Tag: Reading

Blind Dates

I’m often asked what I’m reading at the moment, mostly by people who think I’m far more cultured than I actually am. For a time – particularly during my degree or when I started the book club with Lara and Nora – I could reply at the drop of a hat. These days, not so much. I can’t really explain why I took my eye off the ball when it came to reading. Perhaps it was just a lack of motivation, brought on by what I felt was a general lack of direction in my life. Whatever the reason, I did know deep down that I wanted to get back into books again – so a couple of Sundays ago, on the spur of the moment, I put that plan into action. Browsing the bookshelf in HMV, I couldn’t help noticing that you could get two titles for £7. A spark was ignited, and I set a couple of hard and fast rules in my head.

The first was that I had to pick one novel and one piece of non-fiction. The second was that there could be no deliberating or dawdling – I could choose based on initial impressions and a glance at the blurb only. Under the circumstances, it’d be the closest thing to going in blind. So what did I go for? The novel was Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front, because I wanted to read a renowned classic. The non-fiction choice was Themes For Great Cities, a biography of the band Simple Minds, because I’ve always been a sucker for a bit of music history. That really is all there is to it. I intend to absorb them both without feeling like I have to have any writerly opinions on them – Lara is much better at those anyway. Reading just for pleasure and the joy of discovering something new feels very freeing. At the time of writing, I’ve reached Chapter 10 of All Quiet, and one thing’s for sure – I’m loving connecting with a page again.

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 8

Reading has come in very handy when I’ve been trying to unwind after searching and applying for jobs lately. It relaxes me, it clears my mind, and best of all, there’s no pressure to do it in the first place. There are none of the same expectations from others that come with looking for employment, so I’m free to take as long as I like on a book, and that comes in especially handy when the work in question is a weighty tome like my current read, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In actual fact, it’s a re-read – I first tackled it for one of my degree modules in 2019, an experience I found myself reflecting on in my book club notes once I’d decided to revisit it:

“I was one of the only people in the class to read this from cover to cover during my Rewriting and Adapting module – all 418 pages of it – but at that time assignments were looming, so I was feeling a certain amount of pressure to absorb every detail. Because of that, the novel felt like a hard slog, like it was never going to end. Eventually, I forced myself to stay in the library until I’d finished it, and I now suspect that that blinded me to some of its finer points. I do remember thinking that its approach to storytelling – its habit of switching between different perspectives and presenting these in epistolary form – was unlike anything I’d seen before. It was a refreshing change from what I normally saw in prose fiction, and it must be worth a reappraisal if I’m writing about it here!”

I scribbled that paragraph at least two weeks ago. Here’s what I wrote when I actually got going on the first chapter a little while later:

“At Page 15 – this book is just as long-winded as I remember! There is a lot of exposition, with nearly every detail of Jonathan’s surroundings and encounters brought vividly to life. This immerses you in the story and builds a clear picture of the danger that awaits him, but it also makes you feel like things aren’t moving very quickly, and you’re sat there willing the chapter to go a little faster.”

Even if you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about here, you probably get the idea. Yes, Jonathan’s journey to Castle Dracula might be a long and arduous one, but do we have to hear about all of it? I’ve barely even scratched the surface yet!

I’d like to think I’m a fairly resilient reader, so while many might give up at this point, I’m going to press on. It’s true that you should never judge a book by its cover, but it’s also true that you shouldn’t judge it by its first 15 pages, even if they do feel more like 1,500. There are plenty more still to go, and I’m sure they’ll be better, won’t they?

Won’t they?!

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 7

A few months ago, I told you that Lara, Nora and I had temporarily put our book club on hold. I also told you that despite that, I’d be continuing solo, making notes on what I was reading even if I had nobody else to show them to. Well, I can tell you now that I’ve kept my word, although it took me a while. My notebook tells me that I started Stardust, which I finished on 27 November, all the way back on April Fool’s Day!

Opening those blank pages and writing by hand has really come in useful so far. I’ve never been all that confident in my abilities as a reviewer, largely because I never feel like I have an opinion that’s detailed enough on anything. I just know, instinctively, whether I like something or not, and I don’t feel much of an inclination to pick it apart. If I want to fill my notebook, though, I have no choice but to jot down a paragraph or two. Wouldn’t want to waste the money I spent on it, would I?

Everything goes down, no matter how scattered or disjointed my thoughts are, because I don’t worry about refining them for an audience. I don’t even worry about Mum or Dad taking the book from my desk and flicking through it (they’d likely struggle to read my handwriting anyway). That takes the pressure off to some extent, so for a long time I was adamant that nobody would see my notes, because it might change the way I looked at them myself if they did. Nevertheless, a conversation with Mum last week got me thinking about whether I should give you a sneak peek as a one-off, so I put a little more thought into my notes this time around.

They’re for the sixth novel I’ve read since the beginning of the book club, Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. During my recent weekend in Winchester, I fancied some crime fiction, and I wanted to see if Osman’s debut as an author really lived up to all the hype. I also read David Fisher’s Doctor Who: The Androids of Tara during the same period, but I figured my thoughts on that might not be as appealing to non-Whovians! Have a look at these words and see what you think – I definitely wouldn’t complain if you decided to enjoy it as much as I did. I’ve edited my original scribblings slightly for better clarity, but the general verdicts remain the same.

6. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Started 02.12.22

This was a fascinating murder mystery which was easy to follow, but still had plenty of depth. There was so much going on that I found I wasn’t even sure who I suspected – or if I suspected anyone at all – but this wasn’t a problem, as it just meant I was able to enjoy the story’s twists and turns without any distractions. I guess you could say I was savouring the journey, rather than concerning myself with the destination too much.

The protagonists are people you truly care about, and reading about the residents of Coopers Chase and the members of the titular club is a delight. Their speech patterns and eccentricities are so relatable and well-observed – I found myself picturing some of my own relatives as I went along – and they’re endearing too, undoubtedly contributing to the book’s overall warmth. There is some room for the reflection on loss and mortality that can accompany old age, but above all, The Thursday Murder Club serves to remind us that every second of life is precious and there to be lived. As long as it’s still in front of us, there’s still time for it to be well and truly grabbed by the horns.

I can’t wait for The Man Who Died Twice!

Finished 15.12.22

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 6

I just thought I’d let you know that I recently decided to take a break from my book club with Lara and Nora. I did so halfway through Stardust, which I’ve told the girls they can go ahead and discuss without me. As it turns out, not being in that conversation might be a blessing in disguise, since I’d left the novel at a point where I was yet to write a single word about it in my lined red notebook. I bought it almost exactly a year ago with the intention of using it only for my literary observations, and while I had quite a few for the first couple of stories, my notes for this one currently consist only of its title, the name of its author, and the date on which I started reading.

It would be a shame to waste all that paper, so even though I might not have anyone to talk about it with, I’m going to carry on with Stardust regardless. In the absence of regular paid work to establish a 9-5 routine, it might be good to give myself that distraction. Of course, from a creative point of view, it’ll still get those creative juices flowing, even if there are only a few words or sentences. Sometimes the tiniest amount of input is enough to cause a deluge of inspiration, so by the time I do rejoin the girls, I might have more feedback than they bargained for. Beyond that, I’ve bought more than enough notebooks meant for one project that have been condemned to contain passwords and shopping lists for eternity – and I’m determined to save this one from the same fate!

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 5

My attempts to throw myself into the written word while I search for a new job are going pretty well. I have recently submitted a piece of just over 1,000 words for a brand new project, which I’m sure you’ll hear more about in due course. On top of that, I’m finally reading Nineteen Eighty Four, the next novel Lara, Nora and I will be discussing as part of our book club. It’s taken me six months to get started – according to my notes, I finished the last one on 16 August – but I’ve made good progress, with just over half the book under my belt at the time of writing. And let me tell you, it’s certainly made an impact!

It’s distracting me from my current situation in a couple of ways. Firstly, the hard-hitting material means I’m well and truly immersed, but in addition, it’s nice to take my eyes away from a screen for a bit. I’ve mentioned what a relief that can be plenty of times before. It’s only since leaving Haymarket that I’ve truly realised how much of our lives are consumed by devices, and not just recreationally. If I’m not scrolling through social media (which can be a bad idea if you’re comparing your own situation to that of your much more successful fellow graduates), watching a video or playing a game, I’m frantically scouring the net for employment, and even that’s giving me square eyes. What’s more, it can be hard to strike the right balance between spending sufficient time doing that and getting away from the pressures it can entail, so the book is really helping to provide a different kind of mental stimulation, one that’ll bridge the gap until the next big thing to focus on arrives. Things are a little unpredictable and lonely for me in the meantime, but it’s true what my Mum always says, you know – “as long as you have a book in hand, you’ll never be alone.”

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 4

As I’m sure I’ve said before, it’s nice to peel your eyes away from a screen and take in some proper paper pages every now and again. The book club I have going with Lara and Nora was meant to facilitate that a bit more often, of course, but that seems to have stalled somewhat for the time being. We were meant to finally discuss A Natural History of Dragons earlier in the week, and confirm Nineteen Eighty Four as next on our list, but thanks to me that plan fell flat on its face (although it should be easier to schedule now that I’ve finished work for Christmas).

Lara’s generosity, however, means that we might have something else to talk about in the meantime. She’d been buying all of my books for the club anyway up to this point, but outside of that she also decided to buy one for each person in our friendship group, after making sure we hadn’t read it before. Ben was thrilled with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I also enjoyed earlier in the year, while I received The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, the second in Sue Townsend’s series of books about a teenage diarist navigating the numerous challenges of adolescence. I’d read the first of those in Winchester too, and was pleasantly surprised to find that while it appeared to be aimed at readers of a similar age to its protagonist, it also contained a lot of humour that adults would appreciate – and that would go right over kids’ heads.

I reckon everyone else in our group might enjoy it. I don’t know if they’ll all read their respective books from Lara, but I hope they do. Not only will it allow them each to discover something new, but it might mean we can collectively review a number of different titles together – and aside from Ben, I don’t know what anyone else got, so it’d be interesting to find out. What’s more, by the time we finish them all, maybe Lara, Nora and I will at last be able to progress to George Orwell…

Mason

Low Blood Sugar

We might have finished university now, but my friends and I will always find an excuse for a chat on Zoom and a quiz, and last Thursday night we did just that, thanks to Nora having the initiative to actually finish writing one (after I started one months ago that’s never materialised). I think many of us would agree that one of the big downsides of uni is that you bond with all manner of people, only to be torn apart and thrown into different corners of the country, so coming together again through technology can make things a little less lonely – especially when you’ve spent all week working from home in your room like me!

At the beginning, we all agreed that we felt a bit rusty, it having been so long since our last quiz, but we quickly hit our stride again. Well, five of us did – Alysha wasn’t able to join us until after we’d finished, and I came straight from my desk at the end of my working day to do it, foregoing my dinner and a shower. I’m nothing if not dedicated to the cause! Unfortunately, what that meant was that by the time we started, I was seriously flagging, and I ended up 15 points away from Deacon, who was ultimately the winner.

You could say my poor performance was down to my lack of knowledge of recently-released films and TV series, but I prefer to solely blame my low blood sugar – an issue I rectified with some cheese and crackers immediately afterwards. Regardless, it was nice to be reunited with everyone, and I’m hoping it’ll serve as a catalyst for regular quizzing again – and for another book club meeting between Nora, Lara and myself. We still haven’t discussed A Natural History of Dragons yet. In fact, I’ve almost forgotten what happened in it.

Speaking of Lara, I must get back to my online shopping – it was her birthday yesterday and there’s still the business of the ideal present to attend to!

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 3

Having all finished To Kill a Mockingbird, the next step at the beginning of the week was for Lara, Nora and I to get together and discuss it. We therefore took to Zoom, but even though we talk to each other all the time, I don’t think any of us really knew how well this particular meeting would work out. I’d used my brand new bright red notebook to record all of my thoughts as I went along, but as we all scheduled our call earlier in the day, I was surprised to find that neither Lara nor Nora had done the same. Since we were all keen readers who had studied Creative Writing together, I had no real doubts about their ability to analyse a book, but I still wondered if a lack of notes was going to make it difficult.

I needn’t have worried. The agreed 7pm start time came around, and to my relief, we all had plenty to say about how much we loved the novel. One of us would raise an interesting point, which in turn would lead to all manner of spontaneous observations. It was such a satisfying chain reaction for us all, and to witness it in action reminded me of what was so great about collaborating in Winchester – watching an idea go from strength to strength as more contributions were put forth. The conversation was fruitful enough, but seeing how well it was working inspired Lara and Nora to make notes in future, so when the second book is complete we should have even more to talk about.

What will the book in question be, I hear you ask? We could easily have followed a classic like Mockingbird with another title of a similar calibre, and indeed, we have several on our informal shortlist, which we hastily typed as we talked. We have designated Nineteen Eighty Four as our third choice, and at some point – when I locate my long-lost copy – we’ll tackle The Three Musketeers too. At that moment, however, we all felt a hankering to try something completely new, and it was Nora who proposed the solution – a book she had languishing on her shelf. It was so unfamiliar to her that I don’t think she’s even opened it up to this point, but this made it an attractive prospect to Lara and I, as we both liked the idea of venturing into totally unknown literally territory. With the three of us in agreement, it was swiftly locked in as our next read. As I write this, I’m waiting for the copy Lara has so kindly bought me to arrive – she’s generously providing all of mine for the foreseeable future, to thank me for proofreading her work at uni. I’m very excited to start it, even though all I know is the title and author displayed on its cover.

Book two will be A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir, by Lady Trent. Watch this space – there’ll be more to come on this one!

Mason

Operation Book Club, Part 2

Last week, Nora finished To Kill a Mockingbird. Believe it or not, this was bad news, because Lara had finished it before her – meaning that of the three who are currently signed up to our book club, only I am trailing behind. It’s now approximately three weeks since I started, and I’m currently on Chapter 18. There’s still some way to go, but I have promised myself that I will definitely finish the novel within a month – giving me another seven days to hit my target. I don’t want to keep the other two waiting, and I believe that getting through each book relatively promptly will make the whole club concept much easier for us to maintain.

Having said that, though, I need to make sure I don’t feel any pressure in reaching the end. I’ve been guilty of that on the odd page recently, and what that means is that I find myself inadvertently racing through, reminding myself to slow down. I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve been scanning, because I still register what’s going on, but I’m focusing on the destination rather than the journey, and that’s not good for my notes. I’ve really enjoyed writing my thoughts down in my new notebook as and when they occur. Not only is this whole endeavour helping to broaden my horizons as a reader, it’s also challenging me as a writer too. Although only my eyes will see them, confined as they are to private paper, each set of new notes is in effect part of a larger review, and this is useful, because I haven’t always been particularly good at offering a balanced or negative perspective of a book, film or TV series.

As I may have said before, I tend to find something to enjoy in most things unless there’s an obvious reason to dislike it, which isn’t completely ideal if you need to write about its pros and cons. Because of this, I’ve found it handy during Mockingbird to force myself to note down what I did and didn’t like about the sections I’ve finished reading, even if it’s just a few lines for each. If I remember correctly, there are at least another 12 chapters to go, so if I do this for every one going forward, I should have plenty of thoughts to collate when it comes to discussing what I thought with Lara and Nora. I can’t deny, by the way, that most of them are positive, and I can most definitely see why the novel is so widely regarded as a classic. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so slow reading it – I can’t face feeling bereft after I turn the last page!

Mason

Introverts And Orators

It is now Week 4 of the semester, meaning that exactly one third will soon be behind me – and that in turn means that it won’t be long before I have to start thinking about assessments. In my Creative Voice module, one of these will involve reading my work out loud, and since a lot of us on the course are somewhat introverted, there is a certain amount of apprehension surrounding the prospect. The seminar I went to yesterday morning attempted to reduce this by letting us know exactly what was expected of us – perfect diction isn’t, thankfully – and giving us some experience of reading aloud to each other so constructive feedback could be given. In order to do the latter, we needed something to read, and that was naturally the point at which we got to flex our creative muscles. Our tutor showed us a selection of photographs – some with prompts, some without – and we had to use the resulting inspiration to write a paragraph for each of them.

Once we had done that, we had to choose our own personal favourites so that we could expand on what we’d written and read it to our groups. My chosen photograph was a close-up shot of the face of an older man with a grey moustache baring his slightly dirty teeth at the camera. I just want to share what I wrote with you – the paragraph is from the perspective of a character who has had to deal with the loss of their father. I was able to read it well despite having a voice that is weaker than normal due to illness, and fortunately the rest of my group couldn’t see much wrong with it. Can you?

“When Dad passed away last year, I was numb with grief for months. Nothing helped – I wasn’t in the mood to eat, listen to music or talk to my friends. I think my circumstances were made worse by the fact that I only had memories of Dad, and surprisingly little that physically reminded me of him. I didn’t even have a decent photo, but I eventually found the most unlikely perfect snapshot. Dad was a clever and caring man, but to say he was slightly clumsy would be putting it lightly. Sometimes it would be like he couldn’t even chew gum and walk in a straight line, but he always took these shortcomings with good humour – that was Dad, laughing until the end. There’s no question he’d want me to laugh too, so what could be better than that infamous photograph he tried to take one family barbecue? When Dad was faced with brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, cousins and grandparents all jostling for position in one shot, he was evidently looking at a recipe for disaster. The best that he ended up with – thanks to his endless fumbling with the camera – wasn’t something that could take pride of place on our mantelpiece for years to come, but a close-up view of his distinctive grey moustache and his not-so-pearly whites. It doesn’t even show his whole face, but to my surprise, I really couldn’t care less. I know if he were here now he’d be laughing, and it was thanks to him that for the first time in months, I was able to laugh too. It was the best parting gift I could have asked for.”

Mason