I’ve just finished The Next Big Thing by Anita Brookner which was a great and sometimes difficult read. It’s about Julius who’s in his 70s and is now retired. His parents and brother have died and his wife has left him. He’s living alone in central London, his adopted city after his family fled from Nazi Germany. He’s looking for the next big thing in his life, pondering his past and feeling concern for his failing health. Sounds gloomy, right?! Well, the insightful writing just carries you along and pulls you in before you know it and you’re hooked on this story of loneliness and regret in later life. I found myself, like I often do with Anita Brookner, rereading sections due to the beautiful prose. Here’s an example to give you a flavour:
“He raised his eyes to a rooffline bristling with television aerials , lowered them again to windows still blank before the evening lights were lit. The sky was already darkening; signs of spring were absent, and yet the chilly damp held a promise of greenness, of new life only just in abeyance. it was even possible to appreciate that sky; its opaque blue reminded him of certain pictures, though no picture could compete with this strange sense of immanence. With the crust of the earth ready to break into life, the roots expanding to disclose flowers, the trees graciously putting forth leaves. The impassivity of nature never ceased to amaze him. This awakening process was surely superior to anything captured on canvas, yet art made all phenomena its province.in its unceasing war with the effort of capturing moments of time art won this unequal contest, but only just. The majestic indifference of nature was there to remind one of ones place, and no doubt to serve as a corrective to the artist’s ambition. When the canvas was finished it was already a relic, outside change. And surely change was primordial; all must obey it. To ignore the process was to ignore the evidence of one’s own evolutionary cycle.’
Haunting, introspective and with a hint of dark comedy this was so good, just maybe one to approach with caution if yu’re about to retire! This novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002. #bookstodon#AmReading#Braille#BookReview#nature@bookstodon
This week I'm wrapping up the audio of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann. This is the second audiobook in a row for me with truly raw depictions of people just scraping by and trying to make the best of their situation. Tillie's narration is heartbreaking. Next audio read needs to be something not so heavy.
Related: now I feel like I should watch "The Walk" starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (not a bad thing)
Weekend reading! I'm about to start A Radical Act of Free Magic by HG Parry & I can't wait. Her first book in this duology, A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, was absolutely superb, so I have high hopes! #weekendreading#amreading#bookstodon#books
#AmReading Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. It’s loosely a family saga about Native Americans from the “Indian Wars” (bloody massacres) of the late 19th century onwards. It’s pretty grim reading descriptions of brutal “Indian schools” and “prisoner of war” prisons designed to strip people of their culture, language and heritage to produce upstanding Christian Americans. It’s not going to be easy going #books#bookstodon
Another evening, another mammoth reading session. I actually went ahead and purchased Bookly subscription. We'll see if it was worth it. If not, I'm happy to support the dev.
Not quite 25% tonight, but pretty close. At this rate, I'll finish the book tomorrow!
#WhatchaReading ? I very much enjoyed The Wonder Engine, the sequel to Clockwork Boys. Suspense, romance, humor, redemption!
I actually followed Ursula Vernon on the bird site because of her gardening posts long before I thought to read any of her books. Might be a lesson there... 😇
Heads up that The Khan by Saima Mir is on Kindle for 99p. I loved this thriller about gangland power struggles in the Bradford Pakistani community, just seen there’s a sequel which I will now be buying #AmReading#books
Been reading Forever My Girl by Heidi McLauchlin but giving up and deleting it because the MMC can't have a single thought about a woman that isn't misogynistic as hell. They all want him, they're all trying too hard, they all make him sick. He makes me sick.
Isn't it funny, I don't remember being impatient to get home to watch TV when binging series. But now that I'm reading more, the last couple of hours at work I just wanted to get home and read the next book in my Discworld binge.
The lovely people Amazon Kindle have put Dreaming The Bull down to 99p - so if you know anyone who started the series and wants to go on with number two - now is the time!