Catching Up: Blog Silence, Competition Closed and Midway Through Midnight’s Children

Hello one and all, is it me or does it feel like I have been away ages? It is probably very likely just me. Firstly apologies for the blog silence the weekend actually really took it out of me much more than I had expected and I came back feeling quite drained and exhausted so I needed a bit of a break which is very unlike me. However let us not dwell on all that. I am back now and raring to go. My work situation has changed too (in a good way) so am finding I have much less time and so am writing this weekend off, and sadly postponing the Savidge Big Read “Sea of Poppies” by a week if that’s ok, to chill out, devour lots of reading that I have been meaning to do for ages and play catch up in general.

Speaking of what I have been reading… I set a little competition for you with regard to my travel reading. I had given you the list of books I was taking and asking which ones I would have read by the time I got back and which book out of a possible five was my mystery addition to my packing...

Well the mystery book was Daphne by Justine Picardie which lots of you got right, but sadly that was half the question. How many did I actually read? The answer is 150 pages of Midnight’s Children, so technically none, which none of you guessed. However fear not, I will be doing this again the weekend after next (I know am becoming a bit of a jet setter) and once in June, July and August so you have four more opportunities to win a delightful selection of books.

I have to admit my reading hasn’t been great since I got back, I did break from Midnight’s Children to devour The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan for fellow blogger Lizzy’s live Q&A which very sadly I missed as was working late. The questions I would have asked were “is it autobiographical” and “where did you get the title from” alongside gushing praise to Mari on a superb book which I will review shortly. It seems my questions were asked by others which made me feel slightly better but am gutted to have missed the main event and I do feel have let Lizzy down. I am thinking that this week is simply not going to be my week, am a bit out of sorts.

So how is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie going? Really slowly but really well in all honesty. Now when I say slowly I don’t mean this is because it’s a difficult or boring read far from it. You know sometimes when you really like a book and the voice of the narrator you can either greedily rush through it or slowly devour it an hour at a time? I am definitely doing the latter with this book and I am finding it so worth it. Yes its quite complex and yes there is a lot of surrealism but it’s by no means the monster that I was imagining, more a friendly beast of a book. More to come when have finished it!