I blink and another month is over. I was planning on writing a separate, longer post to explain this absence, but also there’s no time like now. It’s also related to my reading (I feel like everything about me feeds back into that point!). While I’m only featuring three titles on this list, I’ve barely lifted my face from the computer this month. I’m back at university, enrolled in a Masters of Information Studies via distance education. While classes haven’t officially started yet, I’ve been thrown back into the wash of orientations, administrative box-ticking, refresher workshops and so on. It’s been almost twenty years since I left university and, boy, I’m feeling it. I’ve been trying to get organised so I’m not starting on the proverbial backfoot and – cross fingers – I think I’m good to go.
This is why I think it’s a little providential that Dear Fahrenheit 451: A Librarian’s Love Letters and Break-Up Notes to Her Books by Annie Spence came into my life. A random library find (how fitting!), these humourous letters are dedicated to books Spence has encountered in her time as a librarian. Well-loved classics to lesser-known treasures, it’s the kind of book that has such a strong conceptual idea I think ‘Ahh, why didn’t I think of that!?’ (Then again, I’m not a librarian.)(Not yet!) Very enjoyable.
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman is the third and final book in the His Dark Materials trilogy and the first which I read the printed book and not listen to via the audiobook. It’s funny, I’ve been so used to hearing Pullman’s voice in my ear so far that I still did so as I read the text. As I finished, I couldn’t bear to be separated from that world and went to find La Belle Sauvage on Audible. I can now appreciate the patience long-time fans had to exercise, waiting as they did for that book to come out! I guess I’m lucky in that respect!
The last book this month is the internationally bestselling The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson. With all of the changes of the coming year in place (as mentioned above, not to mention the usual school and extracurricular activities of regular family life), I’ve been awash with some transitional anxiety so I picked this up from the library when I saw it (and due to its popularity I’ve never until now just seen it on the shelf). To be honest, I’ve only been dipping in and out of it and haven’t progressed very far, but that’s been enough to help me stop and take a deep breath and reset. Worth it for that alone.
What are you reading this month?
