April Newsletter #02
I’m so happy that the sun is shining when I’m writing this, really ready for some warm days and the end of the persistent rain and snowy flurries. I’ve been making the most of any sunshine and getting out as much as possible.
This month marks the end of my year long maternity leave. As you can imagine I’m feeling all the emotions about it, and, right now can think of nothing else. I didn’t realise how much I would love the slower pace and all things baby. I did think the end of maternity leave would be the mark of my baby sleeping through the night, but that is yet to come!
I’ve still got a handful of things to look forward to before my return, including some restaurants I’ve been wanting to try, a weekend away. But also I’m looking forward to carving out a small amount of time for myself. It’s been a moment!
I’ve gone back and forth on what theme to pick this month as I’ve got so many books I would love you all to read. I questioned whether to do a spring themed but à la Miranda Priestly decided to dig a little deeper!
3 Oldies but Goldies.
It’s so easy to get drawn into the hype of reading and consuming everything new. I’ve chosen 3 books from deep in the archives that have stuck with me for one reason or another. Whilst looking through my backlist there are so many books I’ve loved it’s actually really inspired me to reread some of my favourites.
We Are Completely Besides Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
You can read the synopsis here
310 pages
I read this back in 2016 and it’s still stuck with me since, to me that is a sign of a very good book in my opinion. It’s a very easy read but at the time I thought it was also extremely impactful.
The book starts in the middle of the story when Rosemary is 22. Rosemary the proganosit embarks on her past telling stories from her childhood memories, mainly about her sister Fern and brother Lowell. I loved how the timeline chopped and changed, it felt true to how we think and recall childhood memories. The overall theme is family, emotions, love and loss. Everything that we experience as human beings. Fowler does a great job of covering such complex family dynamics.
There is a fantastic twist in the story, which, now I know I wonder what the reading experience will be like reading a second time round.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
You can read the synopsis here
559 Pages
Tartt is such a talented writer, after I had finished The Goldfinch her second novel I discovered this in a charity shop and was so excited to read. Tartt has an effortless ability to draw you into her world. I recently discovered that it turned 30 last year (2022) and I cannot get over it! Apparently it is having a moment on Tik Tok which is hilarious as I remember when it was having it’s (well deserved) moment on Tumblr!
The story themes around dark academia a story of elite privileged students studying the classics - a whydunnit rather than a whodunnit. The mystery is how the big event happens, the audience, like in greek tragedies know what happens, it’s such a clever take on a modern day tragedy. Richard the narrator is young, there is an unconscious blindness to his story making him at times unreliable. He is discovering things about himself, about his friends and us as the reader are trying to figure it out with him. The book has so many layers and complexities, you can really discover something new each time you come back to it. All of the characters are terrible people and you will hate every single one of them, but in a way that you can’t stop reading about them, you can’t help going back for a little more.
There is a reason that after 30 years it is still a book that it seems everyone has read or has it tbr on their bookshelf. Somehow each generation rediscover it when they get to college/university age, Tartt puts it down to her writing the story when she was 19, reliving her university days at Bennington through the story. I can not even fathom writing something of this depth and quality as a teenager!
Homegoing by Yas Gyasi
You can read the synopsis here
320 Pages
I am constantly gifting this book to friends as it’s just so so vast and so brilliant, as a debut novel, I remember when I read it in 2016 - a good year for books it seems and I thought how does one even start a novel like this? Gyasi was only 26 when she wrote this, it’s so in depth so believable it really does feel like a lifetime novel not a debut.
Of course it’s a hard hitting, the subject matter isn’t lighthearted it covers slavery, racism and violence. It spans over 300 years of history without feeling overwhelming or rushed, it’s structured almost like a family tree, each chapter being a different generation. Although you can’t really connect to the characters as you are only following them for a chapter as the reader you somehow feel invested. It is extremely political and poignant, and well worth reading.
Then I can only recommend you follow on with reading her second more recent novel Transcendent Kingdom which is outstanding.
April Bookclub Read
I feel like bookclub is off to a great start, last months read Wandering Souls was so moving. I’ve found it hard to select the next read, but, in conjunction to oldies but goldies I have chosen Kindred. I really hope this next one can keep the momentum going as the bar is high. Again, whilst there is a small community on here I’ll post a Bookclub newsletter with spoilers and if you’ve read too then please let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. If this becomes a bigger community then I would love to discuss with others via zoom or something similar.
A bit about the book -
The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given...
A bit about the author -
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
She soon sold her first stories and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author that she was able to pursue writing full-time. She also taught writer's workshops, and eventually relocated to Washington state. Butler died of a stroke at the age of 58
pages in book - 288
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