This hasn’t been a great month for reading. I’ve been preoccupied with keynote writing (keep your eyes peeled for this coming Thursday’s post), among other things. When I’ve found myself with some time to pick up a title, I soon put it back down again. This doesn’t reflect on their quality, more on the lack of my own mental capabilities. Instead, I’ve been watching Netflix – mostly reaquainting myself with 90s movies.
(An aside – Keira is terrific at sussing out movie plots, the twists and turns before they even happen. She looked at The Sixth Sense thumbnail and said, ‘Oh, the boy’s the ghost’. I though, ‘Mmm… close!’ I have the sense she’ll see the first five minutes and then predict it. And how great is Se7en?)
I picked up The Writer’s Room by Charlotte Wood last week after it caught my eye. (Hardly surprising – what a vibrant cover!) Her bimonthly online magazine The Writer’s Room ceased publication late last year and this book is a collection of many of those extended interviews with authors about their craft and process. If I enjoy the rest as much as the first one with Tegan Bennett Daylight, I will be a very satisfied reader.
Like The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson earlier in the year, I put a reserve on The Vegetarian by Han Kang at the library purely from word-of-mouth talk. ‘Recommendation’ isn’t quite the right word, though I was tempted to use it. The general consensus was one of confusion: ‘What was that?’ That was intriguing! It’s less than 200 pages long and I’m at the 40-odd page mark; I’m still figuring it out, and I predict the tale will keep revealing mysteries before it’s over.
A Bone of Fact by David Walsh is an impressive tome, a lovely thing to hold and look at – hardly surprising, coming from the man who built Mona in Tasmania (a visit to which is on my living list). It’s broken up into very digestible chapters, so you can come in and out of it easily.
The last book is one I only picked up a few days ago. If you haven’t heard of Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump, then perhaps you might know the famous – and wildly loved – movie Hunt For the Wilderpeople, based on the book. As I haven’t had a chance to see the latter, I’m glad to have this.
What are you reading this month?
