Why am I here?
I love books. I love to read. I love talking about books and reading. Isn’t that why you’re here too?
But why this?
I spend a lot of time reading book reviews. I want to know how the book made the reader feel – were they amused, depressed, confused, did the pages make them angry. Maybe the book made them think, or see the world a little differently. I’m interested in connections between books, especially from different times and places, also connections between books and other art, or anything in life really. I want to know about the author, not where they were born and how many awards they’ve won, but why they wrote this book. What lead them here, to this place, in the pages of their book.
In my opinion, too many book review fall into two camps.
1) The synopsis. Actually I like to know as little as possible about what happens. The publisher’s blurb is enough.
2) The philosophical/political/social tract. These are less about the book and more about how erudite and well read the reviewer is. Some of them are interesting. Really they are. But it’s not what I’m looking for in a book review. And they’re always too long.
So I decided to have a go at writing my own reviews, the ones I want to read. To connect with others who are doing the same. To inspire people to read the books I love. (I’m sure I’ll fall into the trap of the camps above, but hey, these are my pages…)
What do I read?
Mostly literary fiction… This is not a label I like as it doesn’t tell you anything about the book, except that it’s well written, and that in itself is subjective. But in this context it’s a useful label so we’ll stick with it for the moment.
I love travelling through books so I read authors from across the world, in English and translated. I want to read more small independent publishers. I tend to read more by women (maybe redressing the balance after years of being fed lots of great male authors – and really some of them are great, others less so…) I read character driven stories, I love a bit of weird, things that are maybe supernatural or maybe not, stories based on actual fables or made up fables, stories about people being real people, stories with message, heart and a conscience.