Like Byron, I am mad, bad and dangerous to know...why you ask? Because these books will take over your life!
Me and my sister recently re-charged our joint youtube channel and I must say it feels great to be back making videos, there’s just something really fun and creative about it.
This book is amazing. It’s lyrical, emotive and surprising. Salih has crafted a book that is not only intriguing, it’s also educational, and it explores the dark side of colonialism (more and more I’m finding it hard to see any positives) in Sudan and how orientalism and fetishisation of a culture and its people is utterly deplorable. A must-read for anyone wanting to educate themselves on Black Arab culture and the aftermath of white colonialism.
Well, this is one disturbing novel. Adèle tells the story of a woman who engages in extramarital affairs and flings with numerous men, some she knows, some her husband knows and others who are complete strangers. Adèle is essentially a sex addict and her life soon descends into chaos as her liaisons become more and more frequent and risky. What makes this novel disturbing is the psychology behind Adèle’s actions and then some things that happen that are quite clearly spoilers so I won’t divulge them to you. But give this a read if you're into thrillers.
This is one wise book. Gibran teaches through poetry in The Prophet and I felt like I had gained some invaluable wisdom by the end of its rather short page count. If you only read one book out of this blog post make it this one as you’ll come out the other side a better person to be around. Guaranteed.
While this novel is powerful in its raw and honest offloading of gender inequality in South Korea it isn’t really a good novel. It’s very simply written and feels more like a report at times but I did find it very moving and also quite concerning as I identified (as do most women who read it no doubt) with a lot of what is discussed within it. It is a watershed book for Korea and it caused a massive uproar when published, so perhaps that is all that counts, and maybe the simplicity of it is necessary to get it into as many hands and minds as possible.
It has taken me quite the time to read this collection of short stories, I started them last year as part of my uni course and naturally only read the stories I needed to read for an essay. Seeing as I have recently finished my degree I thought it was high time to actually finish the collection. Some stories I liked, ‘A Painful Case’ being my favourite and the story I actually wrote about. But for the most part, they were well written but ultimately forgettable snapshots of life…I guess maybe that is the point and I will be reading more Joyce as I like his style.
I got this book a while back from a book subscription box and I finally decided to pick it up and read it. I mainly read it as I was going through my books and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of (after reading of course!). This book was on the get rid of pile and after reading it I feel no different, it was an average thriller with average characters. Slimani’s Adèle is a much better thriller in my opinion.
This book very much has an agenda…an agenda to make you laugh constantly at the absurdity of human life. Haig has such a brilliant way of capturing all the minutiae of everyday life and turns it into a treatise on how and why life is brilliant and should be celebrated, all through the eyes of an alien as he learns how to be human. If your feeling down then this is a book to read as it will help you recapture your appreciation for life, and it’s also powerful to know that Haig wrote this book after getting through depression and anxiety.
Every time I read more of Carter’s work I fall a little more in love with her writing, the art of writing and literature overall. She was a master at her craft and every sentence she weaves is brilliant. Heroes and Villians is 164 pages of feral poetry, it's a gothic fairytale set in a post-apocalyptic world that will leave you considering it long after you close the book. I think I just found another new favourite this month.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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!).
