a whole experience to read.

The Lonely Londoners - Sam Selvon

This book is a succession of snapshots of immigrant life in London during the 20th Century and it’s written in a Caribbean dialect to reflect the characters the book focuses on. And while I can appreciate the innovations Selvon makes I found it rather boring, and the constant flitting between characters was rather jarring for me personally. I had to read this book for uni and I think its safe to say I won’t be reading it again and I probably wont check out Selvon’s other works either.

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino

Invisible Cities is not just a novel by any means. It’s a poetic study of the human experience. Framed by a conversation between the famed Venetian explorer Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, Invisible Cities explores 55 different cities that may or may not be imaginary or in the very least a description of Polo’s hometown Venice. This novel isn’t for everyone, and at first it wasn’t even for me as it had remained on my bookshelf for about 3 years prior to me picking up again this April! But as I’m in the midst of a creative writing module for my degree I decided to give it another go and I loved it. If you want to read abstract literature that doubles up as a masterclass in description writing then get reading.

The Dubliners - James Joyce - A Solid 85% of the book!

Bleak, haunting and unrelenting The Dubliners is a collection of short stories that follows the disenchanted inhabitants of the Irish capital at the beginning of the 20th century. Another uni book but unlike most of the texts I’ve had to read this year I actually really like The Dubliners, and the stand out story for me has to be A Painful Case which I actually wrote and essay about (simply because I liked it the most and somehow my tenuous link to the essay subject paid off). I haven’t quite finished all of the short stories as I have had to write my own short story for uni this month which has taken a little longer than I thought it would (I had to do quite a lot of research for it!).