Modern Romance is a book by American comedian Aziz Anzari talking about contemporary relationships, or lack thereof. The book is not just filled with commentary and conjectures based on popular observation; Anzari worked in partnership with a sociologist, Eric Klinenberg, in collecting data from other sociologists’ and their studies and research, plus interviews they conducted themselves.
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A Little Life is a novel by American Hanya Yanagihara, published in 2015 by Doubleday. It garnered a lot of very good reviews early on, and was shortlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize and the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction.
The story starts with a group of four friends — Malcolm, Willem, JB, and Jude — living and making their way in the tough world of New York City after graduating from university (or college, if you’re American). They met in university as roommates, and we get flashbacks interspersed with the present timeline to show us how their relationships with each other are individually, and how they connect as a group. They each get a moment in the spotlight briefly in that less-than-a-hundred-page chapter, then the lens tightens and focuses on Jude, who becomes the central character. This entire novel is a bildungsroman of all four characters, yes, but most essentially of Jude, who has gone to literal hell and is trying to live — just simply live.
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Gosh, it has been awhile, eh? Between comings and goings for work holidays and stressing over the wedding, I did not have much time to sit and make up a nice post (other bloggers would know how much time it actually takes to put one of these together!). Then when I was ready to do so, I was struck by the dreaded reading slump, and was stuck uninspired with any book I pick up — Sense & Sensibility and We Have Always Lived in A Castle could not pull me in how ever much I tried. It wasn’t that I did not want to read and I was forcing myself; I very much wanted to read something, but nothing was just clicking! That happens to a lot of readers too, right?
Anyhow, the book that broke my slump came at the most random moment — I was out shopping for Christmas presents and was at a Waterstones looking for stocking fillers, when I felt my tummy calling for lunch. I did not want to sit through a meal looking at my phone, so I determinedly tried to find a ‘lunch book’. Nearly went for a John le Carré, but found The Graveyard Book at the ‘Books for Syria’ pile. Loved the cover, loved the little blurb at the back (which is a dying thing at the moment — another rant for another day), so went straight to the counter and bought it! It’s not exactly a Christmas read, but I couldn’t care since I was just so glad I can get rid of this slump!
Neil Gaiman, author of this lovely novel, said that it was inspired by watching his then two-year-old son riding his tricycle between gravestones in the sunshine. This is in stark contrast to the boy in the book, Nobody Owens, who plays around his world — the graveyard — when the moon is high. Known to the “community” as Bod, his playmates, teachers, and guardians are otherworldly, incorporeal beings, and he is taught that there is great danger to himself beyond the gates of the graveyard.
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One of the reasons I wanted to join a book club was so I could read books I normally wouldn’t pick up or discover on my own. I look forward to when we decide on what book to read for next month, and I jot down on my phone different book suggestions that sound like they have an interesting premise. Also, I actually feel compelled to read whichever book is chosen, whether I initially have slight misgivings about it or not.
How To Be Both by Ali Smith is a book I definitely would not have discovered by myself. I would not have cared for the cover, or all the awards and nominations it has got plastered on the front and back of the book (it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014 for instance). Sounds like a good book, yes? However, I have never considered my literary tastes to be sophisticated; I usually find critically lauded books boring, the same way I find most Oscar-nominated ‘Motion Picture of the Year’ movies stodgy.
I’m sorry, I suppose I’m just quite pedestrian!
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I have to admit I haven’t previously heard of Donna Tartt until The Goldfinch. So when I saw ads all over tube stations and bookshops for this book, I just ignored it, thinking it’s the same hype being built up for when a Jodi Picoult or Nicholas Sparks book comes out — not my cup of tea, same formulaic plot, meh.
A year and half after its publication in 2013, I still kept seeing it around and reading about it. Consider me then properly interested (quite belatedly, hah), and any excuses of not reading the novel flew out the window when the ladies in the book club agreed to make it one of our spring month reads.
The Goldfinch is a first-person narrative saga about Theo Decker, starting from when he was thirteen years old and his life being turned upside down on a seemingly ordinary day when he visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother to see the Fabritius masterpiece The Goldfinch, which is his mother’s favourite painting. A terrorist attack: a bomb going off in the museum, killing art patrons milling about including his mother, sets him off on his journey, and we follow his struggles as he grows up and forges connections with different people — in Park Avenue, Las Vegas, back in New York and the art world, Amsterdam. All the while this painting accompanying him, this little Goldfinch which he took when he escaped from ground zero in a state of shock, which I reckon serves as a metaphor for his mother.
“Sometimes it’s about playing a poor hand well.”
– Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch)
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