A combination of business travel, birthday celebrations and a migraine have prevented me blogging or reading other blogs over the past few days. Catching up with all the emails upon my return means that this will be a fairly short and unimaginative blog entry, but I will post it, otherwise this risks becoming a monthly update rather than a fortnightly one… and a month is too long for me to remember anything!
Book Haul and Writing Update
I have been a little too greedy or easily corruptible this past fortnight. It is all too easy to forget just how many books you have bought or borrowed until you actually stop to count. So yes, I admit I begged, borrowed, bought or stole no less than 14 books this past fortnight – one per day! I’ve been on a bit of an international journey. Some of them have been immortalised in pictures:
Elias Khoury: White Masks (recommended by @arablit) – Lebanon
Romy Ash: Floundering (recommended by Sylvia Petter at @Mblobs) – Australia
Elizabeth Harrower: The Watch Tower (recommended by Kim Forrester @kimbofo) – Australia
Tove Jansson: Letters from Klara (recommended by Kate Gardner over at @shinynewbooks) – Finland
Tove Jansson: Fair Play – because I am a completist when it comes to Tove, and it’s a waste to order just one of her books
Not pictures, but equally important:
Rein Raud: The Death of the Perfect Sentence (recommended by @magistrabeck) – Estonia
Zoran Drevenkar: Du (following Margot Kinberg’s spotlight on it – I’d also long mean to read his debut thriller Sorry, so ordered both from my beloved Medimops in Germany)
From the library, although I really shouldn’t:
Alison Lurie: Real People (recommended by Smithereens)
Sarah Pinborough: The Language of Dying (the only unrecommended one, but it caught my eye)
From Netgalley, although I really shouldn’t, 4 Americans:
George Saunders: Lincoln in the Bardo (because everyone is raving about it and I did enjoy his essay on writing routines)
Jami Attenberg: All Grown Up (because I do jump on bandwagons, as you can see)
Attica Locke: Bluebird, Bluebird (because I love this writer and know she will always create something interesting and challenging)
Mary Angela: Passport to Murder (because I felt like reviewing a cosy for CFL for a change)
Under the circumstances, will it surprise you to hear I haven’t done much writing? However, I plan to continue editing my novel and am still producing poems on a more or less regular basis.
Blogging Round-Up
It’s been a bit of sticking your head in the sand time with my blogging: lovely escapism not just on Friday Fun (women reading proved particularly popular, while many of you admitted you do write in your bedrooms), but also via my bookshelves (Austro-Hungarian nostalgia or soothing Anglo favourites) and even my Alison Lurie review. I also reviewed Raymond Antrobus’ poetry chapbook To Sweeten Bitter and posted two of my own poems: about inspiration and depression, those two key elements in a writer’s life.
findingtimetowrite 
Thanks so much for the kind link/mention, Marina Sofia. I really hope you’ll enjoy the novel. And it looks as though you have some other really interesting ones there, too. Sometimes, a little self-indulgence isn’t such a bad thing…
I’m not quite clear, which ones did you actually steal?? 😉
Well, I very nearly took a book from my friend’s guest room. It was Sanjeev Sahota’s The Year of the Runaways. I was planning to read it there, but was struck down with migraine. Luckily for my friend, it was a hardback, so a bit hard to squeeze into my hand luggage…
I’m so sorry to hear you had a migraine MarinaSofia, and wish for you that breaks from blogging will only be caused by an excess of joyful distractions taking you away from your keyboard – I have in mind things like the allure of s sparkling turquoise sea, convivial meals with dear friends and the like. Possibly a fixation with Wimbledon…………….
Ah, migraines are a family way of life for me and have been since I was about 7 years old. I get them every 4-6 weeks.
I read all Grown Up and Liked it. Also read The Watchtower which can be a bit of a downer.
I’ll have to read The Watchtower when I am in a good mood then.
Absolutely
Interesting incomings! I’m very tempted by the Tove letters….
They are short stories rather than letters, but never translated before.
Looking forward to the Jami Attenberg. I enjoyed Saint Mazie very much. I hope the next few weeks will be migraine-free for you.
I haven’t read Saint Mazie either, but have heard good things about it. And this sounds like a fun read!
Oh, I hope you enjoy the Drvenkar books! I loved both of them, particularly You which, since it’s done almost entirely in the second person, I should really have hated. He also sent me a really sweet e-mail in broken English when I reviewed it, which endeared him to me even more… 😉
I love your eclectic mix of reading materials. I’ve started to read wider in my genres but nothing like you do yet.
One might call it a low boredom threshold, although I always come back to crime fiction with a sense of relief…