Bookish

Another busy, busy week for me! What week isn’t? Being busy is a bit of a curse. When I’ve got nothing to do, I feel bad moping around at home, like I’m not making the most out of life; but when I’ve got too much going on, I just want some time to do nothing. I wanted to write a bit about books! I really want one of the Moleskine Book Journals! I always resolve to keep a record of what I read and my impressions of it, and this seems like a really good way to do it- easy and quick and combined with good design. It reminds me a little bit of the book reviews that I had to write in junior school, though!  I remember that my folder was always massive, as I’ve always been a very quick reader. When I was in school, I used to regularly read six to eight books a week (eight being the maximum that I could withdraw from the local library)- I’m not sure how I found the time to do that, except that the books were shorter and a lot less complicated than my current reading material!

Nowadays, I tend to get most of my reading done on public transport. I’ve almost always got a book in my bag (I think I’m scared of being bored). When I’m working in London, and spending a solid hour or so commuting in, along with my super long hour and twenty minutes of break, I go through books at a ridiculous speed as I’m reading for at least three hours every day! While at university, I read quite a bit more slowly as I have less opportunities to. Unlike a lot of people I know, I don’t really like reading in bed. I don’t mind if I don’t have to get up early the next morning, but I tend to get absorbed in my book, and before I know it, it’s four in the morning and I have to get up at eight thirty!

I’m currently reading An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ve only read the first seventy pages, but it looks like it will be quite interesting so far, and I’ll write more about it later. Ishiguro is amazing at creating an evocative image of a world, this one being that of late 1940s Japan, rebuilding itself after World War Two.

Prior to this, I read The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I’ve never read anything by her before, but her books have been consistently recommended to me. I found the book really gripping- I love fiction where the real story unrolls gradually, leading you on twists and turns, and leaving you waiting to understand who becomes who, and what caused the events the reader has already seen. In typical literary fiction style, there isn’t a great deal of “action” (one of the things I really enjoy about the genre, so not a bad point in this case!), but Atwood’s depiction of characters is amazing, allowing the reader to feel and empathise and agonise, while remaining an outsider- someone spying on another life. As I mentioned, one of the things I love about literary fiction is how the book doesn’t have to be filled with events upon events. A good writer can write about almost nothing, and still ensnare the reader. I’m not surprised that it won the Booker prize!

Anyway, I’m off to bed now, so I’ll have to tell you a little more about a few other things in my life another time!