read a book a week

So I had really pretty much abandonned this site since I no longer work in an office with no work to do and only Chinese colleagues to ‘talk’ to, but then I came back to it today and saw this goal and was amazed. Why? Because I currently have a job as a weekly book reviewer for a newspaper, meaning the paper buys me a new release (we’re talking hardback, not paperback flimsies) and I read it for the next week. So the goal, exactly as I had described it, came true. 43things is like the magical wish fairy. I believe! I believe!

I’ve read nothing in forever, not even the things I have to read. Dream of Red Chamber is next on the list, and after that, The Kite Runner.

Being Dead by Jim Crace

Then I realised I read it last summer, and good though it was, I didn’t feel likereading it twice. I don’t own any more books by him which is disappointing, the last book really set me in a Craceian mood.

Arcadia by Jim Crace

I adore Jim Crace’s style of writing. Though the plot was not as engaging as ‘Quarantine’, his language is so great that I could read his shopping list and be mesmorised. I find you rarely read a book and want to straight away read another book by the same author, but this one got me hooked on Crace. I’m a Crace junkie and proud of it.

Bliss by Peter Carey. Because I thought the first 86 pages were crap and didn’t want to waste any longer on it.

Bliss, by Peter Carey

So far, I’m a bit shocked. I debated between ‘Oscar and Lucinda’ and this book, and the underdog won. Something about the casaul incest puts me off a bit.

The Truth about Kurt Cobain.

My little sister, who is having a scary ‘I love boys with long black hair and eye-liner, life sucks’ phase, made me read it. I’ve put it off since June. It’s finally read, and I still couldn’t really care less about Kurt or Courtney or the cover-ups and conspiracies surrounding it all. I finished it, and instead of thinking ‘Ooh, I must help solve the case!’ and mulling over the evidence, I fell straight to sleep.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Amazing! I’ve never read a book before that if you asked me what it was about, I’d have no idea what to answer, but would still rate it as the best book I’ve read this year. It follows an Indian couple in America throughout their lives, and the life of their son. It is a book about daily life, years and years of it, so you can see how it unfolds. But there is magic in the details, a magic you can’t place or recreate, but that is unmissable.

Hey Nostradamus, by Douglass Coupland

I’ve had it for ages and never felt like reading it before. I like how it is set over twenty years, flashing into the storyline at key points. It follows a school shooting, a girl who died, her husband and two people I haven’t gotten to yet.

Last week, I read The Stranger, but I don’t really count it because I’ve read it ten times already. It’s my favourite!