Tag: Reading

Writers Read

Book post, choice, and privilege

I’m currently reading the enthralling Her Kind by Niamh Boyce (Penguin: London, 2019) and looking forward to welcoming Niamh to my Writers’ Chat series shortly.

Meanwhile I received wonderful book post this week:

  • James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk
  • Hiro Arikawa The Travelling Cat
  • Mario Levrero Empty Words
  • Sinéad Gleeson Constellations

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The hardest task will be which book to dive into first – – the choice of creative non-fiction essays (ones which beg to be savoured), the mind of a cat (the pull of life, there), urban scape (and that wonderful way Baldwin has with words), handwriting & notebooks (rather close to the bone). And I think, then, about the privilege of choice and wonder if I should write for a while.

On Reading

Reading, Thinking, Questioning…

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I’m currently reading Songs of the Sun Amor by Wade Stevenson (Blaze Vox: New York, 2019) and looking forward to welcoming Wade to my Writers’ Chat series shortly.

Meanwhile I’m almost done re-reading Anne Enright’s great The Green Road, at the same time I’m torn between not wanting to put To Leave with the Reindeer (by Olivia Rosenthal – &Other Stories: London, 2019) on a bookshelf as I find myself returning to it again and again, and wanting to continue reading David Park’s Travelling in a Strange Land (Bloomsbury: London, 2018). This is the joy and the pull of having wonderful books to hand.

Onwards to the words….

On Reading, Writers Read

Festive Reading, Thinking and Doing

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I love reading books recommended by readers and writers which means my to be read pile just keeps growing.

These days I’m reading a lot on the kindle. Having ‘turned’ the last page of Stephen King’s The Outsider last week I’m now almost finished with the truly wonderful Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room. 

After that I’m going to move through the pile above – yes. I will be revisiting books already read, re-reading and analysing, reading fresh stories, typing, baking and cooking.

I will be allowing my mind compost (as Anne Lamott might say), letting my body rest. As much as I can. Intentions are part of the trick, I think. Oh yes and at some stage over Christmas I will write.

And give and receive presents. And be grateful. And make plans to get that new to be read pile down. Joy, I say, the joys of reading. That ‘portable magic’, as Stephen King calls it. In today’s world of inequality, extreme politics, and violence, we need this magic more than ever.