I really liked it but also felt BR 2049 seemed closer to the themes of the book than Scott’s original adaptation was.
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I really, really need to watch that film, no idea why I haven’t as yet as Blade Runner is one of my favourites.
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Francis Spufford just came into the shop and was very cool and humble and chill! Celebs in the wild!
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June reading (just the two!)
The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemisen - The last book in The Inheritance Trilogy. This was less successful than the other two, mostly because the perspective has shifted again from mortal to godling. As such there’s a lot of exposition in the front half of the book which is hard to get through. It’s interesting as Jemisen usually saves the exposition for the back half, letting events happen first then explaining them later. The God perspective, while different, is harder to relate to than the mortals in the first two book. However, the second half of the book was much better, with threads linking together in a satisfying way. I still prefer the Broken Earth Trilogy, but the world of these books is rich, interesting and filled with nuance.
Saltwash - Andrew Michael Hurley I read Barrowbeck earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so picked up his latest. Thomas is meeting his pen pal in a hotel in a northern town that has seen better days. But lots of other people start to join and talk about a mysterious prize. Less folk horror and more grounded, this races towards an inevitable, bleak conclusion. Although it’s only short, I found Hurley’s writing style deeply affecting and the novella lingers with you.
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I’ve just read Ben Lerner’s Transcription - read the first half this morning and the second half this evening. I really liked it, a lot more than I thought I would. Just found it really readable. The first part with the mild drama of conducting an interview without anything to record it was quite engaging for me. I didn’t have the same confusion as you in the last section, as I assumed who it was based on them referring to their father, but I did do a Kindle name search for one of the other characters the daughter just to confirm that it had been mentioned earlier / make sure I wasn’t misleading myself. I’d be more than happy if it got a Booker nomination - much preferred it to most of the Booker longlist last year anyhow! 9/10
It’s still 99p on Kindle at the moment in case anyone else is interested.
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Does #project31 sound fash? Dunno why it would. Anyway that’s what I’m calling this.
First three books of the pile read:
Whit, Iain Banks
Great premise and setting, really strong voice, thought the plot was a little simplistic though. Also weirdly had elements that are very similar to the piece of fiction I’ve had bubbling away in my head for years. In maybe quite a helpful way!
Knocking Myself Up, Michelle Tea
Loved this. Michelle Tea is such a pleasurable writer to read and obviously this memoir about her unconventional route to pregnancy / motherhood was going to resonate with me. Read this in a day.
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
A reread that was close to a first read, as it’s been so long since I first picked this up. I spent the first half trying to remember the premise. I don’t think it has the same power it would have on the first go around. This is the third Ishiguro book I’ve read in a few months, I’m never completely convinced by him but I keep going back. There’s something very captivating to me about his style
3/31 #project31
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Man, I wish I could read at that sort of speed. Incredible.
Edit to say: I remember Whit getting a pretty lukewarm reception from friends at the time but I really enjoyed it.
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Both NMLG and KMU are quite short! Commuting also helps
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True about commuting. I’ve been better recently at reading before I turn on the laptop for work around 9 to sort of simulate that, but I am just not a very fast reader and never have been. I’ve only read 21 books this year for a measly 6800 pages and that includes chunks of time on flights out to and within Australia
I’ve always been a fast (possibly too fast) reader, ever since I was a kid, but also I’m lucky enough to have a lifestyle and schedule which allows for a lot of reading. The two days I take the train to Manchester are good cause that’s minimum two hours reading each day just during the commute. I always read before going to sleep as well and on days when I’m not commuting I also read in the mornings before getting up to start my day.
But then I look at the amount of books some other people are reading in this thread and think: how?? 
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Me too. I subvocalise and struggle to take in text so I’m slow. I also read on my commute which is helpful
It’s not that I care about how many books I read for the sense of achievement (I don’t ever set reading goals because life does what it wants) but more I wish I read a bit faster because there are so many books I want to read right now yesterday please exciting etc haha
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Book 21 - Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys (8.5/10) yeah that’s really good might re read jean eyre
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Exactly this!
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Douglas Stuart - John of John
I read Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo a few years ago. I know Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize, but I actually preferred Young Mungo. And now, here’s another book with a titular character.
I think this is my favourite of his three books so far. It’s not too dissimilar in terms of themes and settings (it’s another period piece, but this time it’s the mid nineties. I wasn’t sure at first when it was set, and it does take place over a fair amount of time. One the main character, Cal, listens to The Jesus and Mary Chain on a walkman, but there are later references to The Spice Girls and Chumbawamba) and if you have read either Shuggie Bain or Young Mungo, you will already know that this is not going to a laugh riot. The setting is an island off the coast of Scotland, whose community makes Craggy Island seem like a metropolis.
What makes this one different is the various narrative devices going on. all kinds of exposition, foreshadowing and dramatic irony galore, but told in a third person narrative that really allows Stuart to keep you in suspense. There are some surprises, but most of the time there’s the overwhelming sense of dread in that you know more or less everything you need to know about the main story and it’s less a case of wondering what is going to happen, but how everything is going to play out.
I didn’t know anything about what it was about. Douglas Stuart has earned my faith that all I knew was that it was set on an island.
I really liked this. As I said, it’s not a laugh riot, but it’s definitely less of a punishing read than his first two books. His writing is good enough that even the most miserable of circumstances are well-rendered, but this time there a more knotty plot to deal with. Great stuff.
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My backlog is big enough as it is, but I reserved and collected Adam Johnson’s new book from the library (although it’s 700+ pages long!) and picked up these other two new ones too. Also have two other books I need to read before a book event in less than two weeks. Plenty of reading to be doing!
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Recently finished reading ‘Desert’ by Anonymous, possibly one of the best known anarcho-nihilist/anti-civ texts which takes a fairly sobering, some might say somewhat depressing look at the climate crisis, it’s impacts on geopolitics and the possibilities for liberation. In a way a lot of the text covers ideas I’ve had before regarding the growth of militarization and surveillance in some regions and declining state capacity elsewhere, alongside a critique of mass politics as generally conceived but I did think it was somewhat overly pessimistic at points.
Also read ‘The Commune Form’ by Kristin Ross, which was in a way a really good addendum to ‘Desert’ as she covers a lot of work that’s gone into, not only resisting but defending areas of natural conservation (notably ZAD, Stop Cop City and Sanrizuka), alternative forms of existence and the lessons and political consciousness that’s arisen from those. My main criticism was that she almost seemed a bit too enamoured by the pastoral, subsistence forms of communal living which always makes me wonder how scalable something like ZAD is. Still probably one of the more interesting books on the subject I’ve read and it’s good to see more authors really think about the centrality of land in the politics struggles to come.
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Finished Books of Blood and enjoyed the stories enough to immediately read The Hellbound Heart which was ace.
Anyone got any favourite Clive Barker novels they’d like to recommend? I fancy reading something a bit longer by him now.
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Cabal (adapted for film as Nightbreed) would be a natural next read, though that’s still a novella. The Damnation Game is good (though not top-tier Barker) if you wanted a full horror novel.
Of his dark fantasy work, Imajica is my fav but might be worth working your way up to, as it’s his most sizable & ambitious work. The Great And Secret Show and Weaveworld are both excellent, and his novelistic chops are better developed for those than Damnation Game.
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Lovely, thank you! Will go for Cabal next then after reading something else as a little break.
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