Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, including summery and autumnal fiction, new and old, and readers wondering whether one can read too much for their own good.
fingerlakeswanderer is reading Lauren Groff’s National Book Award-nominated Fates and Furies:
I’ve been reading the new novel by Lauren Groff, who previously wrote The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia. I loved Monsters, and was so-so about Arcadia, so it’s a bit of a gamble, but so far, Fates and Furies has kept my interest. I know that Groff can write, so that’s not the issue. For me, determining whether I like the book is going to have to do with whether I think the characters are worth getting to know and whether the situation they’re in makes sense. So far, her male protagonist, Lotto (a nickname) has a whole bunch of back story, while his new wife, Muriel, has little. Since I’m more interested in her, I hope Groff turns her attention to why Muriel marries Lotto. It’s a relationship of “chalk and cheese,” so it will be a good exercise to see whether she can make something unique out of a trope about opposites attracting.
On to two emotional rereads. PatLux recommended going back to Laurie Lee:
Anyone who has just delighted in the BBC adaptation of Cider with Rosie might like to head straight for their nearest library and borrow As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and continue the poetic journey of this talented, open-minded and gentle young man. It is the favorite book of my life and I will be reading it again this week. I have lost count of the number of times I have read it.
And Demodocus is rereading The Catcher in the Rye after nearly 50 years:
I first read it at 16, the age of protagonist Holden Caulfield, and hated it. The character was a little too close to home for my teenage perception - I saw too much of myself in him, which made me acutely uncomfortable. At age 65 I see him from a different perspective. I now see even more of my adolescent self in Caulfield, but my heart goes out to him in his pain and confusion. I wish I could reassure him that yes, growing up is painful, but it all works out in the end. Emotional.
womantrouble2010 is reading Sophie’s Choice by William Styron:
It is a truly excellent novel, a masterpiece. I dread picking it up and when I do, I can’t put it down. In between searing scenes depicting the horror of navigating life at the Auschwitz concentration camp, it conveys the desperate legacy of that experience by way of a damaging love affair, and the young male narrator’s own love for Sophie and his own need to write his book, and get laid. It is a thick, detailed book that does all the things authors aren’t allowed to do any more - the chapters are very, very long, the detail is intricate and amazing (how on earth could an American author have researched so much about the atmosphere and milieu of Polish universities before Google?) and the novel shifts between first person narrative to third person where Sophie relates her story to the narrator. But what bowls me over is how well the author knows his characters here. Sophie is depicted so intimately, so accurately that you can truly understand why she would end up where she is, you can understand how her life becomes a perpetual act of forgetting.
While the changing season prompts Orla Bord to cling on to summery novels, it does something different to Lisa Kindel:
When Autumn ushers in, I reread the childhood classics of Laura Ingalls Wilder. The days of no technology and living off the land appeal to me when I become absurdly busy and need to stop to smell the falling leaves and crisp air.
We end on a question, courtesy of conedison:
Is there such a thing as literary overkill? Is it possible to read so much so constantly that we lose the real flavour of what we’re reading? Would space between reads be beneficial? With time in between would we approach our next book in a more receptive frame of mind?
Interesting links about books and reading
- In which Margaret Atwood Annotates Her New Book: the author adds sidenotes to an extract of The Heart Goes Last, on Literary Hub.
- Speaking of annotations, Down the Rabbit Hole explores “the rise, and rise, of literary annotations” on the New Republic.
- 21 Signs That Prove Booksellers Are The Absolute Best: fantastic bookshop signs, on Buzzfeed.
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The Doomed and Beautiful Reach: On Prose and Music: an author on how being a musician influences his writing, in Electric Literature.
- This Is How You Become an Editor: “I didn’t want the suits, the degrees, the stethoscope. I wanted to be reckless. I wanted to stumble. I wanted to commit myself to one thing. I wanted to excel as a writer. I also needed to eat.” In Catapult.
- The Edge of Horror, by Stephen King - Swelter said: “I’m always curious what NYRB classics will come up with next. From Stephen King, here is a taste of the forthcoming reprint of two William Sloane novels.”
If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.
If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading, “shelfies” or all kinds of still lifes with books as protagonists. Now, you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here.
And, as always, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see us covering beyond TLS, do let us know.
