The kiwi summer has started off with a whisper, with overcast mornings and chill winds. Even if the sun is shining in the late afternoon, we wake to wet grass underfoot. It really is perfect reading weather, if only I could get a spare moment with all the Christmas shopping and end of year events.
This week, we’ve had dance recitals, assembly and a break-up. This all cuts into my writing time. I barely have time to sharpen my pencil with a little flash fiction before it is time to pick up the kids from school. Ahh, the writer mum life!
I have a massive pile of books to get into over the summer. I have started reading Transcription by Kate Atkinson, which is fast becoming a favourite. Juliet, the main character, narrates this story of a typist in the Secret Service in World War 2. She has a wonderfully snarky, distinctive voice. This one is borrowed from the library and it is due back in two days. Good excuse to bury myself in this gem!
It seemed to Juliet that there were some rather blurred boundaries when it came to beliefs – Perry had once been a member of the British Union of Fascists, and Hartley had been a member of the Communist Party when he was at Cambridge. ‘But everyone was a Communist before the war,’ he protested.
Kate Atkinson, Transcription
Readers, take note!
I am starting up an online group to discuss books set in different times and places. Click on the image below. Each week, we will have a country or time period theme. Members can post reviews, photos, recommendations or rants. Have a look if you would like to chat about historical books with me, or if you like learning about different places before travelling there.
I am about halfway through the eBook of Be Frank With Me, about a grumpy author and her delightfully quirky son (ahem no, it’s not about me). This is an interesting book with slowly unfolding detail. Frank is quickly becoming one of my best characters, but I have to finish the library book first.
“I only ride in taxis with my mother. You are not my mother, Alice.”
This was a fact. Once the kid latched onto a fact, there was no point in trying to talk him around to practicalities.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll take the bus.”
Julia Clairborne Johnson, Be Frank With Me
The next book on my list is The Garden of Burning Sand. This was lent to me months ago. It is set in Zambia and follows a man and woman who uncover a crime, with a young girl as the victim. It looks like a great read.
After that, I am going to start The Underground Railroad. This was the 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner, so I am hoping it is an accessible read, as well as the amazing writing I know I will find. It is a story of escape, at great risk, from the cotton plantations of Georgia to the North, pursued by a relentless slave-catcher.
So this is my current reading list. Next, we begin the countdown to six weeks of summer school holidays and panic wonder where December is disappearing to so fast!
Check out my reading for 2018 and the best books of the year, chosen by bloggers.
What are you currently reading? Have you got a list for the holidays?
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