Mine for the Reading: "I wanted to scatter his ashes both more publicly and more privately. I wanted to write about him."

No more essays until 4^th year woohoo!! I wrote 6000 words last week. I read thousands more, but it was all about vagueness and ambiguity and morphology and semantics and it wasn’t enjoyable. Yesterday, I sat for 2 hours in a coffee shop and read for fun! I’d forgotten that was a thing! Now I shall avoid thinking about my exam for another couple of days and enjoy the contentment I am currently feeling.

This is how uni feels pic.twitter.com/k11Ivhal0q
— Student Problems (@ProblemsAtUni) April 12, 2016

Guess who’s back on track? That’s right, it me. Holla. I went to Skye earlier in the month and I ambitiously took 2 books with me. I didn’t read a page of either, because I was too busy soaking up the hashtag amazing views that Skye has to offer and falling on my bum in the mud, but nevertheless, I’m back on target after last month’s fiasco and have finished 6 books so far this year! No need to applaud, thank you. In March I read The Story of My Father by Sue Miller and Compared to Her by Sophie de Witt, as well as finishing The Sword in the Stone. When we last spoke I was two thirds of the way through, and it was sorely lacking in both swords and stones at that point. Finally, 13 pages before the end, he pulls the stupid sword out of the stone. And now he’s the king blah blah blah. It felt like the entire book up to that point was just background leading up to the only part of the story that was actually important. I suppose you’re supposed to take all 5 volumes as one big book and so it’s not really 13 pages before the end, but I don’t think I’m ready to take on the next one just yet. Watch this space.

So! We’re only 6 books in and I’ve already read 2 that are about old age and memory loss. My auntie Lynda (of Wedding Crasher blog fame) gave The Story of my Father to my mum, who then passed it onto me to read. It’s the true story of the life and death of the writer’s father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. It’s a beautiful account and incredibly interesting - even more jarring than Elizabeth is Missing because it’s a true story. I feel like a learned a lot from it and I really enjoyed it, even though it is blunt at times, and sometimes kind of felt like I was intruding! I’d be interested to read some of Sue Miller’s fiction books to see how they differ.

Book no. 2 is Compared to Her. It’s written from the point of view of a Christian and primarily aimed at women, but to be honest, I think it would be helpful for anyone to read if you’ve ever found that you compare yourself to other people and your sense of worth goes up and down with how you fit on that scale. Extremely challenging! I read it in a few hours because it’s so tiny but it’s the kind of thing you need to hear every week, so I’m sure it won’t be long before I pick it up again.

This month I’m reading The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and it is long. I wrote that I was back on track about a week ago now and I’m kind of already off track again but I didn’t want to delete that paragraph, so we’ll just pretend. After I finish that mammoth book I don’t have anything lined up so give me your books. Man, when I don’t have any anecdotal toothbrush stories I feel pretty weak. Here is a picture of a magical landscape to make up for it.

P.S. If you’re into books and you use Instagram, you should follow my friend Beth’s new page. Good.