A book-based blog post

I'm at the end of a week off. After becoming known in the office as the person who never takes any of her annual leave*, I came to my senses and decided to take a Whole Week Off. It's been blissful, I'm not going to lie. I've spent far too much money, watched far too many make-up and beauty tutorials on YouTube (we've all got our time-wasting habits), and have sort of temporarily moved in with Drummer Boy. But that's a whole other blog post in itself, so I'll hold that thought for now.

But best of all, I read a whole book in the course of about a day.

That didn't used to be an achievement. I've always been a fast reader - I remember 'racing' Laurence Chacksfield in Year 5 to see who could be the first to finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I did 636 pages in the space of two afternoons (and won, most importantly). Not bad for a ten-year-old. But now I'm lazy about reading anything longer than 1200 words during the week. Spending all day every day typing, retyping and re-arranging words has made me loath to try and absorb any more of them when I get home. This week, however, I had time, glorious time, so I dove headfirst into Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty.

It's a well-paced thriller/crime drama (it manages to pull off being both) about a successful scientist who begins an affair with a rather mysterious chap, and is later attacked by a colleague. These sets of circumstances collide - somewhat predictably - in a grim fashion. While the plot itself is unspectacular, the writing is taut and elegant, and the characters are proper, well-rounded people (you feel you could know them). Sometimes, novels that flip back and forth along a timeline can be frustrating, but in this tale, it's skillfully done.




I got a hefty stack of books for Christmas (some of which are there on the right), but have barely made a dent in it yet. I have very nearly finished Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay (second from bottom), and have been totally awed by it. She covers everything from the complexities of girl friendships, to how we deal with rape and sexual assault, to how, in our culture of 24-hour news and constant social media updates, we respond to tragedy and disaster. She is wise and eloquent, but her wisdom is shot through with humour and empathy, so reading her work is like spending an evening in a quiet bar with your cleverest, wittiest friend. Two stand-out chapters are the one where she conducts a complete, scathing and brilliant post-mortem on the Fifty Shades [of utter wank] phenomenon, and the aforementioned chapter on tragedy, from which the following lines are taken:

"I have never considered compassion a finite resource. I would not want to live a world where such was the case."

Now there's a thought that rings in the ears.


Truth be told, I'd love to do this in video form - a sort of "here's what I'm reading this month" vlog (and I shudder at that word, it's a heinous portmanteau), but I lack the equipment and editing skills, and I'm paranoid that when played back, my voice would sound like an overexcited nine-year-old's. Still, it's an idea I might hold on to. 

*For ages after I started, I felt bad about taking any more than two or three days off - because a) my struggle to remain sane and anxiety-free when I have nothing to do is well-documented, and b) I was initially genuinely worried that I would forget how to do my job.

Have a slice of sunny pop-rock - I know nothing about this band, but this is a catchy little number.

Alternatively, there's this - it's one of my current favourite running songs, and it's also almost faultless.

What to do with your free time...

...if you still have any.

I can't remember the last time I fell as completely and utterly in love with a film as I did with Mud, which I saw on Wednesday evening. It certainly wasn't the last time I made it to the cinema, to see Les Miserables - the only bit of which I didn't find glaringly underwhelming being Eddie Redmayne's face. I spent most of that genuinely concerned that Hugh Jackman was going to do serious damage to his vocal cords: "he's not going to go for that note, is he? No, he'll never make it. Oh, he is...? Brave. Very brave."

But anyway. Mud. Set along the Mississippi, in Arkansas, two young teenagers find a man hiding out on an island near their riverside homes. He goes by the name of Mud, and is waiting for a girl - a girl he's been in love with for years, and whose violent ex he killed - and is trying to stay off the radar of the dead man's family, and the authorities. The two boys get drawn into his story, and begin to help him - the sensitive one, Ellis, more readily than his brilliantly-named friend Neckbone. Ellis is having problems of his own; his parents are on the verge of splitting, and he's got a crush on an older girl. He's amusingly given to throwing punches when frustrated in his endeavours - I kind of wanted to ruffle his hair and tell him that in four years' time, he'd probably be needing two sticks to fight off the ladies. And then I remembered he's a fictional character.

It's achingly middle-class to get gushy about cinematography, but Mud definitely warrants it. Thanks to its glorious, wild setting and Steadicam camera work (I've been reading everything I can find about this film; can you tell?) it's a film you want to step right inside and explore. I've also had the soundtrack on repeat for the last few days; it's as country as you'd expect, with some really nice guitar work going on. In particular, the track called "Snakebite" (which doesn't give away any major plot points, not at all), with its spiky guitars and menacing drums, makes whatever you happen to be doing while listening to it feel like The Most Important and Epic Thing You've Ever Done. I was proofreading the absolute shit out of my work on Friday to it... (You can find it on YouTube if you want to see what I mean.)

There is nothing about this film I did not love - the plot feels like it could have been adapted from a classic American novel, and it doesn't descend into cliche. Even Ellis' dad, who could be your standard emotionally-unavailable hard-ass, has his softer moments. Everything wraps up quite neatly, sure, but thanks to the story-telling and really good performances from Matthew McConnaughey as Mud, Tye Sheridan as Ellis and Ray McKinnon as Ellis' father, you don't feel short-changed. And plus, who doesn't love a sort-of-coming-of-age film that ends in a shoot-out?

I mentioned in the last post that I'd wanted to include something about the new Thea Gilmore album, Regardless, but that I'd run out of words. So while I'm on the topic of nice things to see and listen to, here goes. In several reviews of the album, much was made of how Ms Gilmore has reached musical maturity and finally found her "place" in the British talent line-up. Biased though I may be, I think what's actually happened is that British music has finally found a place for her. Presumably she has, more or less, always made the music she's wanted to make, and for any artist, that's going to change between the ages of 23 and 30-something. It's probably true that in Regardless, Thea Gilmore has struck her best balance yet between finely-articulated rage against injustice and apathy, and writing about more universal themes of love, family and loss. Stand-out tracks include Start As We Mean To Go On - my new drinking song, surely - Something to Sing About, and Spit and Shine. And if you manage to listen to My Friend Goodbye and remain dry-eyed, then you're a robot.

And so to reading material. On my desk, there's a stack of things I should get on and read, one being The Second Coming, by John Niven. It's the sequel to Kill Your Friends, a book so sharp you could hurt yourself on it. With a protagonist so vile you finish the book and feel a genuine need to read the Bible - but he has such a strong voice you find yourself slipping into his thought patterns. It's funny, but black comedy doesn't begin to cover it. It's a triumph of a novel, but God, you feel dirty afterwards. I'm both nervous and sceptical about the sequel - it's got so much to live up to.

To lighten the mood, I've also got Hadley Freeman's Be Awesome. It's not a self-help book; it's closer to a more balanced How To Be A Woman. I worship at the altar of Caitlin Moran as much as the next 23-year-old upstart who thinks she's cool, but her first book probably should have been called The World According to Catmo. Freeman writes in a similar way - it's like having a long, putting-the-world-to-rights chat with your best mate - but her arguments seem slightly more measured. And it's worth reading for the chapter entitled "A day in your life in Daily Mail headlines" alone.

That's all for now. Have some... oh God, I'm struggling for musical recommendations... Oh, this is quite Sunday-ish, that'll do.

What linguistics students talk about...

...books, obviously. (As well as regional accents, our favourite and least favourite words, and grammar and spelling Nazism...)

I was watching a TV programme the other night called "My Life in Books" - presented by Anne Robinson (possibly the most wooden presenter in history, not helped by the fact that she can barely move her face), it features two famous people who've chosen the books that have had the most impact on them. As a reading geek, I love the concept, but it struck me as I watched it that it would be better suited to radio - but I suspect something similar already exists.

Naturally, I started compiling my own list. I thought it would be easy, being a life-long book worm (my mother used to have to tell me off for reading at the breakfast table, and used to catch me reading under the covers by torchlight long after I was meant to be asleep. Even now, I can while away hours in Waterstones).  It wasn't as easy as I expected. I went for six - no idea why, just seemed like a good number at the time; five wasn't enough and ten would have been a stretch, I think. I had some pretty stringent conditions, too - the books I've chosen have genuinely had an impact on me and/or my reading life. They're the books that have made me exclaim breathlessly "ThisisAMAZING", or the books that have made me urge the next friend I saw after reading them, "OhmyGodyouHAVEtoreadthis!" Or simply, as in the case of (3), the books that have made me think, nod, and go "Oh, yeah, I get it now..."


1) The Diary of Anne Frank

Yes, a predictable choice for a girl who will freely admit to having the mental age of a 17 year old, and I do think the power of the diary was lost on me a little, as I read it when I was ten or eleven, which is probably a bit young. I've re-read it since, and been both inspired and saddened by it. In fact, as I write this I'm also scanning the Wikipedia page for the book, and it's making me want to dig it out and read it again.


2) City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/City-Beasts-Isabel-Allende/dp/0007146353/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1331296906&sr=8-2

I've included the link because you may not have heard of the book. A paperback version is also available, but this was the edition I read, and boy, I'd never read anything like it before. Beautiful, original, truly captivating... with a neat little twist at the end. I read it when I was twelve or thirteen, and if I'm ever asked about my favourite books now, it is one that I will name without fail. It was so unlike anything I've ever read before, and so had all the more effect on me because of that. Which is unusual for me - I'm not the best at getting out of my comfort zone, in any area of life - but I can't recommend this highly enough. If you know of a 12 year old, boy or girl, who's a reluctant reader, give them this. I mean, there's always Harry, I suppose... but give them this first! (On no account give them Twilight. Please.)

3) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Again, it's probably no surprise that Dickens has made it on to this list - but I didn't read this until a couple of years ago, when it was on my reading list for a module on 19th century literature. I don't recall finding it easy to read, and I do remember drawing out a rather complicated diagram to remind myself who was connected to who, and how, but I remember being pleasantly surprised. Until I read Great Expectations, I'd thought of Dickens as a rather dry, somewhat impenetrable writer whose books were a slog to get through (literature afficionados are spluttering and groaning to themselves as I type, I can feel it) - but Pip is such a lively character, and his story arc unfolds so cleverly, that I found myself converted. 


4) Guitar Girl by Sarra Manning

Don't be put off by the slightly clumsy title - yes, it is very much a teen drama, and the boys probably will run a mile from it, but it does what it does very well. It's witty, funny, touching and sad by degrees, loaded with references to pop culture and all the angst of being a slightly awkward teenage girl. Who just happens to have started a band that's got famous... I was fifteen or sixteen when I read it, and it was such a relief to find a heroine who didn't always know what to say, who believed that songs can change your life, and who let a boy get right under her skin. 


5) Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser

Sofia Coppola's 2006 film Marie Antoinette divided film critics - it was an arty, indie take on the life of the queen, but did bring home the fact that when she was first sent from her home in Austria to marry the Dauphin of France, she was little more than a child. Coppola used Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette while making the film, as it is a very detailed biography. In 2008 I wrote an A-level History assignment about the Diamond Necklace Affair (not mentioned in the film, and indeed the subject of its own, lesser-known film). Marie Antoinette had been the victim of almost relentless criticism, both during her life and subsequently, and Fraser looks at all the evidence and really comes out on her side. Fraser's is certainly not the only biography to paint a more sympathetic portrayal of the woman who never actually uttered the words "Let them eat cake", but the detail and the writing are truly remarkable.

6) Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire

I'm almost ashamed of this - and indeed, if my mother ever overcomes her technological incompetence and read this, I'm going to have to retract this choice and deny all knowledge of it - but it fulfils my criteria for "books that have had an impact on 'me". It's so raw, and shocking, and explicit, that you read it dry-mouthed, gripping the pages with white knuckles. In fact, I remember reading the first chapter or two at the station, then on the train, and thinking "I shouldn't be reading this in public", while casting fearful glances over my shoulder. It begins as the story of an affair between teacher and pupil, but soon grows into something far darker and more twisted than that. It will widen your eyes and break your heart.

Two more...

...while I've been writing this, I've thought of two more, and I can't fathom why I didn't think of them sooner. The first is Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte, in case you didn't know). The only thing that the two central characters have going for them is their love for each other. It's a dark and wild barely-even-a-love-story, set against a dark and wild backdrop, but it's haunting and passionate. Read it.

Also, Eating Myself by Candida Crewe. As someone who, as a child, was a chubby little thing, and as a sixteen year old, took things a little too far and was underweight for a little while, food rarely comes without guilt, or some sort of emotional process. And I think that's the case for a lot of women, and growing numbers of men. We cannot escape the fact that there is pressure to look "perfect", and no amount of boys telling me in protesting tones "But curves are hot! We don't want to grab hold of twigs!" is going to change the mindset that, if possible, I'd rather be on the slimmer side. Eating Myself is an honest account of everywoman's internal monologue where food is concerned. Read it and you'll find yourself laughing and almost crying in recognition. Ever said "OK, I'll have some chocolate now but tomorrow I'll just have soup and salad"? Then you'll know what she's on about.