SRA 2017

More like ‘eternity reading adventure’, amirite?

1. How to look for a lost dog 

5/10

A deceptively simple book on its surface that conceals complex relationships and weighty themes beneath. Avoids ‘on the nose’ exposition or ‘telling’ the reader what to think. 

2. Mariana

7/10

Strangely profound and surprisingly funny.

“Mary climbed into the neat little cattle-pen and pretended she was a horse, which meant standing quite still and feeling like a horse inside, without any outward pantomime”.

However, the feminist in me is ‘up in arms’. Moral of the story: True happiness comes from an underdeveloped love interest who may or may not have been killed in the second world war. Anyway, I’ll forgive that sentiment for the level of detail about the world in which the story is set and the meticulous ‘observation’ of character actions and behaviours.

3. Middlemarch

10/10

This book is nuts. Mary Anne Evans is incredible. Those insights into character motivations and that beautiful, rich language. It’s next level stuff. Does heightened emotional intelligence mean that women are generally better writers?

4. The end of the affair

5/10

…and the moral of the story is that there’s a thin line between love and hate or any two extreme views. Moderately entertaining, but Sarah Miles has got to be one of the worst written women in literature.

5. How not to die

8/10

Preaching to the choir here. A lot of jokes that miss their mark by a long way, but great simple explanations of diseases for idiots like me. I don’t understand how anybody could read this book and not change to a whole plant-based diet. Clears throat. My takeaway is that I should probably start using B12 and vitamin D supplements to do everything I can to maximise my diet for health.

‘Til next years adventure 

T