Playing catch-up

It may die in the ass, but I'm engaged with the idea of noting down everything I read this year. I restarted reading on 1 Nov, not a moment later, and began immediately with shiny Sunday supplements and nasty junk reading, of course. I have no restraint at all. It took weeks to catch up on all the glossies which had been waiting for me in their bags. It was delicious, and overwhelming.

My first post-denial book-reading was Nick Harkaway's 'Gone Away World'. It was a brilliant premise, wildly imaginative. The first half was amazing, delicious, then it fell apart for about a third, then came together again to finish. I may not have done it justice, though; reading it when I was starving, I gulped it up and had no patience. I'll read his next book, when it comes. Nick is John le Carre's son, so it was a literary sensation, much-anticipated, etc, and worth the hoo haa.

I finished Barabara Kingsolver next. She's great. She'll stay with me. Oddly, one of the most startling moments in the book was unrelated to her local food story; in passing she mentions that she didn't let her kids play with weapons or anything that acted as a weapon or to play killing in any way and I was struck by how much killing/play my kids do. It stopped me in my tracks.

I'll have to check the shelves to note the other books. A couple of fantasies, of course:
- Fourth book in the Price of Tides series. It was necessary to finish the series but felt like work.
- Two books about mobile cities chewing each other up in a witty post-apocalypse adventure-scape.
- I've just finished something I can't believe I didn't read when I was 16: Julian May series about the Pliocene - 'The Many Coloured Land' and 'The Golden Torc'. There are more in the series, but I'll be able to resist.

I've browsed 'Once I was a Princess' (the second book: Once Again I was a Princess? When I was a Princess?) I'm repelled by Princess Yasmin's constant name-dropping and media-attentiveness, mildly interested in the abduction drama (she gets the kids back) and impressed by her good works. Autobiography has a moral authority on the bookshelf, but this sample is just a different brand of candy.

I'm now reading John Marsden, 'The Journey' - a young adult book with such insistent recommendations on the back I was obliged to buy it. It's shaping up as a teen new-age coming of age story about a 15 year old boy from the Country who sets out on a Journey of Discovery. Generally this is not my thing at all, but on day 3 he discovers masturbation, and I've never read anything so odd: practical, emotional and new-agey. So of course I need to keep reading.