I’m still not reading anywhere near as much as I’d like and I keep telling myself that that’s okay because sometimes we simply don’t have enough time. But it’s still something that bothers and I think, over the coming weeks, I am going to try harder.
But I have been reading some things. And some of those things have been wonderful.
After seeing Angela’s Readman’s Don’t Try This at Home get the digital treatment over at The Pigeonhole, I’ve been dipping into some of the other things they have up there – most notably Fable, a collection of modern Fairytales and that’s been really great fun. They’re doing good and interesting things and I like that, so much in fact that I’ll be interviewing them on here very soon.
And last week I read Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. 39 year old Tsukiko meets her old Japanese teacher in a bar. They get into an interesting conversation and go home. And then, over a period of a few months, they keep bumping into each other and having similar interesting conversations, go mushroom picking, take a little holiday together. It’s a charming novella and delightful too and very, if I can say it without generalising, Japenese. I especially loved the food references. Definitely worth a go. Reading it kind of felt like going on a nice walk. I loved it.
And after that I read, from cover to cover in one very pleasant sitting, This Is For You by Rob Ryan. I loved it – a story told in pictures (that are actually cut outs). It felt like a very close relative of what I’m trying to do with Beautiful Words and Trees (more news on that soon, folks). Again – definitely worth a read. It’s 100% beautiful. Tender and sad too. I loved it very much.
And I think that’s about it. There are exciting things happening in the background and I shall tell you all about them very soon. In the meantime, go and read something great.