Book Club: Half month review

Ever since the advent of the internet and Netflix, my love for books has been put on the back burner. I read voraciously as a child, mainly because I love entering diverse imaginations but also because there was little else to do but read and play with my friends. My love for books did not dissipate overtime, I just became one of those people who list reading as one of their hobbies but cannot remember the last book they read.

I have recently rediscovered my passion for books and have once again become the girl that is always reading. My new job means I have to travel often and so I spend a lot of the time on the train. This gives me ample time to read and boy have I read. So far I have read the following:

PIMP: Story of my life- Iceberg Slim
Girl on the train-Paula Hawkins
Beloved-Toni Morrisions
Ada’s Rules-Alice Randall
Girl in Times Square-Paullina Simmons
Queen of Wishful Thinking-Milly Johnson
Mr. Fox-Helen Oyeyemi
Portrait of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde
Mrs. Dalloway- Virgina Woolf
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman-Denis Theriault
Double Yoke-Buchi Emecheta
BridePrice-Buchi Emecheta
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime-Mark Haddon
The Miracle of Grace-Kate Kerrigan
Veronika must die-Paulo Celho

I only ever read physical books because: I would much rather read an actual book; I don’t have a kindle; what even is a kindle;I could not possibly survive the glare of an electronic device long enough to read an entire book. However if I keep buying books I may have no more space to put them. Reading aside, I derive pleasure from buying the books. I get suggestions from everywhere-a tweet about the book, a poster at the train station, a book someone else is reading, another book from an author whose work I am familiar with, and so on. I like to peruse Goodreads for quotes and sometimes a certain name pops up more than once and that sparks my intrigue and off I go to amazon to see what books the person has written. The act of sourcing the books, reading the reviews and then deciding to buy, the wait for the books to arrive and the excitement when I come home to see a package on the floor. Yay.

I buy most of my books on ebay and I try to get good used copies when I can. Sometimes I go through the sellers entire offering to see if anything interesting pops up, then run offer to goodreads to check out the reviews. Goodreads is a great source of literary information-what books to read, what are people saying about these books. I don’t take the reviews as law though-I can’t even if i wanted to as there are always good and bad reviews on each book. There have been a couple of books that had high ratings on goodreads but I did not like them.

Amazon is also is a good place to get books (of course) and occasionally I saunter into Waterstones and leave with something.  I have placed a ban on purchasing new books until I finish all the ones I have now.

I am currently reading my sixteenth book of the year, which is not bad considering I only ever read on my way to and from work.  I have already reviewed one of them here and will do posts sharing bits and pieces from all the books. This was initially supposed to be a summary review of all the books I have read as at half-year but I am easily distracted and it has taken me a week to type up these 300 or so words so I will do a series of posts instead.

I do not not have a goal of how many books I would like to read by year end, I just want to read and discover as many worlds as I can.

See ya on the flip side.

 

Bucket list

I am not one for bucket lists; I never leave my room and have no desire to climb any mountains and jump out of anything. A few years ago I created a ten item bucket list and have so far managed to not achieve anything on the list. Ha!

Yet here I am again, making another list. I’m not sure this is even a bucket list. I just finished reading a book in which one of the characters is diagnosed with Leukemia and is at the brink of death. Did this make me think about my life and how I ought to be getting more out of life? No.

This character made a living will in which she left her millions to her “man-friend”. My overactive imagination fired up and I thought: “If someone who knew me well enough was dying and leaving me all their money, what would they want me to do with the money?” and thus this list was born.

In my dream fantasy life, I am carefree, semi-adventurous, and fabulous; and I already do all the things below:

1. Leave the house at least two weekends a month.
2. Travel as often as possible. Go to all the places I want to go; Amsterdam, Morocco, Zanzibar, Cape Town, Brighton, Greece, go everywhere.
3. Finally learn and perfect my French dammit!
4. Go to Japan and immerse myself in the culture.
5. Try something for the first time as often as possible.
6. Become a certified Yoga pro, or just include yoga in my regular routine
   1. I really want to be toned and bendy and serene
7. Become an expert knitter
8. Learn to swim
   1. Get a pink pool floater in the shape of a flamingo and take lots of pictures
9. Learn to ride a bicycle
10. Finally get abs
11. Write.

PS: How do people manage to make-and keep-friends? I have become bored of my own company. One can only go on so many solo outings before one starts to crave another to share the experience with. I can barely make it through a two hour stage play without falling asleep. Three hours into a museum trip and I feel tired and weird (perhaps what I need is a doctor not friends).

One unfortunate thing about life is how fleeting and fickle experiences are. I wish I could have fun and remember the feeling forever. In a way this would be possible if I had shared the experience with another with whom I can reminisce with. All the art and plays pale a bit without friends and family to share it with.

I still like to be alone; when I think of Nirvana I see myself in bed snuggled under a duvet in a cool room with the television on. From the moment I leave the house, I begin the countdown to when I can return to my bed.

I do not like to feel that I am wasting away precious life and there are so many things to experience and I have to leave my room for life to happen. For so long I have been content with going to the movies alone but not anymore, at least not all the time.

 

 

I have decided to marry you.

Sometime ago, I saw a clip of a woman being proposed to at her baby shower. Everyone was awwing and goalsing, but I remember thinking it was a little strange. Here’s a woman who is having a baby with a man and still shrieking in surprise that he would ask her to marry him. So weird. Surely at that point a proposal should not be a surprise or something to be blindsided by.