Oh September. You are sunnier days, and cool nights. You are wildflowers and storms and surprise sunburn.
You are all over the place, yet beat with a constant whisper of warmer days to come.
I started working in my city’s libraries. There are four across our sprawling suburbs, and each one with its quirks, demographics and shelving layouts.
It’s overwhelming.
Not the patrons, whom I love, and not the shelving, which I find cathartic – but the sheer, heaving, growing mass of reading material available. I am well read. I’ve been a reader since I was a little girl, reading out the children’s library in my own home town so that mum would have to drive me to the next suburb’s library. Despite this, despite me being familiar with so so many titles of books and authors, and having read a lot in my lifetime, there is still so many books to read.
There are so many more being written, so many classics I haven’t heart of, so many titles I’m coming across that I must read, so many paperbacks with beautifully designed covers, so many new works of fiction I didn’t know about…
then there’s the horrifying knowledge that there is not, and nor will there ever be, enough lifespan to read all the books. So, I’ll plod along and read as many as I can in the time that I do have, finding patches of spring sunshine to distract me from this sad knowledge. And revel in the fact that I work in these spaces heaving with books, because actually – what a dream.
So here’s what I read this month:
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
This was our book club’s pick, and we have yet to meet and discuss. A patron happened to ask me to reserve this book for them recently (to whom I apologised, that I myself happened to have a copy at the time) because they’d heard an interview on ABC Radio with Min Jin Lee, and said the book sounds delightful. You can listen to the full interview here. The book is delightful.
It’s also a very long saga, that follows a dizzying array of characters across multiple generations—because of this I was never sure if I should be invested in a particular character because actually I may never hear of them again as the stories trailed on. What I did love was the history, the culture and reading in the stories the deep-rooted ways Koreans live. I wasn’t aware of some of the history between Japan and Korea, and I loved reading about the foods and jobs and relatives and customs of these fictional characters, trying to get ahead in Japan, after being forced to leave Korea.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
You guys. I’ve never read this before.
Of course I’ve seen the movie. Of course I know all the pop-culture references that came from the movie. I actually have a very vivid memory of sitting on my Grandmother’s fold out couch, in her spare room at the back of her house, watching this movie for the first time. I would have been no more than five years old. I had a sore tummy, and I really wanted mum and dad to hurry up and get me, but I’m assuming that The Princess Bride kept me entertained well enough until they did.
Anyway. This book is hilarious and William Goldman is a genius.
I laughed out loud the entire time. It is satire at it’s finest, and Westly and Buttercup came alive for me again but with depth and humour and quiet mocking.
How is S. Morganstern not a real person and Florin not a real place and this story not a thousand years old? Goldman. Genius. Now I am off to watch the movie again.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Did you know that Elizabeth Gaskell was a friend of Charlotte Brontë? That she wrote Brontë’s biography, and was a novelist herself, who published novels in and about the Victorian era? Move over Jane Austen. I’m kidding of course, Austen wouldn’t move over for anyone. Gaskell though, has a similar style and if you are a fan of old Jane, and Charlotte and literature from the 1800’s, then you won’t be disappointed. Except maybe about the ending, because we all knew it was going to happen, but I needed more. If you’ve read it, you’ll understand. I was surprised how modern this book felt, considering it was published in 1854, and how strong a protagonist Margaret was. She was no weak Victorian heroine that’s for certain, and I loved her.
So that’s September wrapped up!
What are you reading?
Please have a conversation with me about The Princess Bride!
I need to talk about this.
xx
Em Hazeldean 