After my three missing Murakami months, my latest literary voyage has been a little lighter and far more full of froth.

Figuring that I deserved a break – after such a marathon – I was delighted to find (!) the latest Marina Lewycka on my shelf, and decided that a touch of humour and a very attractive front cover exactly met my need.
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I have just finished reading Murakami’s ‘The Wind Up Bird Chronicle’.

It has taken me over three months to reach the final page, smashing any contenders for the ‘longest read ever’ title.

In most cases, I would have given up weeks ago; however, bought on the back of a respected recommendation, and prompted by a timely post asking at what point a book should be abandoned, I realised that this wasn’t the kind of novel I could shrug my shoulders and walk away from – and refocused my efforts in a dash for the end.

I am not sure what to make of it.

I have an English literature degree. One of the few things that I should feel on safe grounds with is analysing texts –

But with this novel, I’m surprisingly stumped; and resisting all urges to google its meaning and squish it into a nice, neat storyline and generic box.
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Now that I’ve finally discovered Maggie O’Farrell, I’ve been scouring the bookshops for more of her stuff, and ‘The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox’ was my latest purchase.

It didn’t disappoint.

Whilst the story (the piecing together of why Iris Lockhart’s previously unknown great aunt has been locked away in a psychiatric unit for 60 years) got me curious, Maggie O’Farrell’s style has me hooked –
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There’s nothing more satisfying when you’re reading then the sudden clarity of a ‘that’s exactly what I think’ or ‘that’s exactly how I feel’ moment.

Seeing yourself in someone – or something – else is like a big breath of relief: suddenly, it all makes sense or answers the question that you hadn’t quite realised you were asking.

Some books do it through the characters and the events; others, Aesop-fable-like, through the story; and, some, just give it to you on a plate.

‘This book will save your life’ fits into the latter.
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A regressive future is far more ominous than a progressive one. There is something distinctly unnatural about evolution undoing itself; something horribly unsettling in the inference that we’re going in a direction that needs to be undone –

The Pesthouse heightens the discomfort.

Even though it’s wonderfully written.

And even though it’s full of love.
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It has been years since I last read a book in a day.

I thought that the voracious page after page consumption of a novel was a pleasure that you reluctantly said goodbye to when life got serious and camomile tea became the nightcap of choice.

‘Talking to the Dead’ proved me wrong. I had forgotten what an outstanding author Helen Dunmore is. The elastic band taut tension and the palpable desire shoots right off the page and into the reader; it pulses through the language and the actions and the characters, so that you can’t resist the suspense and you can’t stop turning the pages and you tumble, word over word over word –
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I said goodbye to The White Tiger last night. He’s been talking to me when I’ve been drifting to sleep over the past few weeks.

I had become the audience that Balram’s (aka The White Tiger) addressing. It’s the sign of a clever narrative. In the absence of the intended listener, His Excellency Wen Jiabao, I’ve been taken into his confidence and held in the relished suspense. I’ve become accustomed to his voice – because it jumps
straight out of the page.

Aravind Adiga’s novel is possibly not the best night time reading because it revs you right up again. It takes you into the hustle and bustle of Bangalore – and the words are audible: you can hear Balram in your head.
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The Book Thief. Satisfying on so many levels. I tend to read things quickly but I luxuriated in every delicately picked and carefully placed word. The text sings. It’s a delight to read.

Even though the subject is horrific and the narrator is death.

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