paulamcg

What did you recently finish reading?

Well, not very recently, but…

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
As I’ve said before, the sense of place and of era in this book is wonderful. From the beginning I felt I could trust the writer had done her research well (once again. I’ve enjoyed other novels by Chevalier before: Girl with a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures, and The Last Runaway). The descriptions are vivid, the characters real with their flaws – both real and tragic.

After that I read a few short stories in The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt but couldn’t really concentrate. Besides writing, I spent my free time on packing and unpacking my books (and some other possessions of mine) because I moved house.

Oh, a couple of weeks ago I read
The Red Sea Sharks by Hergé, which was a pleasure, a bit nostalgic and also highly interesting, to a great extent thanks to a_belladonna, who writes fic and meta and makes fanart – all excellent, as much as I’ve seen of it – in the Tintin fandom.


What are you currently reading?

Finally happy with my books when they were arranged better than ever before in my six bookshelves, I got the idea it was high time to reread

The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin
which I’d failed to ever hear of but soon after buying for perhaps one euro at a second-hand shop in spring 2014 deemed the best novel I’d ever read. The language is gorgeous, the narrative is enchanting in a special way… I still can’t help adoring the way the third-person narration gives way to first person suddenly when the protagonist enters unexpectedly surfacing memories. And no matter what wrong choices he had made and what an unpleasant person he’d become, I was thoroughly touched by his story and felt it made me understand better what (making art as well as) being human means.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
I finally got this from the library yesterday and started immediately. I’m excited to see whether this is as compelling and excellently-written as The Handmaid’s Tale. I do like the opening with a child’s perspective. The doll house is a nice way of introducing the roles citizens are allowed to have.


What do you think you’ll read next?

No idea really. Someone’s just reminded me that a few years ago I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. I can’t even remember whether I’ve read two of three of those novels, and I’m more confused because I also watched a season or two (or three?) of the show. The whole of Martin’s series seems a bit too much for a slow reader like me. Yesterday I saw the opening of the show again, and perhaps – even though I hardly ever watch any shows – I’ll prefer just watching when that someone wants me to share some time together in that way.

Instead, I could consider rereading Andrzej Sapkowski. Someone on my DW feed has found the Witcher novels boring, but I loved them, as well as the game Witcher the Wild Hunt – the only video game I’ve ever played. I’ve felt tempted to play it again, losing myself in that world, but so far I’ve restricted myself to listening to the gorgeous music from it. I know that, sadly, I’ll never be able to relive the moment of arriving in Skellige with the witcher and hearing the theme of that place for the very first time, just as (back to the topic of reading books) I’ll never feel just the same as the first time when I, together with Sukhanov, became the child in his very earliest memory.