Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

01. How INSANE is this clip of storm clouds? So much cloud-spotting envy right there…

Book vs. Film: A Man Called Ove

Tie. Both were brilliant.

Sample Saturday – four stories in one, a girl who doesn’t know her place, and an author

Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

Sample Saturday – a hitman, cricket, and a stack of cash

Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

It’s really just a Neapolitan version of Home and Away, isn’t it?

2/5 I’m really done now.

(review of first and second books here)

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The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

Yo, Lila – sisters before misters.

3/5 I enjoyed the second installment more than the first. I’ll be reading on, hoping that Elena’s EQ begins to match her IQ.

Sample Saturday – a loner, a kiss, and two lovers

Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

Marie Kondo and her Blasphemies about Books

So I caved to public pressure and was prepared to hold a cheese grater and ask myself, sincerely, if it sparked joy. I willingly piled all of my crap onto my bed and then audibly thanked cardigans and asymmetrical hemlines for their service, as I stuffed them into bin bags. I even went so far as to tell people that Marie Kondo was right about the fact that ‘storage is a booby trap’.

But about a third of the way through The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Kondo went off the rails. Really, seriously bloody berserk. And my willingness to play along ground to a halt. Why? Because of her abominable attitude toward books*. And I quote:

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Dear Book-Blogging-Corner-of-the-Interwebs,

I respect and trust your opinion on almost #ALLTHEBOOKS* but I feel like you’ve let me down on the Ferrante-front. You know what I’m talking about. You loved it. You promised a sinuous, immersive tale of life in Naples, of violence and fierce love, of female friendship and deep loyalty. You didn’t tell me it would be such a wretched slog. But I pushed through, trusting you.

This Should be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle

This Should be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle is a book written in ‘staccato’ but with a mood that is distinctly ‘lamentoso’.

Short, detatched and seemingly unrelated sentences deliver the story of Dorte, a university student living alone and not going to classes. There’s a fair degree of commentary on apple trees, trains, insomnia, ex-boyfriends and her aunt (also named Dorte).

“After that the suitcase lived in my room. At one point it was a bedside table, the lamp threw a white cone of light on it all day long. I lay on the bed doing old crosswords with a biro. I didn’t have that many jobs to do, but I had to remember to turn my jeans inside out when I put them in the laundry bin.”

“They’d forgotten their picnic basket, it was sticking out from under the shrubs in the front garden. I discovered it on the Tuesday morning when I went over to catch the train. I’d tried some new eyeshadow, it was dusty green and supposed to go all the way up, only my eyelids weren’t the right shape. It was only a couple of minutes till the train was due…”