/Currently Reading/General Update

And, to keep things interesting, I'll write this post in reverse order. Why? Well, why not? And why cram so many things into a single post? Why not make three separate posts and so better make up for my pitiful failure to stick to my resolution?

Well, because nothing much has happened to me recently. Or, rather, nothing I can quite get myself to spin into a lengthy blog post, hence the complete lack of such over here.

So, of all the nothing that has happened to me, where do I begin? Well, the most exciting thing by far was my boyfriend's visit. In that week I went to both Winchester and Hay. Yes, The Hay, the one on-Wye. Winchester was very nice, but why talk about Winchester here when I could be talking about Hay? Hay was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I was only there for about eighteen hours in total, as it took six hours to get there and around five to get back, and we only stayed one night. That is not a mistake I will be making again!

The hotel we stayed in, The Swan, was lovely. The staff were all very friendly, and the food was very delicious - I was treated to the best pork crackling I ever had, and who knew I would warm to black pudding? Sadly, I had an awful headache that night, and managed to come out in hives on top of that, so we couldn't go out into the garden and look at the stars as we had planned, but we were assured that the garden was a perfect spot to stargaze from.

And Hay, what little I saw of it in around eighteen hours, was gorgeous. The bookshops were plenty, and so were the hills, impressive scenery and cosy-looking eateries. If I had more money hanging about, waiting to be used, I would have impulse-bought a house and settled down there immediately.

And finally, the books. I had actually done a lot of bookshopping in the weeks before, courtesy of a good friend whose family gave me a National Book Token voucher worth fifty pounds. And so, just two days before arriving in Hay I was, if you will believe it, burnt out from book shopping. I went into Foyles, and saw a few books that have been on my TBR for the longest time and I... I left them there. With money remaining on my voucher, waiting to be spent! That, of course, didn't bode well for a trip to the town of bookshops, but thankfully things went down fairly well. Nothing like crammed second hand books to refresh the reader's soul. I ended up buying eight books, including three Granta magazines and a Paris Review. I am still slowly reading my way through one of the magazines (Granta no. 16 - Science. Number 16! Wow!)

Oh, and did I mention that these eight books cost me no more than £24? Because those books, together, cost me no more than £24. The only regret I have is that I didn't pick up more Granta magazines...

So, as we can see, the trip to Hay was an all-round success to be repeated, if possible, without the horrible headache next time.

Other than that, I have been deeply thinking about my plans for the future*. These plans seem to include moving to Sweden, at least for a short while. Only a few months ago, these plans seemed permanently directed towards study in the Netherlands, but the Sweden plans feel a bit less likely to change.

However, the future still feels far off to me, so far off that I can even dream of finishing all twenty two books on my currently reading shelf by then... wow, what an elegant segway that was. I hope we are all taking notes. Yes, my currently reading list is long, so ridiculously long that I have sectioned it into books that I am actively currently reading, and books which I am not currently currently reading, but which I was once currently reading and expect to be currently reading again soon. And that doesn't even include the forty something books I've placed on hold until further notice. Like that, it almost makes me want to cry.

So, what am I currently reading currently? I am continuing with Kaninhjärta by Christin Ljungqvist and, as Swedish has suddenly jumped up in my list of priorities, so has my progress through this book been ramped up a few notches. It continues to be interesting and lyrically written, but it has actually taken a while to get to the action. Even now, over a quarter of the way in, are we only beginning to see the story proper progress.

I am also slowly making my way through Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London as a tandem read with a friend. Said friend has recently started a job which requires her to read very boring documents all day long, which leaves her with little mental energy to read the fun things. This tandem read was dreamed up for several reasons, the first being that I intend to get her to read aloud from it (as practice), the second being that we both have had it on our TBR without getting more than a chapter or so in and the third being: she needs to get back to being able to read for pleasure. It'll be great for us to read this together and discuss, I think. We are also planning on finding books in French and German to read together, wish us luck.

Lying somewhere in between the 'currently reading right now' and the 'currently reading a bit later' sections of my currently reading are The Magician by Raymond E. Feist, which I may have mentioned a little while ago, and Ancilliary Justice by Anne Leckie, which was probably mentioned in the same post. If it wasn't, it ought to have been. I am also, as said, reading through the Granta 'Science' issue, which is extremely interesting.

I was going to finish with a Lit Corner here, as I have finished three books since the last post and we all know that three is the perfect number for a Lit Corner. However, this post turned out a bit longer than I expected, so I'll save the finished books for another time.

Happy Blogging!
Little Newman

*A time period which, when used by me, tends not to extend more than a few weeks, or a year, at most. In fact, that is a most particular, far flung future that lasts about four years. Even typing it out seems strange, to the me who lives day-by-day.