With the dissertation finished I have finally made the
long-awaited trip to the bookshop and splashed out on some great reads for the
bank holiday weekend. It has been a while since I allowed myself in Waterstones, as I tend to spend all day there, but with deadlines a thing of the
past, I cannot wait to get my teeth into these beauties.
For quite a while now I have been meaning to expand my bookshelf to include more works from other countries. I’ve read a lot of English and North American works, but hardly any from Europe, Asia, Africa, or South America. I’ve tasted some of the classics – Anna Karenina, The Cherry Orchard and Dante’s Inferno – but I’m sadly behind with modern novels. I’d like to blame my very English focused English degree, but it is about time I corrected my ignorance. Translated literature is often grouped in its own section and the books can easily be identified by their covers which have a flap at either end.
The first book I decided to try was The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang. Its beautiful
cover stood out amongst the darker collection on the shelf and I loved it for
its simplicity. It was written in 2000 and has since become a Korean classic
with its own film, play, comic book and there is even a musical. The blurb
proposes something like George Orwell's Animal
Farm and the narrative follows Sprout, a hen, on her journey to hatch an egg.
Hopefully Sprout will learn how to fly and avoid the grisly end of Orwell’s
characters.
I next headed to more familiar ground – the Classics
shelves. I first read Far From the Madding Crowd 4 years ago
whilst lying upon the attic floor of Thomas Hardy’s house, Max Gate, and it is about time I owned my own copy. During the
week that I spent working as a live-in National Trust tour guide I fell in love
with the hayfields, the dairy cows, the market, the tremulous characters and, most
of all, I fell in love with Gabriel Oak, one the heroes in Far From the Madding Crowd. This book
follows the headstrong Bathsheba Everdene as she slowly leaves behind her
vanity and manages a farm as well as three love intrigues. I cannot wait to see Carey Mulligan tackle
the role in Thomas Vinterburg’s newly released adaptation and I'm determined to re-read it in time.
And, of course, who can avoid the bestseller shelves? I’ve
recently downloaded ebooks of Elizabeth is Missing and
The Girl on the Train,
but those beautiful covers are tempting me. So far, I have resisted, but knowing me it is only a matter of time before they make their way onto my bookshelf. The first book I
snatched from the pile was H is for Hawk. It is Helen Macdonald’s debut and it charts her attempts to come to terms
with her father’s death. It has had some fantastic reviews and from what I’ve
read so far, it is an exceptional piece of writing. On the neighbouring shelf
was this beautiful blue hardback. I may have almost drowned myself in tears at
Ian MacEwan’s Atonement, but I
certainly couldn’t leave this copy of The
Children’s Act on the shelf.
I am now stocked up for summer (or at least May) and shall
be settling down with a cup of tea to enjoy an afternoon of reading in the
summer sun. Look out for my review of The
Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly which will be up in the next few days.
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