While I didn't read as many books as I had hoped to in 2021 in fact I changed my goal from 75 to 50 to 45 to 40 to 30 and still failed lol! But everyone always says its quality over quantity and I must admit that I did read a few really great books, so without further ado here are the 8 books that I loved in 2021.
Written during the first days of the Pandemic this collection of essays covers random thoughts and feelings Smith had at the time and she also reflects on the Murder of George Floyd. I’ve never actually read any of Smith’s fiction so I thought I would start with her essays and I liked her writing style so I will be checking out her fiction in the future.
I listened to an audio adaptation on Audible that you can download for free as part of your audible subscription. I think everyone knows Oedipus Rex to some extent, perhaps because of Freud’s controversial Oedipus Complex theory more than anything else which is interesting in itself, how something becomes part of a collective cultural memory. I didn’t realise that the play takes place during a pandemic so that was interesting. I used to read Greek plays in the school library during lunch break (I can’t remember which ones tbh) but this was my first encounter with Sophocles and I must say that I did enjoy the audio adaptation as really for me plays become so much more accessible when dramatised either on stage or by audio.
Here ends my reading of the Sherlock Holmes books. For some reason I just don’t get on with them, I find them rather bland and boring if I’m perfectly honest. I just don’t get what all the fuss is about. Is Sherlock Holmes and an interesting character? Sure, but that’s about all that Doyle has going here. The mystery in Baskerville’s wasn’t even that interesting and the vibe wasn’t as spooky as I had hoped, which is the only reason why I picked up another Holmes story, the hope of Gothic elements. The cover is pretty though…
What a heartwarming novel. I absolutely adored this book and I am so happy that I finally read it. Kawakami’s story of two people, a teacher and his former student re-connecting after many years is just the kind of book I needed right now. The writing is uncluttered and is essentially an episodic slice-of-life narrative which is clearly a result of how it was published in Japan as it was originally serialized from July 1999 to December 2000, before becoming a novel.
One of my favourite things about Strange Weather in Tokyo is how the seasons drift by and that this subtly drives the narrative. We follow the characters as they encounter each other sporadically and it is dependant on the seasons as to where they will meet and what they will eat. This tradition of seasonal eating is a very Japanese practice, there is even a word 旬 ‘Shun’, which refers to when ingredients are at their most optimal for eating. While the principal characters engage in eating Shun foods and drinking copious amounts of beer and sake together (sounds like quite the ideal ritual…am I right?) they form an attachment, that soon blossoms into love.
The novel is told in first-person from the point of view of Tsukiko, a nearly 40-year-old former student of Sensai who is himself some 30 years her senior. She is shy and doubtful and I found her character really quite relatable, as I am those things myself. I also think that love is born out of quality time shared and that it almost creeps up on you, just like it did to these characters. I won’t spoil the ending but it was both expected and unexpected, perhaps a better way to put it is that I saw it coming but I didn’t think it would be executed in the way that it was. I think Strange Weather in Tokyo has certainly become a new favourite and I’m sure I’ll revisit it many times in the future.
This month has basically been a marathon of short fiction, a final trudge through Dune and me discovering a new favourite book and a desire to read classics again. Oh and I read one of the most obscene books ever written!
I wrote a separate review for Dune as I felt like I had a lot to say, and I did. So TL;DR I liked it but I didn’t like it. It’s complicated and it depends on how you read it and from which POV. But if you fancy reading the full review then click here.
This month I decided to start tackling French author Balzac’s The Human Comedy (La Comédie Humaine) a collection of interlinked works which is made up of novels, novellas and essays set in during the Restoration period and July Monarchy. Balzac could be seen as a French Dickens, as both wrote about society and with a focus on realism. This novella follows a few characters who work at a small shop in Paris and the owner marries his daughters off to two very different men. The themes of money, happiness, status, faithfulness, art, and work run throughout. At some point when my French is up to scratch, I’ll probably try reading some of The Human Comedy in French so stay tuned for that (let’s hold me accountable please!)
Also, Balzac’s At The Sign Of The Cat And Racket has forced me to reconsider the genre of realism, and particularly whether I was wrong about Dickens! I have for many years refused to touch a Dickens novel after reading A Christmas Carol at school and finding it veritably boring. I even avoided reading Bleak House for my degree because I thought I knew that I would hate it (ended up reading Walden by Thoreau and despised that instead) but maybe I would have liked it! Maybe I need to reconsider Dickens, and that folks is something I never thought would happen!
More French lit, I think I often coincide my cinematic choices with my book choices as recently I started watching French films again and suddenly all I want to read is classic French Literature. It’s a bit strange but I’ll go with it (I’ll have to because I have ordered so many French Lit second-hand books recently). I read Candide for Uni last year and really enjoyed Voltaire’s wit and seeing that I was miles behind on my 75 books in a year challenge I thought to myself “why not read this tiny little book by a French author that you’ve read before”. So I did. Micromegas is a rather strange little thing, it is essentially Sci-Fi before Sci-Fi was a thing.
The short story follows a giant from a planet called Sirius as he journeys through the solar system, he meets another giant (though much smaller than Micromegas) on Saturn and they soon find themselves on Earth. For these giants, Human life is so small (literally) and they find our behaviour (waging wars) perplexing due to how insignificant we seem, as in comparison, humans are tiny, and live such short lives and have a much inferior intellect to them. Voltaire’s brand of satire is fantastic and I can’t wait to read more of his works.
I like abstract stories, I like bizarre and challenging stories. But I did not like any of the short stories in this volume. I also have in the past read Kawakami and enjoyed her prose, but this collection of three stories just didn’t do anything for me. I found them too strange and I was unable to connect with them on any level. All I can say is nevermind, you win some and you lose some. Will I continue to check out Kawakami’s work? Sure, I think she’s an interesting and talented writer, it’s just that these stories didn’t touch me.
I have found a new author to consume wholeheartedly. Her prose is deliciously poetic, and the way she writes Sabine is so vivid and relatable but alarming and deplorable at the same time. I loved this novel and I feel like I need to get a physical copy (I read it on Libby) to underline all the moments of poeticism and to read it over and over again.
This Penguin Little Black Classics book contains four short stories set in 19th Century France was nothing particularly fantastic, just ok in my opinion. But for 80p you can’t really go wrong and I might read Maupassant’s most famous work Bel-Ami as a result.
This is a book that will leave an impression on you. It’s interesting to analyse from a psychological angle but my goodness it is utterly depraved and probably the most f***ked up book I have ever read. All I’m prepared to say is that I can probably never look at eyes and eggs the same way again.
