Yellow Azalea

My goodreads challenge this year is to read 52 books – a target of one per week. Last year I read a total of 37 books, and although this years target is ambitious, I’m aiming to complete it. I have finished 27 books so far this year and this puts me around 8 books behind schedule. However, I am hoping to achieve my one per week target with a bit of extra reading over the next few months. A few of the recent reads are listed below:

1. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (Non-fiction on writing- repeat read)
2. Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams (Novel)
3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Non-fiction on writing – repeat read)
4. The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate – with Daniel Mate (Psychology, self help)
5. Splinters by Leslie Jamison (Memoir)
6. Wifedom – Mrs Orwell’s invisible Life by Anna Funder (Non-fiction, Feminism, Writing – still reading)
7. Exhausted to Energised by Dr Libby Weaver (Non-fiction, Nutrition, wellbeing – repeat read – from my bookshelf)

I purchased a couple of these at the Auckland Writers Festival earlier this year and from a visit to the Womens Bookshop in Ponsonby. It was my first time attending the Writers Festival, and I went to two events. The first was a panel event, with two authors, Anna Funder and Leslie Jamison and poet, Selina Tusitala Marsh. The topic was A Room of One’s Own, named after the book of the same name by Virginia Woolf. The discussion was around whether women are afforded the same creative space and freedom to write – and had a feminist vibe. BTW, the auditorium did fill up from what you see here – I just snapped these photos as soon as we sat down.

I really enjoyed the discussion between the 3 women and the host who did a great job. It was a lovely mother daughter outing with Holly. The next day I went to a class on writing from life with Leslie Jamison. I have now finished her book Splinters, which focuses on her separation from her husband and life on her own with her young daughter. I am inspired to also buy a previous book on her sobriety journey – The Recovering. That class was a sell out and the time went very quickly as she told stories and made suggestions on how to find material to write about in your everyday life. I walked away inspired, but alas, haven’t sat down to write much at all since then.

I plugged my way through the Myth of Normal. It’s rather intense and the first half I have found a little bit hard to take. I’m always a little critical of psychology that focuses on past or childhood trauma being the root of all problems. While the author is not laying full blame on parenting as the cause of the next generations trauma and problems – I can’t help feeling defensive of my own parenting journey and feeling ‘shamed’ by parenting choices.

The Dictionary of Lost Words took me a while to get through. Set in the early to mid 1900’s it is a story of a young girl being raised by her father who has a job ‘creating’ the Oxford dictionary. Her love of words, and her sense that all words are not be captured lead her on a journey to create her own dictionary of words that women and the lower classes use. It’s a story that bears witness to the women’s suffrage movement, what it was like to get pregnant out of wedlock and War. It’s a wonderful reminder of how hard women fought for rights back then, and a reminder that we still have a way to go to break down patriachy.

Speaking of patriachy the book Wifedom by Anna Funder is the story of the wife behind the writer George Orwell. The author blends her own reflections on being a wife and female, into a biography about Mrs Orwell from a set of letters that she wrote to a friend and her husband. I’m not quite finished this, but loving the way this is written.

Amid all the reading that was heavily weighted towards feminism from the festival and the Women’s bookshop I always like to have a piece of chick flick style fiction on the go amid my other reads. I like to watch ‘rom-com’ movies and I like to read novels that have that same vibe. I find this type of viewing and reading a great form of escapism from daily routines and duties. It doesn’t mean I don’t like or appreciate my life, but it is lovely to step away from real life problems sometimes. I have recently finished was An Ideal Husband by Erica James. The husband leaves the wife for a younger woman – who is the son’s ex girlfriend. It’s a story of the wife moving on from living in a co-dependent relationship, forging her own identity again, and how the adult children deal with the split, and eventually the family makes peace with the situation. It was light, and most of the characters likable and it only took a couple of days to read. I gave it 4 stars – my ratings typically relate to whether I want to keep reading the book, and whether I feel the need to skip lightly over flowery, descriptive text that doesn’t add to the story. I ask myself the questions – did I enjoy it, did it end happily ever after and did it give me a break from reality? If so, then it has achieved its mission!

Since starting this post some time ago, my reading has moved onto a series of books around Care and the caring crisis, but that will have to be another post.

Cherie 🙂