Post-Christmas luncheon (during which I ate my own body weight in turkey, ham, chicken and trifle – trifle is an honourary protein), I am half-reclined on the bed in the manner of Goya’s Maja (but with more clothes) contemplating the reading pile on the nightstand.
Am a third of the way through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – which I am slow at coming to, but am enjoying … but I fear having watched the movies has dulled my brain as far as the reading is concerned. I think I shall need to go back to book one and read them all over again so as to regain some kind of continuity in my own head.
I have Kristin Cashore’s Fire, which once again has a glorious cover and I am looking forward to reading (as soon as Harry is out of the way).
I have the schmick little Twelfth Planet Press double-up of Roadkill and Siren Beat. Shearman’s Roadkill (which I had the privilege of reading earlier this year after blackmailing the author in a poker game gone wrong), and Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Siren Beat, with which I’ve no previous familiarity, but I was lucky enough to do a read on her soon-to-be-released Pulp Fiction Press novel, Cafe La Femme (which is awesome), are an interesting double act.
And I have VanderMeer’s Finch queued up for a second read. It was mind-blowing the first time around and I look forward to reading it more slowly this time and picking up the stuff that I missed on the first read coz I was desperate to read fast and see what happened.
Also: Alice Munro’s Too Much Happiness is awaiting me. I’ve not read anything of hers before and am anxious to see what a Booker winner can produce – I love short fiction and there’s a lot of good stuff about … it just doesn’t get promoted properly by publishers unless it’s by a big name author.
You haven’t read Alice Munro before? And you call yourself a writer? I’ve been reading Alice Munro for 30 years and still can’t put her down. Listen, throw all those other books, especially Harry Potter (which is the most monumental waste of precious hours of your life), out of the window, followed by a burning brand, and then read every Munro you can find, starting with Lives of Girls and Women (which I first read when the women’s movement still had a beating heart, so now re-readings are mutedly painful forays into something I desperately try to recapture).
PS – perhaps you can keep Jeff’s stuff under the bed for a later time. I wish I had Finch. I should leave the house sometime… Oh stuff it, I”ll just get Readings to deliver.
PPS – I’m reading Jeffrey Ford’s The Drowned Life (short stories). He’s not Alice Munro, but he weaves a similar magic. I’m trying to get hold of my very own copy of his The Fantasy Writer’s Apprentice – YOU must read that one.
PPS – I hope you had a lovely Christmas (I got a Macbook from my hubby, Readings vouchers from my mum and a Margaret River cab merlot (Vasse Felix) from my sister, so I had a perfect christmas). Oh, and I thought about religion for a few minutes.
Love and happy christmas to you and all the Clarionites.
T
Well, I have been doing other things with my life, love! But I read the first story last night and will continue to munch through the book in between the other novels – a short story is a good way to break up novels. 🙂 Hope you’re having a good beak and taking care of yourself x
Taking care, yes, thanks. I’m sitting here polishing off a bottle of red wine, watching Stargate Universe (Battlestar Galactica meets Lost In Space with a really demented Dr Smith?) listening to Paul spritzing the porch with flyspray. Spritz, spritz, he goes. For half an hour. How many spiders are there? A whole horde of spider-Hun just waiting for me to leave the house to perpetrate their atrocities on me? It’s going to be hot for the rest of the week and the huntsmans will grow to the size of hawks by 2010. I ain’t leaving this house, ever. Safeway can deliver all my red wine.
I think Open Secrets and Friend of My Youth are Munro’s best, besides her earliest work. Too Much Happiness is leaving me slightly puzzled – apart from the first story which is classic Munro. Still, I’m only halfway through.
I hope you’re enjoying your break. Good luck next year. And I want to hear about your publications – I’m trying to look out for everyone’s publications and read them in glossy professional productions. Could you make sure to title or flag the post with a big PUBLISHED or something similiar – apologies but my email is overloading my brain and I have to just ditch unread almost all of it most of the time.
cheers